The RIAA and MPAA are using standard copyright law for their copyright infringement lawsuits. They are, in fact, except for the occasional truly stupid egregious error, suing those who are actually breaking the law. When you buy a CD, it is illegal to share that music in certain ways. Uploading a copy of a music CD to a file sharing service is illegal.

There are many reasons to hate the RIAA and MPAA. But please stick to the facts. When you exaggerate like you did above, you only hurt your own cause.

Were have I ever stated such a statement???

> please attempt to learn about the topic.

Actually I know a whole lot of the subject, thank you, do you?

> Like it our not, understand it or not, licensing
>intellectual property (art, music, software, etc)
>is different than purchasing a tangible object.

First of, lets be clear what we talk about. "Intellectual property" is a very bad thing to call or name something since and basically causes confusion. It is typically used as a collective name for copyright, patents and trademarks. However, those are all very different things, having quite different laws covering them and hence you can rarely really talk about them as all the same.

You seem on the other hand to specify it as a few specific things that all fall under copyright. So what DO you really talk about in the rest of your post? Are you talking about licensing the trademark used in movies? Are you talking about licensing a patent? Or are you perhaps talking about copyright related issues? It is not really possible to tell from what your write.

And of course, buying (or getting) a license is very different from buying something, that is the whole point I make, however, many wants and likes to call it licensing when you buy for example music or software, and then confuse the issue and confuse what applies and what one can and can't do, you are among those people.

Another thing you seem to not grasp is that copies of a work of music (or art or software) IS a tangible object, that you DO buy. Since you seem to be from the USA I will give you a link to US copyright law defining ?copies?:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000101----000-.html

There you go, just scroll down to ?copies?. See they are all material. You see there is a difference in ?the work? that you get copyright on and on ?copies of the work? which is what one create and sell/give/lend/whatever to others. In additional, ownership of the copyright to a work is very different and not the same as ownership to copies of the work. So when you enter a shop (or do it over the net, for example by downloading) you do actually buy a copy of the work just like any other material object you buy, there is NO difference at all. The only difference that exists is in that copyright law (if we stick to copyright and not your general ?intellectual property? which refers to the copyright not the copies usually) is that you are not allowed to make new copies of the of the one you bought, there is restrictions on the distribution of those copies and restrictions in performing the copy you bough and otherwise making it available to the public That covers most of the restrictions. There is no license stuff going on at all, no requirement even.

>Use of the phrase, "So, to me, license relates to an act of doing something,..." is meaningless
>and irrelevant.

No, it is quite relevant, since that is what a license is all about. Take copyright. A copyright holder has, according to the law an exclusive right to for example make new copies (there are exceptions when others can do copies as well that would not be infringement). SO if you want to make new copies of such a work and, lets say, sell them, you are not allowed to. Here you can get license from the copyright holder to actually do so. That is what a license is.

>The courts, (US and international) have made rulings that do not comport with your
>definition of license.

And I am sure you can support links to those rulings, especially the ?international? ones, since I have never heard of international courts dealing with such things. There really aren?t many international courts at all and they tend to deal with completely different topics, typically related to UN or war crimes and such things. I guess you mean courts in other countries than your own. Still, feel free to post any support for your opinion on the issue from your courts.

You might also want to actually go to copyright laws (feel free to start with the US one, I gave a link above, here is the one to the whole if you have trouble getting to the rest from that one:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sup_01_17.html

Try to find ANY definition of license at all in it by the way, or why there would be some need or on what basis one could demand licenses when selling for example a book or music. The licensing part refers to the rights of the copyright holder and as I mentioned above, for example to make new copies to sell. It has nothing to do with buying and using (using as in listening, reading and such).

You might want to claim licensing as something not at all related to copyright (or patents and trademarks), but then I don?t understand your remark about it above, then you could apply the same when you buy a vacuum cleaner, do you get a license with it as well? How does that fit with your courts?

If you prefer or like to take a look at other countries copyright laws, feel free to tell me, I can direct you to a few of them, mostly the ones I have read and have good knowledge about, but I am sure I can help you out with others as well if you give me some time.

