[Wine] Program Blocked?

[James McKenzie]

zx12 wrote:
> @James McKenzie: So, in the EU your allowed to crack software that does this? I will still think that anyone distributing cracked software would get busted.
>
> Then again, couldn't companies just add that people in the EU can't use their software in their EULA's?
>   
The European Union prohibits what this company is doing.  You cannot 
lock software to run only on a certain platform.  In the United States 
and Canada, you can, for now.  Thus the company was legally correct in 
that they can run a detector for Wine and then not allow their program 
to run on Wine.  However, it may be legal to 'crack' the program in the 
EU (I'm not an expert on this) so that it can run on Wine.  This would 
be for the legal folks to work out.  This may prove to be a real good 
test case to run through their courts.  I do know that it is illegal to 
'crack' software security most anywhere.  The problem with most security 
programs is that they violate the 'one archive copy' provision of the 
Digital Millennium Copy write Act (DMCA) in the United States, but no 
one has challenged them to my knowledge.  I would just stay away from 
this program and use another, if it is available.  No sales hurts a 
company, the smaller the company, the more pain from lost sales.

James McKenzie