Alan Davies wrote:

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I think, as with most laws, the owness is on YOU to know and/or find out what the laws are. Its part of your job - even if its not in the Job description.

The word is "onus" and I'm pretty sure it's on the *supplier* (acting on behalf of the manufacturer) to tell you when they subject you to an agreement which differs from a conventional retail purchase in any way. The law about buying and selling goods is clear and well-established. Any additional conditions sellers might want to impose on buyers---*not* "licensees", are open to legal question.

No number of shrink-wrap clauses can change the Sale of Goods Act---a product should be "fit for its advertised purpose" for example. (No matter what M$ says, if they sell you a word-processor that doesn't word-process you are entitled to your money back---and I believe this one in particular has a concrete precedent with M$'s own software in an English court.)

I am pretty sure that many of the conditions attached to software "licences"

The whole idea behind a software licence is that you can't use software without copying. Which was apparently good enough technobabble to convince some US courts. But probably not quite good enough, hence UCITA...

simply wouldn't stand up under English law and it's noticeable that M$ and others are in no hurry to test them out in front of a judge. The idea, for

There are two issues here. a) a fair number of the terms and conditions in these licences are void under UK and EU law anyway. b) they don't appear to fulfil the conditions for a contract under UK law at all.

example, that they continue to own *your* copy of the software after selling it to you is absurd. How can you state on the outside of a packet that the purchaser actually receives nothing for his or her money and then complain when people choose not to pay for that same precisely delineated nothing? Even if some court was mad enough to uphold that clause of their "EULA" do you think Bill et al. would want that aspect of their "contract" with their "licensees" to be made public? Not likely. People who pirate M$ software on a large scale and then, when they've been rumbled, settle out of court play straight into the big software companies' hands (see below).

Problem is that it litigation dosn't work well where one party has much deeper pockets than the other. Effectivily the latter can drag things out until the former is bankrupt. The only way of even getting a fair chance would be through legal aid.

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YOU could therefore be found wanting if materials in use in your school are not licenced correctly.

I have little sympathy with those who flaunt licencing laws.

I think the word you're looking for is "flout" and I *do* have a great deal of sympathy with people who "break" the questionable *letter* of many proprietary "licenses", but not the legal *spirit* of copyright law. Ironically, I go to extraordinary lengths to avoid doing either myself. (Just in passing, what are

Problem is that even "extraordinary" lengths might not be sufficent to comply with the letter of some of these licence agreements. It wouldn't surprise me if the actually *letter* is mutually exclusive with use in schools. But it's politically incorrect to refuse to use the software.

these "licencing laws" of which you write? Are multinational software companies framing this country's legislation now?) Even people here at the

Considering they have been framing at least one country's legislation it wouldn't surprise me. Especially since Bill and Tony appear a little too friendly :)

Institute of Cancer Research---where we are already extremely anal about software "licensing"---gasp at my excruciating nose-cutting-off-to-spite-my-face. I pride myself on not doing anything which might "break" a "license", except where this involves breaking the *real* law or the laws of physics, because it allows me to take the high moral ground over proprietary software issues (which I do with tedious frequency).

-- Mark Evans St. Peter's CofE High School Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109 Fax: +44 1392 204763