Copyright in computer software according to halacha – to what extent?

Here abroad, many sacred books are missing and it’s not easy to obtain them, as well as it is difficult to print pages, etc., because there is no suitable place to store the sacred books and it is very laborious to carry suitcases of sacred books every time to Israel or to the USA. Therefore, the supporters of the kollel had the good idea to purchase the Otzar Hachochma software for the use of the kollel members, thus enabling access to the books and studying from the screens without needing to print everything again.

And after the idea emerged, and we began to bring things into the practical world, we asked the company’s IT specialists if it would be possible to reach a situation where, instead of students having to get up from their seats to go to a computer station and delay their studies until the station became available, each student could connect to that computer from their own place, thus avoiding a lot of wasted study time, and the students could study together, from their respective places, in the books at the same time. They responded that it was possible and gave advice to make it really work.

It turns out that after we bought the software for a high price and it arrived at our doorstep, there was a paper with many conditions, among them the following.

1. The edition grants you only the right to use the “Otzar HaChochma” software and the digitized book database, retaining full ownership of the database in your hands, all in accordance with the terms specified in this document.
2. In the database usage section – this license allows you to use the database only with the designated hardware. It is not permitted to connect the database or any part or component of it to another computer or network of computers – including any connection via cable, telephone line, wireless, infrared, internet, or any other means used for computer communication.
3. The use of the network version is only permitted on the local network. It is not permitted to use the remote connection from home or through the use of a proxy on any other external connection.

And here we ask – do they have the power to restrict your property to the point that they do not allow the buyer to connect to their computer as they wish, given that it is very common today to connect to a computer remotely and not need to be physically next to the specific computer?

And apparently, what the Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat, 212, Section 5, decided, is that the seller of a field for its fruits, the owner of the field cannot enter it except with the buyer’s consent, and the buyer must use it according to their desire.

– Furthermore, it should be mentioned that, later on, there is a section called Prohibited Actions in the Repository.

Any action not expressly permitted to you in this license agreement in relation to the repository is prohibited. Including (but not limited to the aforementioned) you are not authorized to copy, duplicate, distribute, commercialize, translate, reverse engineer, decompile and/or disassemble, adapt, recode, create development, modification or any derivative of the software, damage the software and/or the database, alter or modify them, remove from the dedicated hardware or the software packaging any copyright notice of the software, rent the database, sell it, grant usage rights or sublicenses or perform any action that results in a violation of the publisher’s copyright in the database or granting rights in the database to any third party.

The above-mentioned does not exhaust the prohibited actions in the repository. Remember: thousands of hours of work and effort were invested in the development of the software, the collection of content, and the creation of the database. According to the law, the database is equivalent to a book, image, or other work of art. Actions that are prohibited in such works are also prohibited in the database.

In any case, it is clear that the remote connection to the computer by the person who acquired the software (or on behalf of whom it was acquired) is in no way one of the prohibited actions, but rather an instruction and a command on how they want the database buyer to use the database.

– It is important to emphasize again that this page was not presented before the purchase or installation of the database (which was physically acquired and, therefore, could supposedly condition the sale instead of agreeing to the terms of sale) but came as a page inside the box that, unless someone happened to notice it, there was nothing that required reading or agreeing to it – and we never gave our consent to anything on the page before the sale.

In any case, this is not like the buyer’s obligation, as this occurs only after the purchase. And even if we did not commit ourselves in terms of obligation, but the seller placed this sheet inside the sealed box that he sold unconditionally, and after the purchase of the item, this sheet was found in the box, this is as explained in the Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat, Siman 207, Section 4: “But the ordinary seller, even if he has in mind that he is selling because of this and that, and even if it seems that he did not sell except to do this and that and this was not done, he does not retract – for he did not specify and things that are in the heart are not things.”

To avoid any doubts, we reiterate that in the entire mentioned operation, we do nothing beyond what a single user could do on the computer. The only thing we gain from this is a time saving; instead of using them one after the other, we can do everything at the same time. In other words, in practice, we project the screen of one computer simultaneously onto 5 or 6 screens (to the point where one can see the actions of the other).

And here we will ask the esteemed rabbis to clarify whether we are indeed allowed to do what was mentioned (if they have such authority over the use of acquisition, even if it was not within the conditions), and if this is permitted, can we connect to the computer outside the hours when we are physically in the kollel?