At 12:08 PM 12/17/97 -0800, Declan McCullagh wrote:
Note that the law is medium-independent. That is, it just talks about "copyrighted works." So if you copy a few videocassettes, a few CDs, a few magazine articles, the Feds can still get you if the total value is over $1,000.
And yes, of course, it's just one or two pieces of software. In my article I said three copies of Microsoft Office ($360 at local computer stores).
The law covers not only copies, but derivative works apparently. Derivative works can violate the exclusive rights of the copyright holder. If for instance I install software on a regular basis, but don't like the slow MS installation routine, I can reverse engineer the process and provide a derivative work that installs better. I have infact done this before and used the process to personally install software on over 1,500 machines. My thought has always been if the owner of the machine had a license for the original software, my derivative work that is preconfigured would be no harm in installing. I've never bothered to break the shrinkwrap each time I install software. Under this law such a thing would be considered a criminal act. A policeman observing me doing this copying of derivative works (whether or not I had a license to make such a derivative work) could arrest me on sight. -- Robert Costner Phone: (770) 512-8746 Electronic Frontiers Georgia mailto:pooh@efga.org http://www.efga.org/ run PGP 5.0 for my public key