RPL 1.5 discussion

[Walter van Holst]

> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> > Please read EU 91/250/EEC Article 5 again, think for a while and
> > wonder about the extreme dearth of court cases in which this clause
> > has been tried, let alone succesfully used, to escape a
> infringement
> > claim while you're at it.
>
> Extreme dearth?
>
> http://juris.bundesgerichtshof.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/docum
> ent.py?Gericht=bgh&Art=en&nr=22504&pos=0&anz=1

A single case in the whole of the EU (a union with 300 million inhabitants) is not really an abundance of jurisprudence. Nonetheless nice of you to dig up an example, I was not aware of it yet. Please note that the Bundesgrichtshof does not rule on the facts of the case. Also note that the heart of the case was not about reverse engineering but about the fact that a third party was given access to the (erroneous) code. Basically, the Bundesgerichtshof ruled that since the exception of article 5 exists, a licence cannot completely rule out access of third parties to the software. Anyway, I'll start diving for the follow-up cases of this later this evening, I've some contracts to write now.

Regards,

 Walter