I know there is a ban on discussing URC software policy and the subject angers a lot of people. I do not intend to discuss the stupidity or efficacy of URC's policy, I’ve already done that in other posts. But I do have a question.

First, let me compliment Darnitol (and others) at URC for the fine expansion pack software package. I’ve been having great fun redoing my MX-980 program. I use it in two home theaters, my big high tech complex one and my wife’s "relatively" simpler and easier to use one (Watch and Listen buttons). My wife picked the background and button designs for her HT. She actually uses it. She would never pick up the Pronto touch screen I’ve had for years.

My "Authorized" dealer Myer Emco has been very understanding and helpful with support. They downloaded the expansion package for me (and the other software). They, by the way, are as mystified as me about why URC is doing this and were caught completely unaware. And please don’t comment that they are “fly by night” dealers, and haven’t read their URC dealer sales agreement. Myer Emco is a well known high end audio/video dealer and HT installer in the Washington DC area.

Curious, I'm using a product, the manufacturer of which says they will not help or support me in any way at any time. Why, I like the product, I guess. I couldn’t do this without this forum though.

Now my questions

I keep getting emails from users of this forum (6 so far) that have been tracking this subject. They got their MX 980 from an “unauthorized” dealer or as a gift. They would like to get this upgrade. Based upon the emails these people seem very competent.

Questions for this forum

Does URC have a policy regarding sharing their, free, software amongst users, programmers or not, if no money changes hands? Their policy will not likely affect what I do, but just curious. I asked this forum because I think I'll get zero response for such a question from URC.

Further for Daniel Tonks is posting such software allowed on this forum. I’ve searched the various posts on this and have not seen a definitive answer to this question yet. If I've missed it please accept my apology. And, will this forum allow posting of locations on the internet where this software can be downloaded?

I'm in the education business (instructor at a community college). We deal with the general version of this issue: What are we allowed to copy and distribute (to our students, to colleagues, etc.)

I'm not sure we could agree on what behavior is acceptable or ethical. We all have our own standards. But we do have laws, specifically copyright laws. And when it comes to copyright laws there's a gray area. If there's a copyright, and we deprive the copyright holder of profits when we violate copyright law, then we could be liable for monetary damages. But, if we violate copyright law, and we don't deprive the copyright holder of profits, then we can't be held liable for damages.

An example would be the following. An instructor continues to require a textbook after the book has gone out of print. Students must buy them, as they are a required purchase for the course in which they're seeking credit. But the campus bookstore sells only used copies, and they are currently out of stock. They've ordered more from the publisher, but of course the publisher can't fill the order, as they are out of stock, too. The student can buy a used book, if he can find one.

If the student can't find the book, is it ok for him to make a photocopy of his friend's book? Is it ok for his friend to scan the book, burn copies onto a CD-ROM, and give them away? Is it ok for the instructor to do it?

I'm not a lawyer but I have been involved in business management (biotech) with a great degree of reliance on intellectual property and copyright law. I agree with your analysis that monetary loss is the key for both IP and copyright. Without monetary loss there are no damages and no provable claim.

For people who spent money with URC purchasing URC's hardware, but can't get the free software for supporting such a purpose from URC because of policy, I think your book analogy fits. And I think any ethicist would conclude your book analogy is ethical.

However, the fact of no provable financial loss does not guarantee that a company will not harass or attempt to sue someone.

But policy is not law nor does policy imply a legal sanction. A good example of legally unenforceable policy without legal sanction is the license agreement Sony has with display manufacturers for broadcasting full 1080i (1080P) on HDMI connectors. Sony’s policy is that if you want such a license you must not enable the copy protection handshake that allows full resolution transmission unless it’s on an approved display device. Trouble is the “hand shake” is in the public domain. Thus if you want to handshake with a Sony approved (under the license) HDMI reproduction device (Blue Ray DVD) you must sign the license agreement and abide by Sony’s policy. If you don’t sign the license agreement you are free to do whatever you want, except you cannot sell Sony approved display devices. Thus companies legally make devices that handshake and convert the HDMI signals to component for older HDTV’s without HDMI. The component signals are at full 1080i (1080p) on the Y, Pb, Pr cables.

