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Domain: gcwf.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to gcwf.com.

Comments · 6

  1. Re:Why?! by LWATCDR · · Score: 1 · on The Hidden Boot Code of the Xbox

    1. Not every place even in the US has zoning laws.
    2. The EULA is not a law.
    3. I bought my XBox from a pawn shop. I got no EULA and even if I did Shrink wrap EULAs are not binding.
    4. From this site http://www.xenatera.com/bunnie/proj/anatak/xboxmod .html"Well, it's been about three months since I've posted anything significant. Half of that is I've been finishing my PhD thesis, and the other half is that I've been dealing with legal issues versus my work on the Xbox. Well, last week, I finished both my thesis, and I got a grudging thumbs up, so to speak, from Microsoft on my Xbox reverse engineering work. so...here I am, again."
    So Microsoft has have decided it is not illegal.
    And finally http://www.gcwf.com/articles/ipu/ipu_sum00_9.html "You are actually allowed by law to reverse engineer copyrighted code so long as it is necessary to discover the ideas or functional elements behind the code" So it is legal.
    So if it is totally legal I would say that any question as to it's morality is dumb.

  2. Illegal, yes by MacAndrew · · Score: 2 · on FatWallet Strikes Back Using DMCA

    Trade secret law binds more than parties to a contract. On point, receiving (or revealing) trade secrets by legal means but knowing that their disclosure is prohibited is illegal. I was a little surprised by this, but it does act to bar publication by a journalist, free speech notwithstanding. So civil remedied such as injunction and damages may be available.

    Obviously there is a lot of room for debate about what is a trade secret and what weight free speech concerns carry.

    Trade secret theft or "misappropriation" can also be a criminal offense basically because it is considered a form of theft. Example.

    YMMV. Consult a lawyer before doing anything adventuresome.

  3. Re:You can reverse engineer, regardless of the EUL by Shimbo · · Score: 2 · on May I Have Your EULA Please?

    It's widely available. Here, for example. Other jurisdictionshave adopted it as a model.

  4. E-SIGN: Electronic Signatures Act by Seth+Finkelstein · · Score: 4, Informative · on Email, a Legally Binding Contract?
    I'm not a lawyer. But look at the "Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act" (aka E-SIGN)

    It states:

    Definitions of Electronic Signature

    The E-Sign Act contains the following definition for an electronic signature: "an electronic sound, symbol, or process, attached to or logically associated with a contract or other record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record." Further, an electronic record is "a contract or other record created, generated, sent, communicated, received, or stored by electronic means."

    Certain seems to be satified here.

    Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

  5. SDMI == Bullying, Fear of Lawsuits? by Hobart · · Score: 3, Interesting · on Where are the non-SDMI MP3 Players?

    Remember that the first portable MP3 player, the Diamond Rio PMP300, (first announced in September 1998) was entangled in nasty lawsuits, as covered in this slashdot article from 1998.

    I daresay these nasty lawsuits contributed to Diamond's demise. None of the consumer electronics companies want to spend the cash battling the recording industry in court, so every one of them toe the line. I'm sure the recording industry has pounded the crap out of several small companies who've tried it -- and when Ogg Vorbis is finalized I'm sure the recording industry will try to pound the crap out of anyone making hardware Vorbis players as "Piracy Devices"

    The closest thing I've seen is the Apple Ipod which lets you either store music for listening to, or store files for moving to another PC, but not to listen to the files marked for moving to another PC as far as I know ...

  6. But it is(was) a new idea. by Demidog · · Score: 1 · on TiVo Infringes On Pause Patent
    It would be easy to poo-poo the patentability of pausing live TV based on prior art (The VCR). But obviously the Patent examiner was convinced. On one hand, you could say that this idea was obvious and that the technology simply had to catch up with the idea such that it could be executed.

    The patent application process is a slow one. The average time for a patent to be granted is roughly 3 years. The late Jerome Lemelson Filed one patent that took the patent office 39 years to grant.

    The filers here had to at least think of this idea and file the patent on or before 1989. I haven't read the patent but I would bet it describes how this could be accomplished and before the enabling technology was yet developed. Lemelson's "machine vision" patent was first filed in 1950. If similar things accomplished via different media or technology is the basis of a rejection [that Tivo or other like technologies are "new], then one would be hard pressed to say that barcode and photocopying technology was new in 1950, given that the Gutenberg press was invented in 1445 and the camera in 1826.

    Does this mean then that photocopiers, because they perform the basic function that a camera and printing press covers, were not really a new idea?

    Personally I don't think so. I do wonder though, when did the patent holders first contact TIVO and what was TIVO's response? That'd be an interesting conversation on which to eavesdrop.

    Also interesting would be what the patent examiner cited as prior art if any against the fellows in question and the response to those challenges.