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Re: Piracy, education and the techie garage sale

Subject: Re: Piracy, education and the techie garage sale
From: Win Day <winday -at- home -dot- com>
To: Bill Swallow <bill_swallow -at- yahoo -dot- com>
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2000 07:18:59 -0400

At 05:43 AM 23/06/00 -0700, you wrote:

I want to start this post by stating that I totally
agree that software piracy is unethical, unfair, and
illegal.

That said, I don't understand the problem with one
person uninstalling a program to lend to another for
educational purposes - educational purposes ONLY.
There is still only one person using the license.

I think it comes down to a need to read the individual licenses. Some will explicitly state that only one PERSON can use it at a time, some state that it can only be installed on one machine at a time.


If this is a problem, then is it in fact illegal to
sell old software at garage sales and such? Same thing
as the scenario above, only the original owner is
getting a small chunk of cash for the favor, and who
knows what the new owner will do with the software.

This is different, because when you sell the software you are physically transferring the license.

I bought Frame that way. Someone on the TECHWR-L list owned his own company, and had purchased a multiple-seat license. I think they come in groups of 10. His company would never need more than 5 or 6, and he sold the other licenses. I bought a Frame *license* (not the software itself) and used it to buy the upgrade. Frame upgrades ship with a complete version; they just sell for less. And the installation process doesn't look for a previous installation.

(I ask in part because I plan on having a garage sale
soon and have a ton of toddler software and old games
I'd like to unload, and throwing them away seems
stupid after paying $25 - $70 for each application
new.)

Been there, done that. Actually, I donated them to a local library for their children's section. (I don't do garage sales!)

Also, what about installing one license on several
machines, if only one person will be using the several
machines. Example: Someone has a CD-ROM with Mac and
PC versions of the software, and wants to install it
on home office machines - the Mac for use with
graphics products, the PC for use with other
publishing products, and a Notebook for travel. Is
this also wrong?

Again, read the license. Some do and some don't explicitly state that you can install on multiple machines if you only use one at a time. Frame in particular says you buy a "seat", which corresponds to a person and not a machine. When I bought my license, I emailed them before I purchased it to make sure this was on the up-and-up. They didn't have a problem, since he transferred all the license papers to me at the time of payment.


I would think that as long as only one person is using
the software, that all the above are "OK". Am I wrong?
Please educate me.

Regards,

Win
---------------
Win Day
Technical Writer

http://www.wordsplus.net

mailto:winday -at- wordsplus -dot- net

http://members.home.net/winday/index.html




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