Re: [PLUG] Reg: You thought you bought software – all you bought was a lie

[Rich Freeman via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>]

On Wed, Oct 5, 2022 at 11:20 PM brent saner via plug
<plug@lists.phillylinux.org> wrote:
>
> This is the crux of it. Why can't you rip *and distribute* a song om a CD or a movie on a DVD you purchase?
>
> Because it was not *sold* to you, it was *licensed* to you. The terms *of that license* keep you bound to DMCA. Not the terms *of the sale*.

By this argument NOTHING in this world is sold to you, because almost
everything is subject to regulation.

You don't license a baseball bat, and yet you can't do anything you
want with it (like smash somebody's windows).  The rules against
redistributing software is not something imposed by the person who
sold it to you, but a law just like any other law.  The person who
sells you software cannot impose restrictions on what you do with it,
but the law already does in the absence of them extending you a
license to do otherwise.

When you buy software, you do just that, you buy it.

> "To sell means to transfer property from a seller to a buyer via a sale."
>
> Was property (intellectual or otherwise) *transferred*[1]? No! There was no *transferrance*, only *duplication* and *distribution*.

Sure it was transferred.  One copy of the software was sold to you, in
the same way that when you buy a plastic toy you get one of millions
of copies of one of those.  When you buy a car you don't get EVERY car
of that model that was ever made, and the exclusive rights to
manufacture more of them.  You get one car.

All a license does is give you ADDITIONAL rights, by giving you
permission to do things that are otherwise illegal.

You can buy a baseball bat, but only the owner of a property can give
you a license to use it to smash their window with it.  The license
makes legal an act that would otherwise be illegal.

As an aside, I'm not particularly interested in "legal definitions"
but just how words are used.  I really don't care if the Supreme Court
rules that software is licensed and not sold, for example, as this has
no bearing on what is true, and only has bearing on what the police
will do to you if somebody asks them to.  A state can legally define
bees to be a form of fish, and courts will apply laws accordingly, but
it doesn't really have any bearing on how normal people see the
situation [0].

In any case, the reason I called it a pet peeve is that it really
doesn't matter as we're just arguing about the meaning of words.
Whether the word "sold" or "licensed" is more appropriate to describe
what happens when you pay for software doesn't really impact how
things work.  I don't think we actually disagree on the nature of
proprietary software/etc.  We're just arguing over what word ought to
describe it.


0 - https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/C093542S.PDF

-- 
Rich
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