PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF FORUM Most of those who may be interested in this subject are also members of this Forum as well, and we can relieve the traffic jam in the PEDA Forum by continuing in this Forum, if any further continuing is necessary.
Once again, my apologies for not moving it here sooner. JaMi -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Abd, You are missing the whole point. Actually, there are several points, and you are missing them all. No, the whole focus of Cyber Crime legislation, either at the Federal U.S. level, or at the State of California level, is not simply aimed at whether or not you make a copy of a licensed computer software program which resides on my computer without my permission, but the prohibition of that act is in fact one of the very many acts that the whole body of Cyber Crime legislation is in fact intended to embody. One of the very many acts that is prohibited by Cyber Crime legislation, is the very simple act of accessing any computer system which is not intended to be publicly accessed, and to which you do not have permission to access. No I am not talking about Copyright violation. It is in fact one of the smaller and lesser intents of the Cyber Crime legislation, to prohibit you from accessing my computer system in any manner whatsoever, without my specific permission, and "taking" anything whatsoever, that resides on or belongs to my computer system, in any manner whatsoever, from my computer, in any manner whatsoever, without my specific permission. Period. It is the act of unauthorized "taking" of something that does not belong to you, and something you that are not otherwise entitled to have, that is the "theft". 1984? I am sorry, 1984 has come and gone. We are twenty years past 1984 in more ways than we probably care to admit. "Theft" is not just physically depriving someone of his possessions or property anymore. Yes, it is true that older laws and statutes may specifically refer to "theft" in that limited sense, but the usage of the word in new laws and statutes, not just at a State level, but at the Federal level (and I am sure even possibly internationally), especially in such areas as "Signal Theft", make it clear that it is legislatively intended to also include the taking or accessing anything that you do not have the owners permission to take or access, and appropriating it to your own benefit, irrespective of whether or not the you deprived the owner of his own use or possession. You must remember that language is a living and evolving thing, and that a dictionary or lexicon really does not so much only define words, as they catalogue their usages and meanings, especially as they evolve. It is not changing the usage or meaning of "theft", but adding a new usage and meaning, as the needs of the language evolve. Don't you see that this is exactly the reason that California Penal Code Section 502(a) actually does precisely define the useage of specific words as to their specifically intended meaning within the rest of Section 502. And yes, Section 502 of the California Penal Code does in fact define "Data" broadly enough, and I would expect intentionally so, to cover your taking a copy of my licensed Protel Software, from my computer system, which itself is also broadly enough defined so as to even include the CD ROM which is in the desk drawer, and again I would expect intentionally so, without my permission. Section 502(c)(2) of the California Penal Code, among many many other things, does in fact make it unlawful, that is - illegal, to "take" a copy of Protel 99 SE and its Access Codes, in any manner whatsoever, from any computer system whatsoever, without the express permission of the owner of that computer system. And this, among many other things, is clearly the legislative intent. And no, this has nothing to do with Copyright Law. If you have any doubts that this is the case, then please look carefully at the specific exemptions of Subdivision (h), which make so patently clear by specifically precluding the application of the statute to an employee in the normal performance of his duties as an employee. This in and of itself establishes that it would in fact be applicable to an employee in any case that was outside of the normal performance of his duties (such as that which we are talking about here). Back to the parallel case of "Signal Theft" It is not just the descrambling of a Cable TV signal that is considered "Signal Theft". Yes, that is one form of "Signal Theft", but believe it or not, so is simply connecting your TV set to the Cable TV Company's cable and receiving unscrambled channels (at least here in California). Yes, the manufacture or sale of unauthorized or bootleg Cable TV Descramblers or Decoders is also prohibited by the laws pertaining to "Signal Theft", to be sure, and they accordingly have much stiffer penalties than are involved with simply tapping into the cable to get the unscrambled channels, but that does not make tapping into the cable for only the unscrambled channels any less of a crime. "Signal Theft" is pretty much defined as the taking of any signal whatsoever, in any manner whatsoever, when you are not otherwise entitled to have access to that signal, without the permission of whoever "owns"[?] or controls the signal. This only begins to scratch the surface of a few of the issues that you have brought up in rebuttal, but it should be enough to provide food for thought, and establish that there are other real "crimes" involved with the copy issue besides Copyright. If you want , I can answer many of the specific issues that you have brought up, such as what "rights" an you seem to believe that employee may have once the employer gives his