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British Court Issues Bizarre Copyright Ruling
dipfan writes "In a re-run of the Lotus v Borland case that went to the US Supreme Court, the High Court in London has allowed a copyright infringement battle between two rival airline booking programs to go to trial, despite agreement by all sides that the two programs are written in different code. The airline Easyjet is being sued by software house Navitaire, creators of an online booking system called Openres, over Easyjet's booking system named eRes, developed by Bulletproof Technologies of California. Openres was written in Cobol, while eRes was written in Visual Basic, and the programs are also different in structure.
But, according to the FT article: 'Parallels had been drawn between appropriating the "functional structure" of a computer system and commandeering the plot of a book, the judge noted.' If Navitaire wins, then any program that works like another program - even if written in different code - could be vulnerable. What happened to the principle that you can't copyright an idea? Bulletproof is counter-suing
Navitaire in the district of Utah."
This is silly. I am suing all males of the human species, because their penis infringes upon my own penis's "functional structure" (although I admit that due to their vastly smaller size, our structures are different).
Come to think of it, I guess that my father would call me out on the whole "prior art" thing there.
And the prosecutor is a Mr. Black Adder right?
Soon you'll beable to sue your neighbor for having two eyes and a nose.
it's like the malloc (sp?) thing all over again. two airlines needing a piece of software to do the SAME THING. How many correct ways are there to do it?
From an outsider's point of view, a stranger to word processing, one would draw EXTREME similarities to MS Word vs. a Corel alternative.
Is it copyright infringement? They both allow you to do the same thing in almost exactly the same way. .
seems crazy right?
-rich
A lot of patents are like this.. Vague concepts with no implementation details. Even if two different people have vastly different implementations that do the same thing, and one of them has a patent for the "thing", they can be sued. How is this different?
This is a place where the definitions in copyright and patent law become sketchy and begin to blur together. The question at hand seems to be one of whether GUI's and other elements of program I/O (this so-called "functional structure") come under copyright protection as elements of a creative rendering or patent protection as means of achieving a computational purpose; the idea that such elements may be shakily protected by both seems dangerous and a strong possibility, in Britain's case anyway (although the actual case has yet to commence).
But on the other hand if they loose that would make a legal precedence that copyright doesn't cover functionallity which would be a good thing.
If they can draw parallels between the function of the software even though they were created in different languages (cobol and vb in this case) I'm relieved that the SCO lawsuit isn't being settled in British court.
Trolling is a art,
what was the lotus borland suit about? and the final decision?
Navitaire was arguing that BulletProof Technologies had studied the Openres system closely and produced a system that operated in the same way.
Okay, so the case has only been declared tryable, not that there was infringement. And though I don't agree that "studying closely" is an issue, I'm not sure we can say that the fact that they're written in a different language automatically disqualifies it from an IP violation.
If I take your Fortran application, use g77 to convert it to C++, change your name to mine and search-and-replace a few things, wouldn't I still be violating your IP?
Ah, yes... it's copyright case... but, Henry Potter and the Room of Mysteries, anyone?
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
I'm not supposed to get jigs in it!
I have heard the same arguement that two items that operate differently, but have the same results are the same.
Most notable, is that there are cheap knockoffs of everything popular. It is not illegal though. That is, unless they are trying to mistaken themselves for the originals.
Remember how many clones of the PC was made of the IBM computer. The only way it was illegal is when Compaq slapped an IBM sticker on the computer.
Good luck... It all comes down to whether or not the judge's had their cornflakes urinated in or the bowl lined with diamonds.
So what if it's written in different code? I can play pop songs on a trombone and record it. It's still the same song and it's still infringement.
Copyrighting an idea is wrong, but that's not what the question is here. This is an example of determining whether both products implement the idea in a close enough way to be infringement and code is completely irrelevant to that discussion.
--- Don't be a player hater: I meta-mod ALL negative mods as Unfair.
I wonder how much money is wasted worldwide on these pointless lawsuits. Couldn't this time and effort be put forth towards something useful?
----
Squirrel
It's all that and more.
Or reverse steps 1 and 2...
This could put a great new twist on the IE vs Netscape story.
This space intentionally left blank
Cheerio!
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Travel booking programs are particularly complex and it appears that the two programs here share enough logic for the VB version to be infringing.
It is not unreasonable: if I sing "happy birthday" on the air, I have to pay copyright fees. So if I rewrite someone's code in another language (or even the same language), why do copyright fees not apply?
It is far better that copyright be applied to this kind of case (assuming the infringing program actually is a rewrite, not a coincidence) than patent law. At least with copyright you know that a clean-room rewrite is safe. With patents you won't know until the lawyers knock.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Y'know you're gonna make alot more profit doing it the other way round. Who's got more for you to take, Linus or Billy?
... with a whole range of technology issues from copyright enforcement, through IP legislation, even some of the OSS policy that we are starting to see is that decisions are being taken by a generation of people who generally don't understand the issues. Until a generation that grew up with Technology become old enough to become law makers then we will continue to see decisions like this.
What is up with Utah that all these IP/Copyright things seem to surface there instead of other places. Did Silicon valley move?
10 Sue
20 Fight in court
30 Judge rules
40 Appeal
50 goto 10
Is it just me or is this kind of thing getting old?
--------
This isn't the sig you're looking for. Move along.
