on 7/15/00 8:29 AM, Michael Manthey at Michael_Manthey@magicvillage.de
wrote:
> We probably all of us agree that we are dealing with an issue of ownership
> (intellectual property) and that there is the additional question, how the
> interests of the purchaser of a product relate to the original owner's
> interests.
etc., etc...
As I see your argument, the underlying issue is that a book is a physical
piece of property, whereas software is not. Historically, that is not
necessarily true.
Software originally was shipped on disks and you were given the right to use
one copy, much like you did with a book. Although it can be argued that
software could be copied to many computers, with the advent of photocopiers,
the same thing could be said about books - ie. with a photocopier, you could
make copies of the book and distribute them illegally just as easily as you
can with software. To take it to another media, music, which is single
copy/single license is widely pirated because it is so easy to do.
The bottom line is that intellectual property laws generally take the stand
that when you buy intellectual property, whether it is software, a book,
music or film, you have the right to use it wherever you like, as long as
that one piece of media is only used once. That means that you can have it
on as many pieces of hardware as you want, as long as it can only be used in
any one place at any one time.
Ben
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