Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

Larry McVoy (lm@bitmover.com)
Mon, 28 Apr 2003 13:18:16 -0700

On Mon, Apr 28, 2003 at 10:04:24PM +0200, Matthias Schniedermeyer wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 03:32:55PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
>
> > I don't think it is exclusively the open source folks that have the
> > business guys worried, they are also worried about the illegal wholesale
> > replication of the software which occurs in places like China.
>
> apples? pears?
>
> 100% copy or "binary clone" of a software is illegal, thats correct.
>
> Reimplementing the "ideas" behind a software is legal.

Sometimes. If you sit down with product A and use it in the process
of creating product B which does what product A does, the courts have
held that you can't copy look-and-feel for example. Independent
derivation of the same thing is fine but just blatent copying is not.

It's true that you can copy the "math" as it were. But look and feel
isn't math.

The fact that you can be sued over look and feel is one of the reasons
that people do "clean room" reimplementations; if you can prove you
never saw WhizzWidget2000 and you reimplemented it then you are safe
from any such suit. Proving clean room is not easy, especially if the
product is widely available. Look at the suits between intel and
some of the chip clones and you'll see what I mean.

-- 

---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm
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