 | | NEWS! You don't believe me copyright and patents are evil? Read this.
Also read this article from the cypherpunks list.
I oppose the institution of copyright on several counts:
 | It's a state-granted monopoly on the duplication of information - but not
on the duplication of ALL information, only on that of big companies. You
don't believe me? Send me one of your programs; then try asking the US
government to protect your copyright in Romania. |
| Furthermore, it's not based on a normative principle (morality), but on
force. If there were an underlying principle, two consequences would have
arisen, which are not observed in reality: 1) there would have been no time
limit on intellectual property - this shows that government power, as
opposed to a moral principle, creates this "right" and 2) you
would have been morally wrong to lend a book to say your wife - she would
have been required to buy her own copy. |
| It's unenforceable without a large police force which would check every
house once in a while to see whether someone has an illegal copy of
information; even in this case, one can use encryption and make such checks
impossible (or the government can also make encryption illegal, or ask for
mandatory key escrow with government agencies, two Big Brother
"solutions" far worse than the problem). |
| It's economically inefficient - as is any state-granted monopoly, in fact.
Furthermore, any alleged "loss" (which is at best a loss of
*potential* revenue, but in most cases the so-called "pirates"
would have never been able to buy the information, so there's not even a
potential loss) is balanced by the gain for the so-called pirate. [The
analogy with theft is not accurate, because in theft the owner of the
product is no longer able to use it, clearly not the case when copying
information.] |
| The license can't be a contract. In Romanian law, a contract must either
be originally written in Romanian, or accompanied by a Romanian translation.
Furthermore, it must be signed (whether with a pen or electronically it
doesn't matter) by BOTH parties. Pressing a button or singing a tune doesn't
count :) |
| Suppose I buy Delphi 4 with a license which says "feel free to do
whatever you want with this program". Am I entitled to do so? Truly, it
wasn't Borland to write such a license, but say it was someone who bought it
and changed the executables. You might object that by not respecting the
original license (which forbids him from doing such a change), he's
cancelled his rights over the program. So? Does that bind me in any way? You
might also object that by using property which was "stolen" (a
favorite word of copyright defenders) I can no longer have claim that the
program is my property. In this case, though, most of the US property is in
trouble, because it was stolen from American Indians... |
| Finally, what if I change the license BEFORE accepting it? I know
copyright-defenders are trying to enact a law which would make this illegal
too, but 1) until then it seems that I am free to do it, and 2) that law
can't affect me, a Romanian. |
From RISKS digest 20.65:
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 14:21:46 -0500
From: "Keith A Rhodes" <rhodesk.aimd@gao.gov>
Subject: Businesses could owe millions for popular Year 2000 bug fix
It turns out the windowing technique used frequently by Y2K remediators to
postpone the Y2K problem (reinterpreting two-digit dates ij: from 00 to xy
as 2000+ij, and from xy+1 to 99 as 1900+ij) was patented in 1998 by Bruce
Dickens, at McDonnell Douglas Corp, now Boeing. He wants to collect
big-time. However, that technique seems to have existed long before the
patent application was submitted (for example, in the 1960s on one-digit
year software). I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.
(There
are apparently also 30 other much more specific patents on Y2K fixes.)
[Source: Associated Press item by Anick Jesdanun, 11 Nov 1999; PGN-ed]
[NOTE: It will be interesting if the companies then ask Mr. Dickens to
fix
the problem after the window expires. Keith]
[The patent office seems to be overwhelmed these days, and is
issuing
many patents for which prior art CLEARLY existed at the time.
The
entire patent process seems to be getting out of control.
PGN]
This, of course, was a problem waiting to happen - the state has created new
privileges (they call them "rights"), and people have discovered yet
another way to benefit without working. And now they wonder...
Link:
[In work]
NEW!!! Please look at my NoLicense page.
Interesting links:
I will append or link feedback to this page.
This page was last updated on 22 Nov 1999.
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