[svlug] Re: Business GPL concerns

[Dagmar d'Surreal]

On Mon, 30 Apr 2001, Rick Moen wrote:

> That would be really a stretch.  17 USC 101 has:  
> 
>    'Audiovisual works'' are works that consist of a series of 
>    related images which are intrinsically intended to be shown by 
>    the use of machines, or devices such as projectors, viewers, or 
>    electronic equipment, together with accompanying sounds, if any, 
>    regardless of the nature of the material objects, such as films 
>    or tapes, in which the works are embodied. 
> 
> Good luck arguing that this encompasses computer programs.

Sadly it's probably just going to be a matter of finding a few more
"morally-challenged" lawyers to argue the case for whichever Racketeeting
Industry Association of America wants the extra money.  Remember the RIAA
managed to wrangle things in court so that the buffers used in streaming
audio to reduce the impact of latency actually counted as an extra "copy"
of the music, effectively doubling their performance fees (the big reason
you don't see many FM radio stations doing net feeds), and Microsoft
themselves on many occasions during "licensing audits" have gotten away
with charging for two copies of Windows on any PC that Ghost was used to
install the operating system with (since the Ghosted copy is an extra copy
of the OS as far as they cared).