Dear Owen:
I was indicating a contract that was specific to the intellectual
property involved. As you know very well: to have a contract, certain
things must exist. Often with software, a meeting of the minds between the
two parties is absent ("agreement" is inside of the software package or is
too vague) or at least highly attenuated because of no chance to bargain. A
license is usually a contract.
One of the best such agreements that I have seen is one that was used by
WordPerfect. It was short, clear, and provided for the natural needs of
both parties.
One of the worst was a proffered contract (for the purchase of a
quantity of computers plus software) by a very major computer company that
was long, convoluted, and essentially wanted your first born son it there
were any deviation from the terms. At the same time, a contract was
proffered by a then major Midwestern company. It was on one side of a piece
of paper, clear, and said that as long as good faith was shown to comply
with all of the terms, there would be no penalties assessed. The effects on
comparing these two documents is obvious.
Of course, if the subject matter is lawful, parties may contract anything.
However, the courts may not enforce some contracts depending on the nature
of the clause at issue and the manner in which the contract was presented.
The contracts least likely to have problems are those between parties of
roughly equal bargaining power.
No matter what the issue is, I always advise clients to practice the
golden-rule. Do not ask for too much. Do not promise too much. Be
reasonable. Be clear.
I an not sure, but I do not think that I disagree with what you have
presented.
I will be off to bed with one more example of what the law is and should
be: the contract provisions of an insurance contract were being contested
in court: the judge took judicial notice that a reasonable person would
find a contradiction between what was on one page and what was on another
page, thus that clause means whatever the plaintiff thinks it means. After
that judgment, that type of contract became much more clear.
There is more to a contract than the words of the contract - sometimes.
73, Mac N8TT
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J. Mc Laughlin; Michigan U.S.A.
Post by Owen DuffyOn Wed, 12 Jul 2006 23:12:20 -0400, "J. Mc Laughlin"
Post by J. Mc LaughlinAbsent a specific contract to the contrary, one who legally purchases a
copyrighted work may sell it, destroy it, read it if it can be read, and run
it on a computer if it is software. Such a lawful copy may be used to
facilitate the crafting of another work (such as using WordPerfect to write
a letter) or may be used to facilitate the fabrication of useful articles
(such as the use of EZNEC to design an antenna that is improved in some
way).
Mac, I am not sure of you meaning of a "specific contract".
It is often the case that we acquire software (being a copyright work)
under a licence that is an agreement between the licensor and the
licensee.
The agreement may be in the form of a general license, for instance an
end user licence that the user is deemed to have accepted in using the
software, or it could be in the form of a specific formal agreement
executed by the parties.
That agreement may limit the licensee's rights, including the purpose
for which software is used.
I give an example, the BestOne mainframe performance evaluation suite
licence limited it use to execution a specific computer and explicitly
only for analysis of performance data collected from that computer.
Isn't the license agreement like any contract in that the parties can
agree to anything lawful.
It seems to me that one has to read the relevant licence agreement to
form a view on what is or isn't permitted by the licence in addition
to any rights under copyright statutes.
Owen
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