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.)
Copyright law was originally intended to promote progress in the arts, which in modern terms translates to good entertainment.
You think a novelist or an artist can't be innovative?
Anyway, this is a gross misrepresentation of the meaning of "the arts." If that was the case, they would have only applied it to works of fiction. In such formal speech, "the arts" is used in the root sense of productive skills, not merely entertainment, which is why you see a title like "The Art of Computer Programming."
Also, when it was settled that copyright could be applied to software, the justification was clearly to reward progress/innovation in software development.
Without copyrighted binary code, the GPL would be unnecessary (and EULAs would be irrelevant). The argument made by Pamela Samuelson and many of her friends was that only source code should get copyright protection.
I think a novelist or an artist can't be innovative in the sense that we normally hear the word bandied about by venture capitalists and that kind of creature.
Also, when it was settled that copyright could be applied to software, the justification was clearly to reward progress/innovation in software development.
That's right. However, there was a huge debate at the time about copyright being applied to binary code.
There was really no debate about copyright applying to source. Source is easily human-readable with minimal technological support, much like an audio CD is human-readable.
The debate was: should copyright apply to binary code? The software industry wanted the answer to be yes, because iff it was, then computer programmers would be able to both conceal their techniques and profit from copyright. Having your cake and eating it too.
When a novelist is innovative, you can easily see the technique that is being used. For an example, look at Tolkien. Many other authors have used his techniques, and in fact we have a genre of fiction largely based on his work. They didn't have to reverse engineer his writing technique, they just read it.
Not so with programmers: and it was this particular decision in the law that the GPL was designed to fight. The GPL seeks to prevent programmers from concealing the source, while our copyright law is designed to encourage programmers to conceal the source.
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.
The actual wording says "science and the useful arts". Where "arts" can clearly, by the context, mean a lot more things than "good entertainment". Indeed "art" can often mean lots of things unrelated to entertainment, e.g. "black arts", "art of war", etc.
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.
The problem of defending it with free speech is that it's an airy-fairy concept, too easy to abuse (too many people who call on the constitution do so because they believe it gives them 'rights' that allow whatever they feel like doing).
As with the old 'fire' in a crowded theatre example, free speech doesn't mean being able to say what you want. It doesn't allow people to go out and perform someone else's songs without permission, or give them a right to pass on trade secrets. Is it free speech to go out and read out Stephen King's latest novel in the middle of a mall? It may allow, but it doesn't excuse, someone from going out and spreading nasty rumours about another person. Free speech is easy to abuse (though at least not as problematic as the arms-bearing bit) and is often called upon in such a way, so it's not likely to win many arguments.
So I think the concern here has to be with what the laws say and mean to regular people. Not "does copyright cover this? Can I use free speech to get around it this way?", but rather "here's how these products are being ruined by companies to protect their own interests", "here's why region coding is screwing you out of your import rights", "here's someone who was trying to do something good and they attacked him". One of the problems is that in the cases that get a lot of publicity, it's very easy to present the individuals as being at fault (often because they are). Dmitri did crack a code; trying to just call for his release doesn't help much, it's more important to get the public to understand "here's why he shouldn't have been charged", "here's what the implications of this law mean to you", "this is what they can force you to have to do with this technology".
"But wouldn't they be a lot more successful by co-opting this hacker's work and selling it to Aibo lovers?"
In a word...NO. Sony probably already had the idea to provide that kind of software, or if they didnt they do now. Now, they can SELL it without someone saying "Hey, I thought of that first!". The poor guy can't do a damn thing because he did violate the DMCA. If he says something, he can go to jail. So now, he has to sit and suck it up and see his idea getting sold by a company with almost as much money as M$...Thank you DMCA, without you we wouldn't have travesties like this one...
"Kill the lawyers? Naw, let's start with the poloticians!"
Now, they can SELL it without someone saying "Hey, I thought of that first!". The poor guy can't do a damn thing because he did violate the DMCA. If he says something, he can go to jail.
In this senario Sony would have stolen his IP. (Or maybe we should say "raped is IP", since that is the only other catagory of crime where a perp can use the law to reverse the apparent roles of perp and victim.)
Stifling innovation is exactly what copyright and other intellectual property holders want: the legal wherewithal to stifle their competitor's innovation. When consumers, small business people, hackers, tinkerers, and artists show up at Congress with briefcases full of cash and limos full of interns, perhaps we can expect some change.
And I'm a little disappointed by the attitude that Sony should just be nice to its fans. Any law that relies on the kindness, or even the self interest, of the party that can enforce it to be a fair law, is one messed up law.
Copyright law shouldn't need to be used to stifle innovation.
In the USA copyright law exists for very specific reasons, set out in US Constitution. Stifling innovation is mutually exclusive with those reasons. Problem is that too few US citizens appear to have actually read their constitution. (With those charged with enacting legislation either being similarly ignorant or realising that they are unlikely to be challenged. e.g. when was the last time you saw news media coverage of US political news which even mentioned the US constitution?)
