On Thursday 25 April 2002 14:31, Alan wrote:
> There is no "artwork" involved. it is a character set.

> I think you guys are overracting.

I don't. Although the risk of being sued is negligible, the *damage* that 
would ensue (basically, Mandrake goes under) is extreme enough to make the 
choice uneconomical.

Since the StarWars and Lament screensavers have existed for many years and not 
been commented on, I think it would be fairly simple and cheap to argue that 
any copyright (ownership rights of any sort) had not been enforced, so the 
plaintiffs themselves have created the impression that there was no 
copyright.

The SW screensaver is SW-shaped but does not have SW words in it. It is easy 
to differentiate between it and StarWars per se. Not so the Matrix one.

In Australia, the case is likely a little different from the USA or France. I 
am explicitly permitted to reverse-engineer, and WB have not produced a 
Matrix screensaver which will run on my computer.

As you can see from my previous post, I;ve started the ball rolling in a 
gentle, subtle manner so that xmatrix or a close derivative may yet be 
included in a Mandrake distro with WB's blessing, or at least with an 
explicit promise of inaction.

Cheers; Leon


Cheers; Leon


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