Re: Anti-DMCA clause (was Re: GPL v3 Draft

[Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu>]

Andrew Donnellan <ajdlinux@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/20/06, Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org> wrote:
> > There seems to be some rift between the law and reality, though.  If the
> > law is taken literally, it's a no-op: it forbids writing software that
> > can't be written (if you write software for an effective protection
> > scheme, then, well, it's not effective).  If the law is being enforced
> > anyway (which it is, of course), then it's being interpreted to mean
> > something a little different--where "effective" means something other
> > than what it does in English.  In that case, anti-DRM clauses, and
> > evaluations of their potential effectiveness, need to be done while
> > under the influence of the courts' private version of the language.

I think that "effective" does not mean "perfect".  Having a police
force is an effective way of combatting crime, but it is far from
perfect.

> What about a clause which says 'designed to be' rather than
> 'effective'? Because GnuPG is an effective TPM, but it is designed as
> a personal privacy program rather than a copyright enforcement
> program.

This sounds like the disclaimers you sometimes see stating that a
particular piece of software is not designed for safety critical
systems.  If it is just a disclaimer, then there is no freeness
problem.  But then I don't really see the point.  If it is meant to
prohibit certain types of modifications of the software, then we run
squarely into DFSG #3 and/or #6.

Cheers,
Walter