The case might not have much merit, but there's not enough detail for us to decide that - and no apparent reason to dismiss it as 'bizarre'. Don't you remember that Apple sued M$ over the 'look and feel' of Windows? And if I wrote a program that exactly duplicated the functionality of Warcraft III (even if all the code was my own) do you think I wouldn't get sued by Blizzard? Everything depends on what the patents and copyrights cover.
If "functional structure" breaks copywrite then all reverse engineering will be considered illegal. This is bad!
'Parallels had been drawn between appropriating the "functional structure" of a computer system and commandeering the plot of a book... Hmmm...I think I've read a few dozen that go something like this: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, some crisis draws them together, boy gets girl back. Doesn't matter about the pesky details, such as choice of words. All authors now owe money to Danielle Steele. This is getting ridiculous!
First of all, this also sounds like a rehash of the "look and feel" lawsuits between Microsoft and Apple. "Your program looks like ours, so you obviously stole it!"
Second, if you couldn't "commandeer" plots, I doubt anybody would be writing any books these days.
One of these days I'm gonna sue my computer for stealing my life. Who knows? I may get some money out of it.
1. Sue computer
2. Profit!!
Decameron
diegoT
Ford sues Chevy over cars and trucks. Louisville Slugger sues Easton over the baseball bat.
-- No sig for you!
You can't copyright an idea, that's entirely true. Do you know why? Because I have the copyright to that idea!
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
I copyrighted it, thankyou. You shall be receiving your bill shortly.
"A lot of patents are like this.... How is this different?"
You patent an idea. You only copyright a work.
My local LUG invited a copyright lawyer from Widner last year to come in and talk about some tihng, and he covered this. He told us that copyright law protects not only the form but the basic plot as well. Were Shakespeare alive today, he would have a fairly good lawsuit against Disney for infringing on Hamlet.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Word is very similar to MacWrite, Excel is similar to VisiCalc, and so on.
Here's hoping the Judge tosses this one out.
Actually, the history of 20th century copyright law -- esp. in the US but in Europe as well -- is a blurring of the boundaries between idea and expression, those boundaries being the cornerstone of copyright law previously. This is primarily the effect of movie studios and producers suing people for similar adaptations of similar stories and winning. Siva V. writes about this in Copyrights and Copywrongs. Lawyers for the movie industry went to such lengths to protect their works from imitation that copyright law now recognizes a certain level of idea protection. It's ironic because the film industry got its power in the first place in part because of a strict boundary between idea and expression. But in any case it is not surprising to see this trend manifesting in debates over copyright of computer code.
I maintain a large VB project, which is a port from a previous COBOL project. Most of it is pretty much identical, only the syntax of the language has changed.
If I took the linux kernel, ran it through a C to C# (or whatever) translator, is that an infringement?
What if I just compiled it, and disassembled the binary into ASM?
What about translating a French/Russian novel into English, then selling it as my own?
Things aren't as black and white as you think they are.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
And the prior art example for use to use is This action against the UK.....
all that pain clouding the judges' decision. ;-)
It seems that openres was badly written also.
Ford has filed suit against General Motors for making something that also has four wheels and can transport passengers, by way of an internal combustion engine.
A Ford spokesperson has said: "There will be more lawsuits in the future against other vehicle manufacturers, but we felt like we needed to go after the biggest fish first.
"We realize that this will be met with some hostility, but we are doing this to protect a consumer, we feel that anyone else making such a product is watering down the concept of a 'vehicle' and that having this protected will allow us to continue to innovate.
"Also, we are in talks with SCO to discuss a possible licensing scheme, whereby all owners of non-Ford cars can pay a fee to have their cars properly licensed for Ford's IP."
Perhaps this a case of mad judge disease!
Anyone who thinks the courts are logical should remember that in France a court found a cow guilty of murder and in Salem a court convicted women of being witches.
Not much has changed since then it would seem.
It's a sad fact that everytime an english puts his hand on something, it gets screwed. Look at what they have done to China, India, Middle East, Africa, and so on. Now they are messing with patents. What can we expect?
Yea, they deported all the religious fanatics to America and we end up with Jerry Fawlwell, Trent Lott, et. al. They deported all the criminals to Australia, now those people know how to party!
Should have a city technology consultant, before making these types of rulings.
Who want's to bet that this judge is one of those "computer experts" who's call's to tech support make the christmas party laugh track.
What's the lesser of the two evils here? I've had to do both, poor me, but luckily not for long :-)
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
what does England have to do with suing linus?
The Television Wiki
Why did Australia get all the criminals and American get all the religious fanatics? Because Australia got first pick!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
If that ruling were held true, then any novelist (let's say murder-mystery) would be able to sue any other novelist for copyright infringement.
This problem of Intellectual Property has gone too far for any reasonable solution. Courts and judges appear often incompetent, politicians are the step'n'fetch'it's of moneyed corporations and the customer is the sacrifical lamb.
I assume the cow was sentenced to "death by being slathered in barbeque soft and slowly turned over a fire"? Judges gotta eat too! And if you don't beleive some women are witches, you've never met my wife!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
All word processors are belong to microsoft...
again....sorry...
Well, call me stupid but aren't two airline booking systems always going to be "functionally similar".. They are designed for the same purpose..
Surely this is silly.. As stated somewhere in this thread. Patents are for ideas not copyright.. So it wont pass..
In order for progress to be made.. information and ideas need to be available to everyone to be explored and built on.
