RE: A86: ROM Images (legal battle thread)
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RE: A86: ROM Images (legal battle thread)
Check out http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/
--
Bryan Rabeler <brabeler@ticalc.org>
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On Wed, 18 Nov 1998, Josh Grams wrote:
>
> >At 06:15 PM 11/17/98 -0400, you wrote:
> >>>Frankly, your arguments would never hold up in a court room. The facts
> >>>are that the TI ROM is copyrighted material and you can't distribute it.
> >>>
> >>Right. You _can_ make a copy for personal use, but without TI's permission,
> >>it's illegal to distribute it for any purpose.
> >
> >How do you know that my arguments won't hold up in a court room? They are
> >sound arguments legally based on the national copyright law. Only the
> >Supreme Court could possibly overrule "programming research" by a change in
> >the law. I have proven my point in many various ways and I seem to have
> >come out on top every single time. I have replied to every e-mail that has
> >been sent and still proven "programming research" and the distribution of
> >ROM images under the copyright law exception to be completely and utterly
> >legal. I may have seemed redundant at times, but that was to emphasize my
> >point. You have all presented very good arguments against "programming
> >research." However, I wouldn't have initially replied if I hadn't thought
> >the whole thing through in the first place.
> >
> Look, you can NOT put the thing up on the web for whatever purpose. Sure,
> under copyright law, title 17, section 107 (I think) you can distribute it
> for research purposes. But that's open to interpretation. And one of the
> factors they list in deciding about fair use is the nature of the work. And
> I kind of think they'd be more stringent about software. Most software says
> explicitly in the license that reverse-engineering, disassembling, or
> otherwise making the thing readable for whatever purpose is not allowed. So
> I think that would influence the interpretation of fair play.
>
> I'm not arguing that you can't distribute the ROM for research purposes.
> But do you _know_ that the person you are sending it to wants it for
> research purposes? And putting it on the web, no matter how you do it,
> constitutes public display and is therefore illegal. You _might_ be able to
> make some kind of argument for it from the stuff under section 110 (?), but
> I agree with Bryan, it's clearly TI's property, the argument wouldn't hold
> up in court.
>
> Sorry this isn't more specific, I haven't read the copyright law in a long
> time. If anyone's interested in reading it, you should be able to find it
> at the Library of Congress <http://lcweb.loc.gov>, pick Search the Site,
> look through the C index listing for US Copyright Office. should be there.
> . .
>
> Now can we drop this thread? The ROM is TI's, they're a big company, if
> they choose to make an issue of it, they can probably make more trouble
> than any of us can take, regardless of what we're doing is illegal or not.
> Although I don't think that's very probable. :-) Lighten up already!
>
> --Joshua
>
>
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