ethical ubuntu

[Alan McKinnon]

On Friday 16 June 2006 08:50, Peter Garrett wrote:
> By contrast, if I have the sheet music to, say, a flute sonata, I
> *own* that copy and I am free to give it away or sell it as I
> please. Because of copyright by the publisher, I am not legally
> entitied to make ten photocopies and hand them around or sell them,
> but at least I own the copy I *bought*.
>
> That doesn't mean I own Mozart's music - that belongs to everyone
> who can hear it. The ideas were Mozart's, but the performance is
> everyone's.

This analogy becomes problematic, as with sheet music you directly use 
the article you paid for, by opening it at page 1 and reading it. 
Making copies and handing them out is an additional unrelated action 
that the publisher would prefer you not to do.

By contrast, to use the software on a CD at all, you have to make a 
copy when installing it, and use the copy. The same CD can then be 
used to make another copy on another machine, which the publisher 
would prefer you to not do. So they are not saying you may not copy 
it, they are saying you may only have one extant copy at any 
particular time. Which is hugely problematic to enforce, as the media 
is read only. Comparing sheet music with a LiveCD OS would be a 
better analogy.

Fortunately we lucky folk in FOSS-land neatly sidestep the entire 
issue. And even more lucky for me that you know exactly how we 
accomplish this :-)

-- 
If only me, you and dead people understand hex, 
how many people understand hex?

Alan McKinnon
alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za
+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five