03 Sep 2008 Can you lend me your iPhone for a minute?

A recent news item about Google Chrome bowser's license terms (the phrases "publicly perform, publicly display") reminds me of this legal trivia:

Can you lend your iPhone to a friend for making a call?
If you read the iPhone terms of use [pdf], it clearly says:

"3. Transfer. You may not rent, lease, lend, sell, redistribute, or sublicense the iPhone Software ..."

in other words, if you handout your iPhone to friend, and he or she uses the software, you have committed a crime (of license violation)! As per the same terms, if you have violated any terms of the license, you are required to cease all use of the software.

By the way, can you show or display your iPhone or MacOS X desktop to others?
Suppose you are making a presentation to a group of people, before your slideware takes up full screen, portions of the default wallpaper or other software get displayed on a projection screen, or the copyrighted ringtone music gets 'performed' in front of passengers in a metro train.

The corresponding licenses and terms of use do not grant you the right to publicly perform and publicly display the software or hardware to others. While it does not explicitly say "you can't perform nor display", the license terms don't say you can!

Interpret it in what ever way you want, publicly displaying a copyrighted work without a permission is called copyright infringement! If a thief steals your money, you having not given any explicit right to take that money, it is still called theft.

Anyway Sun's lawyers had done their homework and CDDL opensource license explicitly grants you the permissions to display or perform. See also this license comparison.

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