[denton-scratch]

> "are licenses contracts"

IANAL. But, obviously, a license is a license, and a contract is a contract.

If I produce a copyrighted work, you can't copy it without my permission, which is what a license is. If I grant you a license, I can require that you do something for me in return (e.g. pay me), and I can restrict what you can do with your copies. That's a contract, and if you violate it's terms, you might lose the license.

What did I miss?

[mqus]

In the german context, everything that is agreed upon with two or more parties is a contract (afaik, I'm not a lawyer). Buying something => (implicit) contract. agreeing to cookies => contract. T&C on a website => contract. Borrowing something from a friend => (very implicit and vague) contract.

accepting a license (maybe implicitly by downloading content) => contract.

Lawyers and courts then decide if certain clauses are ok and valid or not, if and when someone sues. I'm not sure what differences you see between contracts and licenses. In Both cases, both parties have obligations and responsibilities to follow, in return for a gain (or sometimes no gain).

[ralferoo]

> I'm not sure what differences you see between contracts and licenses.

The licence is the permission to do something that without the licence you would not be permitted to do.

The contract is the agreement between the licensor and licensee as to the specific terms that surround the granting of that licence.

Consider a company licensing music - company A and B might both have an identical licence to use a particular song for any purpose, but the contracts they agreed for payments could be very different based on expected usage.

Breaking the terms of the licence is using the thing in a way that the licence doesn't expressly permit, e.g. if you have a licence to use any song from a company's entire catalogue for a TV show, but you then use it for a different show or in a film. Another example: I've worked on a computer game where we had a licence to use a particular song in-game, but not in promotional material.

Breaking the terms of the contract is failing to uphold your obligations, e.g. failing to pay an agreed annual fee or the correct amount of royalties.

[throw_m239339]

> I'm not sure what differences you see between contracts and licenses

In some countries, the difference is the kind of court or tribunal that is involved in the dispute.

[gamblor956]

You missed the part where a license is a type of contract...

A copyright license is a contract, wherein the copyright owner agrees to allow a third party the use of their copyrighted material in exchange for [X]. X might be money, or it might be an agreement to limit how the copyrighted material is used. There isn't another document or anything that says "License to Use [Copyrighted Material]",

This means that losing the "license" is the same as saying you no longer have an agreement allowing you to use the copyrighted material.