initial permission to install the software so that the employee could "practice" at home, which for some odd reason you almost appear to believe are unlimited and even extend far beyond the limited license rights that the employer had in the first place. Please remember that the employer only has limited rights himself in the first place, more than which he cannot give, and even that only by possibly giving up many if not all of any rights he may have once had? But I believe that I have already given a valid rebuttal to your general position, although if you believe that more dialogue or explanation is necessary on any of the specific issues that you have brought up, I will be glad to oblige. There are also a couple of specific issues that you "threw in" in your previous post, that I wanted to let you know did not escape my notice, the meaning of which you may have thought would. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether I am talking to Danny or Abd ul-Rahman. These are not simply limited to your responses to my statements regarding right, wrong, ethics, morals, and truth, but specifically go to your statement in the paragraph beginning "It must be nice to be able to go through life with such certainty . . .". Additionally, your interesting application of "a principle" of Shiria did not escape my notice either, although I could not place it in al Bukhari or others. Nor could I determine from which of the four schools is it derived? I would love to discuss these specific issues in much greater detail with you, although I believe that it should be done off line, and in much less adversarial conditions . . . Don't you agree? JaMi ----- Original Message ----- From: "Abd ul-Rahman Lomax" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Protel EDA Forum" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: "JaMi Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 2:43 PM Subject: Re: [PEDA] License Legalities OT > Those who are not interested in the topic of the legal boundaries around > the use of a Protel license are advised to skip this message. > > At 04:58 AM 9/9/2003, JaMi Smith wrote: > >At the risk of being flamed on, I actually believe that I can bring this > >topic to a very short conclusion. > > Perhaps. I will be relatively brief. Mr. Smith posts references to > California law, Penal Code Section 502, which, while it could be read to > apply to any copying of software without permission, does not appear to be > intended for that, as can be seen from the introduction to the section. I > don't have ready access to case law to see if the section has been used for > this purpose. The "California law" provision of the Protel software license > is not relevant to this discussion. > > Most of what I wrote in this thread was a contradiction of the common > reference to software "piracy" as "theft." It is true that the law may > consider the right to deny public use of a program to be a thing which can > be "stolen," when, say, the copied program is distributed, but I very much > doubt that this redefinition could be a legitimate part of a criminal > prosecution for a single act of unauthorized copying. Criminal law is > strictly construed. The Code calls computer crime (unpermitted access to > data, etc.) to be a "public offense," which is the correct terminology. In > other sections, it calls theft "theft." > > Cable TV "Signal Theft" of a kind analogous to unauthorized personal use of > software (i.e., having a subscription to a cable service and using an > unauthorized decoder to access premium services) appears to be a > misdemeanor. Selling the boxes appears to be a public offense (if I'm > correct, public offenses are prosecutable as felonies). Relevant to the > interests of printed circuit designers, printed circuit boards are > specifically mentioned. > > >And please don't be so ridiculous as to try and say that making a copy to > >take home without permission for your own personal use or your own > >commercial use in performing work for yet again someone else is within the > >normal scope of your employment. > > ... a defense attorney might very well argue that the software was taken > home in order to sharpen the alleged offender's skill at using the program. > More to the point, one who intended to use the software for outside > purposes could first obtain permission to install it on his own notebook, > perhaps for educational purposes or for doing extra work at home for his > employer. Then, taking the notebook home, he'd be secure from prosecution > under even the farthest stretch of Section 502 even if he subsequently used > the computer for other work. I'm not saying it would not be an offense of > some kind, but Section 502, no. His act of copying was lawful. True, a > hotshot prosecutor might try to claim that running the software later would > cause it to be copied from the hard drive to RAM, and that this was > "copying without permission." I don't think it would fly in court, the law > was not written for that. > > Unauthorized copying of copyrighted or other proprietary material, outside > of fair use, is definitely considered by the law an offense against the > public interest, and under some circumstances is criminal. But it's not theft. > * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * To post a message: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * To leave this list visit: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/leave.html * * Contact the list manager: * mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Forum Guidelines Rules: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/forumrules.html * * Browse or Search previous postings: * http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