The more cordial the buyer's secretary, the greater the odds that the
competition already has the order.
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.)
Progress == Innovation "the arts" != entertainment (Score:3, Insightful)
You think a novelist or an artist can't be innovative?
Anyway, this is a gross misrepresentation of the meaning of "the arts." If that was the case, they would have only applied it to works of fiction. In such formal speech, "the arts" is used in the root sense of productive skills, not merely entertainment, which is why you see a title like "The Art of Computer Programming."
Also, when it was settled that copyright could be applied to software, the justification was clearly to reward progress/innovation in software development.
Re:Progress == Innovation "the arts" != entertainm (Score:1)
However, the DMCA is a perversion of the once-reasonable copyright system (as was the Bono extension, for that matter).
Re:Progress == Innovation "the arts" != entertainm (Score:2)
Without copyrighted binary code, the GPL would be unnecessary (and EULAs would be irrelevant). The argument made by Pamela Samuelson and many of her friends was that only source code should get copyright protection.
Re:Progress == Innovation "the arts" != entertainm (Score:2)
I think a novelist or an artist can't be innovative in the sense that we normally hear the word bandied about by venture capitalists and that kind of creature.
That's right. However, there was a huge debate at the time about copyright being applied to binary code.
There was really no debate about copyright applying to source. Source is easily human-readable with minimal technological support, much like an audio CD is human-readable.
The debate was: should copyright apply to binary code? The software industry wanted the answer to be yes, because iff it was, then computer programmers would be able to both conceal their techniques and profit from copyright. Having your cake and eating it too.
When a novelist is innovative, you can easily see the technique that is being used. For an example, look at Tolkien. Many other authors have used his techniques, and in fact we have a genre of fiction largely based on his work. They didn't have to reverse engineer his writing technique, they just read it.
Not so with programmers: and it was this particular decision in the law that the GPL was designed to fight. The GPL seeks to prevent programmers from concealing the source, while our copyright law is designed to encourage programmers to conceal the source.
Re:Purpose of copyright law (Score:2)
Copyright law was originally intended to promote progress in the arts, which in modern terms translates to good entertainment.
The actual wording says "science and the useful arts".
Where "arts" can clearly, by the context, mean a lot more things than "good entertainment". Indeed "art" can often mean lots of things unrelated to entertainment, e.g. "black arts", "art of war", etc.
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.
Re:Purpose of copyright law (Score:0)
As with the old 'fire' in a crowded theatre example, free speech doesn't mean being able to say what you want. It doesn't allow people to go out and perform someone else's songs without permission, or give them a right to pass on trade secrets. Is it free speech to go out and read out Stephen King's latest novel in the middle of a mall? It may allow, but it doesn't excuse, someone from going out and spreading nasty rumours about another person. Free speech is easy to abuse (though at least not as problematic as the arms-bearing bit) and is often called upon in such a way, so it's not likely to win many arguments.
So I think the concern here has to be with what the laws say and mean to regular people. Not "does copyright cover this? Can I use free speech to get around it this way?", but rather "here's how these products are being ruined by companies to protect their own interests", "here's why region coding is screwing you out of your import rights", "here's someone who was trying to do something good and they attacked him". One of the problems is that in the cases that get a lot of publicity, it's very easy to present the individuals as being at fault (often because they are). Dmitri did crack a code; trying to just call for his release doesn't help much, it's more important to get the public to understand "here's why he shouldn't have been charged", "here's what the implications of this law mean to you", "this is what they can force you to have to do with this technology".
Re:Roll over, play dead (Score:0)
In a word...NO. Sony probably already had the idea to provide that kind of software, or if they didnt they do now. Now, they can SELL it without someone saying "Hey, I thought of that first!". The poor guy can't do a damn thing because he did violate the DMCA. If he says something, he can go to jail. So now, he has to sit and suck it up and see his idea getting sold by a company with almost as much money as M$...Thank you DMCA, without you we wouldn't have travesties like this one...
"Kill the lawyers? Naw, let's start with the poloticians!"
Re:Roll over, play dead (Score:2)
In this senario Sony would have stolen his IP.
(Or maybe we should say "raped is IP", since that is the only other catagory of crime where a perp can use the law to reverse the apparent roles of perp and victim.)
Stifling innovation, corporate niceness. (Score:3, Insightful)
And I'm a little disappointed by the attitude that Sony should just be nice to its fans. Any law that relies on the kindness, or even the self interest, of the party that can enforce it to be a fair law, is one messed up law.
Re:Roll over, play dead (Score:2)
In the USA copyright law exists for very specific reasons, set out in US Constitution. Stifling innovation is mutually exclusive with those reasons.
Problem is that too few US citizens appear to have actually read their constitution. (With those charged with enacting legislation either being similarly ignorant or realising that they are unlikely to be challenged. e.g. when was the last time you saw news media coverage of US political news which even mentioned the US constitution?)