OT: Legalese [Re: And another Ubuntu convert!]

Bart Silverstrim bsilver at chrononomicon.com
Tue Jan 27 13:01:22 UTC 2009


Derek Broughton wrote:
> Mario Vukelic wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, 2009-01-26 at 15:30 -0400, Derek Broughton wrote:
>>>> 1. Member States shall provide adequate legal protection against the
>>>> circumvention of any effective technological measures, which the person
>>>> concerned carries out in the knowledge, or with reasonable grounds to
>>>> know, that he or she is pursuing that objective.
>>> Who can argue with that?  (OK, any lawyer, could, but I _think_ it says
>>> there should be laws to prevent me stealing somebody else's property).  I
>>> don't think it says I should only be able to play a DVD on a specifically
>>> authorized device - which the DMCA does.
>> It says nothing about "stealing" whatsover. 
> 
> That's pretty disingenuous.  It's _all_ about stealing.  And that comes down 
> to just how much the rights-holders want to permit "buyers" to do.

If you can dictate what your customers do with your product (outside of 
the obvious...such as you can't use our company's hammer product to wack 
people in the head...but that's the government limiting that use more 
than the company I suppose) wouldn't that mean you're *licensing* the 
product, not selling it? You don't own products like Windows or MS 
Office if you purchase a copy, you license it for use.

> See, so far at least (the current government would like to change it), 
> Canada says that nobody has a right to tell me _how_ I use something, 
> personally, if I've bought the right to use it, and nothing in that EU 
> directive would clearly contradict our approach.

You bought the right to use it under their terms, hence the license. If 
you disagree with it you don't buy it.

Of course, I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that if you have a 
friend that gives you his lunch snack in the cafeteria on the condition 
that you sing the Sweet Child of Mine every morning in fourth period 
math and you agree then you can't just take it and walk away because you 
disagree with having to look like an idiot. Software and movies come 
with licenses you agree to when you use them.

I also think that common sense would allow for things like making copies 
for my own use, which the companies clearly want to limit. I did 
purchase a copy of a DVD so I could have a copy that didn't rely on 
being online or relying on another company to unlock it when I wished to 
view it, and if the media is damaged I do not wish to re-purchase it. I 
want to purchase a license to view the media content, not the media.

Of course everything I just said is an opinion.




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