Continued from the Kelly v Arribasoft thread:
> To further Robert's point, you would have a hard time
> with the fair use argument because, according to your
> description, you are only copying the important parts.
> The amount copied is practically irrelevant once you
> copy all of the worthwhile bits of a program.
17 USC 117 deprives the copyright owner of some exclusive authorization rights when the owner of the copy installs and runs the program on a single machine. You don't need either a licence or a fair use argument -- there is no copyright cause of action at all, provided you confine your actions to a single machine. To the extent that the statutory provision is sometimes modified by EULA contracts, the only recourse the copyright owner might have there is that provided by contract law, and the law is contextual and muddled.
This issue has been discussed recently in relation to SCO's crazy attempts to get Linux users to relicence their unstated copyright interests. Assuming SCO's (completely unsubstantiated and far-fetched) claims that Linux contains their IP, I see no cause of action at all against end users who install it and run it, since they have never agreed to waive their 17 USC 117 rights, and unlike storebought software, there is no "shrinkwrap contract".
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