the provide, license verbs (was: Dual licensing)

[jcowan at reutershealth.com]

Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. scripsit:

> I suspect a copyright holder who issues a license would argue that the 
> license changes everything. As such, if you are in lawful possession of 
> software that is accompanied by a license, you are restricted to accepting 
> the terms of the license or rejecting them. That's it. 

I think there is room to at least doubt it.  
Proprietary
software companies uniformly take the view that because the software has not
been sold to you (it says so right on the shrink-wrap), you have
neither ownership nor possession but at best natural detention of it,
and the only thing separating you (who have plonked down $$$$ for it)
from an outright thief is the license.  (I suppose your ownership of
the *medium* is undisputed, but that's a different matter.)  Therefore,
you have no rights except what the license gives you, and in particular
the first-sale rule does not apply (since there has been no sale at all).

They would hardly bother with this machinery if the mere act of providing
a license were enough.  No, they have to deny you the iure proprietatis
altogether.

> the default rules Rick mentions would apply to a work like a book, which 
> is not customarily distributed with a license.

But it is customarily sold.

	Then lands were fairly portioned;
	Then spoils were fairly sold:
	The Romans were like brothers
	In the brave days of old.

	Now Roman is to Roman
	More hateful than a foe,
	And the Tribunes beard the high,
	And the Fathers grind the low.

		--Macaulay, _Lays of Ancient Rome_


-- 
[W]hen I wrote it I was more than a little              John Cowan
febrile with foodpoisoning from an antique carrot       jcowan at reutershealth.com
that I foolishly ate out of an illjudged faith          www.ccil.org/~cowan
in the benignancy of vegetables.  --And Rosta           www.reutershealth.com
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