Who legally owns the software

parky

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An interesting conversation arose the other week, I was talking to a Rockwell rep about software ownership.
Some time ago i bought at auction the laptop + all software from the company I used to work for (company whent into liquidation).
Rockwell say the software is registered to an individual within the company, now I am that individual but no longer with the company.
so I am not registered & it would be against the law to use it.
I have contacted a number of other companies regarding the software ownership & they all say yes if i bought it, have the licence files then there is no problem (is this possesion is nine tenths of the law).
If i buy a second hand tv,lawn mower etc. then i own it & can use them, is software different? or should it be.
all are genuine with licences & this is not a criminal offence but may be a civil one?, however would any court prosecute if I bought the software in what was a legal transaction at the auction or is the auction house selling it illegally.
What do you think?.
To end this, the software versions are now quite old & in some cases not much use anymore so I will never use them anyway as my original thought at the time was to go contracting, but a steady income & secure job got the better of me.
 
Sounds similar to if you bought a computer with an operating system you now legally own the software as you purchased it all that is required is to register it.
 
It Depends...

I'm not a software lawyer but my general take on these issues are:

You need to read the EULA (End User's License Agreement) to determine what it really states. Some software is not purchased as property but rather the creator grants the original purchaser only use of the code and it is not transferrable, e.g. if you didn't buy it yourself, you lawfully can not use it.

It's amazing what software creators can put into one of those agreements and frequently they state that they can not be held liable for anything even if it was their fault. Wish I could run a business with a permanent get out jail free card.
 
I have seen this with a coordinate measuring machine I saw at an auction. You could buy the machine but all the software had been removed. You had to go back to the manufacturer for that.

Do they say the license is not transferrable?
 
MikeW said:
I'm not a software lawyer but my general take on these issues are:

You need to read the EULA (End User's License Agreement) to determine what it really states. Some software is not purchased as property but rather the creator grants the original purchaser only use of the code and it is not transferrable, e.g. if you didn't buy it yourself, you lawfully can not use it.

It's amazing what software creators can put into one of those agreements and frequently they state that they can not be held liable for anything even if it was their fault. Wish I could run a business with a permanent get out jail free card.

First off, are EULAs enforceable in court? I can't imagine they would be as I think I'm the only end user in the world who has ever read one. First time I did, it was for a M$ windoze install, and I was like "BS" and clicked do not accept. My boss finally came in and accepted it later that day. Anyway, I thought the fair use laws and junk like that trumped the EULAs.

Second, A lot of engineers I have seen have stamps they use for approved sumbittals which say, in essence, "Go ahead and provide this system, but YOU (the contractor) are liable, not me (the engineer), if this isn't what was spec'd, it isn't what the customer wants, or if it turns out this won't function properly, even if it doesn't work because my design was crappy"

They had some fancier words, but that was the jist. It wasn't so much an approval, as it was pre-passing the buck. Actually even had an engineer try to hang us on that when the system didn't work. Tried to tell us that approval note made it our responsibility to design a working system. This was, of course, after we had tried to help him out and show him it wouldn't work as designed and he rejected the initial submittal ... But hey, now I'm going off on another tangent.

I think the Rockwell guy was all wet. You bought the laptop AND the software legally, the license was legal when it was sold (ie not cracked and/or copied) so it is yours.

-jeff
 
Hakutsuru said:
First off, are EULAs enforceable in court? I can't imagine they would be as I think I'm the only end user in the world who has ever read one.
Oh yes. And there's a lot of precedents are as well.

Think about it, there are many type of license out there, trial license, limited distribution license, etc.. Software use are regulated by copyright law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_license_agreement

lists some prior cases.

I support copyright but I think DMCA (offtopic) sucks.
 
Wow. Been looking this stuff up. It actually looks like its a bit of a crapshoot whether an EULA will be enforceable. But I still don't see how they can prove who it was that clicked accept, or even if they have to prove accept was clicked at all (I know back in the old days, I hit escape and it worked half the time).

But, one thing that is much less of a crapshoot is that software licenses are transferrable, and as demonstrated by Mickey's crack detective work, no matter what thier EULA says, Rockwell must agree. So, once again, the rockwell rep was all wet.

I havent been able to find any cases where companies went after individuals for vioating and EULA. All of the court cases have been either competitors, or an end user bringing suit against a big company and the big company seeking dismissal based on the EULA. Did I miss something? Has a Rockwell tried to go after a Parky for buying thier software at a garage sale and using it?


-jeff
 
In my experience with Rockwell license agreements, I think that when Parky bought the laptop with the licenses from a defunct company, he became the de facto owner of the software license.

He can also become the registered owner of the license by filling out that registration change form (free). He is then eligible for purchase of a Tech Connect contract (paid) and can get support, updates, and activations for that software.

Integrators re-sell software licenses every day, and fill out those forms to transfer the ownership of the license to their customers.
 
I think the software suppliers (Rockwell and all the others) help to maintain the confusion among the user community whether they intend to or not.

Take, for example, the use of the word "owner". In the common world 'ownership' has certain implications and connotations: "I own that loaf of bread", "I am that dog's owner". With the loaf of bread, we take it that once we have paid the purchase fee we can do exactly what we like with it. It is ours. We have absolute control over it and no-one can stop us. On the other hand when you acquire a dog, you are its owner in the sense of being responsible for it, as well as having control over it. But even then the control is not all yours. You can not do what you want with that dog. In this country at least there are laws which place limits on what you can and can't do with a dog. You can't slice it like a loaf of bread without breaking a law. So in both cases you are the owner but your jurisdiction over the item is radically different.

With software I think the situation is more swayed towards dog than bread. Yes, you acquire it, and yes, Rockwell and others use the phrase that you are the "registered owner". But there is external legislation which affects your rights of disposal, transfer, use etc. Unfortunately I think most people, and not just in the automation business, think of software as being more like the loaf of bread. "It's mine. I bought it. I can do what I want with it."

Sorry, guys, but from my understanding when you bought Windows / Rockwell software / Siemens software / whatever, you bought a dog!

Regards

Ken
 
I don't know about that. I mean, I completely agree that when I buy windows I'm buying a dog, but thats a different thread altogether. And, instead of owning a dog, I think I would have used owning a woman as the example, but thats just me. A pre-nup is a lot like an EULA, isn't it? Marriage certificate is a bill of sale .... C'mon, who's with me?

There ARE limits on what you can do with your loaf of bread. You can't use it to try to rob a liquor store. You can't open it an resell it as new. You can't spread dog poop all over it and sell it as peanutbutter sandwhiches. Basically, you can't use your loaf of bread to break some other law. And thats what people were doing with software that EULAs came about to try to stop. They were using the software to break other laws, like copyrights. There aren't more restictions on what you can do with the loaf of bread because the bread is no longer living. I guess now we can look forward to EULAs on bread telling us not to spread poop on it, not to use a fork to get a stuck piece out of a toaster, not to cram it down someone's throat no matter how much they're whining about being hungry and there being nothing to eat ....

I don't think the EULAs were ever needed except to inform the average person "Hey, just so ya know, its against federal law for you to copy this and give/sell it to your friends" because the laws were already in place. And heck, I didn't know that stuff was illegal when i first started playing with computers, did yall?

You know software vendors are trying to get us to believe that we're no longer buying software, that we are just licensing it from them. So instead of it being a loaf of bread, or a wife, its now more like an apartment, or a rental car.

What were we talking about? Oh yeah. That software is not living and therefore does not have rights, like a wife or a dog.

-jeff
 

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