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Subject: Re: Fair use

Author: Bruce Moreland

Date: 00:18:22 07/23/98

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On July 23, 1998 at 00:03:37, Tim Mirabile wrote:

>Technically the courts may not agree with you here, but I'm not sure someone
>would be prosecuted for giving a game to a friend.  I seem to remember reading
>about a ruling to this effect, I'll see if I can find it.

There are lots of things you won't be prosecuted for, which are still illegal.

They aren't going to do a raid on someone's house because they suspect that you
sent your mother a copy of Microsoft Golf.

This is not to say that it's legal.

I actually know of someone who got raided though.  He was a student at a college
I attended, and he used to pass himself off as a professor in order to get
software for free.

Unfortunately for him, he lived in an apartment complex next to the college, and
one day the mailman, seeing the word "professor" on the package, assumed it went
to the college and delivered it there instead of to the apartments.

The folks at the college were very confused for a while, but they got over it.

When this student showed up at his apartment that night, he met the cops and
campus security sitting there with a search warrant.  They looked through
everything on his computer, and yes, he was tried for software piracy.

I can't remember what happened at the trial though.

bruce



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