Louisiana Software License Enforcement Act Claim
The license agreement for PROLOK depended on the Louisiana Software License Enforcement Act to give it the authority to prohibit users from decompiling or disassembling the software. The Act purported to permit certain license agreements to contain "...prohibitions on translating, reverse engineering, decompiling, disassembling, and/or creating derivative works based on the computer software." Vault had included such a provision in its license agreement and claimed that Quaid violated this provision when it reverse engineered PROLOK. The district court held that the Louisiana License Act was unenforceable because it was preempted by the Copyright Act. The circuit court ruled only on the clause permitting a licensor to prohibit decompilation or disassembly, holding that this clause was preempted by the exemptions of 17 U.S.C. §117, which grant permission to make "essential step" and archival copies.
Read more about this topic: Vault Corp. V. Quaid Software Ltd.
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