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Binary copies are copyrighted too.

Story: Destroying the GPL from the insideTotal Replies: 2
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mark_oz

Jan 05, 2008
6:49 PM EST 		"Step 2: Remove copyright protection from functional copyrights or set the term on them to some ridiculously short period of time, say two or three years."

That would mean that two or three years after release, it would become legal to make as many copies as you wanted of Microsoft binary-only code (which would surely be categorised as functional), such as Windows or MS Office install CDs.

Microsoft are hardly going to agree to let that happen. People would never buy new software, they would just run the two-year-old free version.

Hence, no such law will be enacted. Hence, no problem.
r_a_trip

Jan 08, 2008
11:40 PM EST 		Correct me if I'm wrong, but in addition to be able to make legal copies of those programs, wouldn't it be legal to decompile them, as they are in the public domain?

If legal, I don't think many proprietary vendors will be too thrilled about the prospect of having their semi-recent code reverse engineered.
dinotrac

Jan 09, 2008
12:59 AM EST 		>wouldn't it be legal to decompile them, as they are in the public domain?

Yup. Public domain is public domain, and anything goes.

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