[free-sklyarov] Feature "rights"

[Xcott Craver]

On Sun, 16 Sep 2001, John Dempsey wrote:

> If you crack the nut of encryption, and publish your cracker, especially for
> profit, you'd go to jail.
> Perhaps this is necessary for the same reasoning that we have it now: One
> broken copy is enough to smash all protection.

	I don't think this would be acceptible.  It simply won't do
	to allow fair use circumvention, but disallow the tools needed to
	perform said circumvention.

> But if you crack the encryption to implement fair use features, but do not
> leave the encryption removed, you should be safe.

	One problem here is the definition of "leave."  What if you leave
	the encryption removed on a transient copy in the /tmp directory?

	And what if fair use means making a backup copy in a different
	format?  Or converting to a different format so you can use
	the media on your other, unsupported, computer?

> While I'm at it I'd say distributing the actual cracker would be unlawful,
> but documenting the technology should not be a crime.

	This would be like allowing people to publish papers on astronomy,
	but outlawing telescopes.  There's nothing for scientists to
	publish if they can't access tools for research, and to a certain
	extent you can't expect them to build their own from scratch.

> John
							Xcott