From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, 21 September 2010 11:25 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Intel wants to charge to unlock features already on your CPU
If I buy something, it's generally held that I can do what I want with it. When you say "buy", are you talking about handing over money for something in return? If so, then your assertion above is completely incorrect. There are many contractual situations where payment is made, where you can't do what you want. Leasing is one huge area that has been around for a long time. Licensing is another, that has similarly been around for a long time. Do you think you can lease some advertising space, and then do whatever you want with it - like destroy the wall that you are to put your advert up onto? Absolutely not (well, I suppose you could if your leasing agreement allowed that). Nor are you allowed to display your advertisement in perpetuity to the exclusion of other advertisers. Even with real property (typically physical goods like land) a contract can divide rights between parties (e.g. I can sell you some land for a reduced price but you only get to keep it for as long as you live) If you give me something, that's an entirely different situation. If I buy the rights to something for a certain period, you can be darn sure that there's an agreement I'm signing. This specific issue of processors being sold with an unlock code is happening at the retail level. Typically at this level, you're buying it lock stock and barrel. We're chartering new territory in this specific area. As a consumer product, perhaps we are charting new territory. As far as common law goes, I don't think we're charting particularly new territory at all. Do you know that you can get on an airplane, and there's in-seat entertainment. If you buy an expensive fare, the entertainment's "included", and if you buy a cheap fare, you have to pay for it? The functionality's all there. But effectively the unit is "crippled" until additional payment is made. I don't doubt there are many other, more similar cases, out there. But this was the first that popped into my head. I'm familiar with the concept that you can give or sell something with restricted rights. Those kinds of agreements are usually contractual and occur between buyers with resources to spend on the transaction process. We are now seeing similar transactions move into the retail space, except we have buyers and sellers with vastly different resources, and that is where case law needs to be generated, Maybe you are thinking of estoppel, or similar doctrines. But generally contracts do not care for the resources between parties. Provided there is not illegal duress, then contract law does not care. Cheers Ken and is indeed being generated (iPhone jailbreaking). To the average consumer (who, I'll admit is generally speaking dumb) they believe that if they go into the store to buy something, they own it and can do with it what they please, generally they operate the item in a way the manufacturer intended, sometimes not, and they (generally) should be free to operate it as they wish. If, as a coproration you take a risk and ship a product with more capabilities that you wish to unlock later, either do a better job of QA in locking down said feature, or don't grumble when someone spends their time and their effort to unlock it. Are your manufacturing costs lower? Sure. But you're still maknig profit, just not at your desired level, so therefore, raise it to your desired level. If you find that your product doesn't sell at that level, then perhaps the market is right and your price is set incorrectly. Again this is at the retail level, if you in a business to business transaction signed a contract agreeing to not reverse engineer or figure out how to unlock additional features, then I'd side with the manufacturer. At the retail level, I'll side with the consumer, because the power level of the buyers and sellers are vastly different. Yes, caveat emptor and all that, but it's really an empty saying when the market favors the seller. On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 10:58 AM, Ken Schaefer <k...@adopenstatic.com<mailto:k...@adopenstatic.com>> wrote: There's nothing "new" about this in case law whatsoever (at least from English common law - I'm not familiar with continental law) Licencing has been around for the better part of 200 years. The ability to split the rights of property into distinct parts (e.g. you can give possession to one person for the term of their life, and then have it pass to someone else) has been around for at least a century. Cheers Ken From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com<mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com>] Sent: Tuesday, 21 September 2010 9:58 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Intel wants to charge to unlock features already on your CPU Typically, that involved the single issue of illegal possession of some physical item. There's a whole area of new law that needs to be made on this area. We're now in the situation where I legally own something, have legal physical possession, but you're retaining certain rights in relation to that item, and we've signed no agreement to that effect. We have 3,400+ years of, if it's mine, I can do what I want with it, too. We have case law to that effect. Are we now putting EULAs on hardware? On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 9:43 AM, Raper, Jonathan - Eagle <jra...@eaglemds.com<mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com>> wrote: Isn't stealing illegal in most countries? IIRC, that concept goes all the way back to the days of Moses...about 3,400 years ago, give or take a century ;-) Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE Technology Coordinator Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA jra...@eaglemds.com<mailto:jra...@eaglemds.com> www.eaglemds.com<http://www.eaglemds.com/> -----Original Message----- From: Ben Scott [mailto:mailvor...@gmail.com<mailto:mailvor...@gmail.com>] Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 9:00 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Intel wants to charge to unlock features already on your CPU On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 10:51 PM, Ken Schaefer <k...@adopenstatic.com<mailto:k...@adopenstatic.com>> wrote: > You are getting what you paid for. And if you then decide you need something > better, you can unlock those features without having to replace your CPU. It wouldn't bother me so much except that you're actually getting the hardware, and then these companies inevitably try to enforce their business model through legislation which makes "unapproved activation" illegal. -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com<mailto:listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com<mailto:listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
