Weekly edition	Kernel	Security	Distributions	Contact Us	Search
Archives	Calendar	Subscribe	Write for LWN	LWN.net FAQ	Sponsors

Tivo Healthcare (Free Software Magazine)

Posted Jan 15, 2007 22:35 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: Tivo Healthcare (Free Software Magazine) by smoogen
Parent article: Tivo Healthcare (Free Software Magazine)

which point the law would over-ride the parts of the GPL that said you couldn't use the software with DRM

It's called expropriation. GPL can not forbid the DRM. GPL can easily forbid usage of the software in DRM-crippled device. Otherwise the whole point of copyright becomes moot: if the goverment and not copyright owner decides if it's possible to use this or that piece of software with certain device then what's the point of copyright ?

(Log in to post comments)

Posted Jan 15, 2007 22:47 UTC (Mon) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link]

To protect your 'copy-right' from other people. The government is always a special case because it gets to write the rules that you have.

Tivo Healthcare (Free Software Magazine)

Posted Jan 16, 2007 9:44 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Indeed. Copyright is an artificial *government-imposed* (theoretically) temporary monopoly, just as patents are. There's nothing innate about it.

Tivo Healthcare (Free Software Magazine)

Posted Jan 16, 2007 10:16 UTC (Tue) by fergal (subscriber, #602) [Link]

In the U.S., the point of copyright is promote the production of more useful work. It is not to give 100% control to authors. The govt might decide that the country is better off if copyright holders cannot restrict the type of devices on which the copies are loaded/run. Highly unlikely but again, the point of copyright is _not_ to give 100% control to the cpyright owner.