Makes sense to me. Only the judge that decides the case knows for sure. Jonathan Bill Dueber wrote: > Am I wrong, though, in thinking that a clean-room recreation of the Zotero > code that parses .ens files would be legal (although the use of ISI-provided > .ens files would still be, at best, questionable)? If so, I'd like to > encourage everyone who might be interested in working on such a project to > *not* look at any Zotero code. At all. If this holds up and the offending > code is removed, anyone re-engineering it would need to have never been in > contact with the original code. > > Or (as I started with), am I wrong? > > > On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 12:38 PM, Edward M. Corrado <[log in to unmask]>wrote: > > >> Klein, Michael wrote: >> >> >>> Edward M. Corrado wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>> This will be interesting to see how it works out. From what I read, it >>>> looks like the case that Thomson has is based on, or at least strongly >>>> enhanced by, the EULA. Thus, the legal questions may end up being 1) is >>>> "freeing" data from a proprietary file format aviolation of >>>> copyright/patent/ etc.? and if not, 2) can you sign that away by >>>> agreeing to an EULA? >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> Two points: >>> >>> First, it's my understanding that contract law trumps basic civil law in >>> almost all cases. Unless you can convince a court that you entered into >>> the >>> contract under duress, or that the part of the contract in question is a >>> violation of a basic unabridgeable right (this last being the reason a lot >>> of employment contract non-compete clauses are unenforceable in several >>> right-to-work states), you're bound by it. I think you'd be hard pressed >>> to >>> argue that reverse engineering is a Basic Right Of Humankind. Unless...The >>> First Amendment guarantees the Right of Assembly. Can we extrapolate that >>> and argue for a Right of Disassembly? ;-) >>> >>> Second, this isn't a EULA in the sense of "By opening this package, you >>> agree..." or "By clicking this, you agree..." Those kinds of contracts >>> are >>> questionable. It's an actual contract granting GMU a site license for the >>> Endnote software, negotiated by Thomson and GMU and agreed to in writing >>> on >>> both sides. >>> >>> >>> >> This is a very good point. >> >> I'll be disappointed if Thomson Reuters prevails on this one, but I won't >> >>> be >>> surprised, either, based on my own (admittedly limited) understanding. >>> >>> >>> >>> >> Same here. If it wasn't for the EULA I'd probably think differently. >> >> Edward >> >> > > > > -- Jonathan Rochkind Digital Services Software Engineer The Sheridan Libraries Johns Hopkins University 410.516.8886 rochkind (at) jhu.edu