A little point to clear up about backup copies:
AFAIK, the courts have ALWAYS supported the individual's right to make a backup copy of ANY copyrighted material distributed on any kind of media. The reason that companies were able to code and distribute programs like Copy II+ over the objections of software, movie and music distribution companies was this very principal.
I laugh every time I pop one of my old VHS tapes into the player and see the idiotic claim that he quality of the product was protected by MacroVision. Such copy protection schemes, when they worked for any appreciable period of time at all, protected ONLY the distributor's revenue stream.
That changed at some point, apparently . . .
Anybody remember the Big Brother Chips that were supposed to go into all televisions . . .
Computer years are like dog years, 25 years is way too long a lead time for copyrighted code to enter the public domain.
As Thomas Jefferson said, copyright is a necessary evil for a free society. He meant copyright to protect an author's right to make a reasonable profit from his work for a strictly limited period of time, certainly not for that period to be extended long enough for his heirs to make a living from his work.
Whatever . . .
AFAIK, the courts have ALWAYS supported the individual's right to make a backup copy of ANY copyrighted material distributed on any kind of media. The reason that companies were able to code and distribute programs like Copy II+ over the objections of software, movie and music distribution companies was this very principal.
I laugh every time I pop one of my old VHS tapes into the player and see the idiotic claim that he quality of the product was protected by MacroVision. Such copy protection schemes, when they worked for any appreciable period of time at all, protected ONLY the distributor's revenue stream.
That changed at some point, apparently . . .
Anybody remember the Big Brother Chips that were supposed to go into all televisions . . .
Computer years are like dog years, 25 years is way too long a lead time for copyrighted code to enter the public domain.
As Thomas Jefferson said, copyright is a necessary evil for a free society. He meant copyright to protect an author's right to make a reasonable profit from his work for a strictly limited period of time, certainly not for that period to be extended long enough for his heirs to make a living from his work.
Whatever . . .