Ari <arisilverstein@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 06 Jul 2008 19:35:27 GMT, Frank Slootweg wrote:
>
> > baynole2@yahoo.com <baynole@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Jul 6, 1:41*pm, Little Luke <fjcam...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> Is the maker of the gun responsible for its use?
> >>
> >> Something of a non sequitur.
> >>
> >> In this case, the software has no purpose or reason for being other
> >> than defeating the copyright protection program,& hence could lead to
> >> liability.
> >
> > That depends. For example in some countries - like mine, The
> > Netherlands - there is fair-use copyright, which allows to make a copy
> > for the private use of the owner of the original media. Some audio/music
> > CDs have copy-protection [1], all video DVDs are encrypted which amounts
> > to copy-protection, etc., etc.. If I defeat the copy-protection to make
> > a copy for my own use, I am well within my legal rights. So the use of a
> > program like DVD Decrypter is fair and legal use.
> >
> > [1] The term is "copy-protection", not "copyright protection". The
> > copyright may be 'protected' when there is no copy-protection and vice
> > versa.
> > For example the copyright (the better, more clear term is "author's
> > rights" [2]) of this posting is protected, but AFAIK the posting is not
> > copy-protected! :-)
> >
> > [2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Author%27s_rights>
>
> US court law agrees based on some interpretations of the DMC Act. If it
> is written, it is immediately copyrighted.

Yes, but as I said, copyrighted does *not neccessarily* mean you're
not allowed to copy it. *That* is the problem with the misnomer
"copyright", it often actually means "author's rights", which does *not
neccessarily* disallow all copying.

For example, I own the copyright/author's rights to this posting (and
no, under *my* law it's not in the public domain or any of that
nonsense), but still you are allowed to copy it, cite from it, etc..