Day: November 10, 2005

Annotated and Hyperlinked Notes on Professor Dewar’s talk on Software Copyrights, Patents and Free Software

Below are a few notes I took at Professor Dewar’s talk the day before yesterday. I also annotated them a bit with relevant hyperlinks.

When I find a copy of Dewar’s slides posted online, I’ll link to those as well.

  • Libertarian thought: property rights are central. If you regard ideas as property, Ayn Rand’s position isn’t surprising.
  • Jefferson: private letter to Isaac McPherson 1813. “He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.”
  • Jefferson faction won on this issue, Intellectual Property Clause.
  • Copyright extension case, now life + 90 years.
  • England: history of copyright, fundamental moral right?
  • Software: special case of copyright infringement and trade secret violation simultaneously!
  • Computer Associates vs. Altai (source vs. object code copyrights, interesting read here).
  • Borland copying a macro language (interesting, if old, article by an MIT student), Supreme Court.
  • Derived works: fair use provisions. But fair use goes to juries, and it’s very vague.
  • Software will never fall into public domain, due to perpetual derived works.
  • Patent an invention, but not an idea, but in practice you can patent either. Europe turned down this law.
  • “Obvious” patents. Juries can’t really judge how obvious they are.
  • You can copyright a non-obvious combination of obvious ideas. Intermittent wind shield wipers.
  • Does a program express inventions and ideas? Is software is distinct from physical stuff?
  • Big risk for free software–patents can ask for damages. And patent is secret until it’s granted (this may not be true, I can’t really tell for sure: “To protect your privacy, we suggest that you delete such information from any documentation you send the office. Alternatively, you may request that the submissions be kept out of the public file, if appropriate. (See MPEP Sections 724. 02 to 724.06.) Please remember that all patent application files are published and made available to the public 18 months from the filing date, unless a non-publication request is made in the application. Additionally, all patented application files will become available to the public upon the grant of the patent.”).
  • Open Source business model can work–selling support and services, while keeping code GPLed.

George Carlin goes morbid

George Carlin’s last comedy routine was a little disappointing. He has become horribly bitter and depressed. He had a couple of good lines in it:

On feminism, “hey ladies, men are about 4 times more likely to commit suicide than women are. So, if you want that whole equality thing, you better start killing yourselves in large numbers.”

On necrophelia, “the great thing about necrophelia is that you don’t have to bring her the flowers. They’re usually already there.”

But he also had a 20-minute-long tirade about a 24-hour “suicide” network that was really difficult to watch due to its being more depressing than funny. And he used the phrase, “this depraved, twisted culture of ours” a bit too much. It is depraved and twisted, but after awhile you get the point.

I like his old stuff so much that I have to just let this “slide.” Like when he opened the show I saw in Burlington with:

“You ever notice that women who are against abortion are women you’d never want to fuck in the first place?”

and later on,

“Ah, women. Y’know, I never had a ’10’. But I once had five ‘2”s.”

He is a comic genius. But it’s hard to last as long as he has.