My point was only that comparing patents and copyright gives limited insight. Type of IP, substituability and market structure have a high impact on the effect of policies... (this is actually also true for patents: their economic and innovation effects depend very much on the area, and patents on intangibles like software cannot be analyzed by analogy with patents on material processes and goods).
You point is not proven, since the conflict did exist in the 19th century. Again, all depends on parameters, and they vary a lot.
This being said, I agree that registration is probably a better system, now that the internet will allow it on a global scale. As a lawyer, you know that the current state of international legislation, as I (among others) stated in another post http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=535684&cid=23216240 is such that registration (or any other formality) cannot be imposed on foreigners. But I believe this was motivated by the limitations of older times, and could probably be changed... though I doubt this will happen in the near future.
Anyway, this legislation is necessary for many purposes, and probably better (at least in some respets) than what is considered in other countries. bl.sl.dt@datcha.net
Comparing copyright and patents is totally unwarranted. From the point of view of corporations, one patent cannot replace another : they need the patents that will apply to their business. One patent cannot generally substitute for another.
Not so with copyright. A publisher will publish anything that brings money in, whether local or foreign. If copyright on foreign works is not protected, then it is much cheaper for corporation to use foreign work for free rather than pay royalties for local works, to the detriment of local authors. In the 19th century, the decision to protect foreign copyright was taken by Congress when people such as Mark Twain requested it to be on an equal footing when trying to be published in the United States. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/pva/pva74.html
This should not however be overly generalized. How foreign creations compete with local ones depends on their nature and on the structure of the market.
I did RTFA but I haven't yet read the text of the two bills...
I suddenly realize why SlashDot does not work so well. I do not wish to discuss issues in detail, since they are far from simple and already discussed in several papers available on the net. Furthermore, why bother since there is a significant chance that this contribution will simply be ignored, even though I probably have some unusual expertise on this very issue, particularly relevant to the readership of slashdot, since I worked on this as an expert on free software and other intangible resources (http://www.datcha.net/orphan/oeuvres-orphelines-BLang.pdf, not yet translated to English).
I did read the bill (well, the 2006 version only) as well as a good part of the very long and excellent investigation lead by the Register of Copyright http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/, including replies from various parties. I also know much of the legislation prepared or effective in other countries, as well as relevant parts of international treaties (see the bibliography at http://www.datcha.net/orphan/, the page mixes English and French, but most references are in English). One good introduction is the IRIS paper by Stef van Gompel available in several languages, or the much longer and technical "Report on Orphan Works".
There is a lot more to the orphan works problem than meets the eye. I would simply comment that, though the US legislative proposal could possibly be improved, it seems one of the best I have seen around the world (and I do not usually praise US IP legislation, except for the Constitution, much ignored nowadays). For one thing it should significantly improve access to and preservation of cultural heritage. It seems also one of the least dangerous systems for the development of free resources, whether software or other. But as usual, the devil may also hide in details, and much depends on how judges will actually use the text (individuals and corporations are hardly on equal footing).
The important issue here is to draft a law that can take over the exclusive rights of the author (or of whoever owns them), while staying in agreement with international treaties (Berne Convention, WIPO copyright treaty WCT, WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty WPPT, WTO TRIPS agreement). One basic rule is that ownership of exclusive rights must be granted without formalities, so that systematic registration and taxes are out of question for the present time (there were good reasons for this, before the Internet, but it is most likely they are much less valid in the Internet world). The other basic rule is the so called tree step test, also enforced by thoses treaties, that essentially limits any legal exception to the exclusive rights of authors. The US proposal does a fairly good job of meeting the two constraints, and that is not easy.
A very important aspect of the three step test is that any exception to exclusive rights should "not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the right holder." A crucial point is the determination of what is "normal exploitation". For many people, it only means "extracting money from users". But, in the Internet world, they are many other normal ways of exploiting works, such as free access which, though not directly commercial, may still have economic motivations (other than advertising). As noted by such international legal experts as M. Ficsor (who had DRM in mind), any change in the exploitation models permitted by technology implies a change in the interpretation of these rules. So any acceptable legal solution to the orphan works problem is directly linked to the recognition of the free dissemination models of exploitation. Indeed, in France, they are attempting to promote a much different solution, not respecting t
If you want real, tamper-proof security, DRM will not help you unless the computers are managed by trusted people who will prevent the use of software that bypasses the security. Short of that, The very concept of DRM is flawed... as explained by others. But is it really DRM that you want ? You did not state the nature of your problem.
