[License-discuss] Reverse Engineering and Open Source Licenses

[John Cowan]

David Woolley scripsit:

> You can buy a book (i.e. hardware consisting of paper and ink), but
> you can't buy the novel that it contains (the author will not assign
> copyright to you).

No, of course not.  But when I buy the book, the first-sale right is
exhausted; when I buy proprietary software, it is not, and I have no
right to resell.  The difference is that the book is purchased
whereas the proprietary software is only licensed.

> Incidenally, UK publishers do, or at least did, put constraints on
> the resale of books (not to be sold or lent in any cover other than
> the original).

That happens in the U.S. too.  A retailer can get full credit for a
book by returning just the cover, but they are then not entitled to
resell the rest of the book.  Exhaustion hasn't kicked in at that
point because the retailer is not an ultimate purchaser.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
I marvel at the creature: so secret and so sly as he is, to come sporting
in the pool before our very window.  Does he think that Men sleep without
watch all night?    --Faramir