More Boring Copyright

I still think that the right to refuse is not up to the owners of the copyright. As given by the following news article which is all about the BSAA being a shell for the the BSA and America extending its copyright laws across national boundaries.

"As it turns out, the BSA figures have nothing to do with the Vietnamese legal recognition of copyright, which protects software copyright for a period of 12 months. According to Vietnamese law, Windows 3.11, 95, 98, ME and any other edition brought out more than a year ago is no longer protected. Hence, while piracy may well be prevalent, it is nowhere near the 94 percent the BSA is quoting. To put it in context, if we had similar laws in Australia, Microsoft would not have been able to sue the PC for Kids charity out of existence for providing under-privileged families with access to a computer with software that was by and large out of date."

"Recently the BSA(cough, cough)A, thought it in our interests to warn Australia we may well end up on the US Government's "watch list" for illegal software use. As it turns out we weren't included - although the poor old Kiwis made it. So New Zealand gets to be compared with countries including the Bahamas, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Malaysia and Thailand, for failing to follow US directives regarding the implementation and enforcement of copyright laws."

"The fact that this so called "watch list" flies in the face of the right of every sovereign nation to draft and enforce its own legal system was apparently totally forgotten, as every bunny IT media outlet scrambled to interview BSA godfather Robert Kruger – as he toured the world in support of local lynch mobs."

http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/enterprise/story/0,2000025001,20265924,00.htm