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From: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: Modifying Copyrighted ROM's
Message-ID: <976@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 22-Dec-85 14:56:37 EST
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.976
Posted: Sun Dec 22 14:56:37 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Dec-85 00:55:45 EST
References: <281@ius2.cs.cmu.edu> <4729@alice.UUCP>
Reply-To: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady)
Organization: Duke U Comp Ctr
Lines: 28
Keywords: copyright law
Summary: "Fair use" rights guaranteed by statute

In article <4729@alice.UUCP> ark@alice.UucP (Andrew Koenig) writes:
>It is my sincere belief that the concept of "fair use" was thrown out
>when the copyright law was rewritten in 1968.

Shows you how far faith alone will get you :-).  The current copyright
law was written in 1976 and took effect in 1978.  Far from throwing out
the fair use doctrine (previously a matter of case law), it elevated it
to statute.

By the way, there's no need to guess about this.  Information on
copyright law can be found in any library.  If you want your very own
copy of the Copyright Act of 1976, write or call the office of your
Representative; they'll usually fire one off to you gratis (let on how
you might vote for a generous-spirited politician).  Make sure you also
ask for the Computer Software Copyright Act (of 1982??) while you're at
it.

You might be surprised to learn that the copyright law is an impressive
piece of legislation, making a reasoned effort to protect the rights of
the users as well as producers of copyright material.  If only the
Congress could do that well on anything else!  Ah, well.  The great
thing about a democracy is the people never get a worse government than
they deserve.
-- 
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC  27706
(919) 684-3695
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