Software has a long legal history being a licensed product going back to the first commercial mainframes. Most companies didn't buy computers or the OS that ran on them, the hardware was leased and the software was licensed. I'm talking pre PC era.
History
informs but should not
dictate. We live in an age where computer ownership is a very real thing for the average person. Times have changed and now we've got bloated software companies hanging on to that old model because it allows them to stiff consumers without any recourse for the latter.
Most people don't even realize they're buying a license. You ask your Aunt Dolly whether or not she owns the copy of Windows 95 on her old computer and she'll say, "sure, I paid for it, didn't I?" Yet she doesn't, and according to the software companies, never did. And according to them they could revoke her right to use it and charge her for infringing upon their copyright at any time. There's something
intensely wrong with that level of
disconnection going on between legal facts and common sense.
Think about it. A toy company can make as many wooden rocking horses as they can obtain materials for, and sell them to people. Are those people buying a license to use that wooden rocking horse? No, they're buying ownership of that one, particular, wooden rocking horse. Now, that doesn't give them the right to reverse-engineer the design and make their own imitation wooden rocking horses (patent and possibly copyright law covers that, unless I miss my guess), but it does mean that the company can't come, revoke their license, and take the horse back.
Yet, somehow, a software company can produce as many copies of a piece of software as they can find storage space or bandwidth for, and sell them to people, and later
revoke the buyer's right to use them, because of a little line saying "licensed, not sold". Why, all of a sudden, does the same system that works for wooden rocking horses, suddenly fail when applied to software, making "licensed, not sold" a necessity? I contend that it's not failing - it's just not being used. Software companies don't want to adapt to the times and are keeping hold of the outmoded licensing system simply for the leverage it offers over the consumer. There's something
intensely wrong with that.
But in the mean time I think the sure way to combat this is still, do not enter into agreements that are suspect. A certain group is offering a product, I like the product, but the history is spotty with criminal activities. Do I buy and enter into a contract verbal email, electronic, paper either one and then get highly pissed when I'm the fall guy even though it stated in the agreement that I will be the fall guy? Sometimes it's up to the customer to take some responsibility for their own actions and be smarter and not enter into or even bother with suspect agreements. More people did that, then less money they will make, the more they may change tactics. and way of doing business. But the more they can find many people that will agree to anything and not take responsibility for their own action of agreeing, then they wont change and will continue to see how much those people will agree to anything as long as they show a carrot and shiny item.
While you've got a point JaguarX, that it's kinda up to the consumer to not enter into license agreements that hold provisions like this,
most people aren't even aware such agreements exist, and software companies are in no hurry to tell them. Can you read a full copy of the software's EULA before you take that software box out of the store? If you bring it back to the store, opened, and say, "I'm sorry, I refused the EULA of this software, I want a refund" will you get it? Usually the answer is no, and I'm speaking from experience on that. I actually tried this once with the Wal-Mart in my old neighborhood and got escorted out of the store. And yes, the EULA had a provision that stated, "If you do not accept this EULA, return the software to your place of purchase for a full refund." Fat lot of good that did me, I couldn't prove the EULA said that without booting up the installer, even had I been offered the chance to do so!
Not only is that kind of underhanded behavior common practice, you've also got to consider that some software you just aren't going to get by without. Let's face it, if you want to play video games, you're going to have to run Windows. Sure, you can sometimes get around it with linux wrappers and the like, but those aren't perfect by a long shot. Windows is basically
the operating system that professional software companies develop for. They hold all but a monopoly on the PC gaming market. Most PCs that aren't custom built either by you or someone you've hired/cajoled into doing so will come with a Windows operating system by default - you've basically accepted their EULA the minute you first boot them up, you didn't have a choice in the matter. The vast majority of people have no reasonable way of getting around that. It's something you have to accept if you want to use a prebuilt manufactured PC.
So, not only are most people not aware that a choice needs to be made on whether to accept these agreements, there's a lot of instances out there where you're not given a choice - the only other alternative is not to own a computer that you didn't build yourself, or have custom-built for you, and carefully monitor the license agreements of every piece of software that you put on it. Even then, you
also need to check the agreements on each part that goes into your computer, and make sure that
those aren't being 'licensed, not sold' as well - because as Father Xmas explained, it ain't always just limited to software.
It's enough to make a person's head spin to think about it.