Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again)
To   : comp.programming
From : Gerry Quinn
Date : Fri Sep 02 2005 01:38 pm

In article <df6pen$19pc$1@gavrilo.mtu.ru>, suralis-s@mtu-net.ru says...
> Gerry Quinn wrote:
> >> As for books, there is no need for IP laws to prevent
> >> plagiarism. Plagiarism took place long before modern IP laws
> >> and was dealt more or less successfully.
> > 
> > You haven't answered my question.  What fair competition is
> > being prevented?
> > 
> The latest example: Creative patented the way composition are
> selected in mp3 player. I consider all user interface patients
> are senseless. It's like patenting a way to grasp a hammer.

Your original assertion was:

> > >>I do believe that the US intellectual property law is aimed
> > >>exclusevely on preventing fair competition.
> > > 
> > > What sort of fair competition?
> > > 
> > > Say I write and publish a book - what fair competition is IP law 
> > > preventing?

Now you are changing the subject to user interface patents, a more 
contentious area.  

> I'm not against copyright as a tool to protect and stimulate both
> authors and investors. I just consider that copyright law evolved
> in such a way recently that fair use rights shrinks intolerably.

I don't see that.  It is more that duplication methods have evolved so 
that restrictions have to be placed on what was not previously a 
problem.  There were no speed limits on motor vehicles before the 
invention of motor vehicles.  Does that mean that your freedom to drive 
at 200 mph has been taken away?

> Moreover, I consider the current length of copyright as getting
> inappropriately long now. My opinion is that it is done in order
> to protect super profits of IP owners at the expense of society
> (human kind as a whole, but it's a bit too pathetic:). And I
> consider all the rant about "authors not being paid" as just a
> smokescreen. The founders of the US understood it perfectly but
> this understanding seems to be lost along the way:(

But authors ARE the IP owners!  Unless they sold the IP, and the value 
of it is paid to them.  
 
> I consider that most of DRM efforts compromise of even nullify
> both the right for fair use and general usage of digital
> technology to such an extent that it threatens to basic freedoms.
> Maybe, I's just keen sensibility because I've spent considerable
> part of my life in environment with restricted access to
> information but still.
> 
> Yes, I do consider that user interfaces and algorithm shouldn't
> be patented at all. IMHO, it is like patenting the use of
> universal attraction or usage of oxygen for keeping DNA based
> creatures alive. It seems to be clear earlier in the US and it is
> more or less so in majority of countries even now.
> 
> I'm not against patents in general as a tool to stimulate both
> inventors and investors (see above:). I just consider that the
> terms of exclusive rights is getting inappropriately long
> recently. See the copyright sections for details:)

But the lengths of patents have hardly changed at all (I think a few 
years ago there was a small extension for drugs on the basis that they 
took years to get approved for sale.

- Gerry Quinn

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