22 Feb
2006
22 Feb
'06
9:31 p.m.
On Wed, Feb 22, 2006 at 08:17:38PM +0000, Frank Wales wrote:
No, it isn't; licences are *not* contracts, and
never have been.
I never said that a license *is* a contract. But when you buy
a license, and thereby agree to its terms, that act creates
a contract between you and the entity that grants the license.
Licences are so called because they grant you
permission
to do something, but that's all they can do; they cannot oblige
you to do anything. Furthermore, a licence agreement, no matter
how sternly worded, cannot take away rights granted to you by
other legal authorities.
Again I never said it could. It usually grants you permission to
do something provided you observe certain conditions. Usually that
permission is void and you no longer have a license when those
conditions are violated.
A contract *can* limit what you can do, but contracts
require legal
niceties, such as "a meeting of minds" and "consideration",
neither of which are possible in a shrink-wrap licence agreement.
In some circumstances, just raising your hand can create a contract.
When you buy a CD, or some software, the circumstances are usually
quite clear. There is not need to spell them out. There's no need
to put a 'No trespassing' sign on your door. Thieves already know
this.
Even if a licence agreement claims it's a
contract, it isn't.
Agreed, but see above.
For example, if your local laws already permit you to
make copies of
a CD for personal use, then an accompanying licence agreement
that says you may not copy it is irrelevant, since you already
have permission to copy it, and you don't need it again.
No matter how much that annoys the CD's creators, they would
have no legal power to restrict your copying when the
law lets you do it anyway.
Correct, but that contributes nothing to your point that a
license is not a contract. And when your local laws do not
permit you to copy said CD, then the conditions of the
license *do* apply. Anyway, making such a copy for anything
else than personal use *is* illegal in most places.
Also, if a licence agreement only grants you
permission
to do something under certain conditions ("you may only run
this software if you don't reverse engineer it"), you might be
allowed to do it anyway, since there are many laws that already
grant you permission to do things without needing to agree to the
licensor's terms.
There *may* be. That's no reason to assume you have no obligations
at all.
--
FA