IIUC (at least in US legal system), using software without an appropriate license from the copyright holder is considered a violation of civil copyright law.
Suppose that courts deemed shrink-wrap EULAs to be invalid. If the EULA is the agreement that grants end-users permission to use the copyrighted software, would the invalidation mean that users were in violation of copyright law? Or is there a right to use the software that's implicitly granted by the original purchase?
I met a Italian man at immigration control in Ethiopia, at the Addis Ababa airport, he had been traveling Africa and this was his third attempt to enter Ethiopia. The first two attempts were via land borders with Kenya and he had been turned around both times, despite having a visa, because border control felt it would be too dangerous for a white man to travel through southern Ethiopia at the time. So he had to travel to Nairobi and get a flight; he was admitted this time, but he had to pay for another visa at the airport. Unclear why? He wasn’t best pleased about the whole thing.
It's the reason nearly all US citizens who move overseas eventually give up their citizenship. My great aunt left for Poland 30 years ago, and renounced her citizenship within 3 years because she was paying taxes on everything she earned twice, one under Polish law and again under US law.
And US isn't alone nation in this.
That’s how I understand it, anyway. I hope to be corrected if I’m inaccurate as this is not my area of expertise.
The idea that you may not be receiving a copy at all and you merely have access through a license is a legal construction that's not well tested in court and to me seems pretty dubious. How can giving someone a transcription of the bits of the software not be a copy of the software? Anyway this court opinion (final appeal in Step-Saver vs Wyse Tech) deals with the issue and you can read what a court thinks: https://cyber.harvard.edu/metaschool/fisher/contract/cases/s...
I particularly like this paragraph where they discuss some of the context of the issue even though they decide not to specifically rule on this part.
> When these form licenses were first developed for software, it was, in large part, to avoid the federal copyright law first sale doctrine. Under the first sale doctrine, once the copyright holder has sold a copy of the copyrighted work, the owner of the copy could "sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy" without the copyright holder's consent. See Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus, 210 U.S. 339, 350, 28 S.Ct. 722, 726, 52 L.Ed. 1086 (1908); 17 U.S.C.A. з 109(a) (West 1977). Under this doctrine, one could purchase a copy of a computer program, and then lease it or lend it to another without infringing the copyright on the program. Because of the ease of copying software, software producers were justifiably concerned that companies would spring up that would purchase copies of various programs and then lease those to consumers. Typically, the companies, like a videotape rental store, would purchase a number of copies of each program, and then make them available for over-night rental to consumers. Consumers, instead of purchasing their own copy of the program, would simply rent a copy of the program, and duplicate it. This copying by the individual consumers would presumably infringe the copyright, but usually it would be far too expensive for the copyright holder to identify and sue each individual copier. Thus, software producers wanted to sue the companies that were renting the copies of the program to individual consumers, rather than the individual consumers. The first sale doctrine, though, stood as a substantial barrier to successful suit against these software rental companies, even under a theory of contributory infringement. By characterizing the original transaction between the software producer and the software rental company as a license, rather than a sale, and by making the license personal and non- transferable, software producers hoped to avoid the reach of the first sale doctrine and to establish a basis in state contract law for suing the software rental companies directly. Questions remained, however, as to whether the use of state contract law to avoid the first sale doctrine would be preempted either by the federal copyright statute (statutory preemption) or by the exclusive constitutional grant of authority over copyright issues to the federal government (constitutional preemption). See generally Bonito Boats, Inc. v. Thunder Craft Boats, Inc., 489 U.S. 141, 109 S.Ct. 971, 103 L.Ed.2d 118 (1989); Kewanee Oil Co. v. Bicron Corp., 416 U.S. 470, 94 S.Ct. 1879, 40 L.Ed.2d 315 (1974); Compco Corp. v. Day-Brite Lighting, Inc., 376 U.S. 234, 84 S.Ct. 779, 11 L.Ed.2d 669 (1964); Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Stiffel Co., 376 U.S. 225, 84 S.Ct. 784, 11 L.Ed.2d 661 (1964). Congress recognized the problem, and, in 1990, amended the first sale doctrine as it applies to computer programs and phonorecords. See Computer Software Rental Amendments Act of 1990, Pub.L. No. 101-650, 104 Stat. 5134 (codified at 17 U.S.C.A. з 109(b) (West Supp.1991)). As amended, the first sale doctrines permits only non-profit libraries and educational institutions to lend or lease copies of software and phonorecords. See 17 U.S.C.A. з 109(b)(1)(A) (West Supp.1991). (Under the amended statute, a purchaser of a copy of a copyrighted computer program may still sell his copy to another without the consent of the copyright holder.) This amendment renders the need to characterize the original transaction as a license largely anachronistic. While these transactions took place in 1986-87, before the Computer Software Rental Amendments were enacted, there was no need to characterize the transactions between Step-Saver and TSL as a license to avoid the first sale doctrine because both Step-Saver and TSL agree that Step-Saver had the right to resell the copies of the Multilink Advanced program.
At no point has Apple ever gone after the websites or individuals despite it being fairly trivial to do so e.g. DCMA or cease and desist letter.
In fact Craig Federighi has gone on the record stating that they fully support people hacking the Mac, OSX etc and believe it to be an important part of the ecosystem.
Source?