The copyright law defines a few very specific rights to belong to the copyright holder (with excpetions for others to still do it under some conditions).
Yes, like making copies - I suggest you go to the library and read how IPR has been applied to software...
The question was partly rhetorical - in Europe, at least, an EULA is exactly (as you describe a copyright license) "a license to do something that is only allowed by the copyright holder" - one must make a copy of software in order to execute it. I agree that EULAs, in themselves, are covered by standard Contract Law, but challenge: if I disagree with an EULA, i.e. never make the contract in the first place, how can I be punished, in the scheme you're discussing, for using the software regardless? In the reality of European Law, I'm in breach of Copyright Law, because I've no license. In your scheme, where an EULA is something different, I'm no less in breach of copyright law than if I did agree to the EULA, and there are no penalties in the contract, because I never entered one.
since I made a transaction with the store owner, not them
You make a transaction with the store owner on the physical media, but you make a contract with the copyright owner, who retains their copyright and licenses your use.
I am in my full right to do anything Iwant with the cd (and bits and bites) I bought as long as I do not violate the copyright laws
No, you must stick to the terms of the license agreement or you are immediately in violation of copyright law.
If I license you software on the basis that you hop on one leg once every minute, then if you break our contract, you have no license and are immediately in breach of copyright if you use my software. It doesn't matter that copyright law says nothing about hopping...
I'd argue that the Manhattan Project is a special case. It was an almost complete scientific community in itself, perfectly capable of peer-reviewing and self-correcting itself
Yes, I think you're right. What's more, I don't think it could happen again unless such a major event compelled scientists to flee Europe...
the peer-review process will suffer from the lack of contact with the outside world and this will inevitably lead to bad science
The results (very notable and solid independent discoveries and techniques) of, e.g., Soviet maths and computer science being carried out without access to much peer-review outside the country is notable though...
Wouldn't be the first time - the Manhattan Project was carried out in secrecy, and the technology was subsequently subject to export restrictions. Which all goes to show, this would only be delaying the inevitable anyway...
Innovation in Europe happens by government mandate or not at all
Hey, now wait a minute. We're talking on the Web, which was indeed (in large part) due to publically-funded research in Europe, but the Internet protocols on which it was implemented derive from DARPANet, which was (in large part) due to publically-funded military research in the US.
Take also the Semantic Web - our research effort (on which both myself and SAP work) is indeed publically-funded research, but one of the building blocks in OWL, which directly descends DAML - DARPA Agent Mark-up Language...
What I'm saying is that in both areas the government sets the agenda for a lot of research and innovation, the real difference in that in Europea good deal of this is funded for the good of the people (how socialist - bleurgh!), whereas in the US it is funded for the good of the war machine!
Funny, because the stores keep telling us they are 'selling software'
Perhaps you should take them up on their offer, 'buy' Windows from them, and then turn around and demand they take down the other boxes because 'Windows belongs to you now'...
How can an EULA be legal if it is only shown AFTER the product has been bought and paid for ?!
You haven't bought and paid for the product, but for a box with installation media and details of a license to which you can agree to legally install. It is only necessary that you be given opportunity to consider the contract before (implicitly) agreeing and installing...
From what I seem to reacall EULAs are not particularly easy to defend in court, and mostly court software piracy cases rely on copyright [...] Why can companies not just rely on copyright?
EULAs are copyright licenses, aren't they?
For instance:
"The Product is protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws and treaties. Microsoft or its suppliers own the title, copyright, and other intellectual property rights in the Product. The Product is licensed, not sold."
nothing in the Bible has ever been demonstrated wrong
The two creation myths in the Torah stand in contradiction with one another!
As long as its books are included in the Bible, it does not even take external facts to show that it is impossible to take it as an infallible historical account...
