[Free-sklyarov-uk] a win for sanity! and free speech

[Julian T J Midgley]

On Wed, 7 Nov 2001, Jim Peters wrote:

> Julian T. J. Midgley wrote:
> > The Softman v. Adobe case basically says "you can have copyright, or
> > you can have end-user licence agreements, but you can't have both".
>
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that you
> needed to be the copyright holder in order to grant a licence.

> Or is there some other form of legally-recognised ownership indication
> that gives you the right to grant licences without involving
> copyright ?
>
> I'm slightly confused.

Once again, all becomes clear if you read the case notes.

Ah, and in reviewing the thread, I've just realised where David's comment
about the Softman-Adobe case (and it's irrelevance) came from.

All my fault ;-)

I pasted the wrong link into the thread yesterday:

This is the full text of result of the DVD CCA vs Bunner prelim.
injunction hearing (DeCSS)[0]

http://cryptome.org/dvd-v-bunner.htm

And this is the Softman v Adobe case, which answers Jim's question above:

http://cryptome.org/softman-v-adobe.htm

Jim - see III(a)2(a) Sale V License - Historical Background:

"Historically, the purpose of "licensing" computer program copy use was to
employ contract terms to augment trade secret protection in order to
protect against unauthorized copying at a time when, first, the existence
of a copyright in computer programs was doubtful, and, later, when the
extent to which copyright provided protection was uncertain."


Julian



[0] And is the link I meant to post yesterday when I accidentally posted
the other (they appear next to one another on the front page of Cryptome).



-- 
Julian T. J. Midgley                      http://www.xenoclast.org/
Cambridge, England.                          PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F
Beware the European Copyright Directive:  http://uk.eurorights.org/