Posted by Jeff Rife on 11/18/05 05:51

Alpha (none@none.net) wrote in alt.video.dvd:
> > And they may have also violated copyright law to prevent copyright
> > infringement.
>
> Wrong. Copyright law gives no right to copy, except for fair use, limited
> to educational use mostly.

That is completely, totally incorrect.

Copyright law allows copying of many things that are copyrighted without
infringing on copyright...backup of computer software is one thing that is
specifically covered without needing to invoke the "fair use" defense to
copyright infringement.

In addition, copyright law allows assignment of rights by the copyright
holder. In this particular case, code that is covered by the LGPL was
used in the Sony product. This code is freely copyable because the LGPL
assigns that right to users, but with the restriction that the original
copyright notice is included (as well as some other restrictions). Because
Sony/First 4 Internet didn't follow these restrictions, they have infringed
on the rights of the holders of the copyright on this code.

--
Jeff Rife |
| http://www.nabs.net/Cartoons/Dilbert/Understaffed.gif

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