Draft of Rep. Berman's bill authorizes anti-P2P hacking

Fri Jul 26 17:17:15 UTC 2002

On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, Daniel Golding wrote:

:I wouldn't bet on these guys holding off for "liability" reasons. They have
:vast legions of lawyers, and a shortage of good sense, as well as a very
:loose grasp of the technology.

Not that I agree with them, but given the state of the EULA's that users
accept before running software, I don't see how what they intend to
do as illegal. 

If there were hooks in M$ code for this kind of vigilante DRM enforcement, 
and given that M$ can do anything it wants to your computer based on their
Windows EULA's, is it still "hacking" if it executing a feature of the software 
which you have already agreed to the licensing conditions of?

Big huge IANAL here but..

This RIAA/MPAA/BSA proposal is not as far fetched as many may think. 
I would even speculate that M$ could even authorize them to muck about 
with alleged perpetrators machines because the license violation could
be construed as being governed by the relationship between licensor and
licensee, and not a matter of law enforcement. 

Not that this is ethical, sensible, or anything other than exploitive, 
but "illegal" is something interpreted and ultimately decided by the courts, 
and until then, the issue of vigilante DRM enforcement is a matter of 
interpretation of license agreements, which is entirely within the 
discressionary powers of the vendor if the user has implicitly agreed
to it in the license agreement, no? 

While this has little operational value, it would be worth looking
at what kind of liabilities your license agreements set you up for. 
Have your lawyers consult a sci-fi author on this, they're going to need
one.  

--
batz