3 ms·

IANAL, but afaik, copyright licenses can only ever affect (re)distribution - not use.

by c0l0 5y ago

detaro 5y ago
That makes zero sense. Of course licenses regulate use. Apache2 license text literally starts with "TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR USE, REPRODUCTION, AND DISTRIBUTION"
marcinzm 5y ago
Which means this repo has an EULA which I'm sure is going to trigger all sorts of compliance alerts at larger companies once they learn of it.
kmeisthax 5y ago
Only iff the copyrighted work was "sold" and not "licensed". There has been a huge effort on the part of copyright holders to avoid "selling" things, and make "sold" software legally unusable without a corresponding license agreement. Once you exit the realm of a "sale", there are very few restrictions on what you can require of your licensees. Freedom Zero restrictions are absolutely on the table, as well as curtailing fair use. And these license restrictions are generally considered watertight - you are not going to convince a judge that a license agreement should be reconstrued such that you get the permissions you want without the restrictions the copyright owner added to them. That being said, your average EULA has about 4000x more clauses in it than it needs to be, because they don't expect anyone to read them and those clauses are rarely, if ever, enforceable. FOSS licenses tend to be short and easily readable because they are written by people who want you to know what they entail. Proprietary EULAs tend to be forked from some internal corporate list of legal requirements that get copypasted everywhere. My favorite example of this is the clause in iTunes - a music store - that prohibits you from designing nuclear weapons with it. Second favorite is the LICENSE file included in all Swift Playgrounds example code, which has about 2 actual provisions Apple cares about (don't resell the sample code in the app and don't hack people with Swift Playgrounds), and a hundred clauses copypasted from the iPadOS EULAs that I've already agreed to. As far as I can tell, nobody at Apple is actually going to care if an individual user does something that technically breaches the EULA.
- htrp 5y ago
  > My favorite example of this is the clause in iTunes - a music store - that prohibits you from designing nuclear weapons with it. I didn't believe you.... then I looked it up Sub bullet (g) " You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture, or production of nuclear, missile, or chemical or biological weapons." https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/std...

IANAL, but afaik, copyright licenses can only ever affect (re)distribution - not use.

by c0l0 5y ago

IANAL, but afaik, copyright licenses can only ever affect (re)distribution - not use.

That makes zero sense. Of course licenses regulate use. Apache2 license text literally starts with "TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR USE, REPRODUCTION, AND DISTRIBUTION"

marcinzm 5y ago

Which means this repo has an EULA which I'm sure is going to trigger all sorts of compliance alerts at larger companies once they learn of it.

kmeisthax 5y ago

Only iff the copyrighted work was "sold" and not "licensed". There has been a huge effort on the part of copyright holders to avoid "selling" things, and make "sold" software legally unusable without a corresponding license agreement. Once you exit the realm of a "sale", there are very few restrictions on what you can require of your licensees. Freedom Zero restrictions are absolutely on the table, as well as curtailing fair use. And these license restrictions are generally considered watertight - you are not going to convince a judge that a license agreement should be reconstrued such that you get the permissions you want without the restrictions the copyright owner added to them. That being said, your average EULA has about 4000x more clauses in it than it needs to be, because they don't expect anyone to read them and those clauses are rarely, if ever, enforceable. FOSS licenses tend to be short and easily readable because they are written by people who want you to know what they entail. Proprietary EULAs tend to be forked from some internal corporate list of legal requirements that get copypasted everywhere. My favorite example of this is the clause in iTunes - a music store - that prohibits you from designing nuclear weapons with it. Second favorite is the LICENSE file included in all Swift Playgrounds example code, which has about 2 actual provisions Apple cares about (don't resell the sample code in the app and don't hack people with Swift Playgrounds), and a hundred clauses copypasted from the iPadOS EULAs that I've already agreed to. As far as I can tell, nobody at Apple is actually going to care if an individual user does something that technically breaches the EULA.

htrp 5y ago
> My favorite example of this is the clause in iTunes - a music store - that prohibits you from designing nuclear weapons with it. I didn't believe you.... then I looked it up Sub bullet (g) " You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture, or production of nuclear, missile, or chemical or biological weapons." https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/std...