DMCA and EU Copyright laws

jtnire · Post by **jtnire** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 5:21 am

Hi folks,

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, however I can't find anything on Google about this...

As most of us know, the USA and EU have laws such as the DMCA and the EU Copyright Directive.

Does WINE break these laws?

Reason I ask, is that I wish to supply systems running Linux to some customers, and WINE seems like a good fit to run some windows applications (e.g. MS Office), however I just want to remain on the right side of the law..

If WINE doesn't break the DMCA, can someone briefly explain how you guys manage to make WINE support copy protection?

Thanks

eps · Post by **eps** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 5:47 am

On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 8:21 PM, jtnire <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi folks,

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, however I can't find anything on Google about this...

As most of us know, the USA and EU have laws such as the DMCA and the EU Copyright Directive.

Does WINE break these laws?

Reason I ask, is that I wish to supply systems running Linux to some customers, and WINE seems like a good fit to run some windows applications (e.g. MS Office), however I just want to remain on the right side of the law..

If WINE doesn't break the DMCA, can someone briefly explain how you guys manage to make WINE support copy protection?

Thanks

It doesn't.

Enjoy using Wine!

jtnire · Post by **jtnire** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 7:20 am

Enjoy using Wine!

Oh don't you worry, I have been, and will continue to enjoy wine!

My concerns is distributing it to some customers.

Are you able to let me know, in outline terms, why it doesn't violate the EU Copyright Directive?

Maybe it doesn't circumvent any protection at all?

Thanks

David Gerard · Post by **David Gerard** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 7:26 am

On 27 April 2010 13:20, jtnire <[email protected]> wrote:

Are you able to let me know, in outline terms, why it doesn't violate the EU Copyright Directive?
Maybe it doesn't circumvent any protection at all?

Erm ... why would it? It doesn't use anyone else's code, except under
LGPL or compatible licenses, and no-one is allowed to contribute
patches who's seen MS source code or might have.

- d.

jorl17 · Post by **jorl17** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 7:35 am

And it «only» reimplements an API, which is perfectly legal and will always be, no matter what these pseudo-superior-idiot-law-makers decide. Reimplementing something is legal. You have the right to build something better for yourself; you have the right to to compete, to choose ; you have the right to replace a broken or unstable bridge with one made by you. Do not worry, even if Wine were ever considered illegal, which I highly doubt, then there would surely be millions of ways of getting it -- it would only spice up the urge to reimplement the Windows API in a Free way.

jtnire · Post by **jtnire** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 7:46 am

Sorry folks,

I should probably mention my main area of concern a bit better.

I have no doubt that WINE is a clean-room implementation. This is not what I'm worried about.

It's the fact that there has been some debate about "Circumventing Copy Protection", as far as the DMCA and EU CD are concerned anyways.

Does WINE do this?

Thanks

DaVince · Post by **DaVince** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 8:04 am

I'm not sure I fully understand what you meant, but here's my response...

Wine respects and lets copy protection software do their work properly. Some DRM (especially the rootkits) simply cannot work in Wine, but this also means that the data (ex. software) relying on them will NOT work. It does NOT mean that you can just run said data can just run freely without the copy protection.

David C. Kerber · Post by **David C. Kerber** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 8:06 am

What does Copy Protection have to do with Wine? Wine isn't copied from anything; it's developer-written source code.

It's possible that there are apps which will run under Wine that may attempt to circumvent copy protection on dvds (for example), but that has nothing to do with Wine itself, and since those apps would also run under windows, those same concerns would apply to windows.

D

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of jtnire
Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2010 8:47 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Wine] Re: DMCA and EU Copyright laws

Sorry folks,

I should probably mention my main area of concern a bit better.

I have no doubt that WINE is a clean-room implementation.
This is not what I'm worried about.

It's the fact that there has been some debate about
"Circumventing Copy Protection", as far as the DMCA and EU CD
are concerned anyways.

Does WINE do this?

Thanks

=

jtnire · Post by **jtnire** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 8:07 am

I guess a lot of my worried come from this post:

http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-de ... 21991.html

eps · Post by **eps** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 8:16 am

On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 10:46 PM, jtnire <[email protected]> wrote:

Sorry folks,

I should probably mention my main area of concern a bit better.

I have no doubt that WINE is a clean-room implementation. This is not what I'm worried about.

