Copyright FYI from MCCD

[Craig White]

On Sun, 2003-02-09 at 21:40, Michelle Lowman wrote:
> Printed copies of this are being sent out to students all over the
> District. 
> 
> http://www.dist.maricopa.edu/legal/ip/students.htm
> 
> Follow the links, and you'll find this:
> 
> http://www.dist.maricopa.edu/legal/ip/guidelines/software.htm
> 
-----
I'll only tackle the second link.

It's totally wrong. The user rights for the software aren't dictated by
MCCD policy, it is dictated by the intellectual property holders and
governed by the license that would accompany the software in question.
In Microsoft parlance, it is the EULA.

What is being stated is someone's interpretation of a fair use
principal, which may or may not have bearing upon the intellectual
property rights demanded by the respective owners, undoubtedly written
by someone who is clearly out of touch with the many, many, many
variations of end user license agreements that are in place these days.

When the paragraph regarding License starts out with...'In most cases,' 

This is almost as bad as the first paragraph starts the second sentence,
'Generally...'

It is obvious that this is a porcupine that the author(s) couldn't get
control over so this becomes the equivalent of a punt and no reasonable
rule or policy can be readily understood or inferred. At least, I can't
see how anyone could construe rules that are governed by 'generally' or
'in most cases' as being reliable.

I guess the question I would ask is...why bother having rules that
aren't rules? To signal to everyone that you've been considering them
all this time?

Craig