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This is in direct contract to continental Europe, where they're historically been viewed as a moral right grounded in natural law.

I wasn't aware of that. Do you have any background on this? At least the history of patents in the UK does not suggest anything like that, nor does this overview.

What you say is generally true about European copyright (author's rights) though.

For Dutch people: look here for a short FAQ regarding what to do about these letters (summary: ignore them, they're misleading and baseless if you just play music for yourself).

See http://wiki.vrijschrift.org/Doneren

PRESS RELEASE FFII -- [ Europe / ICT / Information Society ]

EU adopts Big Brother directive, ignores industry and civil society

14 December 2005 (Strasbourg, France) The European Parliament today adopted a directive that will create the largest monitoring database in the world, tracking all communications within the EU. "From today, all EU citizens are to be tracked and monitored like common criminals," says Pieter Hintjens, president of the FFII.

The Data Retention Directive was passed by 378 votes to 197, following deals between the Council and the leaders of the two largest parties in Parliament, the EPP-ED (Conservatives) and the PSE (Socialists). The Rapporteur for the directive, Alexander Alvaro (Liberals) had his name removed from the report in protest.

Jonas Maebe of the FFII says: "Among other harsh measures, the directive mandates recording of the source and destination of all emails you send and every call you make, and your location and movement during mobile phone calls. Additionally, the directive says nothing about who has to pay for all this logging, which will significantly distort the internal telecommunications market."

"Moreover, the directive disregards how Internet protocols work. For example, tracking Internet telephony calls is generally impossible without closely watching the content of all data packets. The reason is that such connections are not necessarily set up via a central server which can perform the necessary logging. On top of that you have techniques like tunneling (VPN's) which make it simply impossible to look at the content", he adds.

The gathered data can be made available without special warrants, and without limit to certain types of crime. There will be no independent evaluation, and no extra privacy and no specific security safeguards. The data will be retained for periods ranging from 6 months up to any duration a member state can convince the Commission of.

Hartmut Pilch of the FFII says: "This outcome proves that we have to remain vigilant at all times and work on every relevant directive from the start. Even now, the planned IPRED2 directive, also unanimously condemned by industry and civil society, threatens to turn everyone caught by a patent into a criminal."

Background Information

* Two-page overview of the effects of the most important amendments
http://www.ffii.org/~jmaebe/dataret/plen1/summary. pdf

* English video stream of today's plenary session
http://media.vrijschrift.org/ep_vote_datared_05121 4_en.wmv

* Original language video stream of today's plenary session
http://media.vrijschrift.org/ep_vote_datared_05121 4_or.wmv

* Data retention: legislative sausage machine in overdrive
http://wiki.ffii.org/DataRet0512En

* News, position papers on and analysis of the directive
http://wiki.dataretentionisnosolution.com

* Permanent link to this press release
http://wiki.ffii.org/DataRetPr051214En

About the FFII -- http://www.ffii.org

The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) is a non-profit association registered in several European countries, which is dedicated to the spread of data processing literacy. FFII supports the development of public information goods based on copyright, free competition, open standards. More than 850 members, 3,000 companies and 90,000 supporters h

PRESS RELEASE FFII -- [ Europe / ICT / Information Society ]

EU adopts Big Brother directive, ignores industry and civil society

14 December 2005 (Strasbourg, France) The European Parliament today adopted a directive that will create the largest monitoring database in the world, tracking all communications within the EU. "From today, all EU citizens are to be tracked and monitored like common criminals," says Pieter Hintjens, president of the FFII.

The Data Retention Directive was passed by 378 votes to 197, following deals between the Council and the leaders of the two largest parties in Parliament, the EPP-ED (Conservatives) and the PSE (Socialists). The Rapporteur for the directive, Alexander Alvaro (Liberals) had his name removed from the report in protest.

Jonas Maebe of the FFII says: "Among other harsh measures, the directive mandates recording of the source and destination of all emails you send and every call you make, and your location and movement during mobile phone calls. Additionally, the directive says nothing about who has to pay for all this logging, which will significantly distort the internal telecommunications market."

"Moreover, the directive disregards how Internet protocols work. For example, tracking Internet telephony calls is generally impossible without closely watching the content of all data packets. The reason is that such connections are not necessarily set up via a central server which can perform the necessary logging. On top of that you have techniques like tunneling (VPN's) which make it simply impossible to look at the content", he adds.

The gathered data can be made available without special warrants, and without limit to certain types of crime. There will be no independent evaluation, and no extra privacy and no specific security safeguards. The data will be retained for periods ranging from 6 months up to any duration a member state can convince the Commission of.

Hartmut Pilch of the FFII says: "This outcome proves that we have to remain vigilant at all times and work on every relevant directive from the start. Even now, the planned IPRED2 directive, also unanimously condemned by industry and civil society, threatens to turn everyone caught by a patent into a criminal."

Background Information

* Two-page overview of the effects of the most important amendments
http://www.ffii.org/~jmaebe/dataret/plen1/summary. pdf

* English video stream of today's plenary session
http://media.vrijschrift.org/ep_vote_datared_05121 4_en.wmv

* Original language video stream of today's plenary session
http://media.vrijschrift.org/ep_vote_datared_05121 4_or.wmv

* Data retention: legislative sausage machine in overdrive
http://wiki.ffii.org/DataRet0512En

* News, position papers on and analysis of the directive
http://wiki.dataretentionisnosolution.com

* Permanent link to this press release
http://wiki.ffii.org/DataRetPr051214En

About the FFII -- http://www.ffii.org

The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) is a non-profit association registered in several European countries, which is dedicated to the spread of data processing literacy. FFII supports the development of public information goods based on copyright, free competition, open standards. More than 850 members, 3,000 companies and 90,000 supporters h

We had a good idea, and only needed a couple million to design the software right so that it could scale as the idea got more popular.

