Re: Mecc titles

[kragen@dnaco.net (Kragen Sitaker)]

In article <7smveh$bqs@ds2.acs.ucalgary.ca>,
Byron Desnoyers Winmill <wbdesnoy@acs2.acs.ucalgary.ca> wrote:
>Which actually brings up an interesting point: most software is not
>distributed under the protection of copyrights alone.  It is distributed
>via a licence agreement.  I believe that many of these licence agreements
>are actually in defiance of copyright laws, which entitle you to make
>backup copies, to reverse assemble (I *believe* that Canadian copyright
>law gives you the right to even modify) software, etc..  But that is not
>even the worse of it.

I am quite certain that American copyright law gives you the right to
modify software; it does not prohibit modification of any copyrighted
work.  (It would be a bad world if a publishing company could keep me
from writing notes in the margin of a book I bought from them!)  What
it restricts is the right to make copies, public performances, etc., of
the copyrighted work -- modified or unmodified -- or works derived from
it.
-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
Mon Sep 27 1999
42 days until the Internet stock bubble bursts on Monday, 1999-11-08.
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/bubble.html>