Existing users, 
lroathe said :
> I know of no software where you actually purchase the software
The concept of ownership by purchase dates to (at least) the Magna Carta of 1215; the codex upon which American law lays its foundation. The DMCA appears to wash away many of these rights as they apply to software, but DMCA's legal status is tenuous when balanced against the Fair Use Doctrine. Hopefully the Supreme Court will wash away the DMCA, if Congress does not do so first.
That aside, and to the relevant aspect of my original comment: Anyone who purchases software that arbitrarily and indefinitely requires multiple verifications of the Legitimate Owner's right to use the software is falling into a trap that will eventually deprive them of their ability to use the software.
Any software author's repeated verification scheme is an ephemeral construct that will inevitably fail. Anyone who purchases products from such an author is embarking on a Fool's Errand which can only result in their eventual inability to use the product for which they paid.
As to the actual software: It purports to be a 'Sound Converter' and yet does not recognize and convert System 7 sounds -- a common and useful commodity within the Macintosh Community. Surely this could not be the work of someone interested in the Macintosh.
And then there is the inability to 'convert' from and to ring tones. Ring tone conversion is (especially among young people) one of the most demanded features of sound converters.
Iroathe intoned in an aside:
> sorry to butt into you app's thread here, but it'd got off into an area that
> could be potentially harmful to all software authors.
How is it 'potentially harmful to all software authors' to point out the worthlessness of the constraints imposed by a single one? Do all software authors demean their Paying Customers by dictating only a transitory capability to use their programs?
I think not.
SoundConverter
Convert your audio files in batch mode.
Version: 20090925
Licenses, fallacies and Customer abuse: -
When you purchase software, you are entering a contract -- and that contract defines exactly what you are purchasing. In the case of software, you are purchasing the right to -use- the software, but not the software itself. The Software Vendor may create contract conditions to that use - such as you only using it on one machine, or having it on a laptop and a desktop -- and if you do not like those agreements YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BUY. Of course, such agreements are subject to modification by statue (which is why you have certain, limited, rights to backup software which are over and above any agreement which tries to assign away that right).Its akin to going to a video store and hiring a video. You are still entering a contract of sale, but that sale is the right to use the video for X numbers of days before it must be returned. If they say you can only use the video for one day before you have to return it and you don't like that condition, then you don't have to rent the video.
Claiming that somehow you've got a vested physical property right in that video is erroneous, even if you claim (incorrectly) that is a right from the Magna Cart (which section? the MC is really a contract between the King and the State. Its a cornerstone in Republican principles but its not the supreme source of law).
Its all contracts kids.
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Monday, February 16 2004 @ 11:21 PM PST