[free-sklyarov] Seybold session yesterday

[David Haworth]

On Thu, Sep 27, 2001 at 12:59:54AM -0700, Christopher R. Maden wrote:
> Mark Walter, one of the better editors for Seybold Reports, moderated a 
> panel discussion about the DMCA at Seybold today.
[...]

> Alan was very much a supporter of the DMCA, but made many excellent 
> points.  First, claims that Dmitry was just helping Adobe out by pointing 
> out a weakness, and should have been hired instead of jailed are 
> revisionist at best.
That's true. What's more, Adobe's product is fundamentally flawed
- as are all of the so-called protection products for use on PCs.
Even the best cryptographic algorithms are useless if you give the
enemy the key. And that's exactly what happens here. The enemy
(the public) gets the key - either hidden in the ebook, or somewhere
else on his PC, or built into the reader software.

> Another excellent point he made was that fair use may not be relevant to 
> the debate here.  If the *contract* for using a piece of intellectual 
> property, like the licensing terms on an ebook, specify certain 
> restrictions, then fair use doesn't come into play.  If customers don't 
> want to abide by the terms of the contract, they should refuse to enter 
> into it in the first place.

Unless they find that these contract terms are applied after the fact.
Here in Europe, such contract terms are null and void, and in the absence
of a mutually-agreed contract, normal copyright law applies. I assume
that something similar applies in the US. If not, it's time to do
something about it.

Dave

-- 
David Haworth
Baiersdorf, Germany
david.haworth at altavista.net
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