Author: Russell Reagan
Date: 10:41:49 09/08/03
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On September 07, 2003 at 18:08:14, Mike Byrne wrote: >My definition is quite simple. If the software violates the licenisng >agreement, it is illegal. I have read the UBI Soft licensing agreement and like >most agreements, distrubuting licensed modified code to others (registered or >not registered ) users is prohibited. That is exactly what deadking is, it is a >distributution of modified code that was governed by the licensing agreement >which explicitly forbade that. > >But perhaps, I am wrong -- so I will pose the question to the author of the "The >King" and one of our esteemed members of CCC, Johan de Koning, about the >legality of "deadking". > >Johan - are your views of the legality of the "deadking" - modified "the king" >engine code that allows the user to use the "The King" engine in the Fritz >enviroment without ever requiring the OPK code? > >Best, > >Michael I'm not entirely up to speed on the issue being discussed here, but just some food for thought: The issue of distributing modified licensed code really isn't important, because it can be gotten around. Someone can just as easily make a program from scratch that will "patch" Chessmaster (or any other program), and there should be nothing illegal about distributing the patching program. Yes, it is a small technicality, and the intent is still the same, but there is nothing illegal about a program written completely from scratch that modifies a memory location or modifies a file. If the author is careful to make the user select which file to change, then there is nothing illegal about the program or it's distrobution. Basically the point is that the creator of such cheats/hacks/"fixes"/patches/etc. can create them legally and put the burden of illegal actions onto the user (who obviously doesn't care about legallity in the first place).
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