Beanie McChimp
26-12-03, 02:56
Ok basically i've just beed reading the latest issue of pc zone and I think i have have found something very very interesting, a way round copright laws. Now before the usual flamers gor OMG NOOB COPYRIGHT BLOKE KOS!!!!!1111 this is an extract from pc zone(btw I am forum noob I dont know how to quote withour the little clicky thingy:confused: )
The extract.
"Computer games users enjoy enjoy a special privelige under the exsiting Copyright Law. According to section 50(a) of the 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. It states that legal purchasers of computer games are explicity permitted to make a backup copy of their purchase. Interestingly, the rule specifically applies to computer games. For no adequetly explained reason, purchasers of music CDs or DVD movies are not granted the same rights to protect their investment. The only rational explanation we can come up with for this anomaly is first, that the law recognises computer software is more expensive in comparison to other leisure media; and second, the games industry is so fragile and hostile to backwards-compatibility, that your chances of being able to obtain a legal replacement for a duff disc after anything more than a couple of years are so remote as to require legal remedy.
This section of the law has not bee changed by the CRRRA. (The Copyright And Related Rights Regulations 2003) You're still entitled by UK law to make a backup copy of any piece of any piece of software you buy legally. Where things start to get interesting, though, is in Section 296Z of the new law. Section 296 makes it an offence to do anything at all which is designed to circumvent any piece of protection technology put in place by the manufacturers or distributors of any copyrighted work. This is a direct copy(ironically) of the section in the US DMCA, under which the prosecutions of Dmitry Sklyarov, Halderman and others were possible. To put it bluntly, what it means is that if a disc has some form of anti-copy protection, it's a criminal offence to either circumvent that protection yourself, or to give anyone else any device or piece of information which will enable them to do so. So, if you exercise your legally enshrined right to make a backup of your legally-purchased game, you're automatically and necessarily breaking the law, with a maximum penalty or two years imprisonment. Hmmm. Bit of a mixed message, don't you think? Now, lesser publications might be content to highlight this glaring contradiction in law and leave it at that, were they alert to enough to have noticed it in the first place. But not us. We've examined the evidence and come to the only logical conclusion, which is: under the new UK copyright laws, any software publisher who implements any form of copy protection on its discs will be breaking the law. Because it's an offence, obviously to deprive the consumer of any right which is explicitly granted to them in law. And if you implement copy protection which there is no legal way to circumvent(which is thanks to the CRRRA, there now isn't) then you are, obviously, depriving the consumer of the opportunity to exercise their legally-enshrined right to backup. Which is illegal. So, who wants to be the first in court?
(Taken from page 12-13 of pczone issue 137)
So get out there (all UK residents) and make backups of your games.
so please post your thoughts and theorys on this extract.
The extract.
"Computer games users enjoy enjoy a special privelige under the exsiting Copyright Law. According to section 50(a) of the 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. It states that legal purchasers of computer games are explicity permitted to make a backup copy of their purchase. Interestingly, the rule specifically applies to computer games. For no adequetly explained reason, purchasers of music CDs or DVD movies are not granted the same rights to protect their investment. The only rational explanation we can come up with for this anomaly is first, that the law recognises computer software is more expensive in comparison to other leisure media; and second, the games industry is so fragile and hostile to backwards-compatibility, that your chances of being able to obtain a legal replacement for a duff disc after anything more than a couple of years are so remote as to require legal remedy.
This section of the law has not bee changed by the CRRRA. (The Copyright And Related Rights Regulations 2003) You're still entitled by UK law to make a backup copy of any piece of any piece of software you buy legally. Where things start to get interesting, though, is in Section 296Z of the new law. Section 296 makes it an offence to do anything at all which is designed to circumvent any piece of protection technology put in place by the manufacturers or distributors of any copyrighted work. This is a direct copy(ironically) of the section in the US DMCA, under which the prosecutions of Dmitry Sklyarov, Halderman and others were possible. To put it bluntly, what it means is that if a disc has some form of anti-copy protection, it's a criminal offence to either circumvent that protection yourself, or to give anyone else any device or piece of information which will enable them to do so. So, if you exercise your legally enshrined right to make a backup of your legally-purchased game, you're automatically and necessarily breaking the law, with a maximum penalty or two years imprisonment. Hmmm. Bit of a mixed message, don't you think? Now, lesser publications might be content to highlight this glaring contradiction in law and leave it at that, were they alert to enough to have noticed it in the first place. But not us. We've examined the evidence and come to the only logical conclusion, which is: under the new UK copyright laws, any software publisher who implements any form of copy protection on its discs will be breaking the law. Because it's an offence, obviously to deprive the consumer of any right which is explicitly granted to them in law. And if you implement copy protection which there is no legal way to circumvent(which is thanks to the CRRRA, there now isn't) then you are, obviously, depriving the consumer of the opportunity to exercise their legally-enshrined right to backup. Which is illegal. So, who wants to be the first in court?
(Taken from page 12-13 of pczone issue 137)
So get out there (all UK residents) and make backups of your games.
so please post your thoughts and theorys on this extract.