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The "Death Penalty"...The "Death Penalty"...Posted Apr 16, 2012 17:00 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576)In reply to: The "Death Penalty"... by rqosa Parent article: Enforcing the GPL with Judo moves (The H)
>True, but (at least in US copyright law) it's explicitly allowed for a person to make such copies without having permission from the copyright holder; see §117
Unfortunately the US is a precedent-based legal system, and case history suggests that §117 is meaningless in effect.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDY_Indus._LLC_v._Blizzard_Entm't,_Inc. for example. This is essentially a 'first sale doctrine' case, in that it hinges on whether 'buying' software makes you the owner (for whom §117 applies) or merely a licensee (for whom it does not).
This ruling seems absurd in that the logical conclusion is that the only 'owner' is the copyright holder, who wouldn't need the permission granted in §117, making it completely void in all circumstances, but that's just a reflection on the sad state of copyright law today.
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