On Wed, May 08, 2002 at 09:31:06AM +0100, Gary wrote:
On Tuesday 07 May 2002 11:54 pm, Frank Shute wrote: [snip]
Which is why I believe I'm not breaking the law by running one licensed copy of NT on 2 different machines, laptop & workstation, because to my mind it constitutes fair use the same way you can copy an audio CD for personal use.
I thought that was still breaking copyright?
I think I remember reading a court case where the copying of LPs (I think you're too young to remember those Gary;) to tape was considered fair game.
I must write to Microsoft and ask them to sue me, might be fun.
Goes without saying IANAL. I'd like to hear others opinions on the `fair use' argument I've espoused here.
Don't schools copy some sections of printed educational material and isn't that also considered fair use? Where do you draw the line? Why's software considered so different from other data?
Back when I was at school, (yes they did have schools then), staff used to copy parts of reference manuals, text books etc., but even then they kney that they were actually breaking copyright law.
Unless the law's changed since then it's still illegal to photocopy copyrighted material without the express permission of the copyright owner.
I thought that if the school had a copy(s) of the book in their library then copying bits of it eg. for setting questions etc. was also fair use. I certainly haven't heard of schools being busted for doing so and I can't imagine the author of a school textbook being willing to support such an action nor the publisher for that matter. It's another one of those grey areas regards copyright I think. -- Frank *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Boroughbridge. Tel: 01423 323019 --------- PGP keyID: 0xC0B341A3 *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* http://www.esperance-linux.co.uk/ "Yes, and I feel bad about rendering their useless carci into dogfood..." -- Badger comics