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Simple English definitions for legal terms
Computer Maintenance Competition Assurance Act
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A quick definition of Computer Maintenance Competition Assurance Act:
The Computer Maintenance Competition Assurance Act is a law that allows companies who fix computers to use software that is already on the computer, even if they don't have permission from the software owner. This law was made because of a court case where a company was sued for using software to fix a computer without permission. The law says that as long as the computer owner or lessee has a legal copy of the software, the repair company can use it to fix the computer. This only applies to maintenance and repair purposes and there are certain rules that must be followed.
A more thorough explanation:
The Computer Maintenance Competition Assurance Act is a part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It allows third-party maintenance organizations to use software licensed to a computer's owner or lessee as part of their maintenance activities. This overrides a previous court decision that said loading software into a computer without permission from the owner was a copyright infringement.
For example, if a company owns a computer and licenses software for it, they can hire a third-party maintenance company to fix any issues with the computer. The maintenance company can use the licensed software to do their job without infringing on the copyright of the software owner.
This act provides a narrow exception to copyright infringement for the owner or lessee of a machine to make or authorize the making of a copy of a computer program if such copy is made solely by virtue of the activation of a machine that lawfully contains an authorized copy of the computer program, for purposes only of maintenance or repair of that machine. This means that as long as certain conditions are met, third-party maintenance companies can use licensed software without infringing on copyright laws.