Who owns the software on your computer? Did you buy it? Did it come “free” with your computer? Would you be surprised to find out that even though you paid for it, you still might not “own” the copy of it, according to an Arizona Court’s interpretation of the copyright act?

Agreeing to a software producer’s EULA, that long scrolling text of legalese they flash past you as you try to install their software or open the package, often limits your rights to the very software you’ve purchased. Apparently, they can put just about anything they want into the EULA, including downgrading your “ownership” of the software to just a “license” to install and use (usually on one computer at a time).

This apparently meaningless shift in terminology actually eliminates your rights under the copyright act which normally provide you with the ability to copy (particularly for archival purposes), resell, or maintain, your copy of the software as necessary, without infringing on the copyright holder’s intellectual property.

What I dont think has come up in court yet, is this ruling is not simply pick and choose, so when you apply the decision to the rest of the law, it quite clearly makes licensing a copy of the software detrimental to most computer systems and corporate security policies. The ability to backup and perform maintenance as needed to a computer system is necessary. It is greedy of software companies (in this case Blizzard) to try and infringe on this need simply because they don’t like people cheating at their game. People have been finding ways to cheat at games since they were invented, is it really worth it to Blizzard to topple the copyright act to try and prevent it? I’m surprised the ruling could be so short-sighted, but I suppose crazier things have happened.

Not all software companies are this greedy with their EULAs, however. And if you use open source software, this won’t affect you at all!