Re: Can the inevitability of Software privacy be used to defeat the ITAR?

["Mark M." <markm@voicenet.com>]

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On Thu, 11 Jul 1996, Paul Elliott wrote:

> All software companies who sell (really licence) software
> must deal with the inevitability of software piracy. It
> is a brute fact that any usefully product sold in the U.S.
> will eventually appear as an unauthorized copy for sale
> abroad. This fact must be recognized in the software companies'
> business plan.
> 
> The question occurs to me "why can not this fact be used to
> defeat the ITAR?"
> 
> What is to prevent a U.S company to licence a foreign company
> to sublicence and distribute a Crypto product abroad, if that
> foreign company obtains that product on the pirate market?

Just because the company didn't break any laws doesn't mean that they aren't
going to be harassed by the government.  This is similar to the Philip
Zimmermann case.  A grand jury investigation could be carried on for as long
as the statute of limitations dictates and then the prosecutor of the case
decided at the last minute not to indict.  This is the reason that Netscape
has not yet made a browser with 128-bit encryption available on the Internet.

- -- Mark

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"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.  If that
is granted, all else follows."  --George Orwell, _1984_


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