I DO assume you have actually at least read the copyright law some times, at least looked at it, and have read books, articles, cases and such about copyright related issues and such. I base this on your initial comment in your post. Somehow I am not so sure though.

Yes, making copies are typically not allowed and for doing that you need a license. However, most people buying books, music, films, software and so on, making new copies are not needed, not wanted and not done. So for the most part, you will not need a license to make new copies.

>So when you get a song from iTunes it must be
>copied onto your computer

Not really, you save THE copy you get on your computer, that is not creating new copies. I don't need a license to store the copy of a book I buy in  my bookshelf either. Or in the book itself by the way.

> and iTunes grants you a license to make copies
>and stipulates how you can make these copies.

"these"? What extra copies are you talking about now?

It is worth pointing out that copyright law actually do allow you to make copies of a work in some circumstances WITHOUT them being infringing copies and hence without needed a license to make copies from the copyright holder. The exact nature of how and what is allowed vary some between countries. For example, in Sweden were I live, one is allowed to make a few copies for private/personal use. That includes for example to make a copy to give a friend or to make a copy to put into your portable music player. There is NO need to get any permission or license to make such copies. I believe that in the USA, a similar provision is covered under what is called "Fair use" for example.

Software is slightly different and one can normally not make such copies, however, since software by its very nature can require copies to be made just to use it normally (for example installing it on the hard disc), most copyright laws has specific provisions that such copies are allowed to be made. See link to US copyright laws in my other post above and check out §117 which deals with limitations on exclusive rights to computer programs which handles this.

So again, you don't need any license at all for such things.

>Since music, movies, and software is so easy to
>copy these days without and degradation in
>quality, the big companies have resorted to doing
>just about anything they can to control how
>copies are leagally made and that only legal
>copies are used (DRM stuff).

On this I agree and this is were my gripe is. One of the things they try is to tell people, to put it bluntly, lies, about what rules and laws apply. They tell you that you don't own something you buy, tell you need a license to listen to music and that you need a license to even save your music you buy online on your computer and so on. One way is the whole "you don't buy/own it, you license it" which is what I commented.

> And since they have been allowed pretty much
>free reign on defining how copies are made they
>are now starting to extend that into how copies
>are used.

I don't agree with this. Copyright basically prevents copies to be made period by others. Copyright laws then permits come types of copies to be made anyway without being infringement (fair use, private copies and so on, depends on country), typically any copies needed to be done to just normally use something are not at all considered infringement and hence are not under control of the copyright holders, although they of course like to tell you so.

As for use, that is not at all covered under copyright law. There is however one recent exception to this but here the variation between countries is enormous and many have no such laws at all. In the USA, the exception is the DMCA, it doesn't cover use but do add a sort of new right to the copyright holder, which is "access" to a work. It doesn't make it a right of the copyright holder, but it adds the ability to have control mechanism for access, which is close to giving a new exclusive right. For the most part, this does not affect the copyright though although it can make it harder. You still don't need licenses to make copies though.

>This is very much like the OEM Windows license.
>Dell (or eMachines, HP, etc.) is allowed
>(licensed) to make a copy of Windows on a
>computer they sell you.

Ahh, a very good example of when one really talk about a license!! A license to make new copies to sell to customers in this example.

>You now own that computer which that copy of
>Windows is on. You don't have a license to make
>another copy of Windows.

This actually applies to any copy of Windows, even one you buy directly from Microsoft. As I mentioned above though, in almost any country you are still allowed to make whatever copies that are needed and necessary to use that Window. Most laws also allows for example for backup copies.

>However if you buy a copy of Windows at Best Buy, that has a license that allows you to
>make a copy on your computer.

Here I would say that you are wrong, or rather, you are not wrong, but the ones selling you windows are trying to fool you and others. Again, copyright laws around the world specifically allows you to make copies needed to use software you have bought, that includes installing it on your computer. There is NO need for any license at all for such a thing. The fact that someone writes a document calling it a license and telling you that you are allowed to do so, does not change this fact and does not make it illegal to do so without such a ?license?.