[Premium-Rx] Firmware postings

Wed Mar 23 11:04:13 EST 2005

Hi gang ...

My policy has been that where an item on the website appears to be in the 
public domain in some sense (ie I could find it elsewhere without looking 
too hard) or is obsolete (the manufacturer has no likely financial interest 
in hounding us), or is clearly related to something developed under US 
government contract (but only US government), I will let it be posted. 
Should I get a "takedown" notice from a relevant party (or just a complaint 
from the company involved), the item would disappear like dew on a sunny 
morning. So far, there has been no problem.

While "fair usage" is somewhat unclear as related to the web, my view is 
that what we are doing is sharing information for educational and hobby 
purposes, and involves mostly stuff that is far from state of the art, much 
less constitutes a current industrial secret. Of course, this approach only 
goes so far! But that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

That said, this list will not get into discussions about "cracking" 
firmware or any discussion of the sort one might find on hacker sites. A 
software program that controls a radio's functions in a fairly obvious way 
via a standard serial port is one thing; DSP, encryption or frequency 
hopping software is something else entirely.

Jan

At 05:41 AM 3/23/05, Peter Gottlieb wrote:
>AFAIK, and IANAL, this is still an evolving area of law and there are a 
>lot of grey areas.  For example, manufacturers' rights are different when 
>items have been designed under government contract where development was 
>paid for by the taxpayer.  The most classical form of copyright, of the 
>printed word, when made into a technical manual for a piece of equipment, 
>is freely copyable and downloadable from government sites.  I believe this 
>falls under the "work for hire" area where the payer who ordered the work 
>done has the copyright.  How many of our premium receivers only exist due 
>to government contract?
>
>In any case, there are provisions in the law, such as "takedown notices" 
>where a manufacturer who believes (right or wrong) that their intellectual 
>property is available improperly can demand that such material be removed 
>from public access until the issues are resolved.  I am sure should any 
>manufacturer request such an action from the Premium-Rx site it would be 
>executed immediately.
>
>Peter
>
>
>Geoff Fors wrote:
>>It pains me somewhat to say this, but I feel I should point out to the 
>>list membership in the USA that the firmware in the CPU and/or ROM chips 
>>involved in premium receivers, and of course everything else using these 
>>devices, is intellectual property owned by the manufacturer and not the 
>>radio owner.  As such, it is illegal to retrieve, decompile or otherwise 
>>create a record of that code with the intention of transferring it to 
>>another party.
>>
>>The reason I mention this at all is that some manufacturers actually do 
>>actively monitor newsgroups looking for keywords such as "firmware" in 
>>order to take legal action against hobby "hackers" and "crackers."
>>There are currently several cases now in litigation brought by Ford Motor 
>>Company against persons posting firmware data over on one of the 
>>electronic fuel injection newsgroups, and Motorola has sued several 
>>persons regarding sale or transfer of radio service software and 
>>personality firmware from their two way radios, using information they 
>>obtained from newsgroups, eBay and so forth.   Yes, I know that 
>>technically you are entitled to make one backup copy of whatever software 
>>or firmware you legally have in your equipment, and modify it as you see 
>>fit, but how many of us are interested in spending a couple hundred 
>>thousand in legal fees to prove it ?  The current trend is for 
>>manufacturers to vigorously attack anyone attempting to obtain source 
>>code, firmware dumps, and so forth.
>>
>>Most premium receiver manufacturers are defense contractors with deep 
>>pockets, and posting messages about cracking their firmware and so forth 
>>would seem unwise, even on obsolete products.  Those that are out of 
>>business would seem fair game, however!
>>
>>Geoff Fors
>>
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>_______________________________________________
>>Premium-Rx Mailing List
>>To Post: premium-rx at ml.skirrow.org
>>For Info: http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/premium-rx
>>Visit the Website: http://kahuna.sdsu.edu/~mechtron/PremRxPage/
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>No virus found in this incoming message.
>>Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
>>Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.8.0 - Release Date: 3/21/2005
>
>
>--
>No virus found in this outgoing message.
>Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
>Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.8.0 - Release Date: 3/21/2005
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>
>Premium-Rx Mailing List
>To Post: premium-rx at ml.skirrow.org
>For Info: http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/premium-rx
>Visit the Website: http://kahuna.sdsu.edu/~mechtron/PremRxPage/

============================================
On Canada's Beautiful Wet Coast ....

For Info and SSB Detector Kits for the R390 & R390A
Visit: http://skirrow.org/Boatanchors/

For Info on Premium Modern Radios
Visit: http://kahuna.sdsu.edu/~mechtron/PremRxPage/
============================================
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/premium-rx/attachments/20050323/fa297418/attachment.htm