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Re: [Samplestation] TRADING SAMPLES CD
Title: Re: [Samplestation] TRADING SAMPLES
CD
At 8:34 PM +0000 3/27/01, Devious D_MasterMixer wrote:
I am curious ? Is this even legal ? After
all that hallabaloo about Napster and electronic trading of media, can
we sell, trade or even give away "software"
., even if
we buy it ? For example, I have an old copy of Sonic Foundry Sound
Forge 4.5 that I purchased. I recently purchased Sound Forge 5.0, now
I no longer need 4.5, can I sell that ? Or trade it, if so what's the
difference between that and trading on Napster (except that Napster
has 1,000's of people trading 100,000's of files, and I have just 1
Sound Forge 4.5). Does the volume of the trade matter, or is
it the principle of it all?
Selling, or even giving away, a copy of software is theft if you
also retain a copy for yourself. When you purchase a copy of software
you are not buying the software outright. You are paying for a license
to use the software.
Different software companies have different policies concerning
such licenses. Some are quite strict and consider it a breach of the
license if you even run the software on more than one computer, and
some companies even forbid the transfer of the license to another
party. Other companies are more lenient and it is relatively common
for transfer of a license to be authorized by the company. In this
case you would have to give up all use of the software yourself,
transfer your serial number and/or authorization code to the new
licensee, and in some cases the new user would pay a fee for the
transfer.
So in your specific case, if you bought Sound Forge 4.5 at full
price and then you also bought Sound Forge 5.0 a full price, you could
probably sell or give away the older version. But if you bought an
upgrade from Sound Forge 4.5 to 5.0 at a special upgrade price, then
your selling or giving away the older version is theft (or
"piracy" if you prefer that term).
During my first year or so of using the Mac I stole all the
software I had. I felt justified because I was poor and because I
assumed that the software companies were probably rich (and anyway,
they were probably bad people because they wanted money for their
products). I took great delight in being able to "crack"
copy protection and make copies of key disks. Then one day at the NAMM
show I met someone I knew who had just started a software company and
had two very "kewl" interactive MIDI programs for the
Mac. I HAD to have them, and I couldn't wait for someone to crack the
copy protection. Besides, here was somebody I actually knew and he was
creating something really great. I whipped out my newly-acquired
credit card and bought both programs on the spot.
These days I'm less poor than I was, and I have personal and
sometimes professional relationships with a lot of the people whose
software I use. I have legitimate paid-for licenses for all the
software I use. I recommend you do the same.
P.S. I'll be interested in what my friends at Steinberg,
Cakewalk, E-mu, Nemesys, eMagic, Spectrasonics, et al
think about your "swap lists."
--
______________________________________________________________
Richard Zvonar, PhD
zvonar@zvonar.com
(818) 788-2202 voice
zvonar@LCSaudio.com
(818) 788-2203 fax
zvonar@well.com
http://www.zvonar.com
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