This being said, the fact that is is open source or not is essentially immaterial. Since the DRM concept is flawed, it can be circumvented in source code or object code. The latter is only a bit harder. But it is not clear that it makes a significant difference. For example my mailman does not see a difference... he cannot program anyway. But most protections have been broken in object code in the past... for example for games (I do not mean to say I approve).
It certainly is PR. If only because it got all media talking about
IBM, its patents and how innovative IBM is. Much advertising at no
cost (given that the donation pays for itself, see below).
It is PR because a lot of free software users think well of a company
that is apparently doing its best to support free software against the
scourge of software patents. But how many of these do know that IBM
has been and still is at the forefront of political lobbying for more
software patents in the world?
Making free software depend on IBM patents, and making the defense of free software against lawsuits depend on IBM willingness to assert those patents against whoever would sue free software developpers or users (see the IBM pledge : http://www.ibm.com/ibm/licensing/patents/pledgedpa tents.pdf) gives IBM a lot of leverage on whatever happens with free software.
Furthermore, free software has been able to compete successfully with
Microsoft, and to contain to some extent Microsoft software power, a
thing no corporation was able to do, including IBM.
From an economic perspective, when two economic activities are
complementary, and actually done by different corporations, each
business sector will try to commoditize the neighboring business so
that more money and profit remain available for its own activity.
Commoditization of complementary business is also a way to reduce its
control, and to be freer ans more secure when it comes to managing a
business strategy.
This is the case for software vs services, or for hardware vs
software. IBM business is mostly based on hardware and services, and
software publishing is only a minor part. But software stand between
the two main business activities of IBM, and gives too much leverage
to whoever controls software publishing, not to mention the profit.
Supporting free software is a way of commoditizing software, and thus
leave more control space and profit for IBM. If in addition it gives
IBM some control over basic software (especially the operating
system), all the better.
So it is IBM best interest to actually get software patents and the
control that goes with them, and to make some of those patents available to
free software developement.
But, mind you, it is certainly not a gift or a donation.
Just good business strategy.
gewalker : And why are you revealing confidential reports on the Internet
Because that part of the information was not confidential, obviously. I said the report is confidential to explain why I cannot give the source of my information, as I usually do.
For one thing, the size of images increases with the square of
resolution. That means that to double the resolution od a 4Mpix
image, you have to go to 16Mpix. So images can become very expensive, an that
can grow much faster than the storage capacity of permanent media (if
such a thing exists). You do not store that many pictures on a CD, and
the technology does not evolve that fast (even with DVD).
Another point is that compression techniques may also apply to films,
which are a lot more costly to preserve. More generally, for people and organizations
who archive a lot, memory is always at a premium (I have read a
confidential report from a major corporation that was considering the
switch from MS Office to OpenOffice.org, one argument being that
OpenOffice files are 60% smaller and it would reduce the strain on
their archiving).
Regarding lossyness of compression, the point of lossy compression is
that it can, for an a priori given memory space, give you a much
better image than lossless compression. A lossless compression
algorithm for a picture will limit the resolution of that picture as a
consequence of memory limitation. So you do actually have information
loss, because you cannot store a high resolution picture (if one would
have been available). You make an a priori choice of losing information
through loss of resolution. But it may not be the best choice.
On the other hand, with a lossy algorithm, you can keep the resolution
as high as is available, and leave it to the algorithm to decide how
best to compress all the available information to fit the available
memory, or bandwith.
Regarding cameras, which what everyone seems to have in mind (though
there are other applications in this world:-), memory is not that
cheap, especially if you are on a long trip in an exotic country, and
want to keep several hundred pictures, or more, which you can hardly
screen directly on the camera, without heavy equipment, to prune the
less interesting ones. This is personal experience.
The time aboard GPS satellites has to be measured with extreme precision, to the microsecond, in order to compute positions accurately. Typically they have to compensate for the time shift of about 38.7 microsecond/day (time is faster on satellites than on the ground) to account for the two theories of relativity, special and general. This amounts to about 1.16 millisecond/month. Given that the satellite speed is about 3.9km/s, this leads to a position shift of 4.5 meters/month that has to be corrected for accurate positioning.
Now the variation of earth rotational speed following the earthquake is 2,68 microsecond/day, i.e. about 7% of the relativistic shift, that is about 3.7 meters/year for the satellite position. I would suspect this is important enough to require correction. I do not know whether any provision was made in the programming of the satellites for such a change in earth rotational speed. Someone can answer that?
