>"I would suggest everyone here stop posting
>their opinions and suppositions about what they
>think the law is or should be and take a look at
>the actual U. S. copyright law,"

First of, this site as well as many others, and more importantly software and their EULA are not limited to the USA, hence you can often get views and opinions that are not necessarily completely focused on USA.

Second, contracts has nothing to do with copyright so if you want to discuss contracts and their applicability one would have to look at US (if we stick to USA) *contract* law as well as US *consumer sales* laws. Those are the ones that will help you out, not copyright laws.

Further:

> "Copyright owners automatically have exclusive
>rights to their own works. Whatever rights they
>decide to exchange for money is their choice."

This is not completely correct. They have *a few* exclusive rights to their work. Those rights are specifically mentioned in the copyright law. Any right not specifically mentioned the copyright holder has no control over (at least not due to copyright). In addition, the exclusiveness is not completely total, there are exceptions for when others can for example create copies without it being infringement. Some are mentioned specifically (like the right to make copies of software that are needed for running it) while others are summed up in general terms such as the "fair use" tests.

So, only those rights that are specifically given to the copyright holder, does the copyright owner have any control over. Typically those are things normal users of the work will not have any problem with nor do.

The rights given as exclusive to the copyright holder are more or less the same regardless of country although differences do exist. Here are the main ones as written in the US copyright law:

Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;
(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and  
(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.

End of quote.

Section 107 through 122 lists limitations to the exclusiveness as I mentioned above.

More:

>This is often indicated in the "EULA" when it
>comes to software. Some give away all rights to
>copy and distribute and others choose to sell
>the right to make a single copy, or two copies,
>or the right to use without restriction on a
>single server, etc.

Actually, most everything in a typical EULA has absolutely NOTHING to do with copyright or copyright related rights. As noted in one of the exceptions in the copyright law, there is no need for permission to make any copies that are needed for normal use/running of the software. Apart from that, you are of course only allowed to install and use your software on one computer. For such use, you need NO additional permission or contract.

Installing on more than one computer can and typically will require permission though, at such time you may want to get the permission from the copyright holder unless you buy or otherwise quire more than one copy to start with.

As for "use", that is, as noted above in my quoting of the US copyright law, not an exclusive right of the copyright holder, hence nothing the copyright holder can restrict through copyright, that is, you don't have to agree to anything to use the software, should you not want to and there is no need to get any permission for use any more than you need a contract that permits you to use your newly bought toaster.

>Even most open source software has complex and
>precise licensing restrictions. Ever read
>through the GPL?

The GPL is a license needed if you want to redistribute the software (with or without changes). As noted in the quote from the copyright law I pasted above, such things are not allowed without the permission of the copyright holder. The GPL is such a permission with the restrictions. You do NOT need to agree to any GPL to simply use the software, it is a license for (re)distribution, including making new copies and making changes to the copies. That has nothing to do with EULAs.