Granted, we need intellectual property but we also owe something to the sum of human knowledge.. If the man (or woman :) ) who invented the wheel claimed copyright in the way these guys have.. then the world would not be as it is today..
it is all too far in favour of keeping people bank balances healty but is this preventing new ideas?
Simon
How many ways are there to effectively and efficiently solve a problem/need? Won't most solutions begin to look similar? Will this continue until it's just the first company to come up with a solution that can put a copyright on the functionality? You think software is crappy now...
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
Guess what was considered to be a crime in england bad enough for a die-in-australia sentence? HOMOSSEXUALITY!!! I'm not kidding, nor trolling, it's true!
Sometimes these actions are considered tryable because no precedence current exists. It might be that there's no current ruling as to whether two differently written pieces of software which act the same are copies or not. So it might be that this case is tryable not because the plaintiff might win but because he or she might lose and so set a ruling.
With respect to ideas, computer programs and the like. These are all specifically covered by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 which is the latest version of acts that date all the way back to 1709, common law and the Statute of Anne.
"Parallels had been drawn between appropriating the "functional structure" of a computer system and commandeering the plot of a book, the judge noted.' "
Yea? Is that supposed to be illegal or something? I sure wouldn't have noticed with TV shows and movies commandeering plots all the time.
Is MTV (I think they were the first with Real Life) going to start suing all of the other networks for their use of reality tv shows?
And that's a bit of a problem; lawsuits like the one described in the story are considered pretty normal in the music industry; if OpenOffice and MSOffice both were songs, OpenOffice would probably have to pay some kind of fee to MSOffice for using their intellectual property and we'd all consider that normal...
Anyway... It'd be interesting to hear what other people think about this because to me it is a fundamental problem with how I view the whole copyright/patent/freespeech-discussion.
One solution would be to consider the sourcecode a work of art and the resulting binary an apparatus but that would be ridiculous since it would introduce a huge legal difference between scripts and binaries which would be great to feed a huge discussion but clearly is not a practical solution. So maybe the question we (or at least I) should ask ourselves first, is "What exactly are the differences between sourcecode and compiled sourcecode from a moral and IP point of view?"
0x or or snor perron?!
dumbass
Funny, but obviously untrue. Transportation of criminals to Australia was instituted in 1788 - after the US had become independent.
Yes, but one could certainly argue that very few of the current residents of Australia are descended from homosexuals... the proof is left as an excercise for the reader.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
This is clearly a criminal case. Bulletproof should be charged in criminal court for using Visual Basic. I don't ever want to hear "airline" and "Visual Basic" in the same sentence.
-=-=-=-=- osjedi uses Debian GNU/Linux. -=-=-=-=-
If what's at question is the copyrightable nature of functional structure, then we're free to draw from as many different fields as we'd like to prove prior art. Or, at least, that the subject is irrelevant.
As a very basic example, every english student is taught pretty much the same way to write an essay. Does that mean that whoever wrote the first essay can now file a lawsuit against all students across the world and history?
From a more recent perspective: Cars have four wheels, a power source, and a passenger compartment. Does that mean the inventor of the first "horseless carriage" can file a lawsuit against everyone one supplies a product satisfying those requirements?
From the doomsayer's department: SCO, here we go...again
What's this Submit thingy do?
I have a similar story on my web site written in pig latin therefore I will be suing /. for copyright invringement. Anyone posting to this story will have to pay me $699.00.
-Darl McBribe.
...that it must be a BadThing(TM). If this had been a favorable ruling, it would have been lauded as the height of reason & insight, no matter how twisted the logic. Good to see that the level of 'objectivity' around here hasn't changed. ;)
The software company "Navitaire" has announced they are changing their name to "Naivete".
A company spokeperson stated "our new corporate name better reflects our understanding of copyright law."
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
" Bulletproof is counter-suing Navitaire in the district of Utah." We know Utah is weird, very weird, but there must be something in the water. Why does everyone , like SCO, want to do stupid things there? Are there any lawyers who can shed some light on their legal system? I could speculate on reasons, religious, cultural, sober.... but I'd just be talking outta my ass. So what is the deal over there???
If that's illegal, Terry Brooks is in big trouble.
It will hasten the death of IP.
Big Brother Bush is doubleplus ungood.
I can prove the opposite, since Australia got so many rapers besides the homossexuals.
Microsoft probably "studied the [XYZ] system closely and produced a system that operated in the same way" as many times as anyone else has.
.NET? Who saw that and didn't think Java?
Does MSN + Messenger remind you of anything? I'm sure AOL feels that the plot of their book was comandeered and wouldn't mind thwacking MS again to pay off more of their debt.
How about
I'm sure there are even less generic examples that are just not occuring to me at the moment.
what if on my code there are some lines that are the only *best* way to do something? Will we be forced to write less optimized code because of copyright issues?
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
Bulletproof is counter -suing Navitaire in the district of Utah.
Get it? Bulletproof didn't initiate the crazy lawsuit, Navitaire did. EasyJet is the VICTIM of this insane IP Regime lawsuit because they used the Bulletproof's VB reservation system, which Navitaire claims infringes their copyright.
You write a GPLed application ... let's say for the sake of argument it is software to manage web servers. You write it in C.
Microsoft later releases their own web server management software written in C#. You are a certified Microsoft developer and you get the code through their "shared source" program. Upon inspection, you believe that they just took your C code and rewrote it in C#.
Do *you* sue?