Another effect, for which I have no data, nor the ability to compute anything on short notice, is the slight change of the rotation axis. I have no idea of the kind of discrepancy it causes in the trajectory of satellites with respect to ground and the kind of correction it requires.
An important point is being missed in those previous comments. The IBM pledge says that "IBM reserves the right to terminate this patent pledge and commitment only with regard to any party who files a lawsuit asserting patents or other intellectual property rights against Open Source Software."
Si this can go far beyond the sole assertion of software patents in a law suit.
This could be a direct attack against the DMCA and the EUCD (European DMCA), since for example it can denies the use of the patents to anyone attacking free software like deCSS (the free DVD descrambler software). It could even concern hardware patents or a legitimate lawsuit for copyright violation (such as outright copy of proprietary software). However, note that IBM reserves the right to terminate... and thus is sole judge of what happens and whether it will actually terminate the pledge, independently of the type of IP lawuit and the legal decision reached. With enough patents, it is IBM that becomes the law on intellectual property. Very strange.
I am not saying that IBM intends to do all this. But, still, I wonder whether the possibility does not undermine some of the legal value of that pledge.
For one thing, even Bill Gates thinks that copying Microsoft software is good, especially in China. He said so himself "As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours." http://news.com.com/2100-1023-212942.html?legacy=c net
But I must say that true criminalization of illegal copies of Microsoft software would be most interesting to observe. I wonder how many months Microsoft would survive it.
The laws of economics say that software like MS Office should actually be free, since its marginal cost of production is zero (that is the cost to make one extra copy). And indeed it is free for its lowest market segment because Microsoft is deliberately using so-called software piracy to occupy this market segment... just to avoid that free software like OpenOffice.org takes that segment, before moving up to the other more profitable market segments (for which MS Office is actually sold, though at different prices depending on the market target).
Of course this economic law assumes that the market is competitive.... I mean, not like communist countries.
This browser is somewhat obsolete now (was not maintained)... but local CGIs were really nice,
providing cheap and sophisticated MM interfaces for applications.
What do we expect indeed
from someone who is "not going to say that all homeless people are dangerous, because that would be an unfair generalization."
see 2001.01.27 | The NYC homeless situation http://vicez.com/html/written/editorial_01-01-27.h tml
I am sure he is convinced that though the majority of Africa is negroes, they may still be a small percentage worth saving.
And he is polite to everyone, including jews.
What do we expect?
Slashdot Mirror
My point was only that comparing patents and copyright gives limited insight. Type of IP, substituability and market structure have a high impact on the effect of policies ... (this is actually also true for patents: their economic and innovation effects depend very much on the area, and patents on intangibles like software cannot be analyzed by analogy with patents on material processes and goods).
... though I doubt this will happen in the near future.
You point is not proven, since the conflict did exist in the 19th century. Again, all depends on parameters, and they vary a lot.
This being said, I agree that registration is probably a better system, now that the internet will allow it on a global scale. As a lawyer, you know that the current state of international legislation, as I (among others) stated in another post http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=535684&cid=23216240
is such that registration (or any other formality) cannot be imposed on foreigners. But I believe this was motivated by the limitations of older times, and could probably be changed
Anyway, this legislation is necessary for many purposes, and probably better (at least in some respets) than what is considered in other countries.
bl.sl.dt@datcha.net
Comparing copyright and patents is totally unwarranted. From the point of view of corporations,
one patent cannot replace another : they need the patents that will apply to their business. One patent cannot generally substitute for another.
Not so with copyright. A publisher will publish anything that brings money in, whether local or foreign. If copyright on foreign works is not protected, then it is much cheaper for corporation to use foreign work for free rather than pay royalties for local works, to the detriment of local authors. In the 19th century, the decision to protect foreign copyright was taken by Congress when people such as Mark Twain requested it to be on an equal footing when trying to be published in the United States.
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/pva/pva74.html
This should not however be overly generalized. How foreign creations compete with local ones depends on their nature and on the structure of the market.
I did RTFA but I haven't yet read the text of the two bills ...
I suddenly realize why SlashDot does not work so well. I do not wish to discuss issues in detail, since they are far from simple and already discussed in several papers available on the net. Furthermore, why bother since there is a significant chance that this contribution will simply be ignored, even though I probably have some unusual expertise on this very issue, particularly relevant to the readership of slashdot, since I worked on this as an expert on free software and other intangible resources (http://www.datcha.net/orphan/oeuvres-orphelines-BLang.pdf, not yet translated to English).
