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Re: Personal backup of copy-protected DVDs

Celejar wrote:

On Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:38:59 -0500
"Damon L. Chesser" <damon@damtek.com> wrote:
AFAIK (<<--see the disclaimer?) in the USA, you are allowed to make personal copies of media you own for your own use (not to install on multiple machines). This has been upheld time and time again in the courts. You can make all the copies of that other OS you want. This is not illegal. You may not install that OS on more then one machine at a time. And if you sell/give it away (also legal despite EULA saying the opposite) you may never use the existing copies you made, nor may you give those copies to another. This is called "Fair Use". Please correct me if I am wrong.
Many licenses you "agree" to tell you you can not do these things (notably, Windows used to state you could not sell the copy you had, if you dumped your box, you could not include the OS) however, the courts have ruled this is right and fair for a user to do. Now, if you want to 

I was not aware that the courts have invalidated those portions of
EULAs.  Can you provide a source or link?


Damon L. Chesser


Celejar
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Celejar,
I have read many, many stories about this subject over the years from digg.com and groklaw.com. However, to site, is more difficult, as I am not a lawyer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use tells you about "fair use" as it applies to USA law
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EULA tells you about EULA inforcement. about two thirds of the way down under "Copyright" "The amendment of the United States Code, Chapter 17, codified as 17 USC 117, permits the owner of a copy of a computer program to make copies necessary for the use or backup of a computer program."
The only question is "who is the owner" and btw, MS EULA claims you don't own it, but MS does and you are simply allowed to use it. I have read rulings in the past that says this is not enforceable and the "user" could in fact sell his/her copy of Windows and it is legal and said user could make copies IAW "fair use" but could not do anything with those copies except use them as backup to protect the original CD/media. Anything more in depth then that would require a lawyer, how about it, got any US lawyers out there who want to help clarify this? 

HTH

--
Damon L. Chesser
damon@damtek.com
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