Re: Jail for seller of illegal Xbox chips

["David Buckley" <db@xxxxxxx>]

--- In ukha_d@xxxxxxx, "Mark Hetherington"
<mark.egroups@m...> wrote:
>
> > I am firmly of the opinion that if you or I go out and buy an
> > item of clothing/food/hardware/stationery, it becomes yours
> > to do with as you please, whether that is to crush it, put it
> > in a cupboard, never to be seen again, or even (gasp!) to use
> > it "as the manufacturer intended".
>
> Maybe you would also desire the right to take it apart, copy the
parts,
> build your own version then set up in competition based on their
> product?
>

Ahhh... Mars v Teknowledge...

"31. So, starting with the first requirement, does the encrypted
information in the Cashflow, have the "necessary quality of
confidence"? I think the answer is clearly "no." The
Cashflow is on
the market. Anyone can buy it. And anyone with the skills to de-
encrypt has access to the information. The fact that only a few have
those skills is, as it seems to me, neither here nor there. Anyone
can acquire the skills and anyway, a buyer is free to go to a man who
has them. Mars suggest that the owner, although he owns the machine,
does not own the information within it. That is too glib. What the
owner has is the full right of ownership. With that goes an
entitlement "to dismantle the machine to find out how it works and
tell anyone he pleases" (a right recognised by Morritt J in Alfa
Laval v Wincanton). "

http://cryptome.unicast.org/cryptome022401/mars-v-tek.htm

One of my favorite cases.  Even though not all of the judgement is as
positive as the bit quoted above!

David.