I did read the bill (well, the 2006 version only) as well as a good part of the very long and excellent investigation lead by the Register of Copyright http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/, including replies from various parties. I also know much of the legislation prepared or effective in other countries, as well as relevant parts of international treaties (see the bibliography at http://www.datcha.net/orphan/, the page mixes English and French, but most references are in English). One good introduction is the IRIS paper by Stef van Gompel available in several languages, or the much longer and technical "Report on Orphan Works".
There is a lot more to the orphan works problem than meets the eye. I would simply comment that, though the US legislative proposal could possibly be improved, it seems one of the best I have seen around the world (and I do not usually praise US IP legislation, except for the Constitution, much ignored nowadays). For one thing it should significantly improve access to and preservation of cultural heritage. It seems also one of the least dangerous systems for the development of free resources, whether software or other. But as usual, the devil may also hide in details, and much depends on how judges will actually use the text (individuals and corporations are hardly on equal footing).
The important issue here is to draft a law that can take over the exclusive rights of the author (or of whoever owns them), while staying in agreement with international treaties (Berne Convention, WIPO copyright treaty WCT, WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty WPPT, WTO TRIPS agreement). One basic rule is that ownership of exclusive rights must be granted without formalities, so that systematic registration and taxes are out of question for the present time (there were good reasons for this, before the Internet, but it is most likely they are much less valid in the Internet world). The other basic rule is the so called tree step test, also enforced by thoses treaties, that essentially limits any legal exception to the exclusive rights of authors. The US proposal does a fairly good job of meeting the two constraints, and that is not easy.
A very important aspect of the three step test is that any exception to exclusive rights should "not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the right holder." A crucial point is the determination of what is "normal exploitation". For many people, it only means "extracting money from users". But, in the Internet world, they are many other normal ways of exploiting works, such as free access which, though not directly commercial, may still have economic motivations (other than advertising). As noted by such international legal experts as M. Ficsor (who had DRM in mind), any change in the exploitation models permitted by technology implies a change in the interpretation of these rules. So any acceptable legal solution to the orphan works problem is directly linked to the recognition of the free dissemination models of exploitation. Indeed, in France, they are attempting to promote a much different solution, not respecting t
If you want real, tamper-proof security, DRM will not help you unless the computers are managed by trusted people who will prevent the use of software that bypasses the security. Short of that, The very concept of DRM is flawed ... as explained by others. But is it really DRM that you want ? You did not state the nature of your problem.
... he cannot program anyway. But most protections have been broken in object code in the past ... for example for games (I do not mean to say I approve).
This being said, the fact that is is open source or not is essentially immaterial. Since the DRM concept is flawed, it can be circumvented in source code or object code. The latter is only a bit harder. But it is not clear that it makes a significant difference. For example my mailman does not see a difference
It is PR because a lot of free software users think well of a company that is apparently doing its best to support free software against the scourge of software patents. But how many of these do know that IBM has been and still is at the forefront of political lobbying for more software patents in the world?
Making free software depend on IBM patents, and making the defense of free software against lawsuits depend on IBM willingness to assert those patents against whoever would sue free software developpers or users (see the IBM pledge : http://www.ibm.com/ibm/licensing/patents/pledgedpa tents.pdf) gives IBM a lot of leverage on whatever happens with free software.
Furthermore, free software has been able to compete successfully with Microsoft, and to contain to some extent Microsoft software power, a thing no corporation was able to do, including IBM.
From an economic perspective, when two economic activities are complementary, and actually done by different corporations, each business sector will try to commoditize the neighboring business so that more money and profit remain available for its own activity. Commoditization of complementary business is also a way to reduce its control, and to be freer ans more secure when it comes to managing a business strategy.
This is the case for software vs services, or for hardware vs software. IBM business is mostly based on hardware and services, and software publishing is only a minor part. But software stand between the two main business activities of IBM, and gives too much leverage to whoever controls software publishing, not to mention the profit. Supporting free software is a way of commoditizing software, and thus leave more control space and profit for IBM. If in addition it gives IBM some control over basic software (especially the operating system), all the better.
So it is IBM best interest to actually get software patents and the control that goes with them, and to make some of those patents available to free software developement.
But, mind you, it is certainly not a gift or a donation. Just good business strategy.
gewalker : And why are you revealing confidential reports on the Internet
Because that part of the information was not confidential, obviously. I said the report is confidential to explain why I cannot give the source of my information, as I usually do.
