"Microsoft Word non-commercial use"

^ Assuming you're being serious, that's not even close to the truth.

You could just ignore it. Microsoft would have an incredible amount of bad press if they went around suing freelance journalists

@OP: Because you probably have a heavily discounted license intended for people who are not using it for commercial use, IE, students, writing family letters, light design work like one-sheet posters, etc.

Not that I've ever heard of MS enforcing this outside of a support standpoint, that is, not supporting business usage of the software. But that's understandable.

Yeah, office word costs more.

That would be a great joke, but that's pretty much what it actually is.

As far as EULA's and the ownership of software- yes, companies can have and will take away your software for violating the EULA. Remember Geo Hot and the other PS 3 hackers? PSN Software capability removed for violating the EULA. Steam games? Can be revoked for violating the EULA. Microsoft Word? Can most likely be revoked for violating the EULA.

It's actually really sad, when you bother to read the EULA's. Any game you get is basically a rental nowadays, and I mean that quite literally. You are renting the game from these people, and they can yank it at any time.

You might say it's not worth their trouble, but if they think it is, it'd be much more accurate to say it's not worth your trouble to go to court. Many times the little guy loses in court simply because they can't afford to fight the big behemoths, who will purposely drag out the case as long as possible when they have weak cases.

The thing about lawsuits is, even if you don't have much of a case, the ability to throw your weight around and get someone into court (lawyers are hell of expensive, but big guys have them on staff anyways) is often enough of a threat to ensure compulsion. It's a serious weakness in our legal system.

That's why some states are beginning (California) to pass laws where it is a crime if you take someone to court knowing you cannot win just to waste their money or to try to silence them. This needs made a federal law.

Make it that companies can never achieve court costs from individuals, so they can't bankrupt the people that try to sue them, or the ones that they sue to shut up. Corp vs. Individual? The corp can never get court costs back, by law.

That'd pretty much remove their teeth when it comes to shut-up lawsuits.

Microsoft (and every other software publisher ever) has full authority to take anything and everything made by them off of your computer whenever they want to, including your OS if you run a Windows.

Does that mean they will? No, probably not, but they theoretically could.

Open source, biatches. Maybe it's not a sufficient development base for more complex things, but something on the scale of Office was relatively easy to pull off without being beholden to a company.

edited 31st Jul '11 4:58:56 PM by Pykrete

Actually, even most things that are 'open source' are subject to that. As long as it was made by someone who bothered to file some kind of ownership claim, it can be yanked from you. Basically, anything where you have to "agree" with something before you install it.

edited 31st Jul '11 5:00:15 PM by SpainSun

Spain: The difference is that the license agreement specifically gives you and anyone else explicit permission to distribute or modify, and it's a right that can't easily be revoked due to, you guessed it, legal costs — something like the Linux kernel or GNOME has hundreds, if not thousands of individual contributors, and getting them to sign off on a blanket license change would be a nightmare.

edited 31st Jul '11 5:07:38 PM by lee4hmz

The only thing you have to agree to when installing most open source software is that you won't try to sue the makers. That's it. And no, they can't yank it off your computer. That's ridiculous. In some cases, there isn't even a "they".

Edit: I'm surrounded by ninjas on both sides!

edited 31st Jul '11 5:08:30 PM by storyyeller

Most open source TOS terms are more along the lines of documenting and going through the appropriate channels to update the code than "we reserve the right to digitally sodomize you under X circumstances".

You oughta see the Ninjask. You turn around and suddenly the whole room's full of the damn things.

edited 31st Jul '11 5:11:48 PM by Pykrete

Try reading the small print. Yes, they certainly can, and "they" do indeed exist.

EDIT: Wait, you meant open source. Disregard, not familiar enough with that to say.

edited 31st Jul '11 5:08:58 PM by CaissasDeathAngel

I know that a few programs I've used have terms that basically come down to "and don't try to re-distribute it, or we'll fucking sue you". But now that I think of it, that's not open source, terminology flump on my part.

