Charmaine,

Over the next few years this will become a bigger issue with the 
introduction of Digital Rights Management hardware.

An example might be a Microsoft Word document that is created by you with 
a future version of Word that encrypts the document allowing it to only be 
opened with that company’s software.

So to use the analogy of a document in a box, you own the document but 
Microsoft owns the box. They grant you a licence to access the document in 
the box, but if that license is revoked you lose access to your document 
and effective ownership.

Gerard

On Wed, 28 Dec 2005 08:26:36 -0800, Charmaine Brooks <[log in to unmask]> 
wrote:

>This thread brings up an interesting question about terminology - the 
meaning of the word "owner" as in record owner and ownership.
>
>  With Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) software, the ownership of the 
software, the code, resides with the vendor as intellectual property. The 
buyer aquires the rights to use the software per the license agreement or 
contract.
>

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