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Business Software Alliance Writes European Regulations?
Holger Blasum writes: "The European Commission's proposal for a directive on software patents making software patentable in Europe is announced today (the commission's proposal still will have to pass council and parliament). MSWord's "Author" field suggests that it comes straight from the BSA's director of public policy. See the Eurolinux press release for a brief summary, more details can be found at the FFII website. Or, if you
prefer French, zdnet.fr has some coverage too." The EC's site has several webpages about the proposal: a main page, FAQ, and the official copy of the proposal. Comparing the proposal-as-released with the draft obtained by Eurolinux, many sections are identical, some sections are nearly identical and a few sections have been completely rewritten.
Does anyone know what sort of protections were in place for software developpers previously? If nothing, this will definitely cause some major upheaval in the business of software in Europe! More monopolies, more globalization of the American democracy-but-with-oligaries paradox.
Anyone who is in Europe now have some insight?
A couple of months ago I attended a conference on EU IP law as applying to the IT business. The EU Patent Office director was there himself, plus business representants and government officials.
Among other points, that EUPO director admitted to giving out software patents without any legal basis whatsoever.
Also, these officialls were quite obviously loaded very pro-patents. Noone questioned the 20 year duration (hell, thats 3-4 whole generations in IT), and my question about that was answered in quite a ridiculous way: "well if that seems too long for you, you can just drop your patent by not paying the fees any more...".
These guys also were smart enough to ask how many people were pro-patents, but not anti-patent - which of course I had to ask afterwards - the obvious 50/50 result (these were almost all lawyers and practically no techies) was then called "well about 1/3 against only".
Next chance I get to talk to the minister, I'll sure try to express the Free Software point of view. But since I'm from the smallest EU member country, I doubt that will have much weight, even if I can help to convince the higher-ups...
This could be the precursor to the BSA becoming an NGO, a multinational organization that is not restricted by the governance of any particular nation. Something like the WTO, but on a smaller scale. The NGO phenomena is really a fascinating aspect of International Relations in that they cause all kinds of problems because they are difficult to regulate. In a sense, future incarnations of the BSA (likely merged with similar European organizations) could become a semi-independent entity that has world-wide authority over software licensing and usage.
Taken from Ec faq
"Isn't software different to other technologies in that patents can be used to block legitimate independent innovation?
The Commission has seen little evidence that this has been a problem in practice in the present environment. This would be the case only if the scope of protection granted by patents were extended to software as such and, for instance, blocked the use of an algorithmic idea in other
technical fields from the one in which a patent is granted. Since the proposed Directive would not extend the scope of what can be patented, nor the scope of the protection granted by a patent, there should be nothing to fear on this front"
microsoft seems to spring to mind.
"Would the proposed Directive restrict the interoperability of computer programs?"
"..These exceptions include acts performed for the purposes of studying the ideas and principles underlying a program and the reproduction or translation of code if necessary for the achievement of the interoperability of an independently-created computer program. It is also specified that the making of a back-up copy by a lawful user cannot be prevented. Such provisions are necessary in the context of copyright law because copyright confers the absolute right to prevent the making of copies of a protected work. All the acts mentioned involve making copies and would therefore infringe in the absence of any exception."
This part seems to have implications for ebooks among other things, am I allowed make backups of the digital books I own, if I have to circumvent some copy protection to do it ?
"Why would claims to computer programs on their own not be permitted under the proposed Directive?
In recent decisions, patents have under certain conditions been allowed which contain claims for computer programs on their own, for example on a disk or even as a signal transmitted over the internet. In the course of consultations, fears were expressed that if enforced, patents including such claims may be used to prevent "reverse engineering" and other activities considered legitimate in respect of computer programs already protected under copyright law. Moreover, such claims could be said to be contrary to the EPC, which does not allow patents for computer programs "as such". In response to these concerns, the Commission has decided not to follow the direction taken by case law in this important respect. Accordingly, the proposal would not allow claims of this type to be considered valid."
