Alexander Terekhov <terekhov@web.de> writes:
Hyman Rosen wrote:
[...]
You miss the essential difference - when you download a copy of
a GPLed program, it is you who is making the copy, and therefore
you are bound by the license (if you choose to be; if not, then
Let NYSD.USCOURTS.GOV know about that, Hyman. <chuckles>
http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/courtweb/pdf/D02NYSC/01-07482.PDF
<quote>
unlike the user of Netscape Navigator or other click-wrap or shrink-
wrap licensees, the individual obtaining SmartDownload is not made
aware that he is entering into a contract. SmartDownload is available
from Netscape's web site free of charge. Before downloading the
software, the user need not view any license agreement terms or even
any reference to a license agreement, and need not do anything to
manifest assent to such a license agreement other than actually
taking possession of the product. From the user's vantage point,
SmartDownload could be analogized to a free neighborhood newspaper,
readily obtained from a sidewalk box or supermarket counter without
any exchange with a seller or vender. It is there for the taking.
[...]
But I can't take the "free neighbourhood newspaper", snap photographs of
its underwear models and sell them to underwear admirers. That is, I am
free to take the literal existing copies. I can hand them on. But
nothing allows me to create my own copies with my own copying mechanism
or _modify_ existing copies and create derivatives for distributing.
What I _can_ do is grab every free neighbourhood newspaper I can get and
sell them on Ebay. But I can't make my own copies or modifications
without permission and distribute them as original works.