It's the fact that there has been some debate about "Circumventing Copy Protection", as far as the DMCA and EU CD are concerned anyways.

Does WINE do this?

Thanks

It doesn't. Simply.

It will not allow you to (by intended function) circumvent any copy
protection.

This is distinct from users circumventing copy protection themselves
which is possible under all open systems including Windows which Wine
is attempting to implement. This is not a legal concern of Wine or
its users and should never be under any sane laws.

With regard to your link I think a post from 2003 is very much out of
context with todays Wine and the current general understanding of the
DMCA. Furthermore, that post is confusing and I suggest flawed. If
it was a breach of the DMCA to implement a system to allow DRM to run
as Wine does, surely Windows is also in breach as it does the same
task?

I am not a lawyer but I'd say you don't need to be one to discard
worries of this nature.

jtnire · Post by **jtnire** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 8:36 am

I am not a lawyer but I'd say you don't need to be one to discard
worries of this nature.

Sorry, can you just clarify the above?

Are you saying that I don't need to worry? Even if distributing WINE for commerical purposes?

jtnire · Post by **jtnire** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 9:51 am

I've actually found something in UK law (I'm from the UK), which may explicitly allow what WINE has done with the various forms of copy protection:

Code: Select all

Decompilation.
    50B.—(1)  [b]It is not an infringement[/b] of copyright for a lawful user of a copy of a computer program expressed in a low level language—

      (a) to convert it into a version expressed in a higher level language, or

      (b) incidentally in the course of so converting the program, to copy it,

(that is, to "decompile" it), provided that the conditions in subsection (2) are met.

    (2)  The conditions are that—

      (a) it is necessary to decompile the program [b]to obtain the information necessary to create an independent program which can be operated with the program decompiled or with another program[/b] ("the permitted objective"); and

      (b) the information so obtained is not used for any purpose other than the permitted objective.


    (3)  In particular, the conditions in subsection (2) are not met if the lawful user—

      (a) has readily available to him the information necessary to achieve the permitted objective;

      (b) does not confine the decompiling to such acts as are necessary to achieve the permitted objective;

      (c) supplies the information obtained by the decompiling to any person to whom it is not necessary to supply it in order to achieve the permitted objective; or

      (d) uses the information to create a program which is substantially similar in its expression to the program decompiled or to do any act restricted by copyright.

IANAL btw

What do you think?

David C. Kerber · Post by **David C. Kerber** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 10:05 am

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of jtnire
Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2010 10:51 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Wine] Re: DMCA and EU Copyright laws

I've actually found something in UK law (I'm from the UK),
which may explicitly allow what WINE has done with the
various forms of copy protection:

Code:
Decompilation.
50B.-(1) It is not an infringement of copyright
for a lawful user of a copy of a computer program expressed
in a low level language-

(a) to convert it into a version expressed in a higher
level language, or

(b) incidentally in the course of so converting the
program, to copy it,

(that is, to "decompile" it), provided that the conditions in
subsection (2) are met.

(2) The conditions are that-

(a) it is necessary to decompile the program to
obtain the information necessary to create an independent
program which can be operated with the program decompiled or
with another program ("the permitted objective"); and

(b) the information so obtained is not used for any
purpose other than the permitted objective.

(3) In particular, the conditions in subsection (2) are
not met if the lawful user-

(a) has readily available to him the information
necessary to achieve the permitted objective;

(b) does not confine the decompiling to such acts as
are necessary to achieve the permitted objective;

(c) supplies the information obtained by the
decompiling to any person to whom it is not necessary to
supply it in order to achieve the permitted objective; or

(d) uses the information to create a program which is
substantially similar in its expression to the program
decompiled or to do any act restricted by copyright.

IANAL btw

What do you think?

I think you're mixing up Wine itself, and the applications that users may install and use on it.

D

jtnire · Post by **jtnire** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 11:34 am

So you're all pretty sure, that the implementation that WINE uses to support the running of copy-protected programs (e.g. games) is not in violation of DMCA or EU CD?

David C. Kerber · Post by **David C. Kerber** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 11:49 am

Yes. It just runs the windows APIs, so if Wine is in violation, then so is windows, and vice-verse.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of jtnire
Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2010 12:35 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Wine] Re: DMCA and EU Copyright laws

So you're all pretty sure, that the implementation that WINE
uses to support the running of copy-protected programs (e.g.
games) is not in violation of DMCA or EU CD?

