Copyright gives
limited rights:
Right to attribution
Right to create
copies
Right to first distribution
Right to create derivative
works
Right to performance/display/transmission
That, of course,
comes with limitations such as fair
use.
Anything outside that is a landgrab by Copyright owners
attempting to assume more authority then Copyright alone allows. For example,
copyright says nothing about how many users are allowed to use the copyright
protected work at a time - two people can read the same book at the same
time.
Yet EULA's attach such terms in order to increase the
limitations.... and if you dare breach any term of the EULA, you risk having
your license revoked.
Under reasonable situations, to have the license
revoked should automatically apply default Copyright Law to the situation. Or,
at worst, you face nothing more then the civil penalties for breach of
license.
This appears true in Germany where the one defendant who argued
the GPL was invalid was told by the Judge "I hope you have another license, or
because you admit to creating copies and distributing, you are in clear breach
of copyright law".
However, I don't think this question has ever been
raised or considered by any Court of Law anywhere.
In the US, it seems to
be balanced on the premise of the Legal difference between "owning a copy" and
"licensing a copy". It would be rather interesting to see this applied in a
case on a physical copyright protected work - like a book. "You do not purchase
this book, you only license it - if you breach the license, you must destroy the
book."
My humble, non legal, opinion.
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