Unfortunately, Sony is within their rights under the DMCA (a bad law in our quickly maturing police state). But wouldn't they be a lot more successful by co-opting this hacker's work and selling it to Aibo lovers? Copyright law shouldn't need to be used to stifle innovation.
Quick, while you still can, program your Aibo to bite the hand that feeds it...
Copyright law shouldn't need to be used to stifle innovation.
Agreed. And the ironic thing is that copyright law was originally intended to promote innovation. But the Founding Fathers had a far different view of what copyright should be than what the corporate bosses^W^W lawmakers of today do.
the ironic thing is that copyright law was originally intended to promote innovation
Close, but no cigar.
Patent law was originally intended to promote progress in the sciences, which in modern terms translates to technological innovation.
Copyright law was originally intended to promote progress in the arts, which in modern terms translates to good entertainment.
Copyright law's got nothing to do with innovation, never has. Why it got applied to binary numbers meant to express a simple technological function with no human-readable content whatever, I'll never understand...
(Before the twentieth century, every copyrightable item could be processed by an unaided normal human. We have moved well beyond that: why we stick with the antiquated notion of copyright, I'm not sure.)
Why it got applied to binary numbers meant to express a simple technological function with no human-readable content whatever, I'll never understand...
Somewhat tangential, but this touches on what worries me about the approach to tearing down the DMCA that so many people (Felten, RMS, etc.) seem to be taking. The main argument seems to be essentially turning this technological innovation (in the form of code, pseudo-code, algorithms, etc.) into an "art" by way of "free speech". I was originally very persuaded by that argument (and I'm definitely still anti-DMCA), but I feel more and more that it's the wrong approach. It'll eventually end up playing into their hands. I would hope it would be as simple as drawing up a list of contradictions and absurdities in the status quo, but I suppose that wouldn't necessarily speak as strongly to most people.
As you said, our notion of what a copyright is for is antiquated; inapplicable to many of the things technology lets us do. The problem (as far as I see) is that it's going to be some years before people in positions to make law really have any basic understanding of modern information systems. Until then, the only way they can get through cases and pass bills is by making analogies to current law, flawed and inappropriate though those analogies may be.
Roll over, play dead (Score:2, Insightful)
Quick, while you still can, program your Aibo to bite the hand that feeds it...
Re:Roll over, play dead (Score:2)
Agreed. And the ironic thing is that copyright law was originally intended to promote innovation. But the Founding Fathers had a far different view of what copyright should be than what the corporate bosses^W^W lawmakers of today do.
Purpose of copyright law (Score:5, Insightful)
Close, but no cigar.
Patent law was originally intended to promote progress in the sciences, which in modern terms translates to technological innovation.
Copyright law was originally intended to promote progress in the arts, which in modern terms translates to good entertainment.
Copyright law's got nothing to do with innovation, never has. Why it got applied to binary numbers meant to express a simple technological function with no human-readable content whatever, I'll never understand...
(Before the twentieth century, every copyrightable item could be processed by an unaided normal human. We have moved well beyond that: why we stick with the antiquated notion of copyright, I'm not sure.)
Re:Purpose of copyright law (Score:1)
As you said, our notion of what a copyright is for is antiquated; inapplicable to many of the things technology lets us do. The problem (as far as I see) is that it's going to be some years before people in positions to make law really have any basic understanding of modern information systems. Until then, the only way they can get through cases and pass bills is by making analogies to current law, flawed and inappropriate though those analogies may be.