Appeals Court Rules Some Software Can’t Be Bought

So when you buy software in the store, you are just paying for the license to use it. You don’t own anything, the program that gave you the license can revoke it at any time.  As one person that pointed out, It’s not like any standard system of renting, in the end you don’t own the software that you went into the store and paid for. Comment found here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/12/appeals-court-rules- some-_n_713652.html (Read the whole article while you’re at it 🙂 )

It is of course even more strange in the Software Download world, where you don’t have any physical media that you can give to someone else.  Let’s just say don’t give your friend a copy of a downloaded program that you paid for, you can get in some trouble with the company behind the program.

In the end, you don’t own any programs installed on your computer, you’re just being allowed to use them by the company that you paid.  They can revoke your license to use the program at any time, at which point, you either have to pay for it again, or use it illegally, or move to a different program. (Hopefully Open Source, which doesn’t go by the same rules)

Man am I glad that I use Linux, and other free software. 🙂

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