For one thing, the size of images increases with the square of resolution. That means that to double the resolution od a 4Mpix image, you have to go to 16Mpix. So images can become very expensive, an that can grow much faster than the storage capacity of permanent media (if such a thing exists). You do not store that many pictures on a CD, and the technology does not evolve that fast (even with DVD).
Another point is that compression techniques may also apply to films, which are a lot more costly to preserve. More generally, for people and organizations who archive a lot, memory is always at a premium (I have read a confidential report from a major corporation that was considering the switch from MS Office to OpenOffice.org, one argument being that OpenOffice files are 60% smaller and it would reduce the strain on their archiving).
Regarding lossyness of compression, the point of lossy compression is that it can, for an a priori given memory space, give you a much better image than lossless compression. A lossless compression algorithm for a picture will limit the resolution of that picture as a consequence of memory limitation. So you do actually have information loss, because you cannot store a high resolution picture (if one would have been available). You make an a priori choice of losing information through loss of resolution. But it may not be the best choice.
On the other hand, with a lossy algorithm, you can keep the resolution as high as is available, and leave it to the algorithm to decide how best to compress all the available information to fit the available memory, or bandwith.
Regarding cameras, which what everyone seems to have in mind (though there are other applications in this world :-), memory is not that
cheap, especially if you are on a long trip in an exotic country, and
want to keep several hundred pictures, or more, which you can hardly
screen directly on the camera, without heavy equipment, to prune the
less interesting ones. This is personal experience.
The time aboard GPS satellites has to be measured with extreme precision, to the microsecond, in order to compute positions accurately. Typically they have to compensate for the time shift of about 38.7 microsecond/day (time is faster on satellites than on the ground) to account for the two theories of relativity, special and general. This amounts to about 1.16 millisecond/month. Given that the satellite speed is about 3.9km/s, this leads to a position shift of 4.5 meters/month that has to be corrected for accurate positioning.
Now the variation of earth rotational speed following the earthquake is 2,68 microsecond/day, i.e. about 7% of the relativistic shift, that is about 3.7 meters/year for the satellite position. I would suspect this is important enough to require correction. I do not know whether any provision was made in the programming of the satellites for such a change in earth rotational speed. Someone can answer that?
Another effect, for which I have no data, nor the ability to compute anything on short notice, is the slight change of the rotation axis. I have no idea of the kind of discrepancy it causes in the trajectory of satellites with respect to ground and the kind of correction it requires.
An important point is being missed in those previous comments. The IBM pledge says that "IBM reserves the right to terminate this patent pledge and commitment only with regard to any party who files a lawsuit asserting patents or other intellectual property rights against Open Source Software."
... and thus is sole judge of what happens and whether it will actually terminate the pledge, independently of the type of IP lawuit and the legal decision reached. With enough patents, it is IBM that becomes the law on intellectual property. Very strange.
Si this can go far beyond the sole assertion of software patents in a law suit.
This could be a direct attack against the DMCA and the EUCD (European DMCA), since for example it can denies the use of the patents to anyone attacking free software like deCSS (the free DVD descrambler software). It could even concern hardware patents or a legitimate lawsuit for copyright violation (such as outright copy of proprietary software). However, note that IBM reserves the right to terminate
I am not saying that IBM intends to do all this. But, still, I wonder whether the possibility does not undermine some of the legal value of that pledge.
I fail to see the problem.
c net
... just to avoid that free software like OpenOffice.org takes that segment, before moving up to the other more profitable market segments (for which MS Office is actually sold, though at different prices depending on the market target).
... I mean, not like communist countries.
For one thing, even Bill Gates thinks that copying Microsoft software is good, especially in China. He said so himself "As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours." http://news.com.com/2100-1023-212942.html?legacy=
But I must say that true criminalization of illegal copies of Microsoft software would be most interesting to observe. I wonder how many months Microsoft would survive it.
The laws of economics say that software like MS Office should actually be free, since its marginal cost of production is zero (that is the cost to make one extra copy). And indeed it is free for its lowest market segment because Microsoft is deliberately using so-called software piracy to occupy this market segment
Of course this economic law assumes that the market is competitive.
This browser is somewhat obsolete now (was not maintained) ... but local CGIs were really nice,
providing cheap and sophisticated MM interfaces for applications.
What do we expect indeed from someone who is "not going to say that all homeless people are dangerous, because that would be an unfair generalization." see 2001.01.27 | The NYC homeless situation http://vicez.com/html/written/editorial_01-01-27.h tml
I am sure he is convinced that though the majority of Africa is negroes, they may still be a small percentage worth saving.
And he is polite to everyone, including jews.
What do we expect?