[Wine] DMCA and EU Copyright laws

Edward Savage epssyis at gmail.com
Tue Apr 27 08:15:30 CDT 2010


On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 10:46 PM, jtnire <wineforum-user at winehq.org> 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.



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