The BAD guys filed suit in London. The GOOD guys filed counter-suit in Utah. At least that is the only way to interpret these actions if you believe that the IP Regime is insane, and that Navitaire's claims of code parallels are in the same category as SCO's.
Hey, maybe we'll see some interesting stock market action next ... (plot thickens, gets out tinfoil hat)
Like how AMD used to license the masks from Intel to build some of the old processors? I don't see anyone bitching about all the X86 clones there used to be, that were "functional" equivelants...
I wonder if you can blame the lawyers for the bad economy? I have a strong suspicion that the missing money are in their pockets.. I mean, come on! Can you really sue for anything?
"Happy Birthday" is public domain. http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/7/5/112441/628
A LAWSUIT about stealing INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY where one program is in COBOL and the other in VISUAL BASIC!?!
if only SCO were involved somehow
What does Utah have to do with anything? Bulletproof is in California and Navitaire is in Minnesota (according to their website).
I don't see how Utah comes into play here. Unless they think that since SCO can get away with frivolous suits in Utah, then everybody can.
Two people who each build a car with four wheels aren't stealing eachother's copyright. I thought this all was settled long ago between Xerox, Apple, Microsoft, etc.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Or does anyone else vaugely remember some guy trying to sue the automakes over the windshield wiper, and lost because they design was sufficiently changed, despite functionality being unaltered?
Anyways, to keep with the analogy, GM could sue the other automakers over the Automatic Transmission, electric Starter, etc. Granted, they were the first to use the electric starter, not so sure they invented it. But they did invent the autotranny, as it says so on their history/museum stuff... Hell, on their history page, it says they were the first to offer airbags back in the 70's... And they also invented the modern day Crash Test dummy in wide use today....
I smell money, lots of money.
And of course the death of Excel if the current owner don't like MS.
Navitaire appears to be a subsidiary of Accenture. Having experienced firsthand the inability of Accenture to develop quality applications in a timely manner and on a decent budget, I am not surprised that Easy Jet kicked them out.
To steal from Red Dwarf:
"If a job is worth doing well, hire someone competent. If it is not worth doing at all but you need to spend lots of money, hire Accenture."
... you know ... the followup where it explains how SCO ended up suing both companies.
All mine has to do is get the clip off his bag of food and knock it over. He hasn't killed me yet. I think he keeps me around for his amusement...
--RJ
... the guy shooting that other guy because having found him in bed with his wife? ... the alien race invading earth to get hold of earths resources? ... this guy stealing a gazillion dollars and trying to hide from this very smart detective?
Where's the problem if they handle software copyright the same way? Books are the perfect example for not being sued over copying ideas and plots.
How about non-disclosure agreements to be signed before reading a book?
Till
That's just stupid. The plot of a book is not copyrightable, just the expression of the plot (the book) is. Ideas are patentable, but not copyrightable.
the idea/expression dichotomy is dead. You can copyright 1+1=2 these days. Copyrights have become perpetual patents. Why? Because that's what most people seem to want.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
How about we make it such that software is protected by neither copyright nor patents!
With the WWW, the first person to post his code gets the credit, and anyone else who claims that code under their name has to face the prior art of the first person. There would be no legal recourse; the surfacing of the truth should be sufficient.
This is probably much more in line with BSD licensing, where anyone can use the code with proper credit given. Given that the WWW/Usenet/etc. provide a widely mirrored hard-to-fake timeline of history, it is extremely unlikely that devious behavior could last long nor is it likely that everything would decompose into anarchy.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
There is the distinct possibility that Linux will be stopped dead in its tracks in England. Then, of course, the only market where Sun and its Solaris operating system can earn money is England since Linux would be nonexistant there.
This case is being compared to Lotus v. Borland. In that US case the trial court initially got found infringement. An appellate court overturned the decision, and the Supreme Court was split 4-4 with one judge not taking part. That means that the Lotus v. Borland case is the law in only one circuit in the US. I would expect the courts in other circuits might very well reach a different decision.
Ladies and gentlemen of the supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider: (pulling down a diagram of Chewie) this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk, but Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now, think about that. That does not make sense! (jury looks shocked)
Why would a Wookiee -- an eight foot tall Wookiee -- want to live on Endor with a bunch of two foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense!
But more importantly, you have to ask yourself: what does that have to do with this case? (calmly) Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense!
Look at me, I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca. Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense. None of this makes sense.
And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberating and conjugating the Emancipation Proclamation... does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense.
If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.
Except that BulletProof is going to court to prove that this is silliness under US law. I have no clue why they picked Utah (maybe it is as you say) but it is not over something stupid. If they win this then they can continue to sell their product regardless of any decision that comes out of the UK court (except maybe in the UK).
This is going to be a disaster for the romance novel industry.
- It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times. Stupid Monkey!!
In other words, Navitaire is playing the part of SCO but sueing in a court in London, and Bulletproof is playing the part of IBM but countersuing in the state of Utah.
Get it?
The article isn't quite clear on this matter, but it does say that "BulletProof Technologies had studied the Openres system closely and produced a system that operated in the same way." If by "studied it closely" they mean "studied the code closely" then it would be copyright infringement, because their work would be considered a derivative, regardless of whether it's in a different language or not.
However, if the programmers made a completely clean-room version of the program, this would not fall into copyright infringement because you cannot point to a derivation.
I'm sure that SCO would like to enforce copyright on this little plot:
1. Sue the pants of off $COMPANY
2. ???
