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Originally Posted by HarryT
If you read the terms and conditions on the web site you're buying from, you'll be fully informed before you buy precisely what it is that you're buying. I think you'll find that you are buying a restricted licence. This is a fact, not merely "what some publishers claim".
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It's been ruled that
calling a sale a "license" doesn't make it so; purchases are different from licenses-to-use in more than phrasing.
In one section, the judge noted a case where a person's "license" required she:
use the print only for her “personal use and enjoyment,” was required to retain possession of the print “at all times,” and could not sell, lease, license, or loan the print to any other person. Id. Despite the absolute bar on transferring the film, the court found that the “transaction strongly resembl[ed] a sale with restrictions on the use of the print.” Id. The
court held that the defendant could rely on the first sale doctrine with respect to his later sales of the print.
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If you find the terms of sale objectionable the choice is simple - exercise your choice as a consumer not to buy.
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I don't buy DRM'd works.
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All the information is there for you to see before you make your purchase.
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No, it's not.
There's generally some unenforceable, illegal terms in the TOS or EULA... things like "You may not modify, publish, transmit, display, participate in the transfer or sale, create derivative works, or in any way exploit, any of the content, in whole or in part."--even when the content in question is in the public domain.
Nobody has the right to say "you may not copy the words from MY public domain text." Which makes the rest of the terms questionable... if some sections are beyond their legal ability to demand, how much of the rest of it is also legally meaningless?
And many sites don't explain DRM at all, don't tell you that there's any restrictions on the books you can buy other than "you'll need this software to read them." They don't bother saying, "it's against our rules to attempt to read them on anything else."