David Woolley scripsit: > You can buy a book (i.e. hardware consisting of paper and ink), but > you can't buy the novel that it contains (the author will not assign > copyright to you).
No, of course not. But when I buy the book, the first-sale right is exhausted; when I buy proprietary software, it is not, and I have no right to resell. The difference is that the book is purchased whereas the proprietary software is only licensed. > Incidenally, UK publishers do, or at least did, put constraints on > the resale of books (not to be sold or lent in any cover other than > the original). That happens in the U.S. too. A retailer can get full credit for a book by returning just the cover, but they are then not entitled to resell the rest of the book. Exhaustion hasn't kicked in at that point because the retailer is not an ultimate purchaser. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan co...@ccil.org I marvel at the creature: so secret and so sly as he is, to come sporting in the pool before our very window. Does he think that Men sleep without watch all night? --Faramir _______________________________________________ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
