Comment by gpm
1 day ago
By my understanding EULAs are based on contract law and having a clickwrap agreement that requires you agree to it before using the software, not copyright law. Except perhaps to the extent that copyright law would prevent you from creating a derivative work that doesn't require you to agree to that clickwrap agreement prior to using the software.
How does that solve it? Alice buys the software, clicks "agree" so that it runs and then sells it to Bob who uses it without ever agreeing.
Somewhere deep in the legalese Alice agreed she would not do that, i.e. "non transferable license".
Isn't that the part that would violate the first sale doctrine?
3 replies →
So too is the GPL a contract, or at least nobody has proven that it is not a contract and the SFC will fight to prove that it is
Sure, maybe anyways but let's assume it is, the parties to that contract are the manufacturer and the copyright holder. The contract allows the manufacturer to distribute it to the distributor without requiring the distributor to agree to the terms and itself become a party. The distributor can then sell the device with the software on it on without acquiring a license and becoming a party to the contract because the copyright has been exhausted (first sale doctrine).
EULA's get around this by forcing the end user to become a party to the contract via a click wrap agreement. There is usually no such click wrap agreement binding the distributor in the case of the GPL. And the GPL doesn't require the creation or maintenance of such a click wrap agreement so the manufacturer would be free to remove it even if the original software had one.
Like when I buy a second hand book and then I start printing copies of the book and selling them without any agreement with the original author or publisher?
4 replies →