🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <6092@milton.u.washington.edu> ashing@milton.u.washington.edu (Al Shing) writes:
=In the case of a book, one can loan the book to a friend who can read it 
=without buying it.  We can also loan CD's and tapes to friends, or even tape
=music and TV shows off the air for free.  
=
=If you loan software to a friend, it is said to be illegal, and if you down-
=load software, you are supposed to pay a registration fee.  This is analogous
=to saying that you cannot loan books, or CD's to friends, and if you tape
=stuff from the radio or TV, you have to send in money to the copyright owner.
=
=If this doesn't make sense for copyrighted books, music, and TV shows, it
=also doesn't make sense for computer software, either.
=
=Just my opinion.

The difference between loaning a book, CD or (original) tape and loaning
your software is that in the former case you are transferring the original,
genuine artifact and not retaining a copy for continued use. If you give the
software AND accompanting documentation AND delete all copies in your
possession, that is legal since there is still only one legitimate copy.

When you tape stuff with your VCR, you are in technical violation of
copyright laws, however most copyright holders turn a blind eye to
private, non-comercial due to the enforcement problem.