> On Sat, 10 Oct 1998, Slyglif Cain wrote:
> >> However, in the US, reverse engineering in order to discover
> >> interfaces so you can interoperate with something has been approved
> >> in the court cases I'm aware of, so provided one is careful (i.e.,
> >> make sure what one does corresponds to what the people who won
> >> those court cases did), it should be possible to reverse engineer
> >> to discover interfaces.
> >
> >The US Senate passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA or WIPO)
> >today. If accepted by the House, and signed by Clinton, reverse engineering
> >for any reason (other then scholarly research for the next 2 years) will be
> >illegal. It also gives the shrink-wrapped licenses more power, as it is an
> >addition to the UCE (Microsoft could now say that if you want to sue them, you
> >have to do so in Burma). Clinton has said he will sign it, and the House has
> >already passed a similar version, so I would expect them to accept this as is.
>
> Congratulations. America is about to face a whole new dimension of criminality.
Not only (see below)
> This act enables companies like Microsoft to jeopardize everything they don't
> like.
[snip]
> It's a sad day when you are officially forbidden to find out (LEARN) things for
> any reason at all.
The worst still is that that could be a International fenomenal, since there's
some organization (forgot the name and URL) that are actually pushing this on a
worldwide scale...
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