Re: Re: DVD legal maneuvers

[Sunder <sunder@sunder.net>]

lcs Mixmaster Remailer wrote:
 
> Of course if there was no such contract and no such agreement, then the
> issue does not arise.

You got it.  There didn't have to be any such contract for the software to be
reverse engineered.  Catch22 for Xing, not for the guy reversing it.
 
> Two pieces of evidence:  First, apparently the Xing software does, in
> its normal installation, offer the license agreement.  This is where the
> anti-reverse-engineering provision would be located.  Since this is the
> normal case on install, the initial presumption is that this would have
> been displayed to the reverse engineer.

No one said that the guy who reversed it use the installer to install it.  He
could have extracted the files individually without agreeing to any license
whatsoever.
 
> Second, no one involved with the effort has made any claims not to have
> seen the license agreement.  

See above.  Seeing the license agreement doesn't constitute its acceptance.

> The right answer is to say, we have a problem here.  This may be stolen
> property, and before supporting its distribution we must stop and
> investigate to see whether there is a legitimate source for this software.

Stolen property of what? 5 bytes?

I suspect the software was bundled with a DVD drive, no?  Hence, the source for
this software would be a bundled package.  Reading the bits from the CD or
floppies without agreeing to the shrinkwrap/installer license is very possible
and quite legal.
 


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