More on the Elcomsoft case....The prosecutor told the jury that Elcomsoft sells a "burglar tool". Elcomsoft told the jury that its software for bypassing copy protection on Adobe ebooks only worked on legitimately purchased copies and was intended to let purchasers make personal back-up copies in fair use.
(PS: If fair-use rights still exist, and if the substantial non-infringing use of this software is obvious, then it seems that the prosecutor has no choice but to argue that substantial non-infringing use is no longer the right legal test. Can a court take this route without endangering the tape recorder and VCR, or for that matter, the personal computer and printing press? Last May, in an earlier version of the same case, Judge Ronald Whyte ruled that fair use is "still permitted" even though copy protection makes it impossible and tools for circumventing copy protection are illegal. See FOSN for 5/15/02.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/04/2002 08:56:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
