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From: mnemonic@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Mike Godwin)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.news
Subject: Re: Busted for "possession"
Message-ID: <20815@well.sf.ca.us>
Date: 17 Sep 90 18:49:59 GMT
References: <16013@s.ms.uky.edu> <4628@graphite18.UUCP> <1990Sep17.105918@bert.llnl.gov>
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Reply-To: mnemonic@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Mike Godwin)
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
Lines: 41
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In article <1990Sep17.105918@bert.llnl.gov> howell@bert.llnl.gov (Louis Howell) writes:

>I can see nailing someone to the wall if they try to take any kind of
>economic advantage of proprietary information.  What is there about
>mere possession, however, to make it worth prosecuting?

First of all, it seems that Rose WAS using the Unix source code.

What distinguishes his case from what might happen to me if I were
to copy some Unix source onto my system is that I can't have intended
to use it (I'm not a Unix programmer, and I don't give code of any
sort to anybody else).

What makes Rose's case particularly important is that the feds have
apparently decided to drop a major-league prosecution on Rose for
software piracy. Yet software piracy is a realm in which, I dare say,
very few people in the computer community have totally clean hands.
As John Perry Barlow has noted, if they start prosecuting software 
piracy to the this extent, the effort would dwarf that of the War
on Drugs.

It seems fairly certain that the case against Rose is for show--it's 
designed to justify the immense energy and resources poured into
Operation Sun Devil.

>  Wouldn't it
>be better if these cases were handled through civil law at the expense
>of the company which had been wronged?

Yes, in most cases involving software piracy in a business setting, where
the defendants can afford fines that would repay the cost of civil
action. Probably not in the instances of individual software piracy.


--Mike




Mike Godwin, UT Law School  |"If the doors of perception were cleansed
mnemonic@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu | every thing would appear to man as it is,
(512) 346-4190              | infinite."
                            |                 --Blake