[Sussex] Good news.

[Geoff Teale]

> The question is did Bill G get anything out of it?  I suppose 
> that depends
> if
> Dell pay a "per unit" fee and if so if they find it cheeper 
> event to send
> him
> the fee anyway.  I wonder how many non-Windows machines Dell 
> have to sell
> before
> it makes sense to not pay Bill?

Can't say for sure if he got anything from it, but it did rack up as a Linux
sale - which helps the stats war.  According to the sales director of Dell
UK around 62% of Dells server sales are now Red Hat Linux, but only 5% of
their corporate desktop and mobile sales, and less than 1% of home sales are
Linux machines (this was basically his justification for why his sales team
had so much difficulty in providing what I ordered).  I did point out to him
that this figure might go up if he actually made it obvious that they sold
desktop machines with LINUX preinstalled.
 


>Which of course doesn't stop here owning the copyright, 

No and nor should it do.

>nor does it make coping any less illegal.

!!! IANALBMWI !!!! ;)

Not true.  She has implicitly given the right to copy to anyone who wishes
to.  She is stating that the experience of owning an original copy is more
pleasurable and she'd appreciate it.

She indicates this in a rather vague way, admittedly, but I think she is
more interested in the statement - she is not about to go chasing down
people for copying music or passing MP3's about.  Just like the GPL the
statement is entirely unnecessary because the intent is _not_ to take
action.  

The other companies plaster things about prosecution on their products
because if they don't make that condition of licensing obvious then they
cannot hold you to it (it being a non-standard contractual clause) - in
short, if you do not understand the terms of the contract (and yes buying a
CD does involve a contractual agreement) at the point of agreement then that
contract is not valid and you cannot be bound by its terms (which is why
shrink-wrap licensing a la Microsoft is deeply contentious).

Remember - copying copyright material is _not_ currently a criminal offence
in the UK - it is a civil matter, a breach of the license granted with the
copyright material.  Mass production of copies and passing off copied
material as an original on the other hand is a criminal offence, specificly
fraud and in some cases theft.

Also bear in mind that the biggest copyright and rights offenders in the
world are (in order) Microsoft, Sony Music, Time-Warner AOL, Koch Media /
BMG, Dreamworks SKG and EMI.

-- 
geoff.teale at claybrook.co.uk
tealeg at member.fsf.org

"make music like mercy that gives what it is and has nothing to prove"
 - Ani DiFranco "Up Up Up Up Up Up"


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