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From: stephen@oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Steve Whitney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: We've been EMULATED.
Message-ID: <40174@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 16 Oct 90 01:17:53 GMT
References: <90285.225011CXS128@psuvm.psu.edu> <5039@crash.cts.com> <6343@cica.cica.indiana.edu>
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^In article <6343@cica.cica.indiana.edu> graham@venus.iucf.indiana.edu writes:
^In article <13612@cs.utexas.edu>, psurge@cs.utexas.edu (Troy Carpenter) writes... 
^>I have copies of both of the emulators, I plan to send them to Atari and see
^>what the legal dept. thinks.  Anyone interested can get them at the following
^
^Of what relevance is Atari's opinion?
^Wouldn't it make more sense to ask the authors?

Atari holds a copyright on the operating system they wrote (and licensed).
If there is indeed a copy of that operating system in the emulator, then
there's no question that it violates copyright law.

^
^Amiga already has a darned good Macintosh emulator, which uses Mac Roms,
^and it is perfectly legal.
^

And if, in fact, there were a legal way to run the ST emulator without
pirating Atari's OS, then it might be legal as well.

^I bring this up because it seems that the obvious answer from Atari will
^be "No! It is not legal."  There is no real way to know this until some
^kind of legal precedent is set because Atari, in their own best interests
^will probably say whatever is in their favor.

Again, there are plenty of legal precedent for copyright infringement.  Even
if it requires TOS on disk and there's no way to get that without pirating
it from an ST, it'll be on shaky ground.

_If_, on the other hand, they authors have reverse engineered TOS using a
verifiable clean room process, it may all be legal.

^
^-> ->Disclaimer: I'm not ashamed of what I say. <- <-
^     Sorry if the above disclaimer is too long.
^ __________________________________________________________
^| Internet: graham@venus.iucf.indiana.edu                  |
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--
Steve Whitney   "It's never _really_ the last minute"       (())_-_(())
UCLA Comp. Sci. Grad. Student                                | (* *) | 
Internet: stephen@cs.ucla.edu              UCLA Bruin-->    {  \_@_/  }
GEnie:    S.WHITNEY                                           `-----'