| From: Jim Powers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | > Does anyone know what the legal status of this is in other countries? | | Well it depends on what the circumstance is under which the code was written | for the decoder. If the code was written under NDA, then it's a no-go. The | author cannot release the code without TI's approval. If the firmware was | "cracked" then it's a DMCA-related issue. Several countries have DMCA-like | laws on the books. I think one of them is Canada.
In Canada, we don't yet have DMCA-like legislation. Bill C-60 included "anti-circumvention" provisions but died on the order paper when Parliament was dissolved. Translation: the previous government put introduced a bill that has some of this stuff, but it got derailed for our Federal election (January 23). It is likely that the next government will do something similar. The US has managed to impose these things on parts of the rest of the world through a variety of techniques. To get a trade deal, Australia signed on. The WIPO Internet treaties apparently mandate something. To be fair, each country has its own lobbiests for this stuff. Here is an analysis of this aspect of C-60 by a "good guy" Canadian lawyer. http://209.171.61.222/PublicInterest/two_4_geist.htm (I don't know why a domain name isn't used.) Since he is a lawyer, he makes you agree to a (Creative Commons) license to read this chapter of his book. Anyway, I think your analysis is right in general. The best way to get this firmware is for someone to talk to TI. I cannot see how it is in their interest to prevent Linux use of their hardware. _______________________________________________ LinuxR3000 mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pcxperience.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linuxr3000 Wiki at http://prinsig.se/weekee/