Are you being serious? I can't tell.

Under the letter of the law, by buying a ROM of software become the rightful owner of that particular copy of software. I have the right to use it how it wish regardless if they are the how the manufacturer intended. I also have the right to modify it and make copies of it provided they are for personal use. If Microsoft wants to trade in software with strings attached it's need to argue in court that I was only renting the software.

edited 1st Aug '11 12:36:17 AM by joeyjojo

How many people here actually read the "Terms and Conditions" or the EULA on their software before installing and using it? Basically they say that the software belongs to the company and you are paying for a license to use it on one computer, according to their terms, and the license can be revoked at any time for any reason, and you have no rights other than what they permit you. Microsoft (or whatever other company) made the product, and they have the right to decide how it's distributed and under what conditions licensees may use it.

Of course, they probably wouldn't sue an individual for violating the "non-commercial use" clause. But I bet they would be all over a business that only paid for the personal version of the software but was using it for their business.

Small businesses can't afford to have custom software made, and most people are intimidated by open source, or don't know much about it. So the majority of people and enterprises will use the software they can purchase at the store and will pay whatever price Microsoft or Intuit or Norton sets for it. Which in the scheme of things is not that much when you think about it.

And that right there, the part that I bolded, is the difference between the commercial license and the home license. The commercial license allows you to install it on multiple computers that will be used by multiple people. That's all. It's not about whether you get paid for what you used it for. It's about whether you put it on only your computer or whether you put it on your computer, your partner's computer, your secretary's computer, your account manager's computer and the receptionist's computer.

'''ETA: and I stand corrected.

edited 1st Aug '11 10:22:34 AM by Madrugada

You still have to get a license for each install, Madrugada, or purchase a multi-install license. You can't just buy one copy and put it on a dozen machines no matter which version you get.

EULAs are legal contracts and are enforceable in court. That's established law, and MS could sue you under the terms if it decided to. Usually it's not worth pursuing individual consumers but if a business were using Home Edition to publish material, there might be a case.

edited 1st Aug '11 8:44:37 AM by Fighteer

Actually, for Microsoft Home & Student it says you're not allowed to use it for any "commercial, nonprofit, or revenue generating business activities, or by any government organization."

Is it established law? You have to win a lawsuit for specific clauses for it to work and even then, only in the jurisdiction of the court. Definitely, no EULA is worth the paper (or pixels) it is written on outside of USA and I'm not sure how strong it is within USA. There's some stuff that is more "sue-able" than others, such as using pirated copies of Microsoft Visual Studio to write commercial software, but it's not like they can ever tell that it was written by them unless they stamp it.

You have evidence for that, I assume? EULAs have and continue to be validated in courts, and I have seen nothing to indicate that they are any less valid outside the US than in it. Anyway, it's a legal contract and those are enforceable by default — that is, unless they are actively invalidated via legal proceeding or contain provisions that are prima facie illegal.

Doesn't a legal contract require witnesses and your written signature, though?

No, it doesn't. A warranty is a legal contract and you don't have to do jack shit, just open the box and throw it away.

Yeah I actually do have evidence of that. Corporations were unwilling to sue over EULA breaches in Canada because they weren't valid contracts. You don't get to see them before the time of the sale, therefore they were invalid. (That doesn't stop them from moving the litigation process to the states if the corporation is in both countries though)

Copyright violations and so on have nothing to do with EUL As though just to be clear.

edited 1st Aug '11 9:43:58 AM by breadloaf

Something I've been wondering about is how it says I'm not allowed to make copies of the software for someone else to use. But what about the original disc I bought from Best Buy? Whatever claims Microsoft makes regarding intellectual property, the physical disc itself belongs to me, so what's to stop me from selling it to someone else?

Sure, the person I sold it to would be breaking the law if they copied software off of it, but unless I'm specifically told that's what they'll be using the disc for, that's not technically my responsibility.