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Could but by and large didn't, at least not for consumer software. You walk into a store, you buy a disc, it's yours. Legally obtained copy. No terms. After

Could but by and large didn't, at least not for consumer software. You walk into a store, you buy a disc, it's yours. Legally obtained copy. No terms. After that you'd be free to use it without having any terms be imposed on you by the copyright holder, because using isn't copying, and if you're not doing something that is the copyright holder's exclusive right, you don't need their permission to do it. If we wanted to follow this line of thinking, maybe you should also need a license to listen to music because today's digital media players tend to make temporary copies of the audio in RAM and buffers.. I think this technicality makes a big difference. Of course I'm sure they could figure out other ways to give copyright holders the power to impose their terms on users, but the way it's currently done in EU feels like a technical 'gotcha' to me. "Article 4 of Directive 91/250 lays down the exclusive rights of the copyright holder, rights of a preventative nature, in its computer program. The first of those rights is the right of reproduction, which is defined in particularly broad terms because it covers not only any form of reproduction, whether permanent or temporary, but also acts of reproduction necessary to use a program. Unlike other categories of works, in any case those which are distributed on their own medium, a computer program always requires a reproduction, if only a temporary one, in the computer’s memory in order for that program to be used. The rightholder’s exclusive rights therefore constitute, as far as computer programs are concerned, greater intrusion into the private sphere of the user than in the case of other categories of protected subject matter, because those rights require de facto the authorisation of the rightholder even simply to use the program. .. Thus, the copyright holder’s exclusive rights in a computer program cover not only traditional acts of exploitation of the work under copyright, but also the enjoyment of that work in the user’s private sphere." https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document_print.jsf;jsessionid=65A4A57EAA6D78A82DD59E1FC9E08B02?docid=238707&text=&dir=&doclang=EN&occ=first%C3%A2%C2%88%C2%82%3D1&mode=DOC&pageIndex=0&cid=285070 https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document_print.jsf;js...

