3 ms·

The manufacturer is trying to evoke "murky status". But both national law states it's OK, and there is a ruling by Court of Justice of the European Union stati

by p_l 3y ago

The manufacturer is trying to evoke "murky status". But both national law states it's OK, and there is a ruling by Court of Justice of the European Union stating that Reverse Engineering done by owner even of a program license (EULA style) to make it work or fix errors is legal.

ferdek 3y ago
Not only that, the article being from American media, even with the footnote, the commenters, miss the whole point about copyright being exclusively American concept and we don’t have this in EU. We have IP and authorship rights that work differently. See last part for explanation: https://thehftguy.com/2020/09/15/french-judge-rules-gpl-license-to-be-inapplicable-in-french-copyright-court/ https://thehftguy.com/2020/09/15/french-judge-rules-gpl-lice...
- matkoniecz 3y ago
  since when copyright does not exist in Europe?
  - ferdek 3y ago
    For instance, in Poland (which is in Europe) you have all rights to create copies of software, music, movies, for your personal use after paying for the original copy. You cannot do this under copyright which strictly forbids you from creating copies of the original media. Copy-right, as a right to create copies. In this meaning, copyright is not the same as authorship rights, which is a basis of intellectual property protection in Europe. Similarly for software patents, they do not work in EU.
    - matkoniecz 3y ago
      > you cannot do this under copyright which strictly forbids you from creating copies of the original media. copyright having exceptions does not mean that copyright does not exist unless you claim that copyright does not exist in USA because they have fair use?
      - p_l 3y ago
        It's badly expressed (and not exactly relevant to the train lockout issue), but no, Copyright as in the american sense does not exist in Poland, and similarly in many other European countries. That's why we have the relevant legal act discuss separate aspects of "moral" and "financial" "Author's rights" to a creation, instead of just singular "copyright", and why American-style "public domain" does not exist in Polish legal system, or that of many other EU countries (US' style public-domain involves effectively losing all rights to the creation, including moral ones, whereas those are non-dismissible, non-transferable and permament in Polish law). The exact way things differ would probably require a philosopher and a lawyer to discuss differences of.
        matkoniecz 3y ago
        It was introductory lecture not treated really seriously, but what was described to me is that there is (a) copyright (b) moral rights which are separate. Maybe it was badly described or I misremember what I learned decade ago.
- btilly 3y ago
  I suspect that the legal differences are less than claimed. The first test of an open source license in court was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobsen_v._Katzer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobsen_v._Katzer. It was initially lost on a somewhat similar argument. Namely that it was a contract, not a copyright license, and then was an unenforceable contract and therefore invalid. This decision was reversed on appeal. I have no particular reason to believe that the first French judge to rule on an open source license did a better job than the first US judge to do the same. Both ruled against the license.
- uKVZe85V 3y ago
  That was 2020. The case evolved in favor of the GPL, see e.g. https://www.april.org/violation-d-une-licence-libre-entr-ouvert-fonde-a-poursuivre-orange-pour-contrefacon https://www.april.org/violation-d-une-licence-libre-entr-ouv...
Avamander 3y ago
In some EU countries it's also legal to reverse engineer computer programs fully when compatibility with other computer systems is the goal. Without the need from any authorisation of the copyright holder and it doesn't have to be buggy or broken.
- 8372049 3y ago
  That's EU-wide law, plus the EEA. We also have this right: The person having a right to use a copy of a computer program shall be entitled, without the authorisation of the rightholder, to observe, study or test the functioning of the program in order to determine the ideas and principles which underlie any element of the program if he does so while performing any of the acts of loading, displaying, running, transmitting or storing the program which he is entitled to do. Article 5(3) and 6. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32009L0024 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32...
  - Avamander 3y ago
    Oh, I didn't know it was an EU-wide directive. Estonian copyright law has contained that paragraph since 1992.
  - btilly 3y ago
    But those articles in no way gives one the right to harm the rightholder's business practices. For example by exposing them to public criticism. That potential limitation is implied in both 5.3 and 6.2.a. I don't know what other provisions of EU law might apply here. But it is literally the job of the lawyers issuing the threats to find potential gotchas like that. I would assume that they are competent.
    - rasz 3y ago
      >rightholder's business practice you cant call breaking someone elses property a business practice
    - p_l 3y ago
bell-cot 3y ago
> But in Europe, the legality of what Dragon Sector did is murkier. [...] Cory Doctorow explained in his excellent Pluralistic blog that Article 6 of Europe's 2001 Copyright and Information Society Directive is generally stricter on DRM circumvention than Section 1201 of the DMCA, and does not have a specific repair exemption. Because of this law, Doctorow told 404 Media that "there is now an extra layer of jeopardy for these researchers. They were brave to come forward..." If the law is huge and complex, and a large company wants to make your life hell...
- rjmunro 3y ago
  I don't think this is true. I think the legality of what they did is totally clear under article 5 & 6 of the EU Computer Programs Directive. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32009L0024 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32... Reverse Engineering (Decompiling) software that you own to fix errors and allow interoperability is explicitly allowed.
  - bell-cot 3y ago
    I hope that you are correct. I fear that (allowing for the "someone with enough money and lawyers can make your life hell" effect) you are not.
  - 6510 3y ago
    I think this should be filled under sabotage of critical infrastructure. It is either that or DRM means the OEM gets to remotely shut down entire train network whenever they like? Imagine the money one could make with such a service.
    - WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
      From what I gathered in Polish media, the Dragon Sector's attorney has implied they are eyeing exploring this possibility legally.
    - virtue3 3y ago
      yeah screw this. if they are claiming that they hacked their DRM they should absolutely counter sue that this DRM counts as sabotage and/or domestic terrorism. There was literally code in there that told the trains to stop working after X date if it sat still for X amount of time. That's bonkers. And criminal.

