Leythos said:
Kurt, I agree that you can break the rules until MS takes you to
court, I never disputed that. What I disagree with is that you are
telling people, in most cases, they it's legal to install in
violation of the license as provided.
I don't say that to anyone. Show where I said that to anyone but you.
And even to you, I said my interpretation is legally valid until proven
otherwise. And for the last more than dozen years, MS has yet to
challenge my "fair use" interpretation. The likelihood of them ever
doing is so miniscule after all this time, that I stand a better chance
of winning $500,000,000 in the lottery.
There is a difference between
telling people that they can do what they want as long as they
understand that it's not been challenged in court and could be
considered illegal and in telling them that they can do anything they
want.
They can do whatever they want in the privacy of their home for
non-commercial purposes with the copyrighted material that they have
legal access to. Until either Congress rewrites copyright law, or a
court rules otherwise. That's how Copyright Law works.
In the Betamax case, the Supreme Court defined what "fair use" means
when it comes to individuals.
"Any individual may reproduce a copyrighted work for a "fair use"; the
copyright owner does not possess the exclusive right to such a use." -
http://laws.findlaw.com/us/464/417.html
They didn't just limit individual "fair use" to that of a specific type
of copyrighted material in that case, but they left the definition broad
because individuals have to "fair use" of any type of copyrighted
material they have access to. It was one of the main rationales why
that the video recorder wasn't an infringement, because its main use
wasn't an infringement, that of individuals reproducing and using those
copies of copyrighted material.
"Fair Use" as written in copyright law, is mainly the talking about the
Public and/or commercial "fair uses" of copyrighted material, so in the
Betamax case the Supreme Court defined what "fair use" is for us
individuals in the privacy of our own homes. No copyright owner has the
right to KNOW what we do in our homes with our copies of our copyrighted
material. They do not possess that exclusive right. Remember we are
supposedly a gov't of the people, by the people, for the people. We are
not the gov't for the corporate copyright elite.
Later in the Betamax decision, the Supreme Court makes reference to
another Supreme Court decision of the meaning of copyright, and for who
it is that is suppose to benefit the most from it.
"The limited scope of the copyright holder's statutory monopoly, like
the limited copyright duration required by the Constitution, reflects a
balance of competing claims upon the public interest: Creative work is
to be encouraged and rewarded, but private motivation must ultimately
serve the cause of promoting broad public availability of literature,
music, and the other arts. The immediate effect of our copyright law is
to secure a fair return for an 'author's' creative labor. But the
ultimate aim is, by this incentive, to stimulate artistic creativity for
the general public good. 'The sole interest of the United States and
the primary object in conferring the monopoly,' this Court has said,
'lie in the general benefits derived by the public from the labors of
authors' . . . . When technological change has rendered its literal
terms ambiguous, the Copyright Act must be construed in light of this
basic purpose." -
http://laws.findlaw.com/us/422/151.html
Being paid by an individual for a copyrighted work once, is a "fair
return," and being paid more than once for the same copyrighted material
by an individual is more than a "fair return" and isn't in the general
public good.
Now Bruce likes to bring up what is written at the Stanford U. site,
which is stating the public and/or commercial aspects of "fair use," but
one place where private non-commercial "fair use" and public and/or
commercial "fair use" are similar is when the copyright owner disagrees
with the interpretation of "fair use" being used.
"Unfortunately, if the copyright owner disagrees with your fair use
interpretation, the dispute will have to be resolved by courts or
arbitration. If it's not a fair use, then you are infringing upon the
rights of the copyright owner and may be liable for damages." -
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/index.html
So in a situation like copyrighted software, where a company like MS has
known that its copyrighted material has been "fairly used" for more than
a dozen years, and has yet to legally disagree with any definition of
"fair use" of their software in a court of law, after all this time it
is highly unlikely that MS would now challenge this in court, because:
1.) the length of time that they didn't challenge this would be held
against them, and, 2.) they don't possess the exclusive right to such
a use, and it would be highly unlikely that a court would rule in favor
of a corporation to have rights in someone's home to tell them how an
individual can use copyrighted material in the privacy of that home, and
that being in the general public good.
MS has always known that they really don't stand a snowballs chance in
hell of winning such a case, and that is the main reason for the
behavior modification aspects of PA. To win through marketing and
propaganda, what it knows it cannot win under the law and under existing
legal precedent. So MS, like any of us, has the right to sue for just
about anything, but that doesn't mean that they would win. If they
thought they could, then they would have done as the Music Industry has
done over file-sharing. And if you look at those suits closely, the
Music Industry is only going after those that make their music
collections available for upload to other, in other words, distributing
music to others, and the Music Industry hasn't gone after anyone that
has just downloaded music, because individuals have the right to "fairly
use" the copyrighted material that is available to them for their own
private use, but not the right to redistribute it to others.
This is how copyright and "fair use" works today. One day the corporate
copyright lobby may get Congress to change Copyright Law and remove some
of the limitations placed on Copyright Owners under Copyright Law, but
until then, we, as private non-commercial individuals have the right to
"fairly use" the copyrighted material we have access to. No copyright
owner possess the right to say otherwise. That is a fact jack, until
proven otherwise, or Copyright Law is rewritten by Congress, not by a
corporate copyright owner in a post-sale shrink-wrap license.
My interpretation is legally valid as long as MS doesn't sue me and win.
That is a fact, Lameboy.
--
Peace!
Kurt
Self-anointed Moderator
microscum.pubic.windowsexp.gonorrhea
http://microscum.com/mscommunity
"Trustworthy Computing" is only another example of an Oxymoron!
"Produkt-Aktivierung macht frei"
