[Cdn-DMCA] What happened in Halifax?

[Chris Palmer]

From: "Kristofer Coward" <kris at melon.org>
> I think that existing fair dealing provisions in copyright law may
> already cover buffers.. of course that is a lay opinion.

Perhaps not. One of the first cases involving copyright and computers was a
dispute whether a computer could be serviced by an independent company or
just the manufacturer. To boot the computer, a floppy disk had to be put in.
The judge held that copying from floppy to ram to boot the computer was a
violation of copyright and therefore the independent could be prevented from
servicing the computer.

This was later changed by legislation; however you should assume that the
true legal attitude is totally brain dead.

I thought that judges knew better, but a similar argument was reported in
the UK by www.theregister.co.uk with regard to "unauthorized"  programs for
some sort of Sony playstation or some such computer game box.



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