Re: Mecc titles

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

wbdesnoy@acs2.acs.ucalgary.ca (Byron Desnoyers Winmill) wrote:

>Supertimer (supertimer@aol.com) wrote:
>
>: Remember, what this law does is give the US government
>: the power to enforce the law regardless of what the
>: copyright holder says or what the infringer profits from
>: making software available.  It allows the government to
>: enforce the letter of the law regardless.  It also tightens
>: the definition of piracy.
>
>If they can enforce the law regardless of what the copyright holder says,
>would that not give the government the right to prosecute individuals who
>were given permission via the copyright owner or some other copyright
>agreement?  I am not saying that it would stand up in a court of law, but
>my understanding is that legal costs are astonomical now days.  I am also
>saying that the copyright holder should have the final say on pressing
>charges, because the property belongs to he.

The copyright holder still has the final say, but they must
formally release the program as freeware, PD, shareware,
etc.  Basically, it is a way to protect software companies
from having to foot astronomical legal cost just to enforce
their copyright.  Otherwise, people could claim ignorance
until the software companies track them down, which
costs money.  I'm not saying the government has the
resources to prosecute every offense, but it does mean
that all such infringements now are unambiguously
defined as piracy.

I think I did not word it clear enough before (in the quote).
What this means is simply that the government can
prosecute and enforce the law even though the copyright
holder has yet to "call the cops."  The copyright itself
says to the government "if this software is discovered
pirated, I want to enforce the copyright."  To change this
requires contacting the software company and having
THEM as copyright holders formally change the status
of the software.

The second point of the new regulation is to plug the
loophole whereby individuals who are not motivated by
profit put copyrighted software on their site without
first asking for a change in status of said software.  As
the case described in the CNN link I provided states,
this is now piracy.  No more "I didn't make a profit so
it isn't stealing."  No more "it isn't piracy because the
software company hasn't discovered it yet and objected
yet."