It would seem that I can legitamtely make backups according to this, this also seems to have implications for the windows xp licence among other things.
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Just when it looks like the US might be realizing it's gone overboard with copyright and patent law, now here's a proposal to have the EU copy everything that's gone wrong with US IP law.
I thought originally patents were supposed to cover mechanisms. In the loose sense of the word, I suppose an algorithm is a mechanism, but *not* like Eli Whitney and the cotton gin, for crying out loud! In early landmark cases like Apple vs. Franklin (1983; Apple sued Franklin Computer for copying the ROM's on the Apple II+ directly to make a clone), the courts applied *copyright law*, not *patent law*. (Apparently you can only get a patent on generic ROM chips, not on ROM chips programmed a specific way.) The court used the (at the time) new Copyright Act of 1976 (which IMHO was much more reasonable than the DMCA is now!) to frame their decision. Unfortunately, the Lotus 123 case (Lotus vs. Microsoft), the Pentium name trademark case, and the Apple vs. Microsoft case, the courts significantly eroded copyright's ability to provide meaningful protection to software. So I think that's why companies have turned to software patents, because legally speaking, they're much more intractable. (Although there was obviously prior art for ripping off people through patents, e.g. LZW compression which *wasn't even original* (it was a derivative of the earlier LZ compression), yet was awarded a software patent.
Anyway, this is unfortunate, but it doesn't surprise me that the BSA would be pushing software patents. After all, they're the same people who estimate "sales lost to piracy" by counting the number of PC's sold without Windows and Office and ASSUMING that everyone having one of those PC's (a) really *is* running Windows and Office, they just pirated it, (b) would have paid for it to begin with. Plus they send threatening letters to companies telling them that "the BSA police might come knocking on their door," while simultaneously telling disgruntled employees to turn in their employers. Nothing like a little backstabbing to make our lives easier, eh. Oh well, the world is full of scumbags. Just my $0.02.
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Windows 2000/XP stable? safe? secure? 5 lines of simple C code say otherwise!
OK, that's it, I'm off to patent "Hello World".
/. readers suddenly cried out in terror...) and it's just as pathetic.
Weird, but it looks like, according to this legislation, I could as it's "in the field of technology".
Europe has relied on some pretty good Intellectual property and fair use laws.
Companies were protected by applying for patents on core technologies in their products, for instance the ever popular "Dyson" cyclonic vacuum cleaner. It doesn't mean nobody else can build a cyclonic vacuum cleaner, they just have to do so using thier own design of parts.
Unfortunately, European Ministers aren't used to digital technology. Britain is, scarily enough, one of the most advanced countries in terms of digital communications technology - and we can't even get a bloody *DSL line to most of the country! This means that Europe is well behind on incorporating Digital content and technology into it's legislation.
The big companies themselves are generously offering advice and support to politicians who are out of their depth.
When the "Civil Rights" or "Hacker" communities start to pick technical holes in your arguments, if you can say "Well this resspected coalition of Major Digital Dudes says I'm right" then you look a lot better in front of your peers.
The EU is trying to force through a version of the DMCA (I feel a great disturbance in the force, as if thousands of
more on that at http://uk.eurorights.org/
This proposal really only paves the way for this bill, by saying that copyright laws should be considered applicable to software. Once that's been accepted, the bigger and more difficult to swallow, bill will go down a bit easier now that you've already swallowed some of it.
It's nothing to worry about on it's own, except it may let me copyright just about any arbitrary function. When the big one hits, then see teh nasty things I'll be able to do to you if you use "my" Hello World app!
Chris.
Business writes the laws and gives them to Congress for rubber stamp approval. The idea is that the affected businesses understand the issues better than Congress and can work out fair systems on their own.
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
Don't take my word for it. Instead read this article from a couple years ago in Mother Jones magazine. It talks about how BSA offices end up pushing licenses for MS products even on companies that weren't illegally using them, but in fact were using other (competing) products.
