| |||||||||||||
ELCE11: Till Jaeger on AVM vs. CybitsELCE11: Till Jaeger on AVM vs. CybitsPosted Nov 3, 2011 9:40 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524)Parent article: ELCE11: Till Jaeger on AVM vs. Cybits
What legal justification do they offer for preventing their customers from changing the firmware ?
That the firmware is copyrighted, would be insufficient, even if they alone held the copyright (they don't, most of it is GPL and held by others) because copyright does not prevent you from making changes to a copy of a work that you legally own.
Copyright does not prevent me from buying a single copy of Harry Potter, then creating a derived work by physically inserting (let's say I use glue) a new chapter at the end.
It -does- prevent me from *distributing* this derived work - but that doesn't seem to be the issue here, so I'm confused.
(Log in to post comments)
ELCE11: Till Jaeger on AVM vs. Cybits Posted Nov 3, 2011 12:32 UTC (Thu) by butlerm (subscriber, #13312) [Link]
I don't think AVM is claiming that end users can't modify their firmware, they claim it is a combination of trademark dilution, copyright violation, and unfair competition for another company to be allowed to distribute a product that does so.
AVM vs. Cybits - right to modify one's own router Posted Nov 3, 2011 20:49 UTC (Thu) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] Copyright does not prevent me from buying a single copy of Harry Potter, then creating a derived work by physically inserting (let's say I use glue) a new chapter at the end. I believe it does, in the US, and according to the article, AVM claims it does in Germany too. One of the rights in copyright is to prevent others from "preparing derivative works." While I'm not a copyright lawyer and don't know of any court ruling on a similar thing, I do know of a US case where the right was alleged and the alleged violator didn't protest: People were modifying personally owned VHS copies of the movie Titanic, by physically removing tape, to remove the sex scenes. They wanted to see the movie, but PG-13 was too racy for them. (A detail that probably doesn't matter: they were paying a certain editor, who advertised the service, to do it. It was the editor the copyright owner accused of copyright violation).
AVM vs. Cybits - right to modify one's own router Posted Nov 4, 2011 11:15 UTC (Fri) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
while there are some stupid court decisions out there (where they say that copyright lets the author control everything done with their code because it is copied into ram to run), copyright only affects making copies, so pasting a new chapter into a book isn't copying anything.
if you try and pass the result off as the work of the original author, that author can sue you for misrepresentation, trademark dilution, etc, but not copyright.
AVM vs. Cybits - right to modify one's own router Posted Nov 4, 2011 21:30 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] copyright only affects making copies, That doesn't appear to be the case. The US copyright statute lists a bunch of things the copyright owner has the exclusive right to do. Making a copy is one. Performing in public is another. "Preparing" a derivative work is another. Claims reported in the article suggest the same is true of German copyright.
AVM vs. Cybits - right to modify one's own router Posted Nov 7, 2011 21:31 UTC (Mon) by samroberts (subscriber, #46749) [Link]
I don't know about the example of pasting a new chapter into a physical copy of a book, but Francis Hwang got in trouble for doing the digital equivalent in the US:
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2004/12/65959
AVM vs. Cybits - right to modify one's own router Posted Nov 14, 2011 0:41 UTC (Mon) by DHR (guest, #81356) [Link]
@samroberts "Francis Hwang got in trouble for doing the digital equivalent in the US"
That doesn't seem to be legal trouble. It seems Ebay has an odd takedown policy.
ELCE11: Till Jaeger on AVM vs. Cybits Posted Nov 14, 2011 0:49 UTC (Mon) by DHR (guest, #81356) [Link]
@ekj "Copyright does not prevent me from buying a single copy of Harry Potter, then creating a derived work by physically inserting (let's say I use glue) a new chapter at the end"
Actually, there is a part of copyright that just might prevent you from doing this: "moral rights". US copyright was forced to adopt the concept of moral rights when it signed onto the Berne Convention in the 1989. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights_%28copyright_la...
ELCE11: Till Jaeger on AVM vs. Cybits Posted Dec 25, 2011 0:15 UTC (Sun) by steffen780 (guest, #68142) [Link]
Nobody has forced the US to do anything in a very long time. The US government signed this treaty voluntarily and then implemented it in national law. That's all. You may not like some or all of the requirements of the treaty, I certainly have plenty of problems with it, but to claim the Berne Convention is forcing the hands of the US government is simply incorrect. If the US govt hadn't liked the treaty it wouldn't have signed it. Take it up with your congressman or the local OWS chapter ;)
|
|||||||||||||