Re: Selling ICC profile...is it legal or not?
Re: Selling ICC profile...is it legal or not?
- Subject: Re: Selling ICC profile...is it legal or not?
- From: Graeme Gill <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 11:23:38 +1000
Marco Ugolini wrote:
OK, excuse me for losing my patience: but...what the heck is everyone talking about?
So, according to this strict interpretation (medieval as it sounds), all these years we
> have all been behaving like pirates, "stealing" from software companies the fees
> supposedly "due" to them even for something as simple as just embedding a profile?
> Never mind that there are applications that embed profiles by default: is that a way
> to secure captive income, then? Should we expect a massive lawsuit any time now
> (by companies against users)?
As I understand it, there are three arguments as to how profiling tool copyright
owners might claim control over the resulting profiles:
One is that the resulting profiles contain sections of their copyrighted
material that have been copied out of the profiling software (ie.
tables and other fixed elements).
A second (which is much less clear cut) is that there are creative or
expressive elements in the resulting profile that are copied from
the profiling software - ie. the order or choice of tags, the
arrangement of the numbers being a "copy" of the expression
encoded by the algorithms within the profiling software.
Both of these lines of argument can be challenged to some degree
if the result is dictated primarily by the functionality,
since the functional elements have to be removed from
consideration of the expressive elements.
But in practice it's the third argument that holds the most
weight: The profiling software is licensed, and the licence
can impose almost any conditions the copyright owner
wishes, including the uses made of the resulting profiles.
Mind you, such end user licenses imposed without the signed
agreement of the user seem to have had mixed results when
tested for validity in courts around the world.
Graeme Gill.
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