So while getting 10M$ on a silver plate would of course be a cause for celebration for the recipient, it would normally be very difficult for a software company in its early stages to find ways of spending it productively, so that you can actually get any return on the investment.

In the article Software patents and financial investing venture capitlist Laura Creighton explains how it typically works. (The article is is mostly about software patents, but covers the topic of investing in software companies as well.)

An extract from the article:

Hardware companies need capital, indeed, to build factories, but the demands of Software companies are much more modest. The following is the normal development pattern of small software companies, who intend to produce a product for retail.

A few -- at most 5 -- people get together to form a company and develop a piece of software. They look for funding. Unless some of the founders have rich parents, they receive none -- because they cannot convince the lenders to lend. This is because all they have to offer is their very bright idea. Ideas about the software I intend to develop are akin to ideas about the hit-CD my band intends to produce, or the great novel I will write some day. They sound great, but only rarely live up to their dreams. In the Software industry, we have a word for such unrealised dreams. We call them 'vapourware'. And financial lenders have learned to not invest in 'vapourware', for obvious reasons.

Undiscouraged, our hero-founders decide to develop their software anyway. In order to fund their venture, they take on a consulting contract, typically in an unrelated, but lucrative field. This means that their product gets developed more slowly than would otherwise be the case. If all goes well, they reach the point where they would dearly love to jettison the consulting business, and make all of their income on business related to their new product. Or, if their consulting business is related to their product, they need to expand.

In short, they need a round of financing. This is where I come in. This is where I do my investing, and most small innovative software companies need cash to the tune of 50,000 to 250,000 Euros. This is an incredibly small sum. There is a tremendous need for this sort of funding, but it is very hard to find. And Software Patents will not help you acquire this. The amount of money you need to 'go around the corner' is one or two orders of magnitude smaller than the amount of money that you need to open a factory. It is the same problem that faces small businesses in every industry.

It's a long article, but an interesting read if you have the time.

A Good example is the movement against EU software patents. A similar style is used as in huge open source development projects. Different sites such as FFII.org, the AEL Wiki, Vrijschrift, Eurolinux Petition are used. There are many core activists that contribute to email communication on different lists, monitor the net, take part in events, speakers for events and many supportes 8around 50 000 registered of FFII or 300 000 Eurolinux signatures). Registered supporters can be contacted in cases of urgent action. There is no strict organisation structure, contributions count and create a personal karma. Participants in the debate act as individuals, not as objects of an organisational ideology. If you don't like something, contribute. If you are not pleased with the organisation or action of FFII join another group in the debate and contribute in a different style.

Participants were able to convince the EU parliament by massive protests. FFII and the other groups of the network created a kind of watchgroup for IP policy issues. They were able to put light in dark backyard where patent attorneys and servants of the DoJ decide what may be beneficial for the information society.

I think in europe we were able to show: "Hacking politics works."

Please no-one use this "as is", especially if they live in Cambridge; I only want to encourage others to craft a decent letter.

Dear Anne Campbell,

A few weeks ago, I emailed you concerning software patents, with patent laws being passed in the European Parliament, and soon to be put through to UK law.

Last month, the European Parliament voted for strong restrictions upon software patents, but it is my understanding that UK ministers at the Competitiveness Council of Ministers are likely to push for the Parliament amendments to be overturned. This would be a disaster for software development within Britain.

The UK Patent Office have been lobbying for unlimited patentability, and whilst their consultation found a lot of support from patent professionals were in favour, the views of programmers were extremely hostile. Strong patent laws are not good for the industry, although they might be good for big companies: in the USA, large companies build portfolios of software patents, which creates a minefield for programmers, as every program contains steps which could be considered innovative, meaning that before long, it becomes impossible to write programs of any complexity without stepping upon some of these patents. Although these patents ultimately might not stand up in court, the fear of law and the resources of large companies means that the interests of smaller outfits and individuals are overwhelmed. This is not an efficiency, for the cost is not the natural cost of doing business, but an artificial one of compliance with the regulation.

I should add that in the USA, cross-licensing of patent portfolios is commonplace, creating government-enforced cartels, as those working for such companies don't need to worry about compliance. This is actually proof that patent laws are inefficient, since firms would rather absolve one another of their patent obligations than enforce them. An excellent case against software patents is put forward by Laura Creighton, a software venture capitalist, to be found at http://www.vrijschrift.org/swpat/030508_1/.

I am faxing, as well as emailing this letter because of the urgency of the issue: there is to be a series of meeting of patent officials throughout Europe on Thursday 23 October ahead of the meeting of the Competitiveness Council of Ministers.

This is a serious worry for me, and not a theoretical idealisation. Everyone that I know in the industry has told be how worried they are about what future laws we are likely to end up with. I hope that you can put the case to Stephen Timms MP, the minister for e-commerce at the DTI, and cast your vote at a future date against an excessive patent regime.

Yours sincerely,

Tim Wesson.

EOLAS endangers the freedom of the Web, MS gets a patent on a crappy invention. It is time to stop the American liberal patent policy that causes anti-competetive behaviour and is a threat to freedom. Patent lawyers and patent privateers or information society?

Americans, please join the succesful EU movement by organizing similar initiatives and events. We alkready made some mistakes for you, so you don't have to start from scratch. Leaflets, Online demo material, material, visual propaganda stuff