Copyright issues

Mike Jagdis <mike@roan.co.uk> wrote: >Andrej Falout said > >>Does Informix have the right to force me not to make copies of >>software they wont sell? > >Yes. Only the copyright owner has the right to make copies - unless >you have a license from them that explicitly allows you this privilege. >Informix' copyright on what you have will expire sometime in the >middle of the 21st century, if that helps :-). > >I know the law. But, do you thin[k] that anyone has the right to make >somebody's business dependable on there product, after 3 years stop >selling it and than ask them to pay again for it, and for all >additional expenses, like code rewrite, new hardware, and so on. Unfortunately, this happens all of the time. This logic holds no legal ground. It's like wanting to make Volkswagen liable to you if you open up a VW bug repair shop and then they stop making those cars. >This sounds like blackmail to me. For a number of reasons which would be out-of-scope to discuss here, this is clearly not blackmail. The least of which is that Informix is not inducing you to continue to purchase their products. >What if Informix will stop existing, let's say, they declare >bankruptcy? Article 18 of the Copyright Law states: When an author is dead or dissolved, the protection of the author's moral right in a work shall be deemed as if the author is still alive or exists such that no one may infringe upon the right. This clearly shows that Informix Software does not necessarily give up their copyrights if they were to go bankrupt. (Also, keep in mind that billion dollar businesses don't go bankrupt--they get purchased!) :) However, Article 18 continues: Nevertheless, if according to the nature and degree of the act of such other person, social changes, or other situations, such act is not deemed against the author's intent, such act shall not constitute an infringement. Here it states that your case against infringement would depend on the author's (Informix's) intent of how it's copyrighted work is to be used. There is much more Copyright Law that could be brought into discussion here, but it detracts from the main issue of your problem. Clearly your best bet is to contact Informix regarding this matter. Their standard license is just that--standard. They have made and will make special changes for special cases. Tim