3. Profit!
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
Sharks around the world are joining in a class action lawsuit against dolphins. The action claims that all dolphins species are guilty "evoluntionary copyright" in that they have developed flippers, fins, and a streamlined body for the purpose of moving quickly through water.
"Look at them, they aren't even fish!", pronounced the class action spokesfish, Bruce. "Dolphins breath air and give live birth. They should grow legs and go back to where they came from."
A member of the defendent species, Flipper, posting in a dolphin oriented message board, has stated "Squeeee, Squeeee, Thfffftp!". This does not make any sense, but then none of the other dolphin posts made any sense either.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
Navitairo = SCO Bulletproof = IBM
Navitairo files suit in London. Bulletproof files counter-suit in Utah.
Now how'd that happen? Utah courts are suddenly making sense?
I've worked with people who could come up with fundamentally the same two pieces of software because the systems architects who helped train them would have given them the same approaches.
The analogy that I could give is that of a journey between 2 points. If I wrote the directions for how to get from London to Gloucester, chances are you'd follow a similar route.
Bulletproof = IBM, filed counter-suit in Utah.
So what we have here is a case of Utah earning some good karma points (Bulletproof) to offset the bad (SCO).
I wonder how this will work out. The fact that the judge is now using the plot of a book as a comparison is quite chilling.
I once remembered hearing that there were seven basic plot lines, so I Googled it and came up with this. It seems that nobody can agree what constitutes the "basic" plot.
If this case flies, I expect to see Ford suing every other car manufacturer for infringing on their copyrighted idea, Apple computer suing Dell, HPaq and every white-box manufacturer in the world, RCA suing all the television and radio manufacturers.
No idea is ever truly unique, just as no plot line is ever truly unique.
There's so little difference between politics and jihad lately...
No witches? That can't be so! Everyone's always telling me I'm a son of a... Oh.. Carry on then, witches are non-existent after all...
I personally experienced that in a big way. A little over two years ago I set out write the first-ever, book-length chronology of Tolkien's complex Lord of the Rings. Would it be useful? Many Tolkien fans have told me it is. Is it legal? Well that depends not on the law, which applies to the entire country, on which federal court circuit you happen to reside in and which judge you get.
The Second Circuit (New York) is nasty. With perhaps one marvelous exception, the judges seem to be owned, lock, stock and barrel, by the holders of lucrative copyrights. The district's most recent judicial disaster (there are others) was a series of much criticized 1998 decisions centering on Castle Rock and and book called the Seinfeld Aptitude Test. Though their arguments were muddled (a court in another circuit has termed them "frivilous"--a major insult), the courts seem to be claiming that only the copyright holder can do reference works on fictional works. Tolkien, in my case, "owned" his literary creation to the extent people like me couldn't describe it, we could only comment on it as a piece of literature.
Legally, that's nonsense. The law lists the sorts of derivative works a copyright holder owns and none come close to being a reference or guide to some work of fiction. In fact, there are reference works and guides to fiction (i.e. operas) reaching back into the 19th century.
But that is the law, at least for now and at least in the Second Circuit. As a result, many publisher are steering away from publishing on modern fiction altogether. The legal counsel at one university press told me they were not publishing anything on contemporary fiction to avoid lawsuits they could not afford.
In my case, the Tolkien literary estate, attempting to build on those bad Second Circuit decisions, took me to court for copyright infringement in the Ninth Circuit (Seattle). Since I'm a small one-Mac publisher, they probably thought they had a weak defendant who would make it easy to spread those bad decisions beyond the Second. (In four years, no other court had accepting the reasoning in Castle Rock.)
Unfortunately for them, I'm stubborn and fought back, repersenting myself (pro se) for most of the lawsuit. In the end, my arguments for fair use proved even stronger than I had initially thought and, seeing that, the Tolkien estate lawyers wrote the judge just before summary judgment, expressing a willingness to settle out of court. The judge, for her part, made sure they knew they didn't stand a chance of winning by dismissing their lawsuit "with prejudice" this past January. We concluded an out-of-court settlement a few months ago and the book, Untangling Tolkien, should be coming out this week or next. It's already listed on Barnesandnoble.com.
In a sense, I "won" in part because: 1. Unlike most publishers, I'm in Seattle (9th) rather than NYC (2nd). 2. I'm so poor, their initial demand for $750,000 damages did not scare me in the slightest. 3. I've read enough in law I could do fairly well defending myself. If I hadn't, I'd now be burdened with perhaps $80,000 in legal fees. 4. I've very stubborn. 5. Overconfident, they made a number of critical blunders. 6. I had a smart judge, one unlikely to be snowed by their many hundreds of pages of bogus claims. (Their technique for manufacturing "plagarism" was so carefully refined, it had me taking from an obscure Tolkien book I'd never seen.)
But it is important to remember that there was no way I could be assured in advance that what I was doing was, beyond a doubt, legal. I had the letter of law and the weight of law before 1998 on my side as well as a number of post-1998 decisions going contrary to
Unless you're God, you can't do that. You don't own the intellectual property.
I'm not a lawyer, but the case might be interesting to follow though, because first, you'd have to prove that your client is God. Not just any god, but the one that actually created man.
Then, you'd have to show that the IP copyright is still in effect -- we're talking about a few eons here since the work was originally created.
Celebrities have successfully sued impersonators and tabloids for illegal use of their personal image -- and that might be another option if the biblical references are assumed to be true.
