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>That's mean, but you'll just have to live with that I mean I know we're all on board with the idea of intellectual property actually being a thing now, but su

>That's mean, but you'll just have to live with that I mean I know we're all on board with the idea of intellectual property actually being a thing now, but surely there are limits? I've seen people take the hard-line stance that if something is your property you should be able to dictate exactly under what situation it can be used, but there have to be limits to IP holders rights on some level, and I feel like reverse engineering a file format is a pretty reasonable place to draw that line.

jtbayly 6y ago
I didn't take "you'll just have to live with that" as a claim that the user couldn't reverse engineer it. It simply means that they've made it harder for the user to do so, and so the user has to live with it being harder.
- TheRealPomax 6y ago
  this.
jstanley 6y ago
> I know we're all on board with the idea of intellectual property actually being a thing now I don't know that that's true at all! I'd say the pendulum is swinging in the opposite direction.
cortesoft 6y ago
They aren't saying you have to live with the legal restriction, but rather the technical restriction of having to reverse engineer it without the headers
deathgrips 6y ago
>we're all on board with the idea of intellectual property actually being a thing now No. Intellectual property is not genuine property. It is a state granted monopoly and is antithetical to free market principles.
- rswail 6y ago
  "Intellectual property" isn't a thing, "Intellectual Property Rights" are. They're not "antithetical to free market principles" if you accept that the "free market" requires regulation and that there are benefits to society by the cost of temporarily restricting free use with the subsequent benefit of ideas and expressions not being lost on the death/loss/bankruptcy etc of the IPR holder. IPRs are (in general) things that are protected by law and open to licensing and civil suits for damages if used outside those laws and licenses: * Trade Secrets and NDAs * Copyrights * Patents * Trademarks
  - Eremotherium 6y ago
    NDAs, etc. are contract law. Contracts need to be entered in without duress as they would be felonies otherwise. The others are societal contracts which operate much more akin to taxes from a philosophical point of view. But calling today's copyright law a temporary restriction is cynical at best.
  - deathgrips 6y ago
    Every government protection starts as a temporary relief. Then the corporations that benefit from those regulations use the extra revenue to lobby for more exclusively beneficial regulations that harm their competitors. The result is copyrights that last for infinity minus one years, infantile industries requiring temporary protections yet never leaving infancy, and regulatory boards staffed by CEOs from the industries they regulate. Copyright law, much like communism and eating ice cream for dinner every night, sounds good only in isolation without a historical perspective.
matheusmoreira 6y ago
> we're all on board with the idea of intellectual property actually being a thing now We most certainly are not. I personally believe that intellectual property as a whole doesn't make sense in the 21st century and should be abolished. > there have to be limits to IP holders rights on some level There are. The laws generally recognize fair use and reverse engineering for interoperability. > I feel like reverse engineering a file format is a pretty reasonable place to draw that line Absolutely. Unfortunately, in the US it seems corporations can force people to give up their rights by making them agree to it. Therefore, "you must not reverse engineer our software" is a standard clause in every contract and it's not negotiable.
- kstrauser 6y ago
  I'd be more on board with it if it were taxed like other property. That patent's worth $1B, you say? Better let Accounting know. Conversely: you're suing for $1B for a patent violation but you only paid taxes on it being worth $300? $300 max it is, then.
  - kgwgk 6y ago
    > taxed like other property. Most property owned by companies is not taxed.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - patmorgan23 6y ago
      Actually physical property is at least in my state both physical plant and inventory are taxed.
      - kgwgk 6y ago
        Interesting, I was not aware of those taxes. https://taxfoundation.org/does-your-state-tax-business-inventory/ https://taxfoundation.org/does-your-state-tax-business-inven...
Gibbon1 6y ago
I think the limit is when they are using their IP to prevent you from owning your own data.
II2II 6y ago
Even when a person is on board with intellectual property rights, there is still a distinction between the vendor created program and the user created data. Encoding the data in an undocumented or obfuscated file format may not exert legal rights over that data, but it effectively does so. I can only see three reasons why someone would support intellectual property rights with respect to file formats: they believe the manipulation of data done by software implies a transfer of ownership of the data, at least in its modified form; they are making a cynical grab for control over the data; or they are incredibly naive. (There are border cases, such as novel compression schemes, where how the data is stored is the product. That does not really matter when someone is using a file format as a simple container for data. If a file format is truly a border case, there should also be ample forewarning to the end user.)

jtbayly 6y ago

I didn't take "you'll just have to live with that" as a claim that the user couldn't reverse engineer it. It simply means that they've made it harder for the user to do so, and so the user has to live with it being harder.

