25-Apr-2024 07:48 GMT.		 UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Anonymous, there are 25 items in your selection
[News] HD installers removed from AminetANN.lu
Posted on 27-Sep-2003 14:27 GMT by zoopax (Edited on 2003-09-27 21:10:13 GMT by Christian Kemp)25 comments
View flat
View list
Urban Mueller writes: HD INSTALLERS REMOVED. Due to changes in copyright, harddisk installers of commercial programs no longer seem to be legal in several countries. They have been removed. It seems that this is because of some new laws that forbid bypassing of copy-protections. Unfortunately, this also applies to all those old disk games which are all heavily protected. However, most installs are still available on the WHDLoad site and will hopefully stay there. But everyone should make backups just in case this site will also go down.
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 1 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by Lando on 27-Sep-2003 12:32 GMT
Madness.. utter madness.
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 2 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by Darth_X on 27-Sep-2003 12:34 GMT
Could someone in those countries please post a link to those new laws?
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 3 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by Emeric SH on 27-Sep-2003 12:35 GMT
What countries?
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 4 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 27-Sep-2003 13:12 GMT
Adultery is punishable by death in some countries. Does that mean we have to ban it in all countries? Likewise for drinking alcohol.

You can't operate on the basis that if something is illegal in one country it is illegal everywhere.
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 5 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by T_Bone on 27-Sep-2003 13:20 GMT
That's unnecessary IMO.
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 6 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 27-Sep-2003 13:46 GMT
In reply to Comment 4 (Don Cox):
OK, so what exactly DO you propose as a solution, hmmm?

How exactly do uyou propose to keep those installers on Aminet AND make it so that people from countries where they are illegal cannot download them?

Well, Don?
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 7 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by T_Bone on 27-Sep-2003 13:55 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (Anonymous):
A disclaimer, the same as has been used for other things of this nature, such as 128-bit encryption, etc.
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 8 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by itix on 27-Sep-2003 14:24 GMT
In reply to Comment 4 (Don Cox):
But some (many?) Aminet mirrors in certain countries could have an illegal material.
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 9 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 27-Sep-2003 14:50 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (Anonymous):
That is a problem for people in those countries.

If a country has some extreme law, it is up to those who live there to deal with it. Why should it inconvenience those who live in more normal countries?
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 10 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 27-Sep-2003 14:52 GMT
In reply to Comment 8 (itix):
"But some (many?) Aminet mirrors in certain countries could have an illegal material."

That is a problem for those who operate such mirrors. There don't have to be mirrors in countries with weird laws, and I am sure an incomplete mirror is also possible.

Are we all going to obey all the laws of the Chinese Peoples' Republic?
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 11 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 27-Sep-2003 15:38 GMT
@Don: Bypassing copy-protections is also illegal in USA (DMCA) & Germany. it's not a law of some banana republics

the weird thing here is that although noone really cares about old Amiga disk games' copy prot - they STILL ban it from Aminet....weirdo
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 12 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 27-Sep-2003 16:10 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (Don Cox):
It is ALSO a problem for Aminet the second that someone in one of those countries gets prosecuted (if they did, of course) for using the software.

So you woudl prefer the whole of Aminet be at the risk of legal proceedings just so you can download an installer for an antiquated game?

How selfish of you, Don.
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 13 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 27-Sep-2003 18:35 GMT
In reply to Comment 12 (Anonymous):
...in other news, Aminet CDs suddenly start appearing in P2P networks...
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 14 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by Neil Cafferkey on 27-Sep-2003 19:57 GMT
Another silly thing about this is that some of these installers just replace the flawed installers that came with the games.
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 15 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by 3seas on 27-Sep-2003 20:31 GMT
Fair_use and right_to_backup... are the two countries creating the problem... but for who???
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 16 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by Nomad of Norad on 28-Sep-2003 00:55 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (Don Cox):
>"But some (many?) Aminet mirrors in certain countries could have an illegal
> material."
>
>That is a problem for those who operate such mirrors. There don't have to be
> mirrors in countries with weird laws, and I am sure an incomplete mirror is
> also possible.
>
>Are we all going to obey all the laws of the Chinese Peoples' Republic?

Well, one way to solve the illegal-in-some-places-but-not-in-others problem is to simply have the HD Installers get moved to their own directory of the AmiNet
(if they haven't already, that is)... and then let the mirrors in those countries simply (elect to) NOT mirror that particular directory!

Problem solved.

NoN
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 17 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 28-Sep-2003 06:08 GMT
In reply to Comment 1 (Lando):
I agree.

Doesn´t those installers require the orginal disks? So, if you have the disks, why would it be illegal to install the game onto the harddrive?

This would probably mean that in those contries, you can´t even make a DMS-file and store it on a CD (in case the original disk went corrupted)...

