[Coco] Re: [Color Computer] History Bytes

[John R. Hogerhuis]

On Mon, 2005-01-10 at 12:50, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
> At 03:40 PM 1/10/05 -0500, jdaggett at gate.net wrote:
> >Also it seems that if one were to alter significantly the Basic ROMs to a
> point that 
> >they function like them but contained significantly enough different code,
> then the 
> >new ROM(s) would not fall under Microsoft's and Microware's patents and/or 
> >copyrights.
> 
> The latest wrench of the monkeys is provided by the combination of Digital
> Millennium Copyright Act and related revisions to the copyright law. The
> DMCA outlaws reverse engineering, and is retrospective in application. So
> all those "Decoded" books, for example, are technically illegal now.
> 

The "unravelled" books are possibly illegal only because they reproduce
in their entirety the full ROM of the machine. Of course commentary is
interspersed throughout, so one could make the argument that it's for
educational purpose, and a proper 'fair use.'

In any event, just because these books are illegal doesn't mean that a
new ROM produced based on knowledge of, say, ROM entrypoints would be
automatically infringing. I'd say such a project is better off with a
"clean room" approach where one engineer just writes up a document based
on analysis of the code in the unravelled book, without including actual
code. Just, say the labels and comments would seem to be OK.

As for the DMCA it does not disallow reverse engineering to my
knowledge, and certainly not generally. These aspects only apply to
"circumvention devices," including software which are created to
circumvent copy-protection measures. There are no copy protection
measures or encryption in the Microsoft ROMs. Where you run into to
trouble with DMCA are copy protection on old games. But there are
exclusions under the DMCA in regards to this for abandonware.

Of course, I am not a lawyer, so if you are concerned about legal
liability, definitely ask one. I am just blowing mildly-informed smoke.

-- John.