On Mon, 22 October 2001, "Karsten M. Self" wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> > but copyright law reserves no rights to the author regarding "use". > > No longer strictly true, see 17 USC 1201 ff., recently discussed by > myself, Larry Rosen, and Wendy Selzer on this list. do you know the subject title of the discussion thread? > > so, here's a hypothetical situation: > > > > Bob's Music Conglomeration starts releasing music as an object file. > > The license says "you can only link this music/object file with > > software licensed by Bob". And Bob's player is a monolithic hulk of > > software that enforces a pay per play system, along with forced user > > registration, and reports back to Bob on user playing habits, etc. > > > > Alice makes a driver that play's Bob's music on Linux, and puts it on > > the web. Bob sicks his lawyers on Alice, telling her that since users > > have no right to link bob's music object files with her code, they're > > suing her for vicarious copyright infringment, by encouraging people > > to illegally link Bob's music files with her code that was not > > approved by Bob (i.e. she didn't pay him enough coin) > > > > Bob grants users restricted rights to derive, > > so users can't derive with Alice's code, > > so they can't link, > > so they cant USE Bob's music but by his pay per play software. > > > > The way I'm understanding what everyone has said about copyright law, > > this suit would actually have some legal validity to it. > > Not as I read it. > > You haven't stated who owns the music, ah, I was imlying that Bob owned the music as well. The music needed to be linked to be played, and the license for the music says it can only be linked with Bob's Music Jukebox. The license restriction is on the Music, not the player. somethign like: "you can copy/distribute this music freely, but derived works (and linking) can only be done with software licensed by Bob" so, the music files can be passed around freely, but no one can play them or use them, unless they use Bob's Music Jukebox. What I'm trying to understand is whether or not Bob can put such a restriction on his music that no one can legally use them but by his Jukebox software, simply because he designs his music in such a way that you must link them to use them. If true, then Bob can effectively control all *use* of his music files. And this doesn't seem to me to be the intent of Copyright Law. I have music data in my legal possession, and I can't legally play it. Can this happen? > Bob is using copyright to enforce functionality, and restrict access to > a work in the public domain. > > My feeling, barring the DMCA, is that Sega v. Accolade and Sony v. > Connectix should serve well as a basis for the case that use of > copyright to deny functional behavior otherwise unaccessible, to > exercise fair use, and access public domain works, is unsupported by > copyright law. OK, but what if the work isn't public domain? Bob owns the music files. > The 11th Circuit's Wind Done Gone ruling also has some > interesting comments concerning ownership in copyright and ownership in > works. Any URL's that summarize? Thanks in advance, Greg -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
