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Supreme Court Lets Utilization Rights Stand

Posted by Zonk on from the no-discussion dept.

Moof writes "The United States Supreme Court refused to hear a case between a programmer and his former employer. What makes this news is the fact that the court is letting stand the rulings of the lower courts: Essentially if someone owns a physical copy of software, then they are allowed to modify the code as part of their regular use, no matter what other agreements are in place."

4 of 341 comments (clear)

  1. How does he legally claim copyright? by XorNand · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by a programmer who sued his former employer for changing his programs' source code.
    I RTFA, but don't understand how the programmer could claim copyright on something he wrote while being employed by this company. All work produced by a person during the course of his/her employment is owned by the employer, not the employee. Unless this guy had a special employment contract, or coded in his free time?
    --
    Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
    1. Re:How does he legally claim copyright? by aitikin · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I understand that's the way the laws and contracts are written. Thing is, a photographer is hired to take a picture for someone. The photographer takes said picture, gives the person the picture and is paid for it. Who owns the copyright? The photographer. Because of my understanding on that, I understand where the coder is coming from (to an extent. Lesson here, read you contract before signing!).

      --
      "Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
  2. DMCA Violation! by Jtheletter · · Score: 5, Interesting
    So is there any reason why this programmer can't turn around and start another suit claiming that the company violated the DMCA when they "picked the lock" and circumvented his digital security measure without his permission?

    How is this any different than when I remove the DRM from an iTunes song as "an essential step in the utilization" of that song in my other digital music player(s)? Afterall, I own a physical copy of the software - the encoded song.

    Maybe that's not the best example but there are lots of others that I'm sure slashdotters can some up with.

    How is it that copyright law allows a holder's utilization to trump the agreement they had in place to run but not alter the software, yet pretty much any shrinkwrap/click-thru EULA isn't overruled by this same copyright utilization clause? Article was very light on details. Stinks of corporate favoritism at first glance.

    --
    -- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
  3. Own or license? by metoc · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From the ruling:

    Section 117(a)(1) provides an affirmative defense against copyright
    infringement for anyone who
    (i) owns a physical copy of a computer program,
    (ii) makes an adaptation "as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine," and
    (iii) uses it "in no other manner."

    So if you 'owned' a physical copy of a Windows word processing app, and you adapted it so that it would run under Linux (machine), and made no other changes, you would not be infringing on someones copyright. But does the law distingish between 'own' and 'license'?