[clug] sec: unclassified - Samba Team, on SCO and sweet irony

Kim Holburn kim.holburn at anu.edu.au
Fri Aug 22 14:34:31 EST 2003


At 2:15 PM +1000 03/8/22, Pearl Louis wrote:
>Hmmm...Now that I think about it, that does sound right.  Copyrights is about
>the right to copy a work, to distribute it etc.  But still, what legal status
>do EULAs have?  EULAs put restrictions on how you can use a program.  I
>always thought that was given legal status under copyright law? 

EULAs are problematical.  As I understand it if you buy shrink-wrapped software and haven't been told about the EULA and/or can't read it until you open the pack - and the pack says something like: that "if you open it you have agreed to the agreement" (that you couldn't have read before opening), then you have may legal remedies depending on country, state etc.

A EULA that you have to click before getting a patch that will stop your computer being infected with a worm may have more chance of being enforceable if it can be proved that you did click the agreement and not bypassed it somehow.

But big organisations often have negotiated agreements that are quite different to any standard customer EULAs anyway.  How does that affect the EULA?  I have no idea.

Kim

>Still I guess I stand corrected ^_^.  So I guess what I should have said, that
>without a contract they do not have the right to copy or distribute the
>intellectual property that belongs to the Samba group.
>
>Pearl
>
> >I have a problem with this.  Copyright gives the copyright owner control
>>over how a work is copied - the act of copying only.  The contract is
>>usually between the copyright holder and the copier, not the user. 
>>Copyrights do not control the copies, only the copying.  Controlling the
>>copies themselves is a license or contract issue.  Probably between the
>>copier and the user.  Certainly with printed media like books - the author
>>cannot demand people give back books they have bought (Can they? IANAL).  If
>>a book has been copied illegally and sold can the copyright owners demand
>>the copies back from users or is their argument with the copiers only?
>
>>Kim
>--
>--
>Kim Holburn


-- 
--
Kim Holburn 
Network Consultant - Telecommunications Engineering
Research School of Information Sciences and Engineering
Australian National University - Ph: +61 2 61258620 M: +61 0417820641
Email: kim.holburn at anu.edu.au  - PGP Public Key on request

Life is complex - It has real and imaginary parts.
     Andrea Leistra (rec.arts.sf.written.Robert-jordan)



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