Realy wierd law...
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 18 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 28-Sep-2003 07:40 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (Anonymous):
there are several ways. the usual is to put a readme/disclaimer saying that you cant download them if you live in country X - this is how the PGP
system worked. YOU were the one liable for law knocking on door.

the second if to pysically map the client connection to a country of origin...by IP address. then deny xfers from that location. a lot
of low bandwidth sites do this...particularly in scandanavia it seems.

the other solution is to make sure that such files are located ONLY on mirrors
in which host country is legal to have these files. it is therefore not their
issue when someone connects from a country where its illegal to have such files.

much like Holland allowing marijuana.... UK citizens can go there...but if they bring the stuff back to the UK....
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 19 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by - on 28-Sep-2003 07:52 GMT
Brave new world...
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 20 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by mark on 28-Sep-2003 12:58 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (Anonymous):
"How exactly do uyou propose to keep those installers on Aminet AND make it so that people from countries where they are illegal cannot download them? "

It's not the server's responsibility. If someone downloads it in a country where it's illegal, then they're committing the crime. Are you saying that no one should produce alcohol, because someone might end up drinking it somewhere where it's illegal?

Having said that, I presume that the law being referred to here is the DMCA, and the main (or one of the main) Aminet sites I believe is in the US. So either they'd have to shut down this site altogether, or somehow separate those things out. The former would be silly, the latter would be quite possible (eg, as NoN says), but maybe they can't be bothered making the effort. The important thing now I think is making sure that these files are available from other non-US servers.
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 21 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by Raffaele on 29-Sep-2003 05:34 GMT
Come on Urban...

PUT HD INSTALLERS BACK ON AMINET...

AND LEAVE THE STATES WHICH HAVE SUCH A MORON LEGISLATION

TO BLOCK AMINET SITE URL FROM THEIR SIDE...

Only the people from these states will have blocked it...
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 22 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by Ville Sarell on 29-Sep-2003 10:21 GMT
This sucks...
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 23 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by Mark on 29-Sep-2003 11:11 GMT
Removing the HD installers is an extreme reaction, especially since THEY ARE EXEMPT UNDER THE DMCA IN THE UNITED STATES.

Recommended solution: keep the installers on US Aminet sites. Mirror admins in other countries can decide whether to have them based on their own countries' laws.

There are two types of installer from a legal perspective:

- For non-copy-protected games, those which get them to work on modern Amigas.

These are not covered by DMCA-like legislation, and under European law I
believe it's legal to modify for the purposes of interoperability (i.e.
getting the game to work on your system).

- Games which have disk-based copy-protection.

In the United States, under the DMCA, the Librarian of Congress can (and has)
specified exemptions to the anti-circumvention provisions.

One of these is for "literary works, including computer programs and
databases, protected by access control mechanisms that fail to permit access
because of malfunction, damage, or obsoleteness."

Copy-protected Amiga games which fail on modern Amigas (as almost all do)
are failing to permit access because of malfunction. So they are exempt from
the anticircumvention provisions of the DMCA. They are obsolete as well.

For the full details on this, see
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=2000_register&docid=00-27714-filed
(text format) or
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=2000_register&docid=00-27714-filed.pdf
(PDF format, the relevant part starts on page 10)

I'll quote from the relevant part here, so you can see protection on old Amiga games is obsolete as well as malfunctioning.

[begin quote]
The terms "damage" and "malfunction" are fairly self-explanatory, and would apply to any situation in which the access control mechanism does not function in the way in which it was intended to function. For definition of the
term "obsolete," it is instructive to look to section 108(c), which
also addresses the issue of obsoleteness. For the purposes of section
108, "a format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or device
necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no
longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the
commercial marketplace." In the context of this rulemaking, an access control should be considered obsolete in analogous circumstances.
[end quote]

7.14MHz 68000 Amigas are no longer manufactured.


Regards,
-- Mark
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 24 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 30-Sep-2003 10:25 GMT
In reply to Comment 23 (Mark):
"Removing the HD installers is an extreme reaction, especially since THEY ARE EXEMPT UNDER THE DMCA IN THE UNITED STATES."

Very interesting and informative post. Thanks.
HD installers removed from Aminet : Comment 25 of 25ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 02-Oct-2003 04:05 GMT
These games were made BEFORE the DMCA was introduced anyway. If it is retrospective legislation then it would likely be found to be unconstitutional.

And people wonder why so much "piracy" goes on...perhaps it is because nearly everything is banned??

But anyway Mr. Mueller has a philosophical/ideological problem with HD-installers, he has previously rejected many uploads of documents relating to HD-installation - the "AmigaPatchList" comes to mind. Therefore this is simply an excuse to do something which he was wanting to do anyway.

Thanks for nothing Urban you wanker.
Anonymous, there are 25 items in your selection
Back to Top