In a message dated: Wed, 23 May 2001 22:02:22 EDT
"Kenneth E. Lussier" said:
>"Karl J. Runge" wrote:
>
>> What are the legal implications to reverse-engineering their format and
>> making our own clients and servers?
>
>Programmers giveth, and the DMCA taketh away. It's illegal. DeCSS was
>designed for completely legal compatibility reasons, but it was
>outlawed because it threatened the license revenue of the MPAA.
True, however, the DMCA *only* applies in the US. If a bunch of
non-US-based programmers reverse engineered the product, then wrote
open clients and servers and released it on the net, like DeCSS, they
could never get it taken off the net.
Sure, the MPAA might attempt to go after them like they did with
DeCSS, however, at some point, some country is going to say enough is
enough, and the rest of the world is subject to the private laws of
the U.S.!
Of course, this will essentially take a few renegade programmers who
don't mind going up against the MPAA initially, and none of us are
non-US-based :)
--
Seeya,
Paul
----
It may look like I'm just sitting here doing nothing,
but I'm really actively waiting for all my problems to go away.
If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right!
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