>"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.

House report no. 94-1476 states: "The judicial doctrine of fair use, one of the most important and well-established limitations on the exclusive right of copyright owners, would be given express statutory recognition for the first time in section 107. The claim that a defendant's acts constituted a fair use rather than an infringement has been raised as a defense in innumerable copyright actions over the years, and there is ample case law recognizing the existence of the doctrine and applying it."
-------------------------------------------------
Contract Law: See Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_law
------------------------------------------------
Adhesion Contracts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhesion_contract
-----------------------------------------------
The obvious logical fallacy of the adhesion contract is that upon purchase of a product you could give the vendor your own version of an EULA.  If the vendor can do it, why not the consumer? So who's verson would constitute the legally binding binding contract, your's or the vendor's?

The culprits are without doubt found among our US legislators in both House and Senate of both parties. They seem to have chosen to be willfully and persistently ignorant of high-tech issues. We continue to vote for charismatic, well-spoken people with attactive faces many of whom are often in reality empty shells already sold out to the highest bidders. Once such already compromised people are elected, they have the responsibility to create laws for the good of all. Instead, many of they instead bow to the lobbyists who have largely bought and paid for them which lobbists often ghost write the very laws that continue to burden instead of liberate us. And we continue to vote for these idiots who would rather rabble-rouse against each other, jockeying for the attention of the gullible media by crafting the latest well crafted sound bite rather than being about the nation's business. They churn about looking busy but little value comes from the vast amounts of our tax money they confiscate from us.

So who is the real culprit? We are! Our inattention to the elective process has allowed this to happen. While there are some wonderful shining stars in both parties in the US government, the clashing sounding brass and tinkling cymbols of the few exceptionally inept buffoons in Congress drown out the reasonable voices of the qualified. And the qualified allow them to get away with it. But we --- we continue to elect the same buffoons, over and over and over. So we are the real culprits.

I have been arguing about this and similar topics since 1995 with Lawrence Lessig (a good guy who writes for Wired and IS a lawyer). At the time I said that the Internet would absolutely destroy copyright law and I haven't moved an iota from that position since. He is gradually moving toward my side, but his lawyerly mind won't allow him to make that last leap of faith, to give up on a lost cause.

My reasoning is very simple. Since the Web actually works ONLY and EXCLUSIVELY by copying everything you look at...not once but many, many times for every click, every download...ANY copyright law has to allow this...or die. I choose "die." But, I admit it will not die easily or quickly...just eventually. Protecting "intellectual property rights"...which didn't even exist prior to the printing press...will go the way of the dodo. Information wants to be and WILL be FREE!

In 1995, the event that triggered all this was my copying and displaying in one of my columns a Dilbert cartoon. When the company holding the copyright complained and threatened legal action, I simply changed the link to the cartoon from my site to theirs! It looked absolutely the same, and linking to it rather than "copying" it produced no noticeable difference...only a legal one...nor could it, since they are logically the same. Except for one thing. The cartoon syndicate could and did remove all their cartoons completely from the Web, defeating their original purpose in putting them on in the first place!

For a while.

Then they gave in to reality...and put them back. They did try some copy protection schemes, but so what? As long as something is on the Web, the only way to protect it is to password protect it or some other nuisance impediment, cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Making it hard for users will ALWAYS ultimaty come to naught. Mark these words.

Note: China recently gave in and stopped trying to block porn sites (source: Wired). How long will it be until they give up on political sites as well?

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