[AaronAnderson]

MS products are the private property of MS. They invested in them. They paid salaries to engineers and testers and product designers. Not you. They offer those products with certain conditions and restrictions -- in pretty much the same way that many other products have conditions and restrictions. (I don't see any contradictions of capitalism yet).

This license states that you are not buying a product, something that you posess, but a service. This service comes with a license that says m$ can do whatever they want with your computer and data, and you have no recourse if they botch something up, deliberate or not. This flys in the face of consumer protection and consumer rights. If I want to play a WB DVD in a panisonic DVD player, even though WB is a partner with sony and has signed an exclusive DVD player deal with them, as a consumer I should be able to do it since I purchased the intellectual property. I shouldn't have have to consult a lawyer everytime I install a piece of software to make sure I don't break some obscure clause stating I can only run the software on tuesdays because that is Andy Griffith's favorite day. Software should be treated as any other intellectual property, such as a book, where one can do anything they want with it except reproduce it. I mean, one can even <*gasp*> quote from it using the fair use clause. How much fair use do you think we will ever see from any m$ product?

If you don't like the license agreement, don't use the product! It's as simple as that. Nobody is forcing you to use them. But the thing here is that you don't have any intention of using the products. You're using this little forum to prop up your ranting soapbox diatribes against MS.

Yeah, you are right, I will never buy any of their products and avoid using them as much as possible. However, I have never be swindled by a con man who sells $5,000 dance lessons to elderly old women but I still believe that consumers should be protected from them. Yes, the snake oil salesmen could turn quite a profit if left to their own devices, but the consumer has rights (what a concept) and they deserve to be protected.

It's rather hypocritical for you to offer up the Constitution as validation for your point of view and then rip it up like a ragged cloth when it doesn't suit your purposes. The Constitution clearly recognizes the concept of intellectual property. This isn't new. Patents aren't new. But they certainly are inconvenient concepts for those who want to shred the Constitution because it happens to conflict with their world view; namely, that they should be able to rip off private property from the "evil corporations". Sorry, like it or not, DMCA is Constitutional until the USSC says it ain't. Go fish.

I have <*never*> contested that IP should not be protected or that all IP should be somehow socialized. I am however completely against the idea that companies somehow have the right to control usage of their product once somebody buys it in the marketplace. If I go to barns and nobles and buy a book, I can take it home and read it, throw it away, burn it, use it for toilet paper, read it to friends, borrow it to friends, etc. Now imagine that random house emplaces the same legalistic EULA's like m$'s so I when I take the book home I have to read the first 100 pages which is the license. Then I must abide by the rule that I must read the book every night for ten minutes before I go to bed or the Feds will come in and confiscate all my books because I broke the EULA. Or Imagine I "buy" a toyota camry (in the future you do not own anything, you only lease items or property from companies) and as I cross the california state line the car suddenly dies and and message pops up on the dashboard saying that toyota is in a contract dispute with the california government so all toyota cars will not function within it's boarders.

The difference between you and me is that I don't believe corporate ownership and manipulation of a product beyond the point of sale is good for the consumer. I don't see that corporate ownership of everything is any better than the government ownership of everything. I believe that if you buy a product, you own it, you just don't have the right to reproduce and sell it. Our IP system has worked fine for two hundred years with a balance of ownership and fair use, heck we even have a library of congress that contains an enormous amount of information. Will we ever see software stored there? The current extortion of the laws regarding digital media only hinders innovation through legislation and only aids corporations and not the consumer.

[Don Joe]

"The difference between you and me is that I don't believe corporate ownership and manipulation of a product beyond the point of sale is good for the consumer."

Totally immaterial to the argument at hand. You do not "buy" software (unless you're talking about a scenario where you pay me to write you some code under "work for hire" conditions), and you never have "bought" software. You are buying restricted rights to use it.

Get that through your thick liberskull!

[Bush2000]

This license states that you are not buying a product, something that you posess, but a service. This service comes with a license that says m$ can do whatever they want with your computer and data, and you have no recourse if they botch something up, deliberate or not. This flys in the face of consumer protection and consumer rights.

First, check your "S" key: It seems to be transposed with the "$" key. Second, you can think of software as a kind of interactive cable TV. You don't "own" it in any sense. It's a service. The data and your interactions are clearly covered by the service agreement. Your rights as a consumer are simple: If you don't like it, don't buy. It's that simple. The terms are clear, if you bother to read the license. Illiteracy, ignorance, or apathy isn't an excuse not to pay attention to the terms: They are revealed.

Software should be treated as any other intellectual property, such as a book, where one can do anything they want with it except reproduce it.

Except that's the fundamental problem: Your freeloading bretheren want everything for free and, therefore, are reproducing it. That's the crux of the problem and the reason that the license exists.

However, I have never be swindled by a con man who sells $5,000 dance lessons to elderly old women but I still believe that consumers should be protected from them.

The terms are spelled out in black and white. They're legally binding. If that still isn't enough for you, you might want to try "Hooked on Phonics".

The difference between you and me is that I don't believe corporate ownership and manipulation of a product beyond the point of sale is good for the consumer.

There are far more differences than that, bub. If software were like any other physical consumer good (like a book or a chair or a loaf of braid), I'd agree. But it's not. It can be readily reproduced. It can be readily distributed in a way that physical goods can't. Therefore, it needs special protections to prevent a*holes from stealing it.

I don't see that corporate ownership of everything is any better than the government ownership of everything.

I never said it was. But I do have a problem with anyone -- particularly government -- confiscating private property.

I believe that if you buy a product, you own it, you just don't have the right to reproduce and sell it.

You do own the software media.

Our IP system has worked fine for two hundred years with a balance of ownership and fair use, heck we even have a library of congress that contains an enormous amount of information. Will we ever see software stored there? The current extortion of the laws regarding digital media only hinders innovation through legislation and only aids corporations and not the consumer.

This may come as a surprise but software is a relatively new concept. The founders foresaw the protection of intellectual property -- ideas, as it were -- under the blanket of the Constitution. Software represents a bag of ideas. Companies have to be protected. Or else people will abuse it. That you can't accept that fact is particularly galling. You don't mind daytripping with a blindfold on, saying that people shouldn't have the right to reproduce software, but all the while ignoring the fact that eliminating restrictions would create precisely that result. Stunning.