This is only tangentally related, but I read these two articles:

You don't own your Kindle books, Amazon reminds customer
Digital Death of Copyright's First Sale Doctrine (Linked to from the first article)

The First Sale Doctrine is what allows used books and used games to be traded and sold, because it means the copyright holder's right of distribution terminates with the first sale.

However, the First Sale Doctrine doesn't apply to software if you have to agree to an EULA that states you're only being given a license to use the software and you're not allowed to redistribute it. Consequently, this is why app stores, the xbone, psn, etc are allowed to revoke your access to stuff you "bought" on the service, and why they're allowed to restrict your ability to lend your copies out to others.

Suppose the court case ended with the opposite conclusion, and the First Sale Doctrine does apply to software, regardless of an EULA. Since it says the copyright holder's right of distribution terminates with the first sale, wouldn't that mean that copylefts and share-alikes wouldn't work? Furthermore, wouldn't it mean that any software license, for binaries and sources alike, is nullified by purchasing the work?

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I was wondering about the effectiveness of taking a license and adding a clause which states that the openness of the software cannot be forced by an external license.

So for example, inside the license would be "no external license may impose disclosure or non-disclosure of source code covered under this license". This would mean that the code cannot be forced open-source by the GPL, and cannot be forced closed-source by some company's internal proprietary license. Therefore, it's always the developer's choice as to whether or not to disclose the code covered under this term.

Good? Bad?

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Happy coot, you old birthday!

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