[Slight OT] TDPL in Russia

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Jonathan M Davis" <jmdavisprog at gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:mailman.535.1282972511.13841.digitalmars-d at puremagic.com...
> On Friday 27 August 2010 21:58:30 Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy at yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> news:op.vh3740cneav7ka at localhost.localdomain...
>>
>> > Fair use protects copying for reasonable usage (such as backing  up 
>> > your
>> > software, or transferring it to another medium for your own  benefit).
>>
>> Not in the US.
>
> It was certainly my understanding that backing up software was covered 
> under
> free use.
>

(IANAL)

"Fair use" only exists in US law in the same sense that "Plessy v. Ferguson" 
("Separate but equal") exists. Plessy v. Ferguson is still in the books, but 
it's effectively rendered dead by "Brown v. Board of Education" (for good 
reason, of course). Similarly, "Fair use" still exists in the books, but 
it's effectively rendered dead by the DMCA (for shitty reason, of course). 
Only real difference I see is that "Plessy v. Ferguson" and "Brown v. Board 
of Education" are case law and "fair use"/DMCA aren't, but I don't think 
that makes any real difference (sure as shit doesn't make any *practical* 
difference).

Yea, DCMA only overturns fair use when "copy protection" is used, but that's 
trivial enough: all you really need to do is to slap a "consider this 
copyrighted" bit into it (and there's probably even super-low-tech ways to 
do it that would be compatible with, say, a book or CD Audio) and declare 
"this is DRM", and there you go - no more pesky "fair use" to get in the way 
of corporate greed.