Short-term copyrights with unlimited renewals are called trademarks, which are around for a very different reason than copyrights.
If you allowed Disney to renew its copyright indefinitely, its work would never enter the public domain. I would agree with you more if copyrights were for, say, 50 years with 50 years renewable for a minimal fee (like $1) if the holder was still interested.
Don't forget that copyrights protect much more than software: books, movies, news articles, art, etc. Books, particularly, are not obsolete after just 15 years -- like software may be.
My question, then, is whether it is possible to both patent AND copyright the same work? If not, patent protection lasts for such a short time that I don't see its benefit above copyrights (which last life + 70 years or 95 years for a corporation).
Yes, IE was around before Nov. 17, 1998, but it was not around (or at least had not used its infringing version of ActiveX) before the application date of October 17, 1994. I believe, though I may be wrong, that any prior art arguments must be made from before the application date, not the issue date of the patent.
What I'm saying in regards to costs, is that it is cheaper to copyright and GNU/GPL one's work than to file patent applications. If you have well-documented proof that your work constitutes prior art before someone else applies for a patent, defending that patent infringement lawsuit will be both cheap and easy.
Well, the one problem I see with your proposal is that patent protection only lasts 20 years, and after that the patented invention (the open-source software) is available in the public domain. This means that, rather than requiring those who include your software in their product to release it open source, they may include it in closed-source products. That goes against the current idea of copyrighting your open-source software and giving it the GNU/GPL.
Finally, patenting open-source software as a "defensive measure" to prevent it from being patented by someone else is not necessary... so long as it is published with a copyright notice (which isn't even required any more), you can prove prior art. That way, open-source developers do not need to waste resources on patent application.
The problem with "fair-use rights", as you call them, is that your idea of fair may not be the same as the creator's idea of fair. If you consider it fair use to make 100 copies of a CD you purchased and give them away to friends for free, certainly the artist/record label won't think so. If the artist thinks your fair use involves listening to a song you downloaded only once, you certainly won't agree.
So I guess my point/question is: how do we reconcile the different opinions of "fair-use rights" to make meaningful changes to copyright regulations? Fair is such a hard word to pin down.
God people, seriously read the bill. There are three conditions that must be met before an act can be considered in violation of this bill. Let's check your example of writing down someone's phone number from a phone book against these requirements:
a "substantial expenditure of financial resources or time" had to go into creating the phone book -- CHECK
"the unauthorized making available in commerce occurs in a time sensitive manner and inflicts injury on the database or a product or service offering access to multiple databases" -- NO, you do not make it available in commerce by simply writing it down, nor do you inflict injury on the database (phone book)
"reduce the incentive to produce the product or service that its existence or quality would be substantially threatened" -- by writing down a phone number??? I think not.
You knee-jerkers really are an interesting lot. I would think people with such high technical smarts would have a little more common sense than to ride a slippery slope all the way to the bottom on any issue regarding the protection of one's efforts.
Database (according to the bill): "a collection of a large number of discrete items of information produced for the purpose of bringing such discrete items of information together in one place or through one source so that persons may access them."
Also, it would provide protection for the Spybot Search & Destroy spyware database, which is constantly being copied verbatum and used in competing products (see this article). Well, it would provide protection if Spybot were an American company.
Don't mod this up, the author didn't even read the bill. Insightful? Bah! Funny? Maybe.
Individual items of information are not protected, only the collection as a whole and the effort that went into creating the database. A "quantitatively substantial" portion of the entire database must be copied and commercially distributed to be in violation of the law this bill proposes.
But that's not the issue. These databases are publicly available. The companies involved aren't protecting an artistic work, or a trade secret. They want to be able to enforce rigid restrictions on otherwise public knowledge, simply because they aggregated it and published it first.
Not true. The databases do not need to be publicly available (i.e. Amazon.com's customer list) to be protected by this bill. In fact, the bill explicitly forbids the "making available in commerce to others" without the permission of the database owner/compiler.
So, to continue the Amazon.com example: say you somehow gain access to Amazon.com's customer database and decide to sell copies of it to other online retailers as a "sucker list" of online buyers. This is the type of action that the bill is intended to punish.
