RE: Defeating the chips.

[Austin Franklin <austin@darkroom.com>]

> The MDCA seems to give the maker of any product that
> includes software a LOT of rights over how that product can be used and
> what the "owner" is allowed to change. In many cases it states that
> ATTEMPTS to reverse engineer or disseminate information that might help
> someone reverse engineer protection schemes are a violation of law. This
> is expected to hit the fan big time in the courts over the next few
> years.

Reverse engineering, in general, is completely legal, as clearly decided in 
the Sega v Accolade case.  It is what you do with the reverse engineered 
material that is the issue.  You can not sell it, publish it etc.  That 
would be illegal.

You are correct if the reverse engineering pertains to copyright protection 
schemes and you disseminate that information such that it allows people to 
defeat the protection scheme.  That actually has already been law before 
the silly MDCA, any publishing of reverse engineered material is a 
copyright violation anyway.  Modifying the printer so it allows you to user 
re-filled cartridges does not violate any copyright laws, therefore is 
completely legal.

-
Turn off HTML mail features. Keep quoted material short. Use accurate
subject lines. http://www.leben.com/lists for list instructions.