[H-GEN] GPL question

[Anthony Towns]

On Wed, Jan 07, 2004 at 08:38:07AM +1000, Trent Waddington wrote:
> David Starkoff wrote:
> >When a program on disk is run in a computer, a copy of the computer 
> >program (or at least a partial copy) is copied into RAM.  Absent a 
> >licence, this is an infringement of copyright.  (There's case law on 
> >this in Australia: Microsoft Corporation v Business Boost Pty Ltd 
> >[2000] FCA 1651, 
> ><http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/federal_ct/2000/1651.html>.)
> This is contradictory to what Eben Moglen has said about users being 
> required to have a license to run software.  

Two points: the Digital Agenda act modified this (and came into law in
2001, after David's case afaik), and Eben Moglen would've been talking
about the situation in the US, which has broad fair use provisions that
presumably cover this area.

> Apparently all those 
> recently additions to copyright law that we all know and hate have 
> contributed something useful, in the form of a clause that says 
> "incidental copies" such as copying the program into RAM are not 
> classified as copies for the purpose of copyright law.  

In Australia, there's an exception for copies that aren't "in material
form", which may apply to this, but can't be relied upon (and which
might be ruled out by the above case history); and there're some explicit
exceptions for running programs.

> So if I get 
> WinXP preinstalled on my harddrive I don't require a license with 
> Microsoft to run it, only to copy/distribute it.  I'd love to send you a 
> link to where I Eben Moglen wrote this, but it was in the FSF newsletter 
> last year that I only received on dead trees.

I thought the situation in Australia was that you don't need a license, but
if you're presented with one, you have to follow its terms, or something
similar.

Cheers,
aj

-- 
Anthony Towns <aj at humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.

               Linux.conf.au 2004 -- Because we can.
           http://conf.linux.org.au/ -- Jan 12-17, 2004
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