Re: Question about licensing

[Bruce Perens <bruce@va.debian.org>]

I'd want to see the court decision. However, you can certainly protect against
this in your license, regardless of whether it is derivative or not.

	Thanks

	Bruce

From: Brian Ristuccia <brianr@osiris.978.org>
> This doesn't quite seem right. In fact, I think a precident has been set to
> the contrary. I remember a while back Nintendo, a company that manufactured
> console game machines sued another company that made a hardware device to
> patch video games as they were being played. The gadget was called Game
> Master or Game Shark, or something to that effect. The intent of the device
> was to adjust the game code and data in ways that allowed the user to cheat,
> reach special levels, and restart play from different points in the game in
> ways that weren't normally allowed.
> 
> I'm pretty sure the device executed code in the copyrighted ROM in the
> console unit. It also patched (using non-context patches) copyrighted game
> software.
> 
> AFIK, the manufacturer of the "cheat" device won the lawsuit. This would
> seem to indicate that 1. non-context patches are not derivative, and 2.
> programs that make use of other programs by executing their code are not
> derivative.