Shrink-wrap licensing

[Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M.]

Sounds odd to me. Why would reverse engineering be an issue for free
software developers? The source code is open. In the U.S., most reverse
engineering copyright infringment law suits involved derivative works, but
this has recently changed with the enactment of the DMCA. A good degree of
reverse engineering is now permissible in the U.S.

Rod

___________________________________
Rod Dixon
Visiting Assistant Professor of Law
Rutgers University School of Law - Camden
www.cyberspaces.org
rod at cyberspaces.org

Chief Counsel
FreeBuyers Net, LLC
www.freebuyersnet.com
dixon at freebuyersnet.com



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Seth David Schoen [mailto:schoen at zork.net]On Behalf Of Seth David
> Schoen
> Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2000 8:05 PM
> To: license-discuss at opensource.org
> Subject: Re: Shrink-wrap licensing
>
>
> John Cowan writes:
>
> > I read the SelectPhone case with great interest, especially
> > the following bit of dictum:
> >
> > # Someone who found a copy of SelectPhone (trademark) on the street
> > # would not be affected by the shrinkwrap license--though the federal
> > # copyright laws of their own force would limit the finder's ability
> > # to copy or transmit the application program.
> >
> > This suggests that when there is no relation of buying and selling
> > between the copyright holder and the end user, no shrink-wrap-style
> > license can alter the position between them.
>
> That's convenient -- you could buy, say, a copy of Xing's DVD player,
> or a copy of Cyber Patrol, and lose it on the street.  If you lose it
> on the street in the right part of the world (Cambridge, Mountain View,
> Urbana, Ottawa...), somebody is likely to find it and reverse-engineer
> it -- and the copyright holder will have no obvious remedy against
> disclosure of the information thus discovered.
>
> If that trick actually works, this might be a big deal for the free
> software community.  Copyright infringement lawsuits against free
> software supporters are almost always for unauthorized reverse
> engineering and almost never for unauthorized copying.
>
> Can this actually be right?
>
> --
> Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org>  | And do not say, I will
> study when I
> Temp.  http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/  | have leisure; for
> perhaps you will
> down:  http://www.loyalty.org/   (CAF)  | not have leisure.  --
> Pirke Avot 2:5
>