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A “license” is legal permission to do something that would otherwise be illegal, such as copy software (assuming there’s no fair use etc), or even attend a conc
by jxdxbx 3y ago
A “license” is legal permission to do something that would otherwise be illegal, such as copy software (assuming there’s no fair use etc), or even attend a concert. Licenses are often granted as part of contracts, but need not be. Unilateral license conditions are not binding contacts, but not following them can still be unlawful. If a movie theater breaks a license term by for example playing a movie publicly without authorization, it violates copyright, not contact law. Probably both in real life.
- chaosite 3y agoUnless that movie theater entered into a contract with a distributor, right?
- jxdxbx 3y agoIn real situations yes. But in the software world “license” and “contract” are often used interchangeably, contracts that grant license will be called “licenses,” etc. So it leads to confusion.
- paulnpace 3y agoThis is a license agreement, so who are the parties coming to agreement?
- eli 3y agoIf you're not a party to the agreement then isn't possessing the software a copyright violation?
- josephcsible 3y agoIf I buy a used computer, do I have to agree to the terms of every publisher with software on it to not break copyright law?
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoAs you're neither redistributing it or copying it, copyright law is not applicable.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoOnly if you are distributing it or making a copy. As to how you came into possession of the software without making a copy is another question.
- tesseract 3y agoFor binary software licenses, historically a lot of them have been premised on the idea that it is impossible to use the software without copying it from installation media onto local storage and/or from storage into RAM for execution, meaning that effectively it's possible to use contracts based in copyright law to set terms for the use of the software and not just for what a human might think of as "copying".
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoI recall that being an argument used against piracy, but I don't know if it was successful or not. It seems disingenuous to me as you could classify almost any process to be "copying" e.g. reading a book is using light to make a "copy" of the printed words onto your retinas.
- rightbyte 3y agoYou could use someone else's computer or maybe you have bought one 2nd handand never agreed to any EULA.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoWell that would be unlicensed usage of the software, but not copyright infringement by yourself. Resale of software is a trickier topic which may be covered by consumer rights.
- JohnFen 3y agoNot necessarily. Distributing such software would be, though.
- paulnpace 3y agoIn the context of this EULA, the software can be downloaded from GitHub without any agreement (between user and GitHub).