> Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1999 20:06:32 -0800
> From: Lucky Green <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> First, basing the litigation on trade secret seems sub-optimal. Not that a
> different legal argument would be anywhere near compelling, but it appears
> that an argument based on copyright would have been a better approach.
I conjecture they did it this way because the prohibition against
circumventing effective technological measures that was added to
U.S. copyright law in October 1998 (as part of the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act, which implemented the WIPO Copyright Treaty) does not
take effect until October 28, 2000. Cf. Title 17, Chapter 12. The
section against trafficking in devices seems like it might apply,
though, and doesn't seem to be subject to the two-year delay. But
reverse engineering for interoperability purposes is explicitly
permitted, and making information so obtained available to others for
interoperability purposes also does not constitute infringement under
the new law (cf. Sec. 1201 (f) (3)).
(I've just been looking at these regs as part of a separate discussion
about DVD region codes.)
