Like I don’t understand why this even became a thing and who even thought of it?
In: Economics
Having worked at several software companies, there are different types of software as well as more recent changes to this that I think you are talking about.
Take for example Microsoft Office, it used to be back in the day, you could buy a copy of Microsoft Office from Best Buy (or wherever) which came with a CD you installed. Way way back in the day, you probably just had a single computer in your house, so just one place you could install it. But then you could also give it to say a friend and they could also install it. Or if you did have multiple computers, you could pay for one copy, but use it on all of them.
To try to address this, companies like Microsoft came up with the idea of a license key, which meant that as part of the install, you would input the license key, and as part of the install, it would send something to Microsoft to tell them this key was used, so if you tried to install this same CD on another computer with the same key, it would fail. This also meant though if you got a new computer, you might need to buy a new copy of Office to work on that.
Now think of a company where they have a thousand workers and they want to install office on all of their workers computers, but they also will need to be able to handle turnover, both to personnel and to computers. So they have an idea of rolling licenses to say that a company can have say 1500 licenses, and they can move these licenses around.
Now, Office doesn’t come like this. Office365 is downloadable from the internet, and Microsoft realizes that people have multiple devices and might want to use it on all of them like they used to do for companies. But instead of just running, it’s a subscription model. That means now you are right, you don’t own the software, you own a license to use the software. As to why a company would want to do that, they can hide behind ease of updates and transferring the subscription, letting multiple family members use it, etc, etc, but honestly it’s all about money. Instead of charging $200 for software that someone might use for 5 years or more, charge them $100 a year. The price sounds cheaper to them as the initial is less, but if they use it for 5 years, they are paying way more.
I work in the industry.
All that was said here is true but how it was explained to me (here in Europe) I that a reseller of the SAP solutions started to buy licences and resold them to other customers.
SAP went to justice to stop that arguing that they sold to a particular customer but the European justice enforced the right to sell what you had bought (not the software itself but the perpetual licence).
So almost all the software editors started to sell SaaS (software as a Service), you rent it and will never own your licence again. What it means is that you may use the software for a certain amount of time but when you stop to pay the software stops and you do not have anything to resell.
You *do* own the software, in terms of the physical media and the software on it, that copy is your property. If you only have a digital copy it’s the same situation.
You also own the license which is needed to use software cause that’s just how it works. It’s not a film or a song. It’s something you use over time. You can also own a car, but you need a license to use it. Why is that a weird concept?
Either way when you purchase a copy of that kind of licensed software, you get ownership of both the copy and the license, usually in perpetuity. So ownership of the copy and the license are connected since you get both when you buy it through official means.
Ask richard stallman!
God i was computing back when he was warning everyone this is what would happen to software…. and everyone just rolled their eyes.
Because to own the software outright gives you unlimited rights to modify, replicate and distribute the software. Owning the software means owning the Intellectual Property.
People developing an IP, whether that be a song, book, movie or a piece of software didn’t want everyone they sold a copy of that IP to to also be able to copy and sell it on. They would be able to profit from the work unfairly, not having contributed to its development.
And thus the legal field of copyrighting and licensing was born.
Owning software is like owning a book. Just because you bought the book doesn’t mean you can claim that you wrote it, or copy it and sell more of it.
The simple version (like you’re five) is that if you bought commercial software outright, then owned it, you could make whatever changes to it you wanted then even start selling your version of it. With licenses, you can only use it like it’s designed, not make changes and certainly not sell it.
>Why do we not own our software and only own the ‘license’ to use the software?Why do we not own our software and only own the ‘license’ to use the software?
Short answer: $
Long answer: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Start with the basics. At least in the US, the Constitution provided for copyright. By default no one has any control over any work he produces. But this provision allowed the government grant a limited monopoly on the distribution, copying, and performance of an author’s work. You can buy a book. You can resell that book. But you can’t make copies of the book and sell them because the author has the exclusive right to do that. You can’t put on plays based on the book without the author’s permission. Authors have in the past tried to keep people from even reselling the books and software they lawfully bought, but that was stopped with the First Sale Doctrine — the author loses the distribution right for copies he already sold. But he still retains performance and copy rights.
This copyright is colloquially known as “ownership” although it is only a limited government-granted right.
Generally in law, a license is something that allows you to do something you can’t otherwise legally do. So you have a license to drive, to pilot a plane, to practice medicine. This license is the same, and it’s in the form of a contract. In exchange for your money, the author grants you authority to copy that program to your computer and load it into memory. But that’s it. You are not authorized to make more copies and sell them to other people, as that is a right under law the author has still reserved to himself, or his business partners.
Authors can’t put any condition they want into this license though. For example, licenses prohibiting unapproved reviews of the software have been found to be unenforceable. Generally, contracts that are contrary to public policy, illegal, or otherwise considered unconscionable, can’t be enforced. The easiest example is contracting a hit man. That’s illegal, so neither of you can get a court to enforce a violation of the contract’s terms.
When you buy a book, you’re just buying bound paper. You don’t own the words on the page.
Now remove the idea of a ‘page’.
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