Z:gnu-www-ja-questioning-sco--7d3644-In general, users of copyright/en

In general, users of copyrighted works do not need licenses. The Copyright Act conveys to copyright holders certain exclusive rights in their works. So far as software is concerned, the rights exclusively granted to the holder are to copy, to modify or make derivative works, and to distribute. Parties who wish to do any of the things that copyright holders are exclusively entitled to do need permission; if they don't have permission, they're infringing. But the Copyright Act doesn't grant the copyright holder the exclusive right to use the work; that would vitiate the basic idea of copyright. One doesn't need a copyright license to read the newspaper, or to listen to recorded music; therefore you can read the newspaper over someone's shoulder or listen to music wafting on the summer breeze even though you haven't paid the copyright holder. Software users are sometimes confused by the prevailing tendency to present software products with contracts under shrinkwrap; in order to use the software one has to accept a contract from the manufacturer. But that's not because copyright law requires such a license.