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IMHO this is a sensible decision, one that reflects the clear underlying intention of the statute. Article 5(1) of the Directive says: > [certain acts] shall n
by orra 5y ago
IMHO this is a sensible decision, one that reflects the clear underlying intention of the statute. Article 5(1) of the Directive says:
> [certain acts] shall not require authorization by the rightholder where they are necessary for the use of the computer program by the lawful acquirer in accordance with its intended purpose, including for error correction.
Essentially, they have ruled that other Articles in the Directive do not supersede this Article, and that reverse engineering to correct an error can be necessary.
This court, the CJEU, has good form on sensible decisions regarding computing. For example, SAS vs World Programming (C‑406/10) allowed reverse engineering for interoperability. That case, also, was the court upholding the clear intention of the statute. Moreover there was UsedSoft vs Oracle (C-128/11), allowing the resale of software licences, including the right to download the software where necessary, upon purchasing a second hand licence.
- agilob 5y agoThis is sensible because it's the same as taking laptop apart to replace failing RAM or disk.
- orra 5y agoAbsolutely agreed, morally it's the right decision. I was just focusing on the law because copyright expansionists have a lot of institutional capture, or at least the ear of legislators. So even though the intention of the Directive was clear, I wouldn't have been entirely shocked if the court had decided against decompilation being allowed for fixing bugs.
- phkahler 5y agoSo patching it to work without company servers after they've been shut down might be ok too!
- orra 5y agoYou'd hope so. There's also the CJEU case of Ninetendo v PC Box & 9 Net (C-355/12), which sets out circumstances where it's lawful to sell a device which circumvents DRM. Alas in that case, the bar is set too high: it's not enough for there to be legitimate reasons to break the DRM; that has to be weighed against the 'rights' of copyright holders.