zamadatix 5y ago
The law that case is referring to is also the one I was referring to about protecting object code of any form: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:01991L0250-19931119 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE... "Subject to the provisions of Articles 5 and 6, the exclusive rights of the rightholder within the meaning of Article 2, shall include the right to do or to authorize: (a) the permanent or temporary reproduction of a computer program by any means and in any form, in part or in whole. Insofar as loading, displaying, running, transmision or storage of the computer program necessitate such reproduction, such acts shall be subject to authorization by the rightholder;" To be clear the "gotcha"s as referred to in the comments above aren't "bits of the written law one might find surprising or overreaching" they are attempts at circumventing the meaning of the law by taking it absurdly literally (as in my stop sign example in my sibling comment) and hoping to use that narrow interpretation as legal reasoning instead of paying attention to the actual intent of said law. As I said the law as written doesn't singularly hinge on the process of loading a program into RAM to allow the requiring license to use software anyways, the software can require those additional terms as part of the installation onto the computer's storage which is clearly a copying process. This is also why the "walk to the store, buy a disc, it's yours. Legally obtained copy. No terms." example is silly - even if we accepted that was legally yours with no usage terms what you have is no terms usage (but not modification or redistribution) of the installer which is going to require you to agree to terms to perform the copy (and probably enter a license key in any semi-modern time). Similarly with the point on music, what makes you think it isn't licensed to a copyright holder? Because it doesn't prompt you when you hit play? CDs give unlimited private playback and backup rights, no public distribution, and no public performance. Modification has certain allowances (known as fair use) just like software but generally is up to the rightsholder. Streaming gives a temporary license for much the same. Digital radio gives you rights to listen live. There is no slippery slope of digital music gaining copyright control through some reasoning from software copyright, it's all already there.
- foxfluff 5y ago
  > To be clear the "gotcha"s as referred to in the comments above aren't "bits of the written law one might find surprising or overreaching" they are attempts at circumventing the meaning of the law by taking it absurdly literally (as in my stop sign example in my sibling comment) and hoping to use that narrow interpretation as legal reasoning instead of paying attention to the actual intent of said law. The point I'm making is that lawmakers themselves used a similar absurd literality ("actually your computer makes a copy in ram to run a program") in writing this law. > As I said the law as written doesn't singularly hinge on the process of loading a program into RAM to allow the requiring license to use software anyways, the software can require those additional terms as part of the installation onto the computer's storage which is clearly a copying process. Software doesn't inherently require installation, but if it does, it doesn't have to be permanent. I can make a temporary installation in RAM. > Similarly with the point on music, what makes you think it isn't licensed to a copyright holder? Because it doesn't prompt you when you hit play? CDs give unlimited private playback and backup rights The copyright law does not make personal playback of music an exclusive right of the rightsholder. It's not the CD giving me any rights, it's that the copyright law never took these rights away from me in the first place. That is why you don't need a license to listen to music that you own a legally obtained copy of. They never applied the absurd technicality of temporary copies to music.
  - zamadatix 5y ago
    > The point I'm making is that lawmakers themselves used a similar absurd literality ("actually your computer makes a copy in ram to run a program") in writing this law. You're welcome to think any parts of the law are absurd (and given the size you probably will think many parts are) but perceived absurdity does not make a gotcha nor does it mean any other perceived absurdity not explicitly in the law now must also be valid or invalid accordingly. If the law had vaguely said "copies of computer programs are protected" and made no provisions towards the intent of protecting the object code in any form elsewhere then later a an argument in court said "and loading it into memory counts as a copy" to try to expand the right past the intent that would be a case of a gotcha. > Software doesn't inherently require installation, but if it does, it doesn't have to be permanent. I can make a temporary installation in RAM. How does the installation being done to a temporary location or not change whether the installer has to produce a copy of the software from itself onto the machine? The action the installer does is independent the medium the bytes are stored. > To be clear the "gotcha"s as referred to in the comments above aren't "bits of the written law one might find surprising or overreaching" they are attempts at circumventing the meaning of the law by taking it absurdly literally (as in my stop sign example in my sibling comment) and hoping to use that narrow interpretation as legal reasoning instead of paying attention to the actual intent of said law. The point I'm making is that lawmakers themselves used a similar absurd literality ("actually your computer makes a copy in ram to run a program") in writing this law. > As I said the law as written doesn't singularly hinge on the process of loading a program into RAM to allow the requiring license to use software anyways, the software can require those additional terms as part of the installation onto the computer's storage which is clearly a copying process. Software doesn't inherently require installation, but if it does, it doesn't have to be permanent. I can make a temporary installation in RAM. > The copyright law does not make personal playback of music an exclusive right of the rightsholder. It's not the CD giving me any rights, it's that the copyright law never took these rights away from me in the first place. That is why you don't need a license to listen to music that you own a legally obtained copy of. They never applied the absurd technicality of temporary copies to music. In the case of CDs copyright law provides the other restrictions explictly listed but the CD (typically) choses to give you unlimited playback ability. Copyright isn't the only law that dictates what you're allowed to do with the content privately, newer (2000s) laws around DRM for instance provide more of the other rights restrictions of digital content.

zamadatix 5y ago

The law that case is referring to is also the one I was referring to about protecting object code of any form: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:01991L0250-19931119 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE... "Subject to the provisions of Articles 5 and 6, the exclusive rights of the rightholder within the meaning of Article 2, shall include the right to do or to authorize: (a) the permanent or temporary reproduction of a computer program by any means and in any form, in part or in whole. Insofar as loading, displaying, running, transmision or storage of the computer program necessitate such reproduction, such acts shall be subject to authorization by the rightholder;" To be clear the "gotcha"s as referred to in the comments above aren't "bits of the written law one might find surprising or overreaching" they are attempts at circumventing the meaning of the law by taking it absurdly literally (as in my stop sign example in my sibling comment) and hoping to use that narrow interpretation as legal reasoning instead of paying attention to the actual intent of said law. As I said the law as written doesn't singularly hinge on the process of loading a program into RAM to allow the requiring license to use software anyways, the software can require those additional terms as part of the installation onto the computer's storage which is clearly a copying process. This is also why the "walk to the store, buy a disc, it's yours. Legally obtained copy. No terms." example is silly - even if we accepted that was legally yours with no usage terms what you have is no terms usage (but not modification or redistribution) of the installer which is going to require you to agree to terms to perform the copy (and probably enter a license key in any semi-modern time). Similarly with the point on music, what makes you think it isn't licensed to a copyright holder? Because it doesn't prompt you when you hit play? CDs give unlimited private playback and backup rights, no public distribution, and no public performance. Modification has certain allowances (known as fair use) just like software but generally is up to the rightsholder. Streaming gives a temporary license for much the same. Digital radio gives you rights to listen live. There is no slippery slope of digital music gaining copyright control through some reasoning from software copyright, it's all already there.

