5 ms·

Public domain does not mean public. The source code could remain a trade secret. More of an obstacle is competition from free past versions - a lot of people

by mkl 2y ago

Public domain does not mean public. The source code could remain a trade secret. More of an obstacle is competition from free past versions - a lot of people would be happy with a 10 year old version of Photoshop or MS Office. That's why I think it should be extendable to 20 years with a hefty fee (but not further, or only with a much heftier fee).

mindslight 2y ago
If you do not publish source code, your binaries should be ineligible for copyright protection. There is very little creative work in the binaries themselves. Keeping your actual creative work hidden (especially from things like eventually being part of the public domain) but yet still expecting to receive the privilege of copyright is inequitable. Same thing with only publishing under digital restrictions management.
- kube-system 2y ago
  Then those who wish profit without sharing will just offer SaaS instead of binaries. Exactly as they do with a significant amount of copyleft-licensed software today. Pulling back copyright doesn't necessarily force people to share -- people can also keep secrets. A primary purpose of IP law is to encourage sharing.
  - mindslight 2y ago
    The point is that if it is not actually working to encourage sharing, as is the case with DRM, compilation, or SaaS, then there is no longer a justification.
    - kube-system 2y ago
      Is it not? The amount of media created and circulated every day today is far greater than at any time in the past.
      - mindslight 2y ago
        Sure, but the media that will never enter the public domain is not being "shared" ?
        kube-system 2y ago
        Hopefully it does enter the public domain, and I'd be happy if that happened much sooner than it does today. But public domain rights are certainly not needed for people to enjoy the arts. Basically all popular media is enjoyed without the right of people to republish them. Ask anyone to list famous American media, and they will mostly list copyrighted works.
        mindslight 2y ago
        Sure. I think our disconnect is that I don't think it's appropriate to use the word "share" to describe this. Exchanging something for money is not "sharing", it's business. So when you said "the primary purpose of [imaginary property] law is to encourage sharing", I took that to be referencing when a work enters the public domain after the exclusive copyright term. And my overall point is that a work that has been compiled/DRMed/etc will never enter (be shared with) the public domain even after the copyright term expires - rather it will still remain subject to the technical protections. And so I don't think it's at all appropriate to use the word "sharing" to describe such works.
        kube-system 2y ago
        The type of "sharing" that copyright was intended to facilitate is "make it part of the corpus of cultural works enjoyed by the people" in contrast to "art is something that rich people commission and then hoard in a palace". You can disagree with my choice of word if you want, it's orthogonal to the point I was making above -- people can access more media today than ever, art and culture is flourishing. Copyright (in general) is observably fulfilling the purpose it was intended to serve. Kings do not sit in their palace and listen to Taylor Swift and watch Marvel movies, the people do. > compiled/DRMed/etc will never enter (be shared with) the public domain even after the copyright term expires - rather it will still remain subject to the technical protections. You could argue da Vinci did the same with his underdrawings. And many other artists have similarly not shared their sources. You're making more of an argument about a right of collaboration, which is not only a completely different argument, it is the opposite of what copyright attempts to do, which is to give rights to the original artist. If you're making the suggestion that artists should be compelled to share sources, I disagree and think that is extremely shortsighted. Sharing should be done voluntarily by the artist, and if they don't want to share their sources and methods, they shouldn't be required to. In absence of that right, chilling effects on artistic freedom are an obvious outcome. I love FOSS licensing, but those types of arrangements should be voluntarily chosen by authors, not compelled by the force of law.
- cornholio 2y ago
  That's impossible for a great number of reasons, at the very least the fact that the distinction between the source and the binary is irrelevant for copyright and impossible to define in the general case. The GPL defines the source as the preferable working format to make changes and updates to the program, but you can see how that definition blows up in your face when there is no published source to begin with. "Your honor, that 50MB binary file that has a signature of a GCC compiled program IS the preferred working format for our company; indeed, it was created from temporary text files, but they were deleted as they were deemed unnecessary for a technically advanced company such ourselves. All further updates will be made in assembly language via binary patching, for maximum efficiency".
  - mindslight 2y ago
    The distinction is that the binary is a derivative work with no added creativity. I'm not saying this is how things are today, but rather I'm saying this is how things should be. In order to qualify for copyright protection, one should have to put the created work in escrow so it can actually enter the public domain when the copyright expires. If one wishes to control access to their work with other mechanisms that prevent fulfillment of even the very lopsided bargain that was struck with copyright, then one shouldn't get the privilege of copyright. Also if the best of your "great number of reasons" is fallacious legal reasoning of the type software engineers tend to be drawn to, then I don't think that's much of an argument.
    - cornholio 2y ago
      Again, how do you prove my binary that I put in your copyright escrow facility is a derivative work and not a handcrafted assembly program? Sorry, but you are just uttering nonsense.
      - mindslight 2y ago
        Do you think the idea of binary analysis does not exist? Or that courts don't have a long history of deciding questions of judgement? The problem is also fundamentally quite similar to proving that a published binary is/isn't a derivative work of someone else's work. Also handcrafted assembly isn't sufficient for your argument, but rather one would have to directly write a binary with a hex editor. Show me any binary larger than say 1 MB that was written with a hex editor. So really the burden of proof would be on anyone claiming that a large binary is direct creation.

by mkl 2y ago

mindslight 2y ago

If you do not publish source code, your binaries should be ineligible for copyright protection. There is very little creative work in the binaries themselves. Keeping your actual creative work hidden (especially from things like eventually being part of the public domain) but yet still expecting to receive the privilege of copyright is inequitable. Same thing with only publishing under digital restrictions management.

kube-system 2y ago
Then those who wish profit without sharing will just offer SaaS instead of binaries. Exactly as they do with a significant amount of copyleft-licensed software today. Pulling back copyright doesn't necessarily force people to share -- people can also keep secrets. A primary purpose of IP law is to encourage sharing.
- mindslight 2y ago
  The point is that if it is not actually working to encourage sharing, as is the case with DRM, compilation, or SaaS, then there is no longer a justification.
  - kube-system 2y ago
    Is it not? The amount of media created and circulated every day today is far greater than at any time in the past.
    - mindslight 2y ago
      Sure, but the media that will never enter the public domain