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Technology Stocks : Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy?
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To: Scott C. Lemon who wrote (30068)1/26/2000 11:13:00 PM
From: Paul Fiondella  Read Replies (3) of 42771
 
In terms of "extending" the code

By statute the copyright holder owns the code and has the exclusive right to modify that code for a period of time. Of course Congressional intent has never stopped the dimwitted Judges that inhabit the Federal Court system.

If the Judge thought that Microsoft had the right to extend the code and ruled that they only misrepresented the resulting extension as JAVA and THAT was unfair competition then he has weakened Sun's ability to control its intellectual property rights by weakening Sun's control over how its code is modified.

The Second Circuit in CA vs Altai and subsequent cases based on Altai went far beyond that, even extending the right to modify to situations in which the code was stolen and then copied verbatim in whole and in part and modified in subsequent versions. Ownership of the code transferred to the thief who would argue that the subsequent versions had nothing in common with the program originally stolen.

IT will be interesting to see Microsoft argue that it had a right to modify Sun's JAVA code but noone should have a similar right with regard to Microsoft's Windows.

In their anti-trust suit they will argue that they have the exclusive right to modify their own source code. If Jackson rules that they must license their source code as a remedy for their use of their monopoly to restrain trade, they will claim copyright protection at the Appeals Court level.

The Courts of course will look up the "worthiness" of the respective parties.

The only copyright protections that remain for software are protections against the massive duplication and sale of the executables --- commonly referred to as pirating.

The irony is that you can't steal the shrink wrapped copy but you can steal the original source code that created the shrink wrap copy, modify it and call it something else and duplicate that to your hearts content.

If there are any attorneys out there that doubt this is the case, send me an email and I'll send you the case law.
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