Basically, a company is suing an anti-spyware software producer on the grounds that the anti-spyware people examined their software's code in order to allow the anti-spyware software to block it, and such examination was forbidden by the EULA (End User License Agreement.)
This bothers the heck out of me.
Now, every software company has some stake in protecting their assets from reverse-engineering by competitors. But the law already prevents the copying of a competitor's code. Preventing any examination of that code in perpetuity has all sorts of unfortunate ramifications. For one thing, it means a user has to take a company's word for it that the software they purchase and install on their computer is only doing what it's described as doing, and nothing else. Companies have abused this trust terribly in the past. For another, it allows companies like Microsoft that make the software nearly everyone else runs on an excessive degree of control. Incompatabilities with the operating system become impossible to reconcile for third-party software makers in some cases, and innovations that could improve use for everyone end up being stifled.
In short form, this seems like one more case where copyright laws and the DMCA give far too much power to the makers of a property, at the cost of the people who actually have to use or deal with said property.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I doubt they have a case. Most EULAs are framed as 'by clicking on this button, you agree that blah blah blah." I certainly hope the anti-spyware company did no such thing.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: The power of EULAs has very little to do with copyright law or the DMCA.
It could, in this case, be argued that the intent of the anti-spyware software is to compromise access to the prosecuting company's software, or that decompiling of their code amounts to technological circumvention of copyright management. I don't think either argument holds much water, but such could be argued.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
They're not, though, they're arguing that you broke a contract stating you wouldn't examine the source.
Furthermore, being compiled into a binary is not a copy-prevention mechanism, and looking at a binary is not circumventing any copy-prevention mechanism. Decompiling a binary is not circumventing a copy-prevention mechanism.
And even if they were, the primary restrictions in the DMCA are on distributing mechanisms whose primary purpose is such, not actually using the mechanism. Circumventing a copy-prevention mechanism for fair-use purposes is still completely legal.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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