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Subject: Re: [OT] An open letter to Martin Blume

Author: Andreas Guettinger

Date: 12:25:15 12/10/04

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On December 10, 2004 at 14:36:32, enrico carrisco wrote:

>On December 10, 2004 at 11:54:33, Martin Blume wrote:
>
>>On December 10, 2004 at 11:37:13, Peter Skinner wrote:
>>
>>>This is a copy of the email that I just sent Martin:
>>>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>Hello Martin,
>>>
>>>
>>>So please grant me permission to host Arena and the situation can resolve
>>>itself. We can then get back to what is important... Chess.
>>>
>>
>>Hello Peter!
>>
>>It is too late now. The license agreements are quite clear of it. I am quoting
>>myself from the copyright notes in the Arena distribution as well as from our
>>Website:
>>
>>"You may distribute the content of the program package only in unmodified
>>form. Especially, distribution of Arena GUI, SOS for Arena, Dragon, AnMon,
>>Nejmet, Ruffian, Betsy, The Baron, Chispa, EL Chinito and for ELOstat on
>>other webpages, newspaper, CDs, print and other media without the
>>permission of authors Martin Blume, Rudolf Huber, Bruno LUCAS,
>>Christian BARRETEAU, Jean-Christophe GABILLARD, Per-Ola Valfridsson,
>>Landon W. Rabern, Richard Pijl, Federico Andrés Corigliano,
>>Eugenio Castillo / Pascal Tang and Dr. Frank Schubert is not permitted."
>>
>>Regarding Arena that reads:
>>
>>"You may distribute the content of the program package only in unmodified
>>form. Especially, distribution of Arena GUI [..] on
>>other webpages [..] without the
>>permission of author[..] Martin Blume [..] is not permitted."
>>
>>So you did not have the permission to offer my software Arena on your site, and
>>you do not have the permission by me. So I am asking you to remove my software
>>from your site.
>>
>>Best regards,
>>Martin Blume
>
>If only the word "especially" had been "however", things would have been so much
>clearer.  Legal lingo or not, "especially" was not the best choice.
>"Especially" is most commonly a supporting word for a previous statement -- but
>here it is (obviously) used to mean "Above all" or "principally" (most
>importantly.)
>
>Nevertheless, the license (however much needing a revision for clarity) does
>indeed state that Mr. Skinner is in violation for making the software available
>on his web-site.  The argument that Mr. Skinner's distribution of Arena in this
>manner is protected within the segment of the license agreement that allows
>distribution to friends and comrades is only valid if only those individuals
>have access to such a web-site.
>
>It's an open and shut case in my opinion.
>
>-elc.

The question is why a software has copyrights with ideologies that contradict
each other?

For example, couldn't Peter make a note on his site:
"For all my chess friends, if you are interested in Arena then please send a
mail at the following adress and I return you a copy of Arena."

Does the copyright prevent this? He would be sharing with his colleges.

regards
Andy



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