foxfluff 5y ago
> To be clear the "gotcha"s as referred to in the comments above aren't "bits of the written law one might find surprising or overreaching" they are attempts at circumventing the meaning of the law by taking it absurdly literally (as in my stop sign example in my sibling comment) and hoping to use that narrow interpretation as legal reasoning instead of paying attention to the actual intent of said law. The point I'm making is that lawmakers themselves used a similar absurd literality ("actually your computer makes a copy in ram to run a program") in writing this law. > As I said the law as written doesn't singularly hinge on the process of loading a program into RAM to allow the requiring license to use software anyways, the software can require those additional terms as part of the installation onto the computer's storage which is clearly a copying process. Software doesn't inherently require installation, but if it does, it doesn't have to be permanent. I can make a temporary installation in RAM. > Similarly with the point on music, what makes you think it isn't licensed to a copyright holder? Because it doesn't prompt you when you hit play? CDs give unlimited private playback and backup rights The copyright law does not make personal playback of music an exclusive right of the rightsholder. It's not the CD giving me any rights, it's that the copyright law never took these rights away from me in the first place. That is why you don't need a license to listen to music that you own a legally obtained copy of. They never applied the absurd technicality of temporary copies to music.
- zamadatix 5y ago
  > The point I'm making is that lawmakers themselves used a similar absurd literality ("actually your computer makes a copy in ram to run a program") in writing this law. You're welcome to think any parts of the law are absurd (and given the size you probably will think many parts are) but perceived absurdity does not make a gotcha nor does it mean any other perceived absurdity not explicitly in the law now must also be valid or invalid accordingly. If the law had vaguely said "copies of computer programs are protected" and made no provisions towards the intent of protecting the object code in any form elsewhere then later a an argument in court said "and loading it into memory counts as a copy" to try to expand the right past the intent that would be a case of a gotcha. > Software doesn't inherently require installation, but if it does, it doesn't have to be permanent. I can make a temporary installation in RAM. How does the installation being done to a temporary location or not change whether the installer has to produce a copy of the software from itself onto the machine? The action the installer does is independent the medium the bytes are stored. > To be clear the "gotcha"s as referred to in the comments above aren't "bits of the written law one might find surprising or overreaching" they are attempts at circumventing the meaning of the law by taking it absurdly literally (as in my stop sign example in my sibling comment) and hoping to use that narrow interpretation as legal reasoning instead of paying attention to the actual intent of said law. The point I'm making is that lawmakers themselves used a similar absurd literality ("actually your computer makes a copy in ram to run a program") in writing this law. > As I said the law as written doesn't singularly hinge on the process of loading a program into RAM to allow the requiring license to use software anyways, the software can require those additional terms as part of the installation onto the computer's storage which is clearly a copying process. Software doesn't inherently require installation, but if it does, it doesn't have to be permanent. I can make a temporary installation in RAM. > The copyright law does not make personal playback of music an exclusive right of the rightsholder. It's not the CD giving me any rights, it's that the copyright law never took these rights away from me in the first place. That is why you don't need a license to listen to music that you own a legally obtained copy of. They never applied the absurd technicality of temporary copies to music. In the case of CDs copyright law provides the other restrictions explictly listed but the CD (typically) choses to give you unlimited playback ability. Copyright isn't the only law that dictates what you're allowed to do with the content privately, newer (2000s) laws around DRM for instance provide more of the other rights restrictions of digital content.