Status of Cryptography Research in implementation of the EUCD

[Julian T J Midgley]

On Wed, 14 Aug 2002, Owen Lewis wrote:
> > .... it's arguable that there is no need whatever to make an offence
> > (civil or criminal) of the mere act of circumvention.  If the
> > circumvention doesn't result in infringement and if information enabling
> > circumvention isn't published then the rightsholder has no complaint
> > whatever.
>
> Yes and no. Yes, I agree the copyright holder has no real cause for
> complaint that a hack is discovered and not published (he may even have
> reason to be grateful). No, you are wrong to imply that there is no cause
> for complaint where agreed terms of licence are either ignored or flagrantly
> broken.
>
> > If I purchase an engine from you, and take it apart to
> > determine how it works, you cannot prosecute me for the act of doing so;
>
> I can surely sue you successfully if you took it apart:
>
> 		-	without a licence from me to run the software.
>
> 		-	in breach of terms of a licence sold or otherwise provided you and that
> expressly forbade you to disassemble etc. the executables and on which terms
> you agreed to run the software.

Many goods which are currently sold with copy-protection schemes come with
no licence agreements (the copy-protected CDs for example).  And it is
arguable that a researcher should be as much able to ignore a term of a
licence agreement that forbids him from circumventing as a software
engineer may ignore clauses forbidding him from reverse-engineering.

> That said, if you do so quietly and keep the matter to yourself, then no
> harm is done and you may continue to sleep peacefully at night.
>
> > why then should you be able to prosecute me for the mere act of
> > circumvention, when no infringement results?
>
>
> See the above. As I see it, you construct a showy house of card that
> conceals it has no foundations. If I am wrong in this, then, please,
> dispense with the exemplar cards with their flashy colours and describe to
> me the principles - the foundations - on which you build your house.

You haven't demonstrated to me any need to be able to prosecute someone
for the mere act of circumvention.  Circumvention, in the absence of
infringenent of copyright (and ignoring, for the moment, any licence
agreement arguments) is a harmless act.  Why therefore is it necessary to
introduce a law making it actionable?

Julian

-- 
Julian T. J. Midgley                      http://www.xenoclast.org/
Cambridge, England.                          PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F