From: sdw@lig.net (Stephen D. Williams)
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 95 17:29:22 PDT
To: jim@acm.org
Subject: Re: Is it legal for commercial companies to use PGP?
In-Reply-To: <199507182358.QAA10553@mycroft.rand.org>
Message-ID: <m0sYNhb-0009tNC@sdwsys>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> 
> 
> > Rick Busdiecker <rfb@lehman.com> writes:
> >   From: "Jim Grubs, W8GRT" <jgrubs@voxbox.norden1.com>
> 
> >   In practice, I'd probably buy Viacrypt for legal reasons but use
> >   PGP anyway.
> 
> >I'd be interesting in hearing some of the lawyers out there comment on
> >this.
> 
> Does RSADSI count as having lawyers?  So far as I know they have not
> commented in public about whether the ViaCrypt license is valid, but
> they have also not (to my knowledge) contested it.  However, Jim Bidzos
> has explicitly said that it is not acceptable to buy a ViaCrypt license
> to cover your use of non-ViaCrypt PGP.
> 
> 	Jim Gillogly
> 	Hevensday, 25 Afterlithe S.R. 1995, 23:53

IANAL, but I find this position to be stretching the limits of
credible grounds for a successful lawsuit.  My reasoning is that most
(all?) patent and copyright lawsuits are based on theft of services or
other forms of lost income.  If you collected a fee for a usage that
was identical in function to one that actually took place, (or even
close) I don't see how you could argue that any income was lost.

Technically he can decide what to allow as the license 'owner'/controller,
but that's different from having standing to sue.

sdw
-- 
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