Ed Gerck wrote:
> I meant the US, as the case is in the US. However, it is interesting to know what
> happens in other countries -- and it reinforces the idea that things like
> "uniform dispute resolutions" do not work. The question here, however, would be
> if the norwegian law also allows dissemination to the public of the results obtained
>by
> reverse engineering when reverse engineering is denied in a contract?
if the contract is void (in that respect), the question is irrelevant.
> I guess we may be going too far into legal "theories" here, because a defamation
> case would have to be called by those neighbors -- who would sue that family,
> rather than CyberPatrol.
I don't think so. putting a bad impression of yourself into other
people's mind is what defamation is about, not having a bad impression.
you can't sue me because I think you are a <censored>. you CAN sue me if
I go round the town telling other people. grossly simplyfied.
it mainly depends on what the software says. if it says anything like
"this site is blocked because it contains kiddy porn" I'm fairly sure
any wrongly blocked site CAN claim defamation (or whatever).
> > I occasionally rip
> > software apart for very similiar reasons, like finding out what it does,
> > or how it does it. if curiosity is a crime, we should all go back and
> > live in caves.
>
> Eating is not a crime, but in many countries if you steal food because
> you are hungry then it is a crime. The fallacy is to confuse the end
> with the means. Curiosity as an end is not a crime, but stealing
> to satisfy one's curiosity is.
I don't get the difference, except that there are some quite artificial,
arbitrary and sometimes outright silly restrictions on software. it is
not a crime to rip my CD player apart to find out how it works, right?
it's not a crime for my car, telephone or even my computer either. it is
(sometimes) for software. even taking into account that software is
somehow "different" from CD players (is it really? if it comes not to
questions of copying, but to finding out how it works, where exactly is
the huge difference?) these barriers still are artificial and arbitrary.
personally, I believe the only reason they are there is because the
companies get away with them. which might change (I hope it does).
anyways, the pure gut of sueing someone because he took away your
product astonishes me. it's like saying live on the news "we don't want
people to take our stuff apart (they might find out just how crappy it
is)".
ps: trimmed the cc list
