[pc86]

If software is licensed, and you don't comply with the license, you don't have a right to use it. Seems pretty straightforward.

In this example, if you steal a piece of hardware with embedded software on it, it seems unlikely that you're licensed to use that piece of software.

[hansvm]

Seems like a stretch. The person interacting with the hardware need not know or care about the software. Under that same logic I think you could:

(1) Buy an alarm clock with an embedded chip

(2) Contained in the packaging was a link to a license agreement. You never read it and certainly didn't agree to it.

(3) A year later, weekday alarms are remotely disabled because you've used up your free trial. The license specifies $3/mo as the rate to continue being woken up on weekdays.

Courts are already not upholding a lot of this "reading this ToS constitutes agreement to all future versions" bullshit in modern software, and I doubt they'd be friendly to the idea that somebody can be beholden to a contract they had no good reason to even know about.

[mminer237]

In that case, I think you'd potentially have a counter-claim for breach of implied warranty.

In your scenario, the buyer wouldn't have a contract other than they bought the clock and it was implied to work as a clock. You could have a claim for breaking the device, but the first-sale doctrine gives you copyright protection regardless of what you do to the clock.

In the article, thieves have no contract, so they have no right to anything to do with the devices.

[Red_Leaves_Flyy]

Have you seen the recent rulings out of the Supreme Court? They’re ruling off of their feelings and poorly justifying their conclusions by working backwards and making stuff up from whole cloth whenever necessary.

[Thorrez]

Examples?

[Red_Leaves_Flyy]

https://www.fivefourpod.com/

Don’t take a random dudes word for it. These lawyers put their real names with their opinions when calling out the ideological hacks masquerading as Supreme Court justices.

[teddyh]

> If software is licensed, and you don't comply with the license, you don't have a right to use it.

What law is this based on? If you say copyright law, then how can I be in violation if I have not made a copy? If you say contract law, arguing that the license is a form of contract, then how can I be bound by it if I have not signed it, agreed to it, or even read it?

[mminer237]

Hmmm...that's a fair point. It would definitely be copyright law, but I'm not sure if it would actually work. I know downloading copyrighted material into RAM still counts as a violation, so the argument would probably be that running the software illegally copies code they have no rights to from storage to RAM.

[teddyh]

> I know downloading copyrighted material into RAM still counts as a violation,

Maybe in some jurisdictions, but I’m pretty sure many places exclude copies necessary for the operation of the software to not be violations of copyright law.

I mean, extend the same reasoning to web pages. Your web browser downloads a web page (let’s pretend this does not count as a copy). It keeps the HTML in an in-memory cache. The browser then sends the HTML to its internal renderer, which renders the page. Boom, a copy of the HTML (or at least a derived work of it) now exists in the renderer. Have you now violated the copyright of the page author?

[Thorrez]

But to use software you acquire, you have to copy it into your computer's RAM and maybe hard drive. That's relevant to copyright law. To use this hardware device you stole, you don't need to do that. So it's much less clear copyright law would apply. Reflashing the device with new firmware though, then copyright law could apply.

[teddyh]

> you don't have a right to use it. Seems pretty straightforward.

But why do I have to accept a license? I already have a copy of the software; what law says I can’t run the copy I have?

[pc86]

For the same reason "finders keepers" isn't codified law. By that logic, nobody is allowed to controls the means by which their software is run. You don't get to decide if people have to pay you, or if people have to have your permission first, or if they're allowed to (legally) copy it, etc.

[teddyh]

> By that logic, nobody is allowed to controls the means by which their software is run.

As far as I know, this is true.

> You don't get to decide if people have to pay you,

No law says I have to, AFAIK.

> or if people have to have your permission first

There’s no law I know which gives authors this right of deciding whether anyone has the right to run the software.

> or if they're allowed to (legally) copy it, etc.

Copying is regulated by copyright law. But once I have acquired a copy, what law disallows me from running that copy however I want?

[Thorrez]

How are you going to use it? You have to copy it to your hard drive, right?

[teddyh]

AFAIK, many jurisdictions have rules clarifying that any incidental copies, like installing it, or copying it to RAM, or to the various CPU and SSD caches, are necesssary for the operation of the software, and are therefore not counted as breaches of copyright.

If this was not so, copyright holders could sue all the router and switch operators in the world for copying pirated works by merely having the network packets temporarily in their packet buffers.

[Thorrez]

Yeah, I don't know the law about incidental copies and RAM and stuff. But I think we shouldn't lump that with using a dedicated piece of hardware, because I think there is a difference between the two. Whether that difference is relevant in the law, I'm not sure.

Wouldn't router and switch operators be considered distributors rather than publishers?

>Prior to the Internet, case law was clear that a liability line was drawn between publishers of content and distributors of content; a publisher would be expected to have awareness of material it was publishing and thus should be held liable for any illegal content it published, while a distributor would likely not be aware and thus would be immune.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230#Background_and_pas...