🚀 go-pugleaf

Bill Unruh wrote:

> <telford@xenon.triode.net.au> writes:

> ]The relevance is that e-books is a proprietary format and Adobe
> ]believe they have the right to decide who can and who cannot read
> ]their format. The right to be compatible with proprietary formats
> ]is one thing we are fighting for.
> 
> The other case is Lexmark vs the toner recycler, who cloned the chip on the
> Lexmark cartridges, and was brought to court under DCMA since Lexmark
> argued that they must have evaded copy control devices in order to copy the
> chip.

Not however a case that justifies the claim that the expression "results 
in" had been given a wide intepretation, which was the issue of 
relevance being discussed.

> The DCMA is just a very very bad law, which the US companies are trying to
> get adopted around the world. 

The Lexmark case is an example of one where a company is using a 
technological approach to support a particular business model (cheap 
printers, but expensive catridges, I presume). They're using the DCMA to 
protect their technology which stands up only because as current 
expressed, it protects technologies whose purpose is to prevent 
examination of software code rather than to prevent copying of it.

However, the DMCA is not always required. Microsoft's XBox requires that 
software be signed using a private key known only to Microsoft, thus 
again protecting a business model that probably subsidises the price of 
the XBox by having a higher price for the software. This mechanism can 
only defeated either by modchipping (which is probably legal still, but 
not something most people want to do), or by factorising the private key 
(which is being attempted, but they've Buckley's hope of success with 
the current mathematical framework).

These tethering mechanisms would almost certainly be unlawful if 
achieved by means of contractual conditions rather than technology. This 
needs to be addressed directly by the legislatures. Attacking the DMCA 
only addresses part of that problem.

Sylvia.