Here it is, and I'm not even kidding.
Western civilization arose and became dominant through innovation - "Standing on the shoulders of giants." The way patent and copyright laws are going in the West, the giants not only no longer want anyone standing on their shoulders, they don't even want anyone casting similar shadows or reaching for the same goals.
Look to China, and expect them to walk a fine line between sufficient copyright and patent protection that we will still trade with them, yet avoid the sheer lunacy we're seeing now. I wouldn't be surprised if copyright and patent issues force dual-design, in some cases to separate internally acceptable from exportable. Through the next century China's domestic market will be the next boom area, and I doubt they're going to let Western copyright and patent silliness stop them from modernizing, even if it does prevent some exports.
We're imposing legal morbidity on our technology. Those who don't will have an edge over us.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
They may be allowing this to continue to establish the precedence that such programs are NOT copyright infringing.
Does this mean that either IntsallShield or Microsoft Installer will have to come to an end? What about Browsers? What about calculators? Beware OpenOffice! Heck, my OS has code to let you navigate through the filesystem, so yours can't!
Just pissin' and moanin'. Sorry you even read this....
so isn't an operating system is a "functional structure"
so if someone did have a copyright on that, we would all be running the same shitty os? and it would never get better, because there would be no competition...
this is ridiculous.
as a programmer, i would like to think of my work as "creative" but at the same time, this is stupid.
this is ridiculous and stupid.
...and in Hartlepool, England, a monkey was found guilty of being a French spy and hanged (really - go and look it up)
...they're both written in awful languages!
Yea, they deported all the religious fanatics to America and we end up with Jerry Fawlwell, Trent Lott, et. al. They deported all the criminals to Australia, now those people know how to party!
Um, actually, the american colonies got their share of prisoners as well. England used a lot of different colonies as penal colonies, I understand.
Like what I said? You might like my music
A copyright is designed to protect the expression of an idea, not the idea itself. Likewise, a patent is designed to protect the implementation of an idea, not the idea itself. Ideas and thoughts are meant to be free; there should be no rights of exclusivity on human thought.
It is worthwhile to allow exlusivity on expression and implementation; this encourages development of better ways of saying things and better ways of doing things. To allow exlusivity on ideas themselves inhibits that.
People seem to forget this, and sue someone for reimplementing an old idea, or rewriting and old thought. So you get some idiot going to court because some other knucklehead "stole" his idea, even though it was implemented differently and completely independently.
Yes, one should be able to patent a particular design of a device that turns piss into beer. At the same time, he should not be able to patent the act of turning of piss into beer.
However, this all becomes blurred when you consider a process or an algorithm; is it a form of expressing an idea ("I just wrote some code that turns piss into beer!"), a form of implementing the idea ("Let's do this to turn piss into beer!"), or is it the idea itself ("Let's turn piss into beer!")? If copyright only is filed, then only the content of the code or the draftsman's plan is protected. If a patent is filed, then the means by which the end is reached is protected, but the end itself is not. The idea process should not, under any circumstances, be protected. If the end product is tangible (beer, or the format of an airline ticket), yes, that should be patentable. If the end product is an idea (a value, or the data contained in an airline ticket), that should not be patentable.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
I believe that the relevant US case here is Whelan v. Jaslow, in which the court finds that copyright protection of computer programs may extend beyond the programs' literal code to their structure, sequence, and organization.
LOSE is spelled L.O.S.E! I am not generally a spelling nazi, but for the love of god why the fuck can't anyone on slashdot spell "lose"?
Would it be wonderful if the copyrights do not exist at all? Would End users would be much happier, and copyright owner with starve to death?
Imagine if we erase all laws and we rebuild them from scratch but we omit the (c) laws.
Everything you create can me taken by someone else, but then again you can use the knowledge/creation of someone else: your initial effore is less and you are rewarded by a free upgrade someone else made for you(isn't that the essence of science btw? the one which alowed mand to fly and go high above? Imagine the horror if someone patened Newtons gravity theory? would we all have to flot in the void of space?).
(c) holders argue that there are "no free lunchs". But paying the lunch can happend in different ways. After all money is just a "almost timeless storable value of your effort." So if you take the work of someone and ad alitle which will be taken, you got no free lunch, the time value is transfered into a colective work.
Hey but this would allow creativity, everyone enhance the work of the other which will be ehnanced. (yes, it sound like GPL but GPL would not exist in a no (c) world because it would not be needed)
What is happening now, you are sue for this and for that. Soon you will no longer be able to whistle a beat you like with out being sued. All the strees just to go though the license agreement before you can boot your computer. You are woried about being sued more thant contributing to the society or enjoying the timevalue you have stored.
Some will argue, who will put all his time working less to enjoy the future enhencement of his inigtion? Who would create songs and story to be an anonimous donor?
Let me ask you a question, who wrote all those folk fary tales with countless ages? who wrote the songs that tell mankind history since the old days. People are willing to create. (c) hinder better enhancement. Patten on a unbuild technology forcing a small company who invest heart and sweat to make it happend for real should be criminal, not the reverse.
Well that is what i have to say.
Except SCO can't claim that, since they don't own the functional ideas.
1. Novell gave the functional ideas to Open Group, not SCO.
2. HP have equivalent rights to the 64 bit version of Sys V source, to whatever rights SCO have in the 32 bit version of Sys V source.