=

jtnire · Post by **jtnire** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 12:25 pm

Hmm well that's good then

Can someone please explain to me where the issue in that post I linked to above, came from? What was the issue orignally?

I don't really know the inner workings of WINE..

Thanks

James Mckenzie · Post by **James Mckenzie** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 1:45 pm

jtnire:

You really should consult a Solictitor to find out the answer but the non-lawyer types have this to think about:

The DCMA and other enforcement laws that relate to the enforcement of Digital Rights Management have no applicibility to Wine because there is no code included in the product release designed to bypass any form of encryption or operating system detection. There are many programs that will not run on Wine, in native mode, specifically because Wine is not trying to be Windows (TM) in any form. There are known security programs that will not function on Wine because they check for specific placement of code in some of the native Windows dynamically loaded library files (dlls).

If you plan on including Wine in a commercial product you do need to keep in mind that it is licensed under the Lesser GPL v 3 and you do have to make available the source code, if requested.

One other thing: Wine is developed using only Black Box discovery techniques. No "peeking under the hood" is allowed and code developed using other than Clean Room processes is removed and discarded. This is why code from the ReactOS project and others is not allowed into Wine unless the two statements are complied with. Lessens legal issues you know.

That is the only legal issues I know of with Wine.

James McKenzie

-----Original Message-----

From: jtnire <[email protected]>
Sent: Apr 27, 2010 6:36 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Wine] Re: DMCA and EU Copyright laws

I am not a lawyer but I'd say you don't need to be one to discard
worries of this nature.
Sorry, can you just clarify the above?

Are you saying that I don't need to worry? Even if distributing WINE for commerical purposes?

madewokherd · Post by **madewokherd** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 3:48 pm

Wine's goal with regard to copy protection is to run the copy
protection correctly. If, for example, a program requires the original
CD to run on Windows, it should require the original CD to run on Wine
as well.

However, there are many forms of copy protection that Wine cannot run
at all. In this case, the software will normally refuse to run.

Where this issue usually comes up in relation to Wine is when a user
wants to run a program in Wine that has copy protection that Wine
cannot run. In these cases, bypassing the copy protection (using e.g.
a no-cd patch) can sometimes enable the program to run. However, Wine
itself does not aid the user in doing this. The user would have to
install software in Wine that circumvents the copy protection.

Can someone please explain to me where the issue in that post I linked to above, came from? What was the issue orignally?

You should look at who is the author of that post.

I haven't read the entire thread containing that post, so I don't know
the details, but I think that sort of discussion has come up multiple
times in the past.

Wine has the technical ability to provide a replacement for any .dll,
.exe, or device driver, whether they are shipped with Windows or not.
For example, Wine ships its own openal32.dll that works based on the
native openal libraries. Windows doesn't include openal32.dll, but
some games do. Wine uses its own version of openal32.dll in preference
to the version shipped with those games.

For some kinds of copy protection, it may be possible for Wine to
replace important components with versions that circumvent them, or to
behave in a way that is specifically designed to make copy protection
fail.

Alexandre Julliard is the only person who can approve changes to Wine,
and it is his policy not to allow changes designed to circumvent copy
protection.

jtnire · Post by **jtnire** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 5:01 pm

Thanks folks,

This is all the information I need to keep me happy

I am distributing a lot of GPL and LGPL stuff commerically, so of course I give out source code when requested

Looks like I got nothing to worry about, thanks for reassuring me folks

Cheers

jtnire

James McKenzie · Post by **James McKenzie** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 10:58 pm

jtnire wrote:

I guess a lot of my worried come from this post:

http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-de ... 21991.html

Someone attempted to submit code that bypassed the DVD encyrption code.
AJ (Alexandre) gave them a tongue lashing and advised that that code,
nor any like it, would never be accepted into this project.

Bottom line: There is not today, tomorrow, or any time in the future,
plans to deliberately put code into this project that will bypass any
form of DRM. The downside is that many programs that do use DRM
enforcement code will not run under Wine without a third party 'crack'
program (sometimes called no-cd cracks.) This project does not
encourage the use of them, but they are out there and the user should
beware as some of them contain malware and basically will ruin your day.

You can feel safe that Wine code is as clean as we can get it.

James McKenzie