IP: On MS license agreements

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/02/02/11/020211opfoster.xml

autoabstract

BILL GATES SAYS security is Microsoft's top priority, but just whose 
security does he have in mind?

Consider some of Microsoft's recent boilerplate legalese -- language you or 
your company might already have unknowingly accepted -- and then decide for 
yourself.

As the PUR document is part of most customers' volume license agreements 
and is subject to periodic change, in theory Microsoft customers should 
check it regularly to see what rights Microsoft has decided to grant or 
take away.

After the reader shared his discovery with me, I asked some other Microsoft 
volume license customers if they were aware of the PUR term.

Not surprisingly, most were only vaguely aware of the PUR's existence, much 
less the terms in the XP section.

But they had plenty of concerns once they read it, the most obvious being 
the damage the most benign of automatic OS upgrades could cause in a 
corporate environment.

Several readers were also worried that Microsoft's broad assertion of its 
right to access their computers would force their companies into 
noncompliance with government security guidelines and various privacy laws.

This concern was exacerbated by additional PUR language in the same Windows 
XP section.

In terms of "Security Updates," users grant Microsoft the right to download 
updates to Microsoft's DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology to 
protect the intellectual property rights of "Secured Content" providers.

Currently, DRM technology is associated just with music or video content, 
but there's no legal reason it can't be used with software applications as 
well.


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