by p_l 3y ago

ferdek 3y ago

Not only that, the article being from American media, even with the footnote, the commenters, miss the whole point about copyright being exclusively American concept and we don’t have this in EU. We have IP and authorship rights that work differently. See last part for explanation: https://thehftguy.com/2020/09/15/french-judge-rules-gpl-license-to-be-inapplicable-in-french-copyright-court/ https://thehftguy.com/2020/09/15/french-judge-rules-gpl-lice...

matkoniecz 3y ago
since when copyright does not exist in Europe?
- ferdek 3y ago
  For instance, in Poland (which is in Europe) you have all rights to create copies of software, music, movies, for your personal use after paying for the original copy. You cannot do this under copyright which strictly forbids you from creating copies of the original media. Copy-right, as a right to create copies. In this meaning, copyright is not the same as authorship rights, which is a basis of intellectual property protection in Europe. Similarly for software patents, they do not work in EU.
  - matkoniecz 3y ago
    > you cannot do this under copyright which strictly forbids you from creating copies of the original media. copyright having exceptions does not mean that copyright does not exist unless you claim that copyright does not exist in USA because they have fair use?
    - p_l 3y ago
      It's badly expressed (and not exactly relevant to the train lockout issue), but no, Copyright as in the american sense does not exist in Poland, and similarly in many other European countries. That's why we have the relevant legal act discuss separate aspects of "moral" and "financial" "Author's rights" to a creation, instead of just singular "copyright", and why American-style "public domain" does not exist in Polish legal system, or that of many other EU countries (US' style public-domain involves effectively losing all rights to the creation, including moral ones, whereas those are non-dismissible, non-transferable and permament in Polish law). The exact way things differ would probably require a philosopher and a lawyer to discuss differences of.
      - matkoniecz 3y ago
        It was introductory lecture not treated really seriously, but what was described to me is that there is (a) copyright (b) moral rights which are separate. Maybe it was badly described or I misremember what I learned decade ago.
btilly 3y ago
I suspect that the legal differences are less than claimed. The first test of an open source license in court was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobsen_v._Katzer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobsen_v._Katzer. It was initially lost on a somewhat similar argument. Namely that it was a contract, not a copyright license, and then was an unenforceable contract and therefore invalid. This decision was reversed on appeal. I have no particular reason to believe that the first French judge to rule on an open source license did a better job than the first US judge to do the same. Both ruled against the license.
uKVZe85V 3y ago
That was 2020. The case evolved in favor of the GPL, see e.g. https://www.april.org/violation-d-une-licence-libre-entr-ouvert-fonde-a-poursuivre-orange-pour-contrefacon https://www.april.org/violation-d-une-licence-libre-entr-ouv...

Avamander 3y ago

In some EU countries it's also legal to reverse engineer computer programs fully when compatibility with other computer systems is the goal. Without the need from any authorisation of the copyright holder and it doesn't have to be buggy or broken.

8372049 3y ago
That's EU-wide law, plus the EEA. We also have this right: The person having a right to use a copy of a computer program shall be entitled, without the authorisation of the rightholder, to observe, study or test the functioning of the program in order to determine the ideas and principles which underlie any element of the program if he does so while performing any of the acts of loading, displaying, running, transmitting or storing the program which he is entitled to do. Article 5(3) and 6. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32009L0024 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32...
- Avamander 3y ago
  Oh, I didn't know it was an EU-wide directive. Estonian copyright law has contained that paragraph since 1992.
- btilly 3y ago
  But those articles in no way gives one the right to harm the rightholder's business practices. For example by exposing them to public criticism. That potential limitation is implied in both 5.3 and 6.2.a. I don't know what other provisions of EU law might apply here. But it is literally the job of the lawyers issuing the threats to find potential gotchas like that. I would assume that they are competent.
  - rasz 3y ago
    >rightholder's business practice you cant call breaking someone elses property a business practice
  - p_l 3y ago

bell-cot 3y ago

> But in Europe, the legality of what Dragon Sector did is murkier. [...] Cory Doctorow explained in his excellent Pluralistic blog that Article 6 of Europe's 2001 Copyright and Information Society Directive is generally stricter on DRM circumvention than Section 1201 of the DMCA, and does not have a specific repair exemption. Because of this law, Doctorow told 404 Media that "there is now an extra layer of jeopardy for these researchers. They were brave to come forward..." If the law is huge and complex, and a large company wants to make your life hell...

rjmunro 3y ago
I don't think this is true. I think the legality of what they did is totally clear under article 5 & 6 of the EU Computer Programs Directive. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32009L0024 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32... Reverse Engineering (Decompiling) software that you own to fix errors and allow interoperability is explicitly allowed.
- bell-cot 3y ago
  I hope that you are correct. I fear that (allowing for the "someone with enough money and lawyers can make your life hell" effect) you are not.
- 6510 3y ago
  I think this should be filled under sabotage of critical infrastructure. It is either that or DRM means the OEM gets to remotely shut down entire train network whenever they like? Imagine the money one could make with such a service.
  - WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
    From what I gathered in Polish media, the Dragon Sector's attorney has implied they are eyeing exploring this possibility legally.
  - virtue3 3y ago
    yeah screw this. if they are claiming that they hacked their DRM they should absolutely counter sue that this DRM counts as sabotage and/or domestic terrorism. There was literally code in there that told the trains to stop working after X date if it sat still for X amount of time. That's bonkers. And criminal.