copyright notice

[Tim Smith]

#include "/standards/disclaimer/not_a_lawyer"

In article <5738 at cca.UUCP> dee at cca.UUCP (Donald Eastlake) writes:
>
>>Also, the other side of this is that if you modify a copyrighted object
>>you may copyright your modifications, but you still cannot distribute
>>the results without the approval of the original copyright holder.
>
>At last, somethig I can agree with.  (Well, not quite.  Actually you can
>distribute it if you don't copy it.  That is, if you buy a fresh copy
>from the original copyrightholder each time, you can then modify and
>sell that copy, barring some contractual agreement to the contrary.)

I think you are wrong here.  The copyright law ( at least, the part
that deals with computer programs ), says you may modify stuff for
you own personal use without violating the copyright.  To distribute
the modified version, you must have the copyright holders permission.


If this were not the case, you would see people selling uncopy-protected
versions of all the various copy-protected software.  What you actually
see are people selling programs that make the modifications.  The end
user then buys the original, and makes the modifications himself, and
thus hopefully has not violated any copyright.

--
Tim Smith       sdcrdcf!ism780c!tim || ima!ism780!tim || ihnp4!cithep!tim