[kwlug-disc] are you going to be a criminal?

[Lori Paniak]

On Fri, 2010-06-04 at 20:54 -0400, Chris Frey wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 04, 2010 at 08:35:38PM -0400, John Van Ostrand wrote:
> > Digital locks could make a hostage of your own content. At least without
> > a anti-circ law I could legally reverse engineer it and get my data. With
> > such a law, does the Open Office .DOC compatibility become illegal?
> 
> I don't think so:
> 
> 
> 	41.1 (1) No person shall
> 
> 	(a) circumvent a technological protection measure within the
> 	meaning of paragraph (a) of the definition "technological
> 	protection measure" in section 41;
> 
> Then:
> 
> 	41.12 (1) Paragraph 41.1(1)(a) does not apply to a person who
> 	owns a computer program or a copy of one, or has a licence to
> 	use the program or copy, and who circumvents a technological
> 	protection measure that protects that program or copy for the
> 	sole purpose of obtaining information that would allow the person
> 	to make the program and any other computer program interoperable.
> 
> To my understanding (I am not a lawyer, mumble, mumble), that seems to
> clear a Word user who wanted to port his documents to OpenOffice, even
> if Microsoft added DRM to .DOC files.
> 

?! 

Is this the current bill under discussion?

So is the content of a movie DVD a "program"?  Certainly lots of Java
and other software on there.  If I bought the DVD, I definitely have a
license to use it (apparently that's all I bought).  Hence, do I have
permission by 41.12 to make it interoperable with MoviePlayer on my
ubuntu laptop or Mythbox?

Sounds like a loophole to me.
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