You're right of course. In terms of freedom, think about this:
In the U.S. you can stand in any public square espousing any view you wish without anybody interfering with you. You can blare out your views with a megaphone on the steps of congress if you wish to. You are even free to incite hatred against visible minorities or ethnic groups if you wish to. Some would go so far as to say that individuals in the U.S. place too much emphasis on their own personal liberty in this regard and do a dis-service to the principle of harm -- inciting hatred begets injustice and ultimately may lead to violence.
I don't see why some./ people believe that individuals or corporations are obliged to give them a forum for their views. Hence, they focus on ISPs censoring their Internet communications as a violation of their rights, when in fact they are effectively asking that ISP to distribute them, assuming partial liability in cases where they may be commiting libel. The ISP is merely protecting themselves by refusing to participate. That doesn't prevent you from distributing your message in other ways, including a more friendly ISP.
In terms of entitlement, think of the options open to presenting your views in the U.S. today, many of them a direct consequence of either the open marketplace or as a result of direct action or regulation on the part of government.
Today, you don't have to be able to buy a printing press to publish your views. A free marketplace makes all the technology affordable to most U.S. citizens. You can print up as many pamphlets as you want and hand them out on the streets, reaching far more people than those old philosophers could hope to.
If you really want air time and have something to say, look in to community access television. Federal regulations set up this system for providing public accesss to the air waves.
The government had direct involvement in both establishing the Internet and establishing an environment where it could be made readily available to anyone. You can use it to widely disseminate materials.
If you don't like ISP terms of service don't blame it on them. They are protecting their own interests as a result of abuses of privilege in using their facilities to spread harmful speech (e.g. libel). Until legal precedent is set to suggest that they are merely conduits (common carriers), they could do no less, but they aren't violating your rights.
I think if you bothered to understand a little geography, you'd quickly learn that at least 60% of Canada's population lives significantly south of that point! ???? Not to mention that 90% of the population lives in a warmer climate region (Coastal BC, great lakes/St. Lawrence valley, maritimes -- all have moderating effects).
If you're going to flame somebody, at least get the right guy. Go flame the guy who actually said patents cover ideas.
Which is closer?
Patents apply to a way of doing something = idea
Patents apply to a way of doing something = algorithm
So maybe his choice of terminology is a little loose, but I take it to mean the latter.
For the sake of clarity, let's all settle on terminology. Patents and copyrights both cover the expression of an idea, but the nature of the expression differs. A patent covers a process, method or concrete implementation, whilst copyright covers written works. From a software perspective, the process or method is reflected in the algorithm, hence patents cover the algorithm, and the expression of the algorithm in a particular computer language implementation would be a copyrightable expression covered by the patent.
Whoa, my bad. I just read linuxbert's comment and had to dig back through a bunch of stuff to find references to the basis of the case.
Linuxbert is right, it is based on trade secrets. Protection here is based on obscurity.
There is also an allegation of copyright infringement in reverse engineering.
If it were patent protection, reverse engineering wouldn't prevent infringement.
Contrary to what linuxbert said, though, in the case of trade secret, a court might find that reverse engineering constitutes misappropriation of the trade secret, since the source code wasn't public and object code may not be considered public information since it's obscured.
AFAIK, reverse engineering as misappropriation of trade secrets has never been tested.
The plaintiffs don't have a leg to stand on with copyright infringement. Past decisions have held that reverse engineering copyrighted material for the purposes of ensuring compatibility constitute fair use. I could probably dig up the citations if anybody cares.
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In the U.S. you can stand in any public square espousing any view you wish without anybody interfering with you. You can blare out your views with a megaphone on the steps of congress if you wish to. You are even free to incite hatred against visible minorities or ethnic groups if you wish to. Some would go so far as to say that individuals in the U.S. place too much emphasis on their own personal liberty in this regard and do a dis-service to the principle of harm -- inciting hatred begets injustice and ultimately may lead to violence.
I don't see why some ./ people believe that individuals or corporations are obliged to give them a forum for their views. Hence, they focus on ISPs censoring their Internet communications as a violation of their rights, when in fact they are effectively asking that ISP to distribute them, assuming partial liability in cases where they may be commiting libel. The ISP is merely protecting themselves by refusing to participate. That doesn't prevent you from distributing your message in other ways, including a more friendly ISP.
In terms of entitlement, think of the options open to presenting your views in the U.S. today, many of them a direct consequence of either the open marketplace or as a result of direct action or regulation on the part of government.
Today, you don't have to be able to buy a printing press to publish your views. A free marketplace makes all the technology affordable to most U.S. citizens. You can print up as many pamphlets as you want and hand them out on the streets, reaching far more people than those old philosophers could hope to.
If you really want air time and have something to say, look in to community access television. Federal regulations set up this system for providing public accesss to the air waves.
The government had direct involvement in both establishing the Internet and establishing an environment where it could be made readily available to anyone. You can use it to widely disseminate materials.
If you don't like ISP terms of service don't blame it on them. They are protecting their own interests as a result of abuses of privilege in using their facilities to spread harmful speech (e.g. libel). Until legal precedent is set to suggest that they are merely conduits (common carriers), they could do no less, but they aren't violating your rights.
I think if you bothered to understand a little geography, you'd quickly learn that at least 60% of Canada's population lives significantly south of that point! ???? Not to mention that 90% of the population lives in a warmer climate region (Coastal BC, great lakes/St. Lawrence valley, maritimes -- all have moderating effects).
If you're going to flame somebody, at least get the right guy. Go flame the guy who actually said patents cover ideas.
Which is closer?
Patents apply to a way of doing something = idea
Patents apply to a way of doing something = algorithm
So maybe his choice of terminology is a little loose, but I take it to mean the latter.
For the sake of clarity, let's all settle on terminology. Patents and copyrights both cover the expression of an idea, but the nature of the expression differs. A patent covers a process, method or concrete implementation, whilst copyright covers written works. From a software perspective, the process or method is reflected in the algorithm, hence patents cover the algorithm, and the expression of the algorithm in a particular computer language implementation would be a copyrightable expression covered by the patent.
Whoa, my bad. I just read linuxbert's comment and had to dig back through a bunch of stuff to find references to the basis of the case.
Linuxbert is right, it is based on trade secrets. Protection here is based on obscurity.
There is also an allegation of copyright infringement in reverse engineering.
If it were patent protection, reverse engineering wouldn't prevent infringement.
Contrary to what linuxbert said, though, in the case of trade secret, a court might find that reverse engineering constitutes misappropriation of the trade secret, since the source code wasn't public and object code may not be considered public information since it's obscured.
AFAIK, reverse engineering as misappropriation of trade secrets has never been tested.
The plaintiffs don't have a leg to stand on with copyright infringement. Past decisions have held that reverse engineering copyrighted material for the purposes of ensuring compatibility constitute fair use. I could probably dig up the citations if anybody cares.