Anyway, I'm curious if anyone knows if URC has articulated a policy on this and if this forum has a policy, regarding posting such materials, that URC refuses to supply.

Recently URC made the following statement:

"We ask that you assist us by not distributing our programming software to others. Sale or redistribution of Universal Remote Control software is a violation of the software’s End User License Agreement, a violation of our copyright, and is, in fact, unlawful for which we reserve the right to pursue all lawful steps, including litigation and damages."

And more changes to come...

What does that mean? That's the second post I've seen hinting that the software policy would be changing in the near future/January 1st, 2009. Is it going to become even harder to get software from authorized dealers?

The problem is that I received the software under URC's stated policy from an "authorized dealer". The normal way of enforcing a software end user license agreement is to put an "open the box" agreement in place or an “accept at install” agreement in place. URC did none of this with me and their software is conspicuously absent any "Accept/Reject" legal statement at install. The software was downloaded from URC’s controlled site using Myer Emco’s authorized password and put on a memory stick (mine) by Myer Emco. I paid Myer Emco $0.00 for this software. A license agreement is a contract that must be entered into voluntarily by both sides to be an enforceable contract.

Thus there is no implicit or explicit license agreement between URC and me. Yet I own the software via a URC authorized distribution process. And again in order to win a copyright legal suit the plaintive must prove monetary damages.

URC’s statement does not enlighten about URC’s intensions at all. I can guarantee you that if URC actually had a well thought out marketing and legal strategy and they had any intension of controlling distribution via contract law, they would have had a legal team review the software before release, they would have put one of those long statements in legalese that no one reads but clicks “accept” to install the software. They did none of this for all three software packages that Myer Emco gave me.

Maybe their marketing policy is to confuse the customer. Don’t laugh there have been many successful marketing strategies that involved confusing the customer. It’s well entrenched in the annals of modern capitalism, though not likely here.

In this case I think it's particularly important for me to point out that I speak for myself and not for URC. Having said that...

To answer the underlying question directly:

MX-Editor is a copyrighted work. Copyright grants the author or owner of a work the exclusive right to determine the conditions under which a work can be distributed. Without the owner's written permission, you can't distribute a copyrighted work under any circumstance except a handful of exceptions which fall under the "fair use" clause.

So no, you can't share or post the editor software for your remote. Like any copyrighted work, you don't own it. (As an example, we all know we're not allowed to distribute copies of the DVDs we buy.)

There are a lot of "urban legend" level misconceptions about contract and copyright law. Chief among these is the idea that if a work is distributed for free, that automatically means there are no collectable damages, and therefore no defensable legal case. I won't go into it here, but having written dozens of user manuals over the years for many companies, I got deeply schooled on this issue. If you really care about the laws and potential consequences, study them directly instead of taking on faith what you hear on the Internet. The reality is quite different from the rumor.

Okay so... As I said, I don't represent URC here. I'm not in a position to know what URC will or will not do in regard to this policy or in defense of it. I truly am speaking in general terms in direct response to the posted question. And the answer to that question is, "No, copyright law does not allow you to freely distribute software, even if you obtained it at no direct cost to you."

Best regards,
Dale

Dale,

I get where you are coming from, but I think you are wrong. If I buy a book, which I think we can all agree is a copywrited work, I own it. I can then resell it to whomever I choose. Same with a CD or DVD I have purchased. What I can not do it make copies of those items and sell them while retaining the original.

So could I post the editor software or give someone a copy of it, no.

But, since I aquired it through from a URC authorized dealer, if I were to sell my remote, I would think I would be well within my rights to include a copy of the software.

Thoughts?

