Freewareportal

Freewareportal

John Bjarne Grover

I recorded the possible 'poltergeists' on my home laptop in a socalled WMA format of Windows and needed to have it converted since no browser supports this format, as it seemed, and Windows 10 has no built-in option for audio file conversion for the internet. I found on the internet a page which offered such conversion to MP3 - but when I later tried to find a way to convert and extract the fragments needed for investigating the few seconds of the two recordings I discuss in the article 'The christmas present', I could not launch these recordings belonging to other people on an internet page since I had not the copyright nor could I know who were the real owners of programs that were presented as free download, so I went to a shop and bought a program called 'MP3 deluxe 19' produced by some 'MAGIX' at magix.com - this should be able to solve my problem. However, when I should install it, I discovered that the licence agreement looked completely untenable - here some excerpts from it:

Lizenzbedingungen für MAGIX Produkte (EULA)

1. Vertragsgegenstand:

MAGIX gewährt Ihnen (Kunde) für die Laufzeit des Vertrages eine nicht ausschließliche Lizenz für das betreffende MAGIX-Produkt. Sie erhalten das Recht, die erworbene Software und die Musik- und Video-Dateien auf einem Rechner (mit einer CPU oder auf einem Multiprozessor-Rechner) oder in einem Netzwerk unter der Bedingung zu nutzen, dass der Zugriff lediglich von einem Netzwerkrechner möglich ist. Erhalten verschiedene Netzwerkrechner Zugriff auf den Server ist für jeden einzelnen dieser Netzwerkrechner (Workstations) eine gesonderte Lizenz zu erwerben. Das geistige Eigentum oder die sonstigen Schutzrechte an der Software verbleiben nach wie vor bei MAGIX. Sie erkennen das geistige Eigentum an Software, Musik- und Video-Dateien, Sicherungskopien und Dokumentation seitens des Lizenzgebers an. Die Verantwortung für die vertragsgemäße Nutzung der Lizenzprogramme liegt beim Käufer der Programme.

[...]

3. Lizenzüberprüfung:

Einzelne Softwareprodukte erfordern in regelmäßigen Abständen eine Validierung der Lizenzen. Hierdurch wird sichergestellt, dass es sich um Originalsoftware handelt und die Software im Rahmen der Lizenzbedingungen genutzt wird. Dazu ist eine Verbindung mit dem Internet erforderlich. Sollten Sie einen längeren Zeitraum nicht online sein, werden Sie in der Software eine entsprechende Meldung erhalten und aufgefordert werden, eine Internetverbindung herzustellen.

[...]

The program could not be started before it had been activated or registered via email. In light of the possible political effect of LICENCE (see 'Liis-Ene' under Mao and Gandhi and the blue metre), it may be a quite heavy propaganda effect in such a licence agreement. It is not possible to use such a program.

In short, it is well possible that my problem could not be solved at all - under the present circumstances.

I have a suggestion: EU could open an internet portal (a page, that means) for guaranteed safe freeware to be downloaded without risking violations of copyright - this could present programs that are perhaps not the hottest on the market but that can be used. This portal could negotiate agreements with e.g. Microsoft for free use of e.g. older versions of Windows (such as XP and older) and Word - programs that have no longer support from the producer. There could be drivers and fonts of all sorts. How can I find a font for e.g. chinese or hebrew? "You just find one on the internet" is perhaps the normal answer - but the fact is likely to be that you can never be certain about copyright restrictions that could apply to any font you just find on the internet - and that could perhaps even mean that a document printed with such a font could be considered 'illegal'. Could it even be stopped in the post for such reasons? An official internet portal that can guarantee the freedom of copyright restrictions on downloadable freeware - and the absence of unwanted hostile elements in such programs - would be very welcome. It could also limit the unfortunate political effect of licence agreements. Could be such a source already exists? Of course the programs and fonts downloaded from such a source must be without activation and registration and licence limitations - and then it is perhaps needed that one and only one such 'official portal' exists.

But of course best is it if the freeware can be bought cheaply on CD's in e.g. the post office - guaranteed without viruses etc.