The facts are the same as those in Example 2, where P, the Country Z resident, receives Program X from Corp A’s home page on the Internet, except that P may only use Program X for a period of one week, at the end of which an electronic lock is activated and the program can no longer be accessed.
Thereafter, if P wishes to use Program X, it must return to the home page and pay Corp A to send an electronic key to reactivate the program for another week.
As in Example 3, under paragraph (c)(2) P has received no copyright rights, and under paragraph (g)(2) the means of transmission is irrelevant, so under paragraph (c)(1)(ii) P has received a copyrighted article. P is not properly treated as the owner, so under paragraph (f)(2) there has been a lease rather than a sale. Although P retains the program on its computer, as a legal matter P can no longer use it without the electronic key; functionally the hard drive contains only a series of numbers. Under the special characteristics rule of paragraph (f)(3), the result is the same as in Example 3.
P may use the program for only one week, after which an electronic lock disables it — the online analog to returning a disk.
Under paragraph (g)(2), delivery by download rather than disk does not change the analysis; P still receives a copyrighted article.
Although the disabled program stays on P’s hard drive, as a legal matter P cannot use it without paying for a new key, so P is not the owner.
Under the special characteristics rule of paragraph (f)(3), the disabled-download transaction is a lease of a copyrighted article, just like the returned disk in Example 3.
