Re: non commercial use
From: Jon Pastore (jpastore_at_idetech.net)
Date: 04/27/03
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To: "Greg A. Woods" <woods@weird.com>, <secureshell@securityfocus.com> Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 14:08:22 -0400
I was merely stating that licensing is usually controlled separate from
copyright. for example the use of the GPL. most licensing agreements I have
read include copyright clauses in them as well as liability, warranty, among
other C-Y-A legalese. Though you sound like you know far more about this
then me so I'll defer to your statements
-Jon
----- Original Message -----
From: "Greg A. Woods" <woods@weird.com>
To: "Jon Pastore" <jpastore@idetech.net>
Cc: "Fergus Wilde" <fwilde@chethams.org.uk>;
Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2003 1:53 PM
Subject: Re: non commercial use
> [ On Sunday, April 27, 2003 at 09:51:00 (-0400), Jon Pastore wrote: ]
> > Subject: Re: non commercial use
> >
> > I'm no legal expert but I would say this is where the licensing comes in
to
> > play.
>
> What do you mean by "licensing"? The only license for the free version
> of SSH is just the copyright license and it even goes so far as to allow
> you to redistribute more copies so long as you don't make commercial
> profit from them. For example I have a copy of the source archive on my
> FTP mirror site. If I'm not mistaken the copyright license for SSH also
> allows one to create derrivative works, such as those with new patches
> for fixes and features, etc.
>
> Some people, including Richard Stallman and the legal advisors he has
> conferred with, argue that a copyright license can include terms that
> extend beyond the reach of the copyright law (as the GPL does). However
> such terms can only come into effect if a person wishes to distribute
> the work under the terms of the copyright license. The only thing any
> copyright license can do is grant the rights provided for under
> copyright law. If all you want to do is obtain one legal copy of a
> program and then run it for whatever purpose on your own computer, then
> you're not excercising any of the rights afforded to the author by
> copyright law. I.e. under copyright law the SSH folks cannot hold you
> to any restrictions not afforded to them by copyright law unless you
> actually (re)distribute copies of their software.
>
> On the other hand there are those who argue that an attempt to go
> outside the provisions of copyright law in a copyright license makes the
> whole thing invalid, in which case only the default protections of the
> copyright law wouldd apply. E.g. this may be the case in Canada where
> if I understand correctly such a thing would be called a "shrink wrap
> license", and thus would actually be illegal (i.e. I believe it is still
> against the law to even try to use a "shrink wrap license" here, at
> least on a commercial product). If this is true then given the lack of
> any legal copyright license on the software, and the fact that free and
> anonymous distribution of the software has been granted directly from
> the owner's own Internet server(s), and the fact that they've also
> allowed mirror copies, well then it's just as likely that the software
> would be considered to have been placed in the Public Domain as it would
> be to consider it to still be covered by the default provisions of the
> Copyright Act. (though I'm guessing the law would err on the side of
> the party with the deepest pockets)
>
> > I alway thought copyright protected you from theft of concept and
> > more of an intelectual property protection
>
> No, copyright only protects the actual expression of a concept, not the
> underlying concept itself. If you wish to try to protect the very
> concept of some idea then you may be able to do so with a patent,
> assuming the patent laws in your jurisdiction will cover the kind of
> concept you're trying to protect. Luckily in Canada we still don't have
> patent protection for software. :-)
>
> Primarily copyright laws allow the proper owner of the copyright on a
> work to pursue damages if someone else tries to profit from selling
> copies of that work. They also protect the author from certain types of
> intellectual slander and so on. That's why copyright licenses on
> "freeware" will grant the right to redistribute the software, perhaps
> even with modifications, but then will say "All other rights reserved".
> Copyright in many places is automatic, such as my copyright under the
> Canadian Copyright Act on this e-mail message. :-)
>
> > and licensing controls execution.
> > like you can do what ever as long as you distro the code or you only get
to
> > run this on 20 computers...
>
> I don't currently know of any Copyright Law in any jurisdiction which
> has a provision for "licensing controls" in the sense I believe you mean
> here (though my (lay) knowledge is primarily of the Canadian Copyright
> Act, with some additional vague understanding of the profusion of
> tangled laws in the USA). As far as I know only contract law can do
> what you're suggesting. A license for end-use is really just a
> contract, and the intellectual propery in such cases is protected by
> tade secret law (as well as perhaps by a copyright and by additional
> non-disclosure agreements).
>
> --
> Greg A. Woods
>
> +1 416 218-0098; <g.a.woods@ieee.org>;
<woods@robohack.ca>
> Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; VE3TCP; Secrets of the Weird
<woods@weird.com>
>
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