I found it interesting that Steve Jobs thinks we should get rid of DRM. And, while I agree with him whole-heartedly, I think he’s just the slightest bit two-faced. I mean, he thinks that the music companies don’t have a right to tell you what you can do with the product you purchase from them, but he thinks he does. I’m speaking specifically about the restriction in the Mac OS X license that keeps its customers from installing the product they purchased on a non-Apple-branded computer. Am I the only one that sees this as a contradiction?
Now, I don’t think that people should be given the right to copy software and give/sell it to whom they choose, but they should not be made to give up their law-given rights (see 17 USC 117) just to use the software they have purchased. This attempt by Apple isn’t the only example of big software companies trying to control the users by “contract.” Take Microsoft, for example. They have stipulated in the Windows Vista Home Basic license that users are not allowed to run the software inside of a emulator/virtualizer. This is simply outrageous, as Microsoft has absolutely no right to dictate how a user may run the software they have purchased. Even worse, Microsoft also stipulates that the software may only be re-sold once after the initial sale (so, if you bought Windows off the store shelf, you may sell it to one person, however, he may not sell it).
The validity of these types of stipulations have not been tested in a court as far as I know. However, this Wikipedia article on software license agreements links to several cases where other license issues have been tested. Every user of computer software should be aware of these issues, and make themselves aware of the intricacies of the concepts involved.