Opinion Copyright and copying

The views expressed in this article are purely the opinions of the author, Richard Murray, and should not be taken as truth, fact, or resembling anything whatsoever. So there.

It has always been my understanding that, in British/European law, you - as a purchaser - had certain 'rights' which could not be revoked by some stupid licence condition, namely:

• You are allowed to hack out copy protection for the purposes of making the backup copy that you are legally entitled to make; if the software is constructed in such a way as to make it impossible to do this in normal operation - like a weirdly modified install disc.
  
   
  
• You are allowed to remove various protection methods for reasonable use of the software. An example could be hacking a (-n old) game that only runs off floppy so it'll work from your harddisc, if this wasn't provided for by the software.
   
  
• You are allowed to disassemble/modify code for the purposes of fixing faults, and also to gain sufficient information about its internals to allow you to write software designed to be compatible with it.

• Whereas a person having a right to use a computer program should not be prevented from performing acts necessary to observe, study or test the functioning of the program, provided that these acts do not infringe the copyright in the program;
   
  
• Whereas, nevertheless, circumstances may exist when such a reproduction of the code and translation of its form within the meaning of Article 4 (a) and (b) are indispensable to obtain the necessary information to achieve the interoperability of an independently created program with other programs;
  Whereas it has therefore to be considered that in these limited circumstances only, performance of the acts of reproduction and translation by or on behalf of a person having a right to use a copy of the program is legitimate and compatible with fair practice and must therefore be deemed not to require the authorization of the rightholder;
   
  
• Aricle 5 Exceptions to the restricted acts
  1. In the absence of specific contractual provisions, the acts referred to in Article 4 (a) and (b) shall not require authorization by the rightholder where they are necessary for the use of the computer program by the lawful acquirer in accordance with its intended purpose, including for error correction.
  2. The making of a back-up copy by a person having a right to use the computer program may not be prevented by contract insofar as it is necessary for that use.
  3. The person having a right to use a copy of a computer program shall be entitled, without the authorization of the rightholder, to observe, study or test the functioning of the program in order to determine the ideas and principles which underlie any element of the program if he does so while performing any of the acts of loading, displaying, running, transmitting or storing the program which he is entitled to do.

In America, this is excerbated twice. Firstly, we have UCITA which is essentially allowing the software companies to take your money and then punch you in the face, and then say "We'll punch you again, if and when we feel like it". In any other industry (consider used cars or double glazing) law suits abound in similar situations, but for some reason, people just expect software to be buggy just like they expect to be charged to fix the bugs. And consider this whole deal with licencing. In the UK and the US (but apparently not in Germany), when you buy software you are buying two things. You are buying a piece of plastic (the CD) and you are buying a licence allowing you to use the software, provided you accept lots of conditions. You have no bargaining power here. You can't argue the licence. You can only take it or leave it.

Next, the DMCA (or is it DCMA?). Basically some legislation that takes away all your abilities to do anything with the software under some crap excuse of prevention of electronic terrorism. It goes a lot further in that I run a risk if I try to forcibly hack into my own network from a remote location.

For UCITA, it simply beggars belief that people take it seriously. And I have said, and will maintain, that when UCITA becomes the law in whatever country I reside in, I will simply stop programming. Well, I won't, but I'll never release another product again, nor will I purchase anything. UCITA is evil. Look on Google for a selection of thoughts on the matter.

As for the DMCA (DCMA?), it shows the typical ass-backwardsness of the people making the rules in America. They have this misconception that "making it illegal" will make their computer terrorism problems go away. So, what, there's a law allowing kids to shoot each other at school? It was permitted to crash aircraft into skyscrapers in the middle of a city?
The solution is not to make hacking illegal. The solution is to shore up your defences. I am in full support of the people that write macro viral code for MS Outlook, like Melissa and The Love Bug. They are not criminals. Because one attack you can stand. When it happens the third or fourth time around, surely you should be asking yourself what the hell people are doing still using such insecure software? The criminals are not the people that make the viri. They are showing us how insecure the software really is. Yet we treat them as if they've done something really bad. WRONG! The criminals are the people with something to lose who fail to dump the broken software and use something decent. The biggest criminals of all are those who release new 'fixed' versions of the software that are just as susceptible.
Maybe it is totally valid to cause global chaos and hours of downtime, lost data, and estimates of millions in damage. Because this isn't the first time an email virus has bitten. I am beginning to think those that suffer do so deservedly. Everybody has an option. That doesn't mean to change your entire operating system - such drastic methods are simply not necessary. Most of the bitching comes from emotion. I feel, personally, emotion from people who really should have known better, who got caught out.

Did you hear about one of the UCITAish terms apparently inserted into FrontPage? It basically states you cannot use that software to disparage the company. So saying Outlook is an insecure crock would break your UCITA-powered licence if you have FrontPage2000. Luckily I write my HTML in a seven-year-old text editor, and anyway it was written by a bunch of Brits who would certainly have frowned on the lunacy of UCITA.

So you might be thinking... okay, I'm a Brit (living in France) and UCITA/DMCA is bogus in the EU. That is correct, but for how long? With all this terrorism nonsense, those in power in the EU are thinking of legislation like that being instigated in the US.

I'll leave you with a final thought. There's a storm coming and your defences may not be good enough. You don't fancy your house being flooded, so do you:

a, Build up the defences

or

b, Shout at the storm, and erect a sign saying "NO STORMS"

The wise man would make the defences better. So why do politicians seem to prefer the unwise approach?