|
A software license is a legal instrument (usually by way of contract law, with or without printed material) governing the use or redistribution of software. Under United States copyright law all software is copyright protected, except material in the public domain. A typical software license grants an end-user permission to use one or more copies of software in ways where such a use would otherwise potentially constitute copyright infringement of the software owner's exclusive rights under copyright law. In addition to granting rights and imposing restrictions on the use of software, software licenses typically contain provisions which allocate liability and responsibility between the parties entering into the license agreement. In enterprise and commercial software transactions these terms often include limitations of liability, warranties and warranty disclaimers, and indemnity if the software infringes intellectual property rights of others. Software licenses can generally be fit into the following categories: proprietary licenses and free and open source. The significant feature that distinguishes them are the terms under which the end-user may further distribute or copy the software. == Software licenses and copyright law == In the United States, Section 117 of the Copyright Act gives the owner of a particular copy of software the explicit right to use the software with a computer, even if use of the software with a computer requires the making of incidental copies or adaptations (acts which could otherwise potentially constitute copyright infringement). Therefore, the owner of a copy of computer software is legally entitled to use that copy of software. Hence, if the end-user of software is the owner of the respective copy, then the end-user may legally use the software without a license from the software publisher. As many proprietary "licenses" only enumerate the rights that the user already has under , and yet proclaim to take rights away from the user, these contracts may lack consideration. Proprietary software licenses often proclaim to give software publishers more control over the way their software is used by keeping ownership of each copy of software with the software publisher. By doing so, Section 117 does not apply to the end-user and the software publisher may then compel the end-user to accept all of the terms of the license agreement, many of which may be more restrictive than copyright law alone. The form of the relationship determines if it is a lease or a purchase, for example ''UMG v. Augusto''〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=UMG v. Augusto )〕 or ''Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc.''〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Court smacks Autodesk, affirms right to sell used software )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Vernor v. Autodesk )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「software license」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|