Also, Since I have copies of most of the editors, can I offer independent programming services using these editors as they were aquired by me through authorized means? (Don't worry, not even thinking about doing it, just asking as part of the discussion.)

Bubby:

You're close here, and you're right that I didn't cover the "transfer of rights." Again, I'm sticking to copyright law here, and not the particular argument that is bugging some people on this thread.

If you buy a book, you own the physical media the book is printed on, but not the words formed by that media. So you can sell the book and by definition, the words will go with it.

Generally, if you obtain a piece of software that is included in the purchase price of a product you buy, not only are you allowed to hand over that software when you sell the product, you are required to either do so, or destroy it. However, you can't just include a copy of the software—you have to include all copies that you have associated with that product.

In the case of MX-Editor, the software has not been included in the purchase price of the remote for over a year. The implied license for use doesn't transfer with the remote because the software wasn't included with the remote.

As far as your rights to use the software for monetary gain, as far as I know, there are no stipulations against that with MX-Editor. However, I'm not in the legal department, and that question really falls into a different category than distributing the software. I know a lot about copyright law because in the past it was my job to ensure that copyright notices on the software manuals I wrote were valid when I handed over the writing to company lawyers for review.

However, at this point, I'm going to go ahead and step out of this discussion. We're at a nicely civil juncture in the conversation, so I'm going to get out of the way and just tell everyone "Happy New Year!"

In the end, few people are ever persuaded by other points of view, no matter how well-informed the other party is. I don't expect my words here to have any magical healing power or to change any minds. That's cool. But a question was asked which I happened to know the answer to and, despite the fact that it's not necessarily what some people want to hear, I decided to go ahead and provide the answer.

Best regards,
Dale

Don't mean to drag you back in, but ;)

Using your logic, the software WAS included in what I paid for the remote as the dealer would not sell or give me the software without the purchase, so from the end-users standpoint, it was included and therefore must be transfered. URC gives dealers the option to transfer the implied license to an end user as part of the purchase, so why would anyone down the chain be subject to different rules or obligations?

Yes, but it doesn't make the practice of distributing copies legal or even allowable.


I don't know any ethicists, but I do know and work with a lot of people with advanced degrees in many disciplines. And I can tell you for sure that there is NOT a concensus among them that this practice is ethical.


The person violating the copyright laws could be sued. There would be no monetary damages other than court costs, but I would guess that an order could be issued demanding that the offender cease violating the copyright laws, under penalty of law.

Of course, it's hard to imagine a scenario where this would ever happen, except perhaps in the case of a corporation engaged in the practice.

All in all a very enlighting discussion. I doesn't help the poor souls who got the unit from an "unauthorized" dealer or as a gift, but it is what it is.


Sueing for court costs as monetary damages is a certainly novel notion.

Sorry, I didn't really say that correctly. What I meant was that the person being sued would encounter his own costs, such as lawyers fees.

I am very clear on the concept that the MX-3000 editor is licensed from IRC and is fully covered in the same way as Microsoft Office.

I have two issues. The first is when you purchase a product that includes the software, this is a transfer of rights. When I purchase a laptop from Staples, I end up with the laptop and the software - which I then register with Microsoft. I have done just that - bought a unit with the enclosed software and registered it with URC.

The second issue is the updates to the data base of IR codes. This is necessary whenever you add/delete new devices. I downloaded the device data base when I opened the MX-3000 editor.

I have two questions:

1. How can I update the device data base?
2. Do I really need to update the editor? I am at 1.20.154. The latest is 1.30.002.

In the Editor under either Window or Communications there will be a "Live Update" option. If it is not there you don't have the updatable version. You will need to contact URC to get the latest non-updatable version.

It depends. You can learn most codes from the remote of any product you buy, but it might not have all the discrete codes you would need. Your options there are to look here for a device file, use an older device from the same manufacturer and see if they work through trial and error or buy a cheap Harmony and learn the discretes through their database.