3. The ownership of "functional ideas", whoever they are obtained by, are already impaired. All UNIX versions up to 32V, and possibly System III (etc), are probably public domain thanks to previous court rulings in USL vs BSDI.
4. As ALL versions of AT&T code since the late 70s (at least), are contaminated with unattributed BSD code, there is a very solid unclean hands to defense to any copyright infringement suit.
5. Many of the functional ideas in SCO's code, belong to BSD (they just not attributed in the source, in violation of BSD license). Whatever copyright SCO has, doesn't apply to them.
6. Caldera licensed use of the functional ideas up to fairly recent versions, by BSDing old source code.
So in short, SCO's copyright claim to UNIX code is weak. Extending it to any of the functional ideas behind UNIX would be even weaker.
if the guy who wrote the first "Hello, world" were british, he would be a billionaire by now (was it Kernighan, Ritchie, ???)
First SCO, now this? Makes me wonder what's special about this place!!!
All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be
hell, as long as they're at it, why not sue each other because their airplanes have the same "functional structure."
Esoteric reference.
Anyone who thinks courts are logical should try to write a computer program to emulate them.
Of course, if you could do that we wouldn't need courts.
I wonder if these two facts are somehow related?
"Yesterday, Mr Justice Pumfrey said it was not disputed that eRes was written in a different code to Openres. However, Navitaire was arguing that BulletProof Technologies had studied the Openres system closely and produced a system that operated in the same way."
Inferring the business logic rules from a "clean room" evaluation is one thing, but copying them right our of the source code is quite another.
BTW, why do you think Microsoft has all those rooms?
Easyjet used to be a Navitaire customer. There's more at issue here than a simple matter of two unrelated companies developing similar products separately. Slashdot has mischaracterized this legal matter.
Under this idiotic interpretation, Linux would clearly infringe on Unix simply because it works like it.
Under this idiotic interpretation, Windows (as well as Motif, KDE and Gnome) would infringe on Apple's designs. In fact, Apple already lost their lawsuit against MS and HP (the latter for an X11-based GUI) in the US, ages ago, but, of course, the UK is a different jurisdiction. If this goes forward, the UK could be in for a world of hurt as all desktop systems except Apple's become illegal....
If by "studied it closely" they mean "studied the code closely" then it would be copyright infringement...
Baloney. That is like saying you can either read or write, but can not do both.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Actually, they all infringe against Parc's Smalltalk (which is wny Apple lost to MS in the first place)
The irony is that you just described a Tolkien-esque quest of your own, with yourself as the small, weak hero on the side of right and Tolkien's estate as the seemingly-unbeatable villain. Tolkien began many of his books with a personal request to readers to not violate his copyright and give him proper attribution, but the actions you described, taken in his name, would make him turn over in his grave. The Tolkien estate should be ashamed of their acts which have brought dishonor to the name of the man to whom they owe their fortune and fame.
This ought to get modded up as en excellent real-world example of abuse of modern copyright law.
The preceding comments reflect the author's personal opinion and are public domain, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
You should probably give up on a your career of IP hoarding. I'd have taken out a patent/copyright on the process of logical thought, but I'd never find a company with money to sue.
they all suxors...doesn't matter what country you're in
Great stuff. I wonder what the man himself would have thought of all of this. For those (like me) who want to know more you can download Mike's entire story from here.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
I always thought England was the intellectual and cultural superior of the Americans.
Bahh. No more.
Anything with the word "bulletproof" in the name ought to be wary. That is some serious "spammer speach" which makes one wonder.
!@#$% whole-grain cereal. When I want fiber, I eat some wicker furniture. - G. Carlin
Stealing a plot, infringing copyright. Goodnight hollywood, it's been nice.
Yet humans continue to ignore the obvious, even when pointed explicitly by someone with something of a reputation in the field.
"There are only two storylines; a man goes on a journey, a stranger comes to town."
-Anton Chekhov
I'm starting to believe my highschool English Litt teacher when she told me there are disasters in the offing if the powerful are merely trained and not educated.
In UK law the plaintiff needs to show there has been actual copying ... not just that a substantially similar work has been produced after their own work was produced. Of course if they give a reasonable "it had to have been copied because ..." argument then the burden of proof shifts a little.
However, unless a patent is currently in force on a technology (such as streamlining of an object for reduced friction interstitial penetration !!) then it's my understanding that you are free (and indeed encouraged to) copy the idea.
The patent deal is an exchange between the state and the applicant for disclosure of an idea (and of at least one example of its implementation (in UK)) in exchange for a limited monopoly. The point being if the monopoly expires you are free to copy the idea - but not the precise implementation which may be protected by registered design rights or whatever.
Years later, they elected a monkey (OK, a man in a monkey suit) as mayor...
I used to work for these guys, the're very much an accenture shop, so its not that supprising that they love the idea of being able to copyright an idea. Then they could leverage (accenture speak) those copyrights to win more contracts.
Posting Anonymously to protect job.
This would be the SCO death knell:
BulletProof also requests that the court declare that Navitaire lacks lawful ownership of OpenRes, because, through a chain of acquisitions, the product was developed by a variety of vendors before becoming part of Navitaire's portfolio.
Umm, the countersuit isn't asking for the suit in England to be dismissed. You see, American courts don't have jurisdiction over British courts, as much as the neoconservatives would like them to.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
If these sorts of things keep on going perhaps copyrights will just implode and vanish. The amount of importance we are stacking ontop of copyrights is really starting to strain the whole system.
