LMI Lambda?

[Warner Losh]

On Thu, Feb 9, 2017 at 9:26 AM, Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> On Feb 9, 2017, at 11:16 AM, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 9 February 2017 at 18:06, geneb <geneb at deltasoft.com> wrote:
>>> If you don't (at least) have the official distribution media, then
>>> TECHNICALLY you'd be violating the copyright.  Otherwise, it's nonsense.
>>
>>
>> AIUI -- and IANAL -- this is correct, yes.
>
> Copying without permission of the copyright owner would be a copyright violation.  Some licenses permit wide copying (open source).  And of course software might be in the public domain (no copyright) -- that's rare but it does happen.

Copying that's not covered by fair use or other permissible acts
without the permission is a copyright violation. Copyright owners may
bar that copying in their license, but that doesn't make those acts
unlawful.

There's nothing in copyright law about original media being your
savior. You are permitted to make copies for backup purposes, and to
use those copies if the original copy becomes corrupt, for example.
But this statement isn't absolute for newer copyrighted material
that's copy protected, which has its own set of bizarre rules. The
license to copy (and therefore use) is not tied to any particular
thing in the law, so there are many cases that determine what the
rules are in the absence of an explicit license, as well as what terms
in a license may or may not be enforceable.

Speaking in absolutes in the IP field is often unwise.

Warner