In article <[email protected]>,
Victor the Cleaner <[email protected]> wrote:
:Ignore confusing advice.  Find someone with a similar machine who doesn't
:have a legal bug up his ass and install IRIX 5.3 off of his CD.  Copyright
:be damned.  To the best of my knowledge, SGI doesn't sell or support R3K
:Indigi under 5.3 anymore, so there's a strong argument that the "theft" 
:element is meaningless.

Until the end of December, SGI still provides software maintenance on
IRIX 5.3 for Indigo, so at least until then, IRIX 5.3 is a valuable
property for legal purposes.

Legislation approved in the last US congress, "The Digital Millenium
Copyright Act", makes it a felony in the USA to make even one copy of a
copyrighted program without permission, regardless of the value of the
program. The last asking price for IRIX 5.3 was over $US1000 so even
under the previous Copyright Act in the US, and the corresponding
"harmonized" legislation in Canada, copying it was a felony (in the US)
and inditable offence (in Canada.) That means potential jail time (up
to five years *per copy* -- and every backup counts as one copy and
every time you booted the software counts as one copy). It also means
that it isn't up to SGI whether to file the case, it is considered a
crime against society with police charges and state (State/Provincial)
prosecution. Conviction on this charge can trigger loss of voting
rights, deportation -- and if you are in States such as California just
copying the program from CD to disk, making a backup copy on tape, and
booting it *once* count as three felonies for the purposes of the
"Three Strikes" laws that will leave you PERMANENTLY locked up in jail
until you die.


For better or worse, the software publishing industry in the US has
convinced US lawmakers to make copying programs a crime with greater
consequences than drunk driving or carrying a concealed weapon.

In my estimate, pretty much as soon as the Digital Millenium Copyright
Act comes into force, you should expect to see some high profile cases
targetted at "ordinary" teenagers who have just barely reached the age
for legal prosecution as an adult. The aim will be to send shockwaves
around the country to scare young people into stopping "trading"
programs by making it clear that the law is a bulldozer aimed at
*everyone* who copies programs -- scare tactics to try to break through
the common conception that "it isn't against the law if you don't sell
the programs for profit."

The history of software copyright legislation has been one of greater
and greater threats to try to overcome widespread disregard of the
copyright law, as the industry attempts to recapture significant
revenues that it believes it is losing to home and business copying.
The publishing industry seems to be incapable of pulling off a good PR
campaign (they'd likely get a lot further by hiring a few artists to
make anti-copying music videos for MTV airplay), so [it seems to me]
they resort to increasing the punishment and convincing the state to
take the Enforcer role so as not to seem to be bullies. Akin to
starting by asking a kid to clean up his room and climbing through "if
you don't clean up your room, you're grounded for a week" to now having
reached "if I ever find out that you've left the slightest speck of
dust in your room, you're kicked out of the house!". If people still
don't clean up their acts, I would predict that the next step would be
for the software publishing industry to ask for legal powers akin to
those for drugs -- seizure of assets, warrantless searches, etc..

I've only heard of SGI getting upset in particularily blatent copying
cases, but the nature of the law and legal climate in the US is that if
someone decides to go after you for violation of the law, SGI gets
dragged into the situation whether they are interested or not, unless
SGI should decide to tell the prosecution that they gave you permission
for the copying. It isn't SGI that does the prosecution... SGI's role
would be limited to certifying that that exhibit X is indeed a copy of
their license agreement, and that you are not a registered customer.


In summary: copying IRIX 5.3 can have severe consequences even if SGI
doesn't itself care. Not many people realize how serious it is in fact
of law (which is a totally different question than whether the law is
just and appropriate.) I don't physically rush in and stop people from
copying the software: I just try to get them the information they need
to make an informed decision with regard to the possible consequences.
The legislators never asked my opinion as to whether I thought the
law was "right", "just", and "appropriate". 'Rain falleth on the
just and unjust alike.'