posted by alef on 28-Nov-2006 6:09:44 (2091 reads)
AmigaWeb.net writes in the latest news item that DMCA - the Digital Millennium Copyright Act - is changing rules that may affect Amiga "piracy" in many ways.
Partial quote: Quote:
Yahoo News has an article up outlining a new clarification of the DMCA that is set to allow for legal archival of older, no-longer-maintained games. It also allows for legal cracking of the copy protection present on these games.
Not bad , but where to draw the line ? what's abandonware and what not ? 99% of the Amigagames ok, but when we speak only 5 years back that would also affect all psx1 titles and such ...
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The changes don't affect piracy at all. Where changes are indicated for software, no rights are granted for distribution. They merely indicate that those with licensed copies are granted the right to bypass any copy protections the software may have.
> changing rules that may affect Amiga "piracy" in many ways
No. The copyright office has permitted (in the US) to disable protection code in the context of archival. They have not revoked the copyright itself:
"Persons making noninfringing uses of the following six classes of works will not be subject to the prohibition against circumventing access controls"
The keyword here is non-infringing: after removal of protection, the use must not infringe rights (of the copyright holder). So now you are allowed to hack and archive your own CD - big deal.
Not bad , but where to draw the line ? what's abandonware and what not ? 99% of the Amigagames ok, but when we speak only 5 years back that would also affect all psx1 titles and such ...
Definition of abandonware is games that have been discontinued for such a period of time that they are not sold anymore in normal stores.
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