🚀 go-pugleaf

In this week's ComputerWorld, and interesting article made the front page.
Because of a unintended consequence of the 11th Amendment of the Constitution,
the Supreme Court has ruled that state agencies and universities are not bound
to honor copyrights -- in other words, they can copy at will.  (This is not
an April Fools' joke...)

This decision resulted because of a case by an engineering software
company against UCLA, who was accused of copying 3 copies of the software
and 10 copies of the manuals for each copy that they purchased.

Needless to say, the software industry is very concerned about this development.
They are currently lobbying the Congress to pass a law closing this loophole.
Discussing is slated to begin on May 17.  Currently passage of the proposed bill
is expected.

Now does this mean that any copying done before then is exempt, since after-the-
fact legislation is frowned upon?  If this is the case, there will be much
copying until May 17...

-Michael


-- 
Michael Niehaus        UUCP: <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!mithomas
Apple Student Rep      ARPA:  mithomas@bsu-cs.bsu.edu
Ball State University  AppleLink: ST0374 (from UUCP: st0374@applelink.apple.com)