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When have you ever been able to buy software? I thought in most cases you just buy a license to use the software or the license says it’s free for X types of us
by wil421 4y ago
When have you ever been able to buy software? I thought in most cases you just buy a license to use the software or the license says it’s free for X types of uses or sometimes “free for everyone”.
- zamnos 4y agoBack when it was sold on physical media; CDs, Bluray, DVD or floppy disk. Because it was a physical disk, you were allowed to do whatever you want with that disk. You weren't given the right to copy it and distribute those copies thanks to copyright, but you were allowed to resell your one physical copy due to the first sale doctrine. Hence we can quibble about the definition of "buy software", but we used to be able to do that. It's that the first sale doctrine kinda doesn't apply if you're renting software like a SaaS over the Internet; eg Adobe Photoshop/Creative Cloud.
- wil421 4y agoI don’t remember it being like that with CDs and floppy’s. I’m pretty sure most of them were still a license to play. Looking at my Diablo II (version 1.0 2000) and Warcraft III CDs I am given a license key and agreement to an EULA. Unfortunately the EULA isn’t in the box but I’m almost positive they could revoke my key and I’d be unable to play.
- zamnos 4y agoBlizzard trying to push renting software on us doesn't change what was legally allowed, and Diablo II and Warcraft III were after the Internet came around. Now, if you bought Warcraft I, which didn't have Battle.net support, you own that one copy, and Blizzard can't take that copy away from you. Which is to say it's bought and not rented.