[volt-nuts] Keithley 2001 Multimeter Fault

[John Ackermann N8UR]

That's a pretty substantial exaggeration of what the DMCA says.  The
anticircumvention provision applies only to "technological measures"
used to control access to a "work protected under this title"

Between the definitions in the statute and the cases decided under it,
it's clear that

(a) a "technological measure" is one that is intended to protect the
work from unauthorized access, not simple compilation or assembly;

(b) a "work protected under this title" means a work that qualifies for
copyright protection ("title" is referring to Title 17 of the US Code,
which deals with copyright only), and physical items are not
copyrightable to the extent it is functional or utilitarian;

(c) software or a data stream must meet the copyright act's criteria for
"creativity" to be protected by DMCA (one case held that a garage door
remote control's codes were not protected by the DMCA because they were
not copyrightable); and

(d) the US statutory "fair use" defense is still available, although
admittedly some recent cases (the RealDVD case in particular) may make
it less useful, at least for circumvention-makers.

The DMCA is bad, but it does not go nearly as far as you are saying it does.

John
----

Chuck Harris wrote:
> Hi John,
> 
> The Digital Millenium Copyright Act aka DMCA, makes it illegal
> to decode, disassemble, or decompile any protected work.  So
> basically, if you take a piece of software, or hardware and
> figure out how it works, you have probably violated the DMCA.
> 
> Everything is illegal these days.
> 
> -Chuck Harris
> 
> J. Forster wrote:
>> Chuck,
>>
>> " in some cases illegal "
>>
>> How do you figure that?
>>
>> Best,
>> -John
>>
>> ===============
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> Because of the extreme number of patents, and the broad way
>>> in which they are written, the probability is very high that
>>> any electronic device made is infringing on at least one patent.
>>>
>>> If companies behave as good corporate citizens, and put out
>>> their schematics, source code, and other documentation, they
>>> are essentially begging to be sued for patent infringement.
>>>
>>> If they keep the schematics and other documentation as a
>>> closely held secret, it makes it much harder, and in some cases
>>> illegal, to find out if they have infringed your patents.
>>>
>>> Innovation through litigation!
>>>
>>> -Chuck Harris
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> volt-nuts mailing list -- volt-nuts at febo.com
>> To unsubscribe, go to 
>> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volt-nuts
>> and follow the instructions there.
>>
> 
> _______________________________________________
> volt-nuts mailing list -- volt-nuts at febo.com
> To unsubscribe, go to 
> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volt-nuts
> and follow the instructions there.