Finally, this bill does not "shoehorn" itself into copyright law. It is titled the "Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act" and only mentions copyright law to say that it does not affect those rights.
This bill, though, does not refer to itself as copyright protection for databases. It is simply the "Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act" and explicitely states that it does not affect copyright laws at all. I think you're mis-reading this bill as an extension of copyright laws to databases, when that is simply not the case.
Well, let's see... "the term `database' means a collection of a large number of discrete items of information produced for the purpose of bringing such discrete items of information together in one place or through one source so that persons may access them." Please twist.
You do, if you publish the list of phone numbers you looked up and sell it commercially. Make sure you don't "substantially" harm the phonebook publisher though, or you'll be in violation of the bill (unless you can prove that you got the numbers through some other means than just querying an existing database).
The legislation says that you would hold the copyright to the database... the structure and schema if you will, as well as the bulk or a "quantitively substantial part" of the data as a collection, not as individual items.
I would imagine that changes, like with book editions, must be substantial enough to warrant a new copyright.
Note that the law does not protect the individual bits of data in the database, just a "quantitatively substantial part of the information" and only if:
the database was generated, gathered, or maintained through a substantial expenditure of financial resources or time;
the unauthorized making available in commerce occurs in a time sensitive manner and inflicts injury on the database or a product or service offering access to multiple databases; AND
the ability of other parties to free ride on the efforts of the plaintiff would so reduce the incentive to produce the product or service that its existence or quality would be substantially threatened.
Also, a database is defined as "a collection of a large number of discrete items of information produced for the purpose of bringing such discrete items of information together in one place"... not each item idividually.
Finally, copying an entry out of an encyclopedia or almanac and passing it off as your own is plagiarism, and should be illegal in my opinion (if it isn't already).
[All italics mine.]
Re:But No One's mentioned the most important featu
on
Mozilla 1.6 Released
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
When "about:mozilla" is typed into Firebird's address bar (and I quote):
"And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror."
No, patents mean that if you do come up with a good idea you have the protection of the government to ensure that others can't financially benefit from your idea without your permission -- for a limited time of course.
Say you come up with a great idea that no one's done before, a lightbulb in 1880 for instance. There are no patent rights, so you of course don't apply for one. As soon as you begin producing and selling the light bulb, more established companies copy your work and undercut your prices because of their economies of scale. Soon, you lose all sales to competitors and are forced out of business.
What are the chances you'll make the effort to come up with another great idea and bring it to market? What would have happened to all of Edison's great inventions after the light bulb if he was not able to profit from them?
Scientists, if the scientific method were patented for this invention, could still use the scientific method -- they just couldn't automate it with a machine.
I see no problem in getting a patent for the "Scientific Method using Automated Robotic Mechanisms". No problem, meaning, the PO would grant it.
So, say we did get here faster than light approximately 4 billion years ago. Humans had time to evolve and realize there was a universe out there and can now see about 15 billion light years away. This light from 15 billion ly away comes from near the time of the Big Bang. How many orders of magnitude faster than light would we have had to travel for this to be possible? Any easy way to crunch the numbers?
Slashdot Mirror
Very good answer, thanks.
If you allowed Disney to renew its copyright indefinitely, its work would never enter the public domain. I would agree with you more if copyrights were for, say, 50 years with 50 years renewable for a minimal fee (like $1) if the holder was still interested.
Don't forget that copyrights protect much more than software: books, movies, news articles, art, etc. Books, particularly, are not obsolete after just 15 years -- like software may be.
My question, then, is whether it is possible to both patent AND copyright the same work? If not, patent protection lasts for such a short time that I don't see its benefit above copyrights (which last life + 70 years or 95 years for a corporation).
What I'm saying in regards to costs, is that it is cheaper to copyright and GNU/GPL one's work than to file patent applications. If you have well-documented proof that your work constitutes prior art before someone else applies for a patent, defending that patent infringement lawsuit will be both cheap and easy.
