Re: Clinton signs draconian antipiracy law, from the Netly News

["Robert A. Costner" <pooh@efga.org>]

At 12:08 PM 12/17/97 -0800, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>Note that the law is medium-independent. That is, it just talks about
>"copyrighted works." So if you copy a few videocassettes, a few CDs, a few
>magazine articles, the Feds can still get you if the total value is over
>$1,000. 
>
>And yes, of course, it's just one or two pieces of software. In my article
>I said three copies of Microsoft Office ($360 at local computer stores).

The law covers not only copies, but derivative works apparently.
Derivative works can violate the exclusive rights of the copyright holder.
If for instance I install software on a regular basis, but don't like the
slow MS installation routine, I can reverse engineer the process and
provide a derivative work that installs better.  

I have infact done this before and used the process to personally install
software on over 1,500 machines.  My thought has always been if the owner
of the machine had a license for the original software, my derivative work
that is preconfigured would be no harm in installing.  I've never bothered
to break the shrinkwrap each time I install software.  Under this law such
a thing would be considered a criminal act.  

A policeman observing me doing this copying of derivative works (whether or
not I had a license to make such a derivative work) could arrest me on sight.


  -- Robert Costner                  Phone: (770) 512-8746
     Electronic Frontiers Georgia    mailto:pooh@efga.org  
     http://www.efga.org/            run PGP 5.0 for my public key