For fairness, here is a link to a follow up letters column that disputes some of the facts in the article.
Quite an eye-opener.
There are actually two versions of Statue of Liberty, one in Paris and one in NY. The one in Paris is smaller (and less well known). I guess it was done by Eiffel to show the friendship between the two countries (don't know where he got that from ;-), and the historical connections between the two young republics.
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
This is something I've always wondered about. If you get a software patent, you have a government granted monopoly on that for ~20 years - at which point it becomes public domain (when the patent expires everybody can reproduce it - this is the whole point of patents). What happens if that software is also copyrighted? Does the turning over to the public domain trump copyright? Does copyright trump patent law? How can something be an invention (patentable) and also speech (copyrightable)? Does anyone know? Is elvis dead?
Jon
From their assorted examples, my favorite is a patent on a Method and apparatus for path name format conversion. Filed by Sun Microsystems perhaps as a way to annoy Microsoft, it's a method of converting Windows 95 filenames to Windows NT filenames. These guys crack me up.
My spoon is too big!
I can't report myself. I was given as a Handheld PC as a gift. It runs Microsoft Windows CE 3.0. I have the box, certificate, original disks, etc but I don't have a sales reciept for it. I could be in big trouble with the BSA for that! (it works great in the field for e-mailing photos off the compact flash memory from my camera) Anybody got Linux to run on a HP 680 Jordna yet so I can ditch Windows?
The truth shall set you free!
This directive still has to be approved by the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, I believe. So write to your MEP and to your national representatives (or minister in charge of this area).
Some countries such as France have given public statements that a move to allowe software patents will not be approved without clear demonstration of the economic advantages (which there isn't), so there's plenty of reason to think this directive can be stopped, just like the previous Commission initiative to 'harmonize' in favour of greater patentability.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
The astute reader will have already caught my drift by now and realized that with Linux and the GPL (and all the other OSI licenses) you don't ever have to say sorry to the BSA. So why not taunt them? Report yourself today!
Funny thing is, someone I know who did this, but using a slightly different technique.
He worked as a developer for a semi-large company, about 1500 employees, give or take. His company was planning on migrating from their 95 environment for end users (NT 4 for devs) to 2000 environment for the Devs, and further down the road, XP for the users. He had been trying to push Linux there for some time, but the VPs and CIOs weren't listening. It was a Microsoft shop, and was to stay that way. (Despite them using Linux on their servers) So what did he do?
He reported his company to the BSA.
Now, his company was not doing anything illegal AT ALL. Due to a mixup with a VP, they actually had a ton of EXTRA licenses (in the 500 range) from MS for their workstations; they were beyond legal (if thats possible!! <g>) But the BSA didn't care. They came in to investigate, and even when presented with all the licenses, harassed my friend's company repeatedly. Despite finding nothing illegal, they threatened litigation on more than one occasion (barratry, anyone?), and insisted on several sweeps of their office. (they almost did get fined when they found a copy of SQL Server on a machine that no one could account for. Turns out it was from their MSDN subscription, so it was legit. I digress...)
Anyway, what was the end result of all of this? The VPs & CIOs in IT had such a bad taste in their mouth from the BSA/Microsoft, that they actually heard him out, and began looking at alternatives. His company is planning a full move to Linux later this year (it's a mixed environment right now, all the developers are already migrated).
What you mentioned is extremely scary. Think about it. The device is a computer program. Well now you have a patent exclusivity on a way of programming. THIS IS BEZERK...
What gets me about this is the convience that the EU is bringing in patents.
Consider the following:
Although this group numerically dominated (90%) the response, the major sectoral bodies representing the information and communication technology industries, as well as many of the Member States, all supported the approach put forward by the discussion paper.
Yeah lets say you asked my Grandmorther if patents are good or not? She would say yes they are good, without understanding the ramifications. Damm convient if you ask me.
This smells like large corporation pressure. And the leaders of the world wonder why there are violent protests throughout the world whenever they get together?
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"