Re: [very OT] DMCA loop hole

Garett Spencley (gspen@home.com)
Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:18:40 -0400 (EDT)


> And do you seriously think you're going to convince
> Ashcroft and company to prosecute Symantec for getting rid of a virus even
> if it is DMCA 'protected'?

Yeah what people keep forgetting is that DMCA is _federal_ law. There is
no suing. You can not sue someone because they violated the DMCA. Instead
you have to report them to the federal authorities and they take it into
their hands.

That's the reason Dmitri's still in jail. As much as Adobe feels
sorry for what they did to him (who knows if they actually do at all but
my point is it doesn't matter anyway), there are no charges that Adobe can
drop. It is a federal case, not a civil one.

So if you encrypted a virus it would be up to the federal authorities to
decide if cracking it was in violation of the DMCA. And since the
government has proved time and time again that they feel that they are
above the law (not just the U.S gov I should add, I'm Canadian and I get
the same crap from mine from time to time) there is very little chance
that they wouldn't throw your ass in jail and laugh at any blurb you gave
them about the DMCA.

But IANAL so I could be wrong....

-- 
Garett Spencley

I encourage you to encrypt e-mail sent to me using PGP My public key is available on PGP key servers (http://keyservers.net) Key fingerprint: 8062 1A46 9719 C929 578C BB4E 7799 EC1A AB12 D3B9

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