[free-sklyarov] Is the Open Source movement at risk from the DMCA?

Seth David Schoen schoen at loyalty.org
Wed Jul 25 15:49:37 PDT 2001


Jon O . writes:

> Is the Open Source movement at risk from the DMCA?
> 
> Microsoft Word contains a proprietary file format. Open
> Source developers often work to reverse engineer this
> format in order to create compatible products. Star 
> Office is a Word alternative and can read these word 
> documents. Is it only a matter of time before MS says
> you are circumventing a protection?
> 
> Anyone care to comment?

You want to look at _Universal City Studios v. Shawn Reimerdes et
al._.  The EFF is representing the remaining defendants in that case,
which has been appealed to the Second Circuit.  Most case documents
are available at Cryptome or the EFF's web site.

Also, Professor Touretzky's "Gallery of CSS Descramblers":

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/

There are endless commentaries on the Internet about the risks to open
source DVD players.

-- 
Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org>  | Lending, printing, copying, giving
Temp.  http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/  | and text-to-speech are permissions
down:  http://www.loyalty.org/   (CAF)  | enabled by the publisher.  -- Adobe




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