Finally, patenting open-source software as a "defensive measure" to prevent it from being patented by someone else is not necessary ... so long as it is published with a copyright notice (which isn't even required any more), you can prove prior art. That way, open-source developers do not need to waste resources on patent application.
Actually, it's 0.05/802.11 = 0.006% of an improvement.
So I guess my point/question is: how do we reconcile the different opinions of "fair-use rights" to make meaningful changes to copyright regulations? Fair is such a hard word to pin down.
I'll agree to that hypocritical part. I'd been drinking and wasn't thinking straight (go figure).
You knee-jerkers really are an interesting lot. I would think people with such high technical smarts would have a little more common sense than to ride a slippery slope all the way to the bottom on any issue regarding the protection of one's efforts.
So yes, I did read the bill.
Also, it would provide protection for the Spybot Search & Destroy spyware database, which is constantly being copied verbatum and used in competing products (see this article). Well, it would provide protection if Spybot were an American company.
Individual items of information are not protected, only the collection as a whole and the effort that went into creating the database. A "quantitatively substantial" portion of the entire database must be copied and commercially distributed to be in violation of the law this bill proposes.
Not true. The databases do not need to be publicly available (i.e. Amazon.com's customer list) to be protected by this bill. In fact, the bill explicitly forbids the "making available in commerce to others" without the permission of the database owner/compiler.
So, to continue the Amazon.com example: say you somehow gain access to Amazon.com's customer database and decide to sell copies of it to other online retailers as a "sucker list" of online buyers. This is the type of action that the bill is intended to punish.
Finally, this bill does not "shoehorn" itself into copyright law. It is titled the "Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act" and only mentions copyright law to say that it does not affect those rights.
This bill, though, does not refer to itself as copyright protection for databases. It is simply the "Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act" and explicitely states that it does not affect copyright laws at all. I think you're mis-reading this bill as an extension of copyright laws to databases, when that is simply not the case.
Well, let's see ... "the term `database' means a collection of a large number of discrete items of information produced for the purpose of bringing such discrete items of information together in one place or through one source so that persons may access them." Please twist.
You do, if you publish the list of phone numbers you looked up and sell it commercially. Make sure you don't "substantially" harm the phonebook publisher though, or you'll be in violation of the bill (unless you can prove that you got the numbers through some other means than just querying an existing database).
This parent should be modded up: a lot of people seem to have the questions that it answers.
I would imagine that changes, like with book editions, must be substantial enough to warrant a new copyright.
Also, a database is defined as "a collection of a large number of discrete items of information produced for the purpose of bringing such discrete items of information together in one place" ... not each item idividually.
Finally, copying an entry out of an encyclopedia or almanac and passing it off as your own is plagiarism, and should be illegal in my opinion (if it isn't already).
[All italics mine.]
"And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror."
from The Book of Mozilla, 7:15
WTF is that?
No, patents mean that if you do come up with a good idea you have the protection of the government to ensure that others can't financially benefit from your idea without your permission -- for a limited time of course.
Say you come up with a great idea that no one's done before, a lightbulb in 1880 for instance. There are no patent rights, so you of course don't apply for one. As soon as you begin producing and selling the light bulb, more established companies copy your work and undercut your prices because of their economies of scale. Soon, you lose all sales to competitors and are forced out of business.
What are the chances you'll make the effort to come up with another great idea and bring it to market? What would have happened to all of Edison's great inventions after the light bulb if he was not able to profit from them?
Scientists, if the scientific method were patented for this invention, could still use the scientific method -- they just couldn't automate it with a machine. I see no problem in getting a patent for the "Scientific Method using Automated Robotic Mechanisms". No problem, meaning, the PO would grant it.
Everyone should now go out and see the movie Bicentennial Man starring Robin Williams. NOW!
So, say we did get here faster than light approximately 4 billion years ago. Humans had time to evolve and realize there was a universe out there and can now see about 15 billion light years away. This light from 15 billion ly away comes from near the time of the Big Bang. How many orders of magnitude faster than light would we have had to travel for this to be possible? Any easy way to crunch the numbers?