4 ms·
I just want to echo what a few people have mentioned here: The legality of emulation was strongly upheld under pre-DMCA copyright law in U.S. court decisions w
by schoen 3y ago
I just want to echo what a few people have mentioned here:
The legality of emulation was strongly upheld under pre-DMCA copyright law in U.S. court decisions where console makers lost against emulator developers.
However, the DMCA gave plaintiffs a whole new set of tools to prevent interoperability. Lots of interoperability and emulation cases have been lost under the DMCA. The DMCA radically limited the prior legal norm that you could create a compatible implementation of a proprietary technology from scratch.
If you agree that there should be a right to reimplement a third-party version of a proprietary system/technology/format/protocol (including one that uses some kind of secrecy to attempt to enforce DRM), you should oppose DMCA §1201.
- p0w3n3d 3y agoThe same as in John Deere's case. You can fix your tractor but you will break the software patents
- ronsor 3y agoReminder that the EFF is challenging section 1201 as unconstitutional: https://www.eff.org/cases/green-v-us-department-justice https://www.eff.org/cases/green-v-us-department-justice
- metalcrow 3y agoCan you give examples of some of those lost cases? Specifically emulation related ones?
- schoen 3y agoI mistakenly thought that one of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Games_Corp._v._Nintendo_of_America_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Games_Corp._v._Nintendo_.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys,_Inc._v._Nintendo_of_America,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys,_Inc._v._Nin.... involved a literal emulator. However, none involved an emulator as we would understand the concept (as opposed to "interoperability" more generally). There was also the matter of the PC clones, where IBM's only litigation was against those who literally copied the BIOS, as opposed to those who made compatible hardware without IBM's permission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_compatible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_compatible although conceivably IBM was concerned about antitrust issues there in choosing not to litigate over the non-BIOS-copying clones. As other commenters pointed out, there are court decisions in favor of emulators in the post-DMCA environment (Connectix and Bleem), where DMCA claims were not raised at all in those specific cases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulator#Legal_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulator#Legal_issues These two cases applied pre-DMCA copyright law to the question of the legality of the emulation, but weren't actually pre-DMCA chronologically. I'll take that as a very helpful correction to the way I phrased the point.
- favorited 3y ago> The legality of emulation was strongly upheld under pre-DMCA copyright law in U.S. court decisions where console makers lost against emulator developers. SCEA v. Bleem was filed in 1999, and the DMCA came into effect in 1998.
- gjsman-1000 3y agoAh, but the DMCA Section 1201 took effect in 2000-2001. Many other DMCA sections were delayed to take effect in the years following the law's passing.
- schoen 3y agoCareful, §1201(a)(1) (to which the exemption rulemaking process applies) was delayed, but §1201(a)(2) and §1201(b) (which don't have the exemption rulemaking attached) were not delayed this way. (a)(1) is an "acts" provision while (a)(2) and (b) are "tools" provisions.
- monocasa 3y agoBut the DMCA's 1201 provisions didn't apply to Sony v. Bleem since the DRM scheme of the PlayStation didn't attempt to stop you from copying, but instead focused on stopping a legitimate PS1 from playing copies.
- omoikane 3y agoI don't think SCEA started the lawsuit because they were sure they would win, I think the intent was to make Bleem run out of money. "Bleem!, financially unable to defend itself, was forced to go out of business." From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleem%21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleem%21
- schoen 3y agoThanks for the correction. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39599019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39599019 for a more detailed reply.
- nullbyte808 3y agoI oppose ALL of DMCA.