This all really falls into the concept that humans rarely have a completely original though. Look at literature for the past 500 or more years. There are perhaps only a dozen different themes with vaguely simular plotlines. People fighting, people falling in love, people finding some greater meaning in life, etc.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Please remove you penis IMMEDIATELY of prepare to be sued (and she ain't good looking)!
Same shit, different smell ... it all stinks though!
Maybe MS has a short memory!
Just a thought: you go to a museum, you set up an easel in front of "Sunflowers", and you paint what you see. Illegal? No.
This is a standard learning technique, and it's called a "free copy".
The forms are similar, but the paintings are quite different.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Form follows function.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
No, it really is simply "penises". Many words don't have the strange "-i" suffix when pluralized. As an example, the proper plural of "virus" is just "viruses" not "virii" or "virui".
I'm not sure about "octopus" though. Is the plural form "octopuses" or "octopi"? I know I've heard (non-techie) people pluralize it as "octopi" so that plural form must be at least semi-legit.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
Copyright covers a work in its entirity, plus protection from verbatim copying of exerpts of that work. It does not cover derivatives of an unsubstantial portion of the work.
In "book" terms, I can take or adapt an idea from another author if is it a core concept of writing, of the genre, or simply not of recognisable value in its own right within the original work (i.e. not a recognisable and significant character, setting, or plot element).
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
because you're talking about using the original code directly. That's like saying that by machine translating a copyrighted work (say an article in german using the fish) it'd be OK for you to just use it and publish it however you want.
As long as these people haven't looked at the code the courts shouldn't have allowed it.
Will this spell the end of open source technologies? Let me explain:
1) Many open source technologies are created to mimic/improve on commercial software (examples I can think of are open office, ogg vorbis, etc)
2) These projects draw inspiration from commercial technology
3) Sometimes the commercial technology is reverse engineered
what next? can BEA sue IBM just because IBM made websphere? (note: I'm not sure which came first, it's just an anology) This is software. The whole point is that I can make what I want to, and you can make what you want to as long as we're not copy/pasting eachother's code and selling it as our own.
ridiculous.
The Data East Clone was much more ...hmm... "cloney" than the other clones. It was something like a late revenge for Data East:
Data East released the beat'em up "Karate Champ" in 1984 (C64: 1985). 1986, they took Epyx to court because of the clone "International Karate" (developed by System III, than licensed by Epyx an brought to the C64 under the name "World Karate Champ"). Data East lost.
However, other games of that genre existed before, like "Warrior" by Cinematronics (1979).
Source: The Ultimate History of Video Games by Steven L. Kent; Pages 368 - 371.
Don't underestimate the knowledge of Anonymous Coward:)
So you can't copy a plot anymore? Oh well, Hollywood can forget about any British releases of their films.
EasyGroup, owners of Easyjet, have a pretty crappy reputation in the UK for suing anyone who starts a business called Easy{$anything}. Nice to see them hoist by their own petard, even if the case in and of itself, has no merit.
Do you mean English, or British? The distinction is very important where legal issues are concerned, and to avoid offending Scots like me, Welsh, Irish, Manx etc.
Seriously though, we have seen some excellent legal decisions by judges etc who had taken the time to find out what computers and software are. One classic example involved two Pitman companies and a domain name. We simply need more technically oriented legal professionals, and a system which assigns complicated technical cases to those who understand the issues. Same in any country, I guess. Of course our Prime Minister and most of his cronies are technically illiterate, which is the real problem. They make decisions about things they do not comprehend. I ought not to digress into software patents, or spamming, or security issues.....
As to a program written in Cobol, should there not be a law against that sort of thing? Such a crime against society needs to be dealt with on an international basis.
Maybe this is going to court for a good reason. I'm not saying that I believe that the infringement is valid or not. I think I am right in saying that in the British legal system, as I believe in many other countries, there are two types of laws, those set by statute (i.e. an act of parliment) and those set by precedent (i.e. a judge's decision in the high court) which cannot be implemented in a preliminary hearing, they to go to court. My guess is that that is what is happening here, I don't believe that this is something that will succeed as there are similar precedents that in my view would cause this to be thrown out.
I know a Brit who lives in the US... a funny guy...
Apparently the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles doesn't know what "Bollocks" means, because that's what his vanity license plate says.
Robert J. Forsythe, PhD
WED Cryogenic Research
sheesh!
There was no action pending in the US. Hence, launching a suit (it's not a counter-sout, since the original suit is outside the US) is stupid. Hence the reference to SCO and stupid law suits and Utah.
Sunflowers' copyright has expired. If I'd paint what I'd see while sitting in front of a painting whose author was still alive and I was trying to sell or distribute this painting, I'd be eligible to a lawsuit.
0x or or snor perron?!
Of course, Solaris would infringe on other OSes. SCO would join the fray, only to be told that other operating systems before Unix allocated memory so they couldn't do that, etc...
This rampant IP shit has got to end, especially with copyrights lasting nigh unto an eternity.
Actually, the best thing to limit copyright length and scope would be if similar code infringed. It'd make an unworkable mess out of the situation in days and we'd have to scrap it or throw away everything since Univac.
P.S. Wales has the same legal system as England, just with less vowels.
The link is to an active X control.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I meant, the link inside the document goes to an Active X control, which strikes me as odd when it says it's to a pdf.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."