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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.

First, check your "S" key: It seems to be transposed with the "$" key.

Must be that recent TH linux patch I applied :)

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.

Again, IP laws are a contract and compromise between consumers (the people) and companies. Both have certain rights they expect from the contract. These new laws and EULA's certainly obliterate consumer rights while giving full power to businesses, eliminating the compromise. Do you believe consumers have any inalienable rights with a product/service they have purchased, or that corporations have sole control over all aspects of the products usage.

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.

Software piracy always has been illegal and always will be illegal. Homocide always has been illegal and always will be illegal. Guns aid in homicide. Therefore, should guns be illegal?

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".

Con men still swindle elderly ladies and go to prison for it and the women mostly give their money away foolishly to them. Nothing brazenly illegal about that, no? Are you going to champion their cause?

There are far more differences than that, bub. care to enumerate them? 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 can take a book and easily reproduce portions of it and use it in an article I publish and generate a profit from, as long as I cite the source. Every day FR members reproduce IP from other sources and post it here. Creating new works referencing old ones is what people have been doing for hundreds of years. Academia is completely founded on this principle. Now enter software, this mysterious pseudo product/service, quasi new IP that somehow exists only in peoples minds. Think not of it as organised electrons in memory or magnetic poles on a disk with minimal diference between books with organized ink on paper, but as some mysterious black box that somehow appears on ones computer screen like magic. To learn how software works in order to make a better or compatible product would clearly violate the DMCA; To learn how someone makes a loaf of bread or a chair and build a better one is legal and innovative. To use a m$ (oops) product and a competing product that is disallowed in a future EULA is illegal and could lead to fines and maybe a prison sentence; to combine peanut butter, jelly, and bread makes a tasty combination. To copy a portion of code from a piece of software and give it to another person is a violation of the softwares EULA's and the DCMA and will definitly lead to prison terms and large fines; To copy a recipe from a cookbook and pass it to a friend who loved the meas is a cordial gift.

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

What does the government have to do with this? I buy a product from a company, I want to use it the way I want to, not the way the corporation sees fit. You do own the software media. and free use of arrangement of bits on the software as long as I do not reproduce and it and give/sell it

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.

Ahh, so whenever new technologies arise we should automatically revaluate IP laws. Interesting, I wonder if they had this same discussion when books moved from manual printing presses to mechanical ones. Indeed, companies need to be protected and software piracy is (and will be) illegal. On the converse, cosumers should be protected and not be abused by draconian EULA's.

Democracy is always a compromise between freedom and protection. Yes, people do get killed by other people with guns, but as a society we deem guns a valuable tool for protection. Yes, violence in the media probably does affect some people and leads them towards violent tendencies, but we as a society deem violence in the media as an acceptable form of free speech. Yes, allowing people to use software as they would like and allowing them to back it up does indeed allow some people to redistribute it illegally, but the value to end consumers through inovation, utilization, restoration capabilites is worh the trade off. This could lead to a decline in revenue from a perfect world, or lost job opportunites from a company in a perfect world. However, people have been reading, sharing, and learning from books for hundreds of years and yet there are still people writing and publishing books. Contrary to to the reports from the BSA, 12 billion dollars doesn't just disappear off the face of the earth but gets invested else where, or 25,000 people just sit at home dejected, never working again because they didn't get the job of their dreams but find news jobs in the software industry.

There will always be a demand for software, therefore there will always be a company selling a product to fill that demand and if they create a product people like and buy, they will be sucessfull. M$ (oops) products are the most popular software products on the market and therfore are the most pirated, yet this has not kept them from becoming the richest company in the world. Opportunity will always be there as long as there is a market. Once again, leting corporations control all usage of all products is a horrible idea because corporations do not want to compete and give their consumers the best value for the best price, their sole motivation is to maximize profit. Corporate greed is good, corporate greed at the cost of consumer rights and a free market is bad.