TheRealPomax 6y ago
this.

jstanley 6y ago

> I know we're all on board with the idea of intellectual property actually being a thing now I don't know that that's true at all! I'd say the pendulum is swinging in the opposite direction.

cortesoft 6y ago

They aren't saying you have to live with the legal restriction, but rather the technical restriction of having to reverse engineer it without the headers

deathgrips 6y ago

>we're all on board with the idea of intellectual property actually being a thing now No. Intellectual property is not genuine property. It is a state granted monopoly and is antithetical to free market principles.

rswail 6y ago
"Intellectual property" isn't a thing, "Intellectual Property Rights" are. They're not "antithetical to free market principles" if you accept that the "free market" requires regulation and that there are benefits to society by the cost of temporarily restricting free use with the subsequent benefit of ideas and expressions not being lost on the death/loss/bankruptcy etc of the IPR holder. IPRs are (in general) things that are protected by law and open to licensing and civil suits for damages if used outside those laws and licenses: * Trade Secrets and NDAs * Copyrights * Patents * Trademarks
- Eremotherium 6y ago
  NDAs, etc. are contract law. Contracts need to be entered in without duress as they would be felonies otherwise. The others are societal contracts which operate much more akin to taxes from a philosophical point of view. But calling today's copyright law a temporary restriction is cynical at best.
- deathgrips 6y ago
  Every government protection starts as a temporary relief. Then the corporations that benefit from those regulations use the extra revenue to lobby for more exclusively beneficial regulations that harm their competitors. The result is copyrights that last for infinity minus one years, infantile industries requiring temporary protections yet never leaving infancy, and regulatory boards staffed by CEOs from the industries they regulate. Copyright law, much like communism and eating ice cream for dinner every night, sounds good only in isolation without a historical perspective.

matheusmoreira 6y ago

> we're all on board with the idea of intellectual property actually being a thing now We most certainly are not. I personally believe that intellectual property as a whole doesn't make sense in the 21st century and should be abolished. > there have to be limits to IP holders rights on some level There are. The laws generally recognize fair use and reverse engineering for interoperability. > I feel like reverse engineering a file format is a pretty reasonable place to draw that line Absolutely. Unfortunately, in the US it seems corporations can force people to give up their rights by making them agree to it. Therefore, "you must not reverse engineer our software" is a standard clause in every contract and it's not negotiable.

kstrauser 6y ago
I'd be more on board with it if it were taxed like other property. That patent's worth $1B, you say? Better let Accounting know. Conversely: you're suing for $1B for a patent violation but you only paid taxes on it being worth $300? $300 max it is, then.
- kgwgk 6y ago
  > taxed like other property. Most property owned by companies is not taxed.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - patmorgan23 6y ago
    Actually physical property is at least in my state both physical plant and inventory are taxed.
    - kgwgk 6y ago
      Interesting, I was not aware of those taxes. https://taxfoundation.org/does-your-state-tax-business-inventory/ https://taxfoundation.org/does-your-state-tax-business-inven...

Gibbon1 6y ago

I think the limit is when they are using their IP to prevent you from owning your own data.

II2II 6y ago

Even when a person is on board with intellectual property rights, there is still a distinction between the vendor created program and the user created data. Encoding the data in an undocumented or obfuscated file format may not exert legal rights over that data, but it effectively does so. I can only see three reasons why someone would support intellectual property rights with respect to file formats: they believe the manipulation of data done by software implies a transfer of ownership of the data, at least in its modified form; they are making a cynical grab for control over the data; or they are incredibly naive. (There are border cases, such as novel compression schemes, where how the data is stored is the product. That does not really matter when someone is using a file format as a simple container for data. If a file format is truly a border case, there should also be ample forewarning to the end user.)