For what it's worth, when I say your sentence to myself, I want to make the like bold, I guess to emphasize the simile
Quite (hence my second post) - I couldn't work out what you thought I meant - at first I wondered if you thought I meant that iterations could be turned into recursions by the Cell compiler (i.e. the opposite to the normal optimisation, which is why I was trying to make it clear that I know what direction this happens in), then I realised you'd mistaken my analogy for an example... Rather, I was asking you for an example - i.e. I meant: some organisation of program flow (like restricting recursions to tail form), or some typing discipline, or what?...
Did you perhaps misunderstand 'like' as introducing an example, rather than an analogy? ('Optimising compiler' was the clue that I was talking about a different scenario - the compiler tricks being discussed in the general context are not optimisations...)
You have this backwards. Optimizing compilers will turn tail-recursive style source into "normal" loops.
Thanks, no I don't. I said "like writing in tail recursive style" - I know what it means.
My point is that, just like one can write recursions in a form that a compiler can turn them into something more (stack) efficient, so one might write iterations in a style that they can be unwound more easily (like using a primitive type as the counter, rather than an OO-style iterator)...
it's not clear that they're publishing automatically semantically annotated content
Mod me back down! I just got back from TBL's keynote at the International Semantic Web Conference and apparently "the Semantic Web is not just about public data"...
Yes and no - it's not clear that they're publishing automatically semantically annotated content (rather than just keeping it to themselves for the purposes of semantic search...)
it's pretty obvious if you study the theory that it really does have a lot of areas where uncertainty reigns
Yes, I think we should drop from education the idea that astrophysics and relativity theory, and particle physics and quantum theory, are the dominant theories in science and put on an equal footing the assertion that a big blue teddy bear named Cyril is reponsible for all human observations - that will teach those Bear-hating heathens to leave their models incomplete...
Slashdot Mirror
The question was partly rhetorical - in Europe, at least, an EULA is exactly (as you describe a copyright license) "a license to do something that is only allowed by the copyright holder" - one must make a copy of software in order to execute it. I agree that EULAs, in themselves, are covered by standard Contract Law, but challenge: if I disagree with an EULA, i.e. never make the contract in the first place, how can I be punished, in the scheme you're discussing, for using the software regardless? In the reality of European Law, I'm in breach of Copyright Law, because I've no license. In your scheme, where an EULA is something different, I'm no less in breach of copyright law than if I did agree to the EULA, and there are no penalties in the contract, because I never entered one.
If I license you software on the basis that you hop on one leg once every minute, then if you break our contract, you have no license and are immediately in breach of copyright if you use my software. It doesn't matter that copyright law says nothing about hopping...
Perhaps the research groups that the US is so eager to invest in should rule against import to the US if they're going to restrict exports...
Take also the Semantic Web - our research effort (on which both myself and SAP work) is indeed publically-funded research, but one of the building blocks in OWL, which directly descends DAML - DARPA Agent Mark-up Language...
What I'm saying is that in both areas the government sets the agenda for a lot of research and innovation, the real difference in that in Europea good deal of this is funded for the good of the people (how socialist - bleurgh!), whereas in the US it is funded for the good of the war machine!
Sorry, WSMX
Or with universities like mine on WSMX. There are many people who will be unhappy with Agassi's comments...
For instance: "The Product is protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws and treaties. Microsoft or its suppliers own the title, copyright, and other intellectual property rights in the Product. The Product is licensed, not sold."
As long as its books are included in the Bible, it does not even take external facts to show that it is impossible to take it as an infallible historical account...
I could have been clearer, looking back :)
Did you perhaps misunderstand 'like' as introducing an example, rather than an analogy? ('Optimising compiler' was the clue that I was talking about a different scenario - the compiler tricks being discussed in the general context are not optimisations...)
My point is that, just like one can write recursions in a form that a compiler can turn them into something more (stack) efficient, so one might write iterations in a style that they can be unwound more easily (like using a primitive type as the counter, rather than an OO-style iterator)...
Thanks for the clarification - why you've not been modded up, I've no idea... Perhaps other people can read?!?
This same subject comes up day after day and still posters like you are modded up as insightful...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Version