[ January 12, 2002: Message edited by: Curtis hammond ]

This whole thing reminds me of the hen that decided to surprise the farmer with a bacon and egg breakfast. She could provide the eggs, but needed the pig to supply the bacon. For obvious reasons, the pig felt his risk was much more serious than the hens.

We feel like the pig when these questionable requests show up on this BB. If it's illegal, it has no business here in Letterville. In this case, there appears to be a convincing opinion that it is ok.

quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Shortreed:
This dongle issue scares the living daylights out of me. Is it legal or isn't it? Everyone has opinions, but what are the facts?

If it's illegal, it has no business here in Letterville. In this case, there appears to be a convincing opinion that it is ok.

To get to the bottom of this, we have sent e-mail to 3 contacts at Scanvac. We'll let you all know what they say.

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I bet if they answer you at all, they'll say it's not ok. I say that if they aren't going to service their software, do whatever you can to make it work.

I bought CasMate Pro originally in the old DOS version and subsequently upgraded for a while until I realized they weren't able or willing to make it work as it was advertised. The dongle on mine was always temperamental, and undependable.

I went and did a search on the "Digital Millenium Act of 1998" and this is what I found that I think pertains to this discussion...

The Librarian of Congress, on the recommendation of the Register of Copyrights, has announced the classes of works subject to the exemption from the prohibition on circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. The two classes of works are:

Compilations consisting of lists of websites blocked by filtering software applications; and

Literary works, including computer programs and databases, protected by access control mechanisms that fail to permit access because of malfunction, damage or obsolescence.

These exemptions are in effect from October 28, 2000 to October 28, 2003.

From this text, I have come to the following conclusion from reading paragraph B...

All software that requires a dongle, hasp, or other mechanical or software devices to allow access to said program that if the dongle becomes damaged, malfunctions, or becomes obsolete (and I read that software that is no longer available for sale, no longer manufactured, no future development of the software, no technical support being offered, or no way obtaining a replacement program disk or dongle from the manfacturer or any suppliers to the exact level of your legally obtained software) is fair game to be "cracked" using a "soft key". Use of a "soft key" for fair use of a program is allowed.

This is not to say that once a "soft key" is obtained that several operating copies of the program can be installed on several work stations or such.

That does not constitute fair use because you were licensed to to have ONE usable program installed for use at any one time. This is not to say that you can't have several copies made for protection of the software because this is allowed under your licensing agreement.

Whether or not you install the "soft key" on several computers is up to your own level of morality and such. I figure that any program that isn't even sold anymore is fair game, but that is just my opinion. Take it for what it is worth. Nothing. I didn't go to Law School... just the School of Hard Knocks...

I also think that this doesn't apply to any program that is available right here, right now, such as FlexiSign, Signlab, CorelDRAW, etc. That would definately be an infringement of Copyright Laws.

Sheesh... too much thinking for a Saturday night! LOL!

Have a great one!

[ January 12, 2002: Message edited by: Bruce Bowers ]

http://www.donglefree.com/1201a.htm

Corel doesn't have a dongle. It does, however, have individual serial numbers about a mile long. These were put it place because the serial numbers are supposed to be kept secret.

What people do with their own stuff is entirely up to them. I just figure that if I had laid out the cash for a program (regardless of what is) I would be hesitant to just pass it around. Hey, just my opinion.

This thread and my subsequent posting wasn't meant to turn this into a software debate, per se.
It doesn't make sense that a company could just drop an entire line of software and get away with it. Auto manufacturers are required by law to supply parts for a vehicle for 10 years after the last one is made.

Whether this was a ploy to get people to upgrade, albeit for significantly less money, to another line of software or what, I don't know. I just know that Scanvec has done this twice to us now. First with CAS-Mate and then with Inspire. That didn't seem fair to me. But, hey, life ain't fair all the time, either.

I remember a post from a guy that had a fire in his shop and his dongle for his CAS-Cut was destroyed. He called Scanvec to get a replacement and they told him, basically, to buy an upgrade to Flexi-Cut or get lost. No fairness there. He laid out some significant dollars and now had software he couldn't access. I honestly believe that Scanvec should have, and could have, replaced that dongle but chose to try and make him upgrade. It wasn't like he was trying to screw anybody. He just wanted to use the software that he already legally owned.

It is good to see that the "Digital Millenium Act" addressed this very issue and took positive steps to make sure that people didn't get tagged for the unwillingness or inability of manufacturers to support a paticular line of software for any significant amount of time after discontinuing it.

There had to be some kind of technology that would allow software manufacturers to protect their wares while allowing the end users some kind of assurance that they are not going to be left hanging in the wind, either.

Just my thoughts...

And the manufacturer of the dongle protected software is going to tell you it is illegal. What has he got to gain by telling you to crack his dongle?

Hopefully we can get an expert and clearcut interpretation of the law from someone who has nothing to gain or lose by giving us a straight answer.

Have you observes that NCS has taken the risico to make its older software available as freeware on our website to avoid this kind complains ?

By the way, a customer of SignofNCS (first released in 1996) which would not want to upgrade to NCS MagiSign (first release in may 2000) still have the possibility to download the latest version of its plug-in for free on our website.