Re: Epson 1280/ MIS Perpetual Color Ink

[CDTobie@aol.com]

In a message dated 6/12/02 7:37:06 PM, rlk@alum.mit.edu writes:

>   The licensing rights to control distribution of the software and
>   derivatives thereof. If you open most any profile, you will find a
>   tag bearing a copyright notification.
>
>I guess I would wonder on what basis they claim copyright on data
>generated by the program.  That would seem equivalent to a compiler
>vendor claiming copyright on the assembly language output of a
>compiler, which generally seems nonsensical (I haven't even heard of
>Microsoft trying to do that).
>
>I suppose that they might embed other copyrighted material in the
>profile.  For example, parsers generated by Bison (the GNU equivalent
>of yacc, a common UNIX tool for generating parsers) do embed some
>other code verbatim (bison.simple and/or bison.hairy), and *that* part
>of the code is covered by the GPL, although the FSF grants a special
>exception for that file.  However, if you were to elide that code from
>the generated parser, there would be no issue.  Is it possible to
>separate the (presumably) fixed, copyrighted part of the profile from
>the rest of the data, and replace it with something else?
 
Whether a policy that is shared by virtually the entire industry is legal, 
and on what grounds, is not the practical issue here. Since none of us can 
afford the expense of (and risk of) attempting to win a precedent setting 
case on the topic, the current status quo is what we must deal with. The 
current status quo is quite clear: profiles are protected derivatives and 
their distribution is controlled by the licensing software developers.

C. David Tobie
Design Cooperative
CDTobie@designcoop.com 
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