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FREE ONLINE SOFTWARE NOT FREE?
In a recent judgment, the Taiwan High Court ruled that an Internet cafe operator violated the Copyright Law when he did not delete free software downloaded by a customer, but instead copied it and installed it on the computers in the cafe for the continued use of consumers.
In its judgment, the court pointed out that the use of free software directly downloaded from a website is still subject to lawful licensing as to the content and mode of use. If there is no ex-plicit statement allowing the downloaded soft-ware to be rented out, then it may only be used for home or individual purposes, within the scope permitted by the copyright holder. It may not be reproduced in large quantities and rented out for business purposes. The defendant was an Internet cafe operator, and a prerequisite for op-erating such a business was that licenses were obtained for the software used. Considering that in the case of a paying version of the same software, as available for purchase in the market, the license agreement displayed on installation of the software warned that the consumer might not sell or transfer the software for the use of other persons, or to lease, hire or license it to other persons—that is to say, that even paying pur-chasers of the software might not rent it out to others—it was inconceivable that it could be permissible for a free copy of the software to be copied in large numbers and rented out at will by an Internet cafe operator.