🚀 go-pugleaf

Not.  To quote from the title page of the "Novell Netware 3.21 Server
Backup" manual (emphasis mine):  "All rights reserved.  NO PART of this
publication may be reproduced, PHOTOCOPIED, stored on a retrieval system,
or transmitted without the express written consent of the publisher."  Even
if basic copyright law in and of itself permits the "fair use" that you
describe, how do Novell's retrictions, which are publishing industry
standard legalese, differ from the license agreement under which one uses a
program?  Further, let's be clear about the contribution of major software
publishers to the cavalier attitude towards piracy.  15 years ago nearly
all PC sytem vendors sold units complete with unauthorized copies of
MS-DOS.  I'm not just talking about small-timers, either, since the list
included the major chains of the time.  Do you expect anyone to believe
that MS wasn't aware of this?  WRT moral and legal equivalence to theft,
read your licenses.  You don't "own" a program you have purchased, because
the vendor didn't transfer any title to you whatsoever.  You bought a "use
license".  While unauthorized use falls into a legal category typically
called "theft of service", it is equivalent to carjacking in neither a
legal nor a moral sense.  What about the infamous "competitive upgrades"
promoted by MS and other vendors where the  user could send in a copy of
the first page of a competitor's product manual and pay a price typical
60-75% lower than retail?  Most vendors later added a requirement that an
element of the competitor's product be present on a browsable drive to
achieve a successful intall, but this was almost as easily faked.  Don't
these kinds of license violations in theory victimize the vendor and
legitimate buyers just as outright piracy does?  I suppose the vendors
making these offers didn't know what abuses their upgrade policies
countenanced?  Please!  I've seen salesmen from software vendors take the
wink-wink-nudge-nudge approach to piracy on numerous occasions.  The
Software Protection Association and its predecessor typically refused to
pursue piracy, even when it was documented to them.  I used to be a very
strong anti-piracy advocate in the work environment, jeopardizing my job on
more than one occasion to push that agenda.  While I still believe piracy
is wrong, and that good reasons exist FROM THE USER POV not to pirate, I
don't take those positions anymore.  Why?  Because the major software
vendors have promoted a piracy culture by taking the issue seriously only
when it suited their marketing strategy to do so.  And I hate pissing into
the wind;>) I _do_ feel sorry for the small software vendors who can't
afford to have even a single copy of their work misappropriated.  They, and
the users who depend on their products, are the true losers here.
On Thu, 18 Mar 1999 20:00:29 -0500 Charles Sullivan of InfiNet wrote this
re Re: fat 32 eh?:
>This is entirely different.  Photocopying one or a few pages from a
>copyrighted
>work is allowed by the law as "fair use".
>
>Tom MacIntyre wrote in message <36f12f62.20707056@news.wolf>...
>>I'd like to know...has anyone here on the moral high ground ever
>>photocopied a page out of a copyrighted book?...
Scott A. Miller
samiller@bix.com samiller@cyberenet.net
card carrying member of the Java Conspiracy