O O Ø O O O O
The Culture Of The License
Imagine, no posessions. If Lennon only knew, it ain’t the utopia he thought it would be...
In the near future, no-one will own anything, and we have intellectual property to blame.
It happened like this. Somewhere along the line, a software company somewhere decided it didn’t like the fair use provisions that copyright law were placing on it. Under plain-old copyright law, users were renting, reverse engineering, backing up, and publishing benchmark information about the software products that they purchased. Even worse, the software company was in danger of being held accountable for defects and design flaws in their software products.
To address the unreasonable rights afforted by the intellectual property law, the software world brought us this great concept: the software license. Can’t control what your customers are doing with the items you sold them? Stop giving them anything tangible. Simply lend it to them for a while.
The Software Product is owned by XXX or its suppliers and is protected by copyright laws and international copyright treaties, as well as other intellectual property laws and treaties. THE SOFTWARE PRODUCT IS LICENSED, NOT SOLD.
What a cute trick. Not only does it entirely circumvent any benefit that traditional IP laws have extended the public in exchange for a limited monopoly (such as fair use). It also gives each and every IP owner the opportunity to play God, assigning whatever inane and banal terms he, she, or it feel like requiring.
Try this one out: you can use this product, but you can’t tell anyone if it sucks (the No Benchmarking clause included with just about every vendor’s Database software).
Or: We won’t tell you what it does, and once you find out, you have to keep it (by breaking this seal, you accept this agreement) Oops. You broke the seal to read the license? Sorry, opened software is unreturnable.
ADDITIONAL LIMITATIONS. You may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Software Product, except to the extent such foregoing restriction is expressly prohibited by applicable law notwithstanding this limitation. You may not rent, lease, lend, or transfer the Software Product. You may not disclose the results of any benchmark test of either the Server Software or Client Software to any third party without XXX’s prior written approval.
Now, get creative with the licensing terms, and you can own all sorts of IP that you didn’t pay to develop. Here’s a good one: By looking at this source code, you agree to ship any closely similar reimplementations, including those using similar or derived algorithms, data models, or page flows under this license.
Pardon? Though the IP owner doesn’t own patents on any of the process items in the software, the terms of the license say you have to relinquish any rights you have in the area. Software licenses actually free the IP owners from having to patent their inventions.
But software was just the beginning. Genetic material has already happened. Farmers no longer buy seed. They purchase a one-year license. Want to use any of the seeds collected in the following harvest? Sorry, they’re not yours. Pay up, or return the seeds. What do you mean you grew them? They contain our DNA, or a derivitave therein.
Books and music are the obvious next choices. Buy a CD? No way. Purchase a six month license. Want to whistle the tune after that, you have to pay to pucker.
Looked under the hood of your Ford Explorer? Your license agreement says you assign any closely similar reimplementations back to Ford. Don’t even think about working in the Auto industry. Who needs patents when you have licenses?
Hell, who needs IP? Licenses grant you more rights than you could ever have under those pesky copyright and patent laws, without any of the irritating concessions. Limited monopoly? Nope. Licenses are perpetual. Fair use? Sorry, you gave that away when you clicked on the button.
By the way, by reading this document, you consent to the terms of my license. I’ll expect your first-born soon.
Kjell Wooding
Tuesday, August
14,
2001
PD DVIII