COPYCENSE

“Our recent discussion about whether licenses should apply to the user or the machine drew many interesting comments about the vagaries of Windows licensing. But it also led several readers to point at a surprising example of a vendor whose licensing policies seem to cut both ways against the user: Apple.

“One reader wrote: [Apple iTunes] ‘licenses each song to the user AND/OR the registered machine. If your hard drive goes down and you lose the songs you have bought Apple gives you no recourse to download the songs you have licensed. So, despite the fact that you have licensed the songs in your name, it’s your loss. This, in effect, licenses the music to your machine and runs contrary to the spirit of an individual license.’

“The reader only discovered that after he’d set up accounts on the same machine for each of his children.

The Gripe Line Weblog. Licenses, Families, and Apple. Feb. 10, 2006.

See also:

Ed Foster. Licensed Users or Licensed Machines? Jan. 24th, 2006.

Apple Computer Inc. iLife ’06 Software License Agreement. No date.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.