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by DannyBee 3877 days ago
"I believe this because the overly-broad interpretation you are taking is ludicrous."

Of which part.

I think the part about whether you can compel an owner is cut and dry. It says nothing about compelling owners. Period.

The part about countries being able to make laws about import/export, also very cut and dry. This is very clearly covered.

The part about countries not being able to have courts order source access, yes, is a broad interpretation, but honestly, not inconsistent with how this kind of wording tends to be read by courts.

Even if you cut the last part out, the other two are still very very worrying.

2 comments

> I think the part about whether you can compel an owner is cut and dry. It says nothing about compelling owners. Period.

I was going to argue that, but after thinking about it realized I was making the incorrect assumption that the owner of the source code was the only one who could provide said code. Hence my incorrect interpretation.

> The part about countries being able to make laws about import/export, also very cut and dry. This is very clearly covered.

Not challenging that.

> The part about countries not being able to have courts order source access, yes, is a broad interpretation, but honestly, not inconsistent with how this kind of wording tends to be read by courts.

If that is the case, I don't see how any state with a decent technology sector would agree to it, because it would allow party states to basically set themselves up as piracy safe havens.

> Even if you cut the last part out, the other two are still very very worrying.

I don't think the first is worrying at all without the third. To try to extend the meaning of the first to include legal actions taken in copyright infringement cases would be tantamount to scuppering the very protections other parts of the same treaty are trying to enhance.

It doesn't seem to prevent other reasons for compelling source access. Simply not *as a condition ... sale in the territory".

So you can't (seemingly) require FOSS to access the market at all, but you could compel someone to reveal source for any number of other reasons.