sampson@cod.NOSC.MIL (Charles H. Sampson) (11/14/90)
In article <EbCqmh200WAxQ0mlxX@andrew.cmu.edu> cs4w+@andrew.cmu.edu (Charles William Swiger) writes: > ... Again, distributing >information about how to deprotect a program is NOT illegal. To attempt >to prevent the distribution of such information would be a clear >violation of the "free speech" (First) Amendment of the Bill of Rights. "Free speech" seems to have been in the news quite a bit recently. Before talking about violations of the Bill of Rights, it might be useful to see what it says. The first amendment is "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech ...". Notice that that's a statement about what Congress can't do, and it says nothing about social pressure, your boss, a letters-to-the-editor column, or local movie censors. While a person might be upset if someone is trying to prevent his views from being heard, and he and others might consider such an act to be a moral outrage, it isn't a violation of the Bill of Rights. Charlie Sampson
lhaider@pro-grouch.cts.com (Laer Haider) (11/16/90)
In-Reply-To: message from sampson@cod.NOSC.MIL > "Free speech" seems to have been in the news quite a bit recently. >Before talking about violations of the Bill of Rights, it might be useful >to see what it says. The first amendment is "Congress shall make no law ... >abridging the freedom of speech ...". Notice that that's a statement about >what Congress can't do, and it says nothing about social pressure, your >boss, a letters-to-the-editor column, or local movie censors. While a >person might be upset if someone is trying to prevent his views from >being heard, and he and others might consider such an act to be a moral >outrage, it isn't a violation of the Bill of Rights. > > Charlie Sampson Freedom of speech is a personal right that should not be severly restricted, not matter how the Bill of Rights puts it. There are times and places where freedom of speech cannot be fully granted; such as the freedom to say "I have a bomb" at an airport. However, in newsgroups such as these, social pressure should be the only restrictor of communications. As it applies to deprotection hacks, the information is of great value to those that have original copies and wish to make clean, error free backup copies. There are a great many programs I have purchased that are copy protected, and am not able to make backup copies to; or even place them on my hard drive. I don't purchase protected software anymore no matter what the program, and that's my exercise of freedom of speech. If I find a hack to deprotect them, I like to use them. I see it as a protection of my investment. As a legal owner, I hate to think the only people that have _good_ copies of programs are pirates. Let's not make things harder on honest people just to make things a tad harder on pirates. It doesn't take them long to break the copy protection anyway. It would take me forever... / \ / / ______________________________________________________ \\\' , / // ProLine: pro-grouch!lhaider \\\//, _/ //, INET: lhaider@pro-grouch.cts.com \_-//' / //<, /\\ UUCP: crash!pro-grouch!lhaider \ /// <//` //\\\ UUCP: crash!pro-grouch!lhaider@nosc.mil / >> \\\`__/_ ///\\\\ /,)-^>> _\` \\\ ////\\\\\ The opinions expressed here belong to (/ \\ //\\ // IIgs \\\ no entity(s), living or dead! // _//\\\\ ------------------------------------------------------ ((` ((