Slashdot Mirror
European MP Responds on Software Patents
Wolfbone writes "The Guardian newspaper has a contributed article from the European politician Arlene McCarthy in which she responds to a previous article in the same organ by RMS and Nick Hill on the issue of software patents. If the appalling mixture of misrepresentation, non sequitur, solecism and faux-naivete does not make your blood boil, you are a cold fish indeed."
Euro MPs are next to useless because the European Parliament is virtually powerless.
That's not to confuse them with MPs in the individual member states' parliaments, who occasionally do have some power.
http://www.europarl.eu.int/factsheets/1_3_2_en.htm
The parliament's powers:
-"Parliament takes part in the drafting of Community legislation to varying degrees, according to the individual legal basis. It has progressed from a purely advisory role to codecision on an equal footing with the Council."
-"The Treaty of Rome made provision for a motion of censure against the Commission (Article 201 (144) EC). It requires a two-thirds majority of the votes cast, representing a majority of Parliament's component members, in which case the Commission must resign as a body."
So, the parliament is now equally important as the Council and has the power to force the Commision to resign. Just because most of the electorate don't bother reading about or even voting for the European Parliament doesn't make it meaningless.
If you think she needs to have it explained I suggest you email and explain why she is wrong about free software and software patents.
In the heat of the moment I was very rude to her but can I suggest others be moderate.
amccarthy@europarl.eu.int or
arlene.mccarthy@easynet.co.uk
-he who laughs last, is a bit slow.
journal
The European Council doesn't have any real power either! However, unlike the parliament, it *does* get taken seriously...
Wrong. The libc falls under the LGPL (lesser general public license, or formerly known as the library general public license), which explicitely allows linking. Many libraries are covered by the LGPL for exactly the reason you state: allow people to actually use it (i.e. link programs against it), even in a proprietary setting.
Even programs which are covered by the GPL may be used in a proprietary setting, if done right: put the GPL'ed codes and the proprietary codes into different address spaces (which communicate with each other using pipes, command parameters or network sockets), or define a plugin-based architecture. Now the only sources that would need to be published would be the "wrapper" code that transforms the code into a plugin, or that allows the code to communicate with the proprietary parts.
This is a point that seems to be lost on many people. If you choose to use a GPL'd piece of software, you generally have three choices: You can agree to use it under the GPL, you can limit yourself to "fair use" of the software, or you can contact the copyright holder and negotiate a seperate licence.
With proprietry software, the first of these options is absent. Indeed, quite often the second option is also absent because most commercial software requires the agreement to of an EULA which further restricts "fair use".
The GPL is an addition of a package of extra rights that's entirely optional. If you want to use software like GNU, Linux, MPlayer, etc, without ever agreeing to it, you're welcome to do so.
I don't see how it's the replacement of one monopoly with another.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The EU-Direcorate for the internal market conducted a survey in re. to software patents during the consulting process end 2000. They got 1450 responses, 1200 of those were in opposition to software patents. The only possibility they found to manipulate this into a positive result was to invent the concept of "economic majority" since the few positive responses came from cash-heavy companies.
The report that came out of this, stated that while 91% of the individula responses were negative, and "economic majority" of the respondents favoured the introduction of software patents.
Ah yes, the GIF patent. That stopped any free software using GIFs.
The MP3 patent's licensing terms don't even prohibit legal Free Software implementations - you pay a one-off licensing fee, and you're fine. There seem seem to be plenty.
The reality is, those patents haven't killed MP3 or GIFs. If anything, it's Ogg Vorbis and PNGs which are an endangered species - not from litigation, but disuse. (The MP3 patent, by the way, is Fraunhofer's - a German group, not US.) Patents or no patents, MP3 and GIF are still the format for that application, and supported by plenty of free/open source programs.
So the future for free software is (and this would be fine with me, except that it doesn't promote either fair use or interoperability) a ghetto of free formats like Ogg.
Unlikely. As I said, we've had MP3 and GIF patents for years without this result - the former from a German company, not a US one - without the result you predict. Why would Europe adopting the US system have this result, when it hasn't happened in the US?
If you're going to contact her, for fucks sake be polite and professional.
h tm
Contact YOUR MEP as well. It will help them vote against any legislation...
In the UK anyway, you can find out who your MEPs are here:
http://www.europarl.org.uk/uk_meps/MembersMain.
Mail her and cc: all of your MEPs.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Not only does a patent assign property rights, but the patent itself (the document) is also a legal property. Ditto for copyrights.
I am going to use copyrights as a stand in for all flavors of IP (patents, copyrights, trademarks). I am also going to reffer strictly to the rights assigned by a document - and not to ownership of the document itself. Actually I'll say one thing about the document aspect - the closest thing to 'theft' in relation to copyrights is to forge a document of transfer of the copyright. And even that is actually fraud, not theft.
Copyrights assign copy rights, not property rights. The rights of copy are very different than the rights of property. They are covered by entirely different sets of laws and operate in very different ways. One applies to information, the other applies to physical objects. Information and physical objects have extremely different properties. 'Intellectual property' is a oxymoron. It is impossible to own information.
When the word 'property' shows up in copyright arguments people often assert that the copyright holder owns every copy of the information. They claim he owns the bits on my CD or the bits on my harddrive. They claim that decrypting DRM is like picking a lock, breaking and entering, and tresspass. Using a property analogy on information leads to completely false conclusions like those.
US copyright law states that if I buy a copy it is my property. I can sell it if I like. I own it, not the copyright holder. Section 106 of US copyright law grants six exclusive rights to the copyright holder, but they really amount to three different rights - the right to make copies, the right to distribute copies, and the right to perform the work publicly. Those are the ONLY rights the copyright holder has. And those rights are subject to all sorts of limits and exemptions. And those rights expire. It is extremely different that owning a thing. Copy rights are very different from property rights.
Copy rights and property rights are so different that one is protected by civil law and the other by criminal law. If I violate your property the police will arrest me and the government will prosecute the case. If I violate your copyright all you can do is sue me in civil court. And you have to prosecute me yourself. Any you can only do so on the grounds of those three specific rights - making copies, distributing copies, or public performance.
Another piece of disinformation commonly spread by the RIAA/MPAA is that is is a crime to download copyrighted files. They are flat out lying. It is a crime to receive stolen goods, it is perfectly legal to receive copyrighted information. It is only the person who is sending the file who may (or may not) be violating the law.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I think you are somewhat out of date. Parliament now has amendment rights and a veto on proposals coming out of Brussels. If Parliament doesn't vote to pass a Directive, it doesn't happen. This MEP, Arlene McCarthy, is the chair of the committee and draughtswoman of the report which is responsible will advise parliament how to vote and what to recommend re the software patenting directive.
This committee is where the parliament discusses the directive in detail clause by clause. The report matters, and could well be decisive. And this Monday, soon after 3 o'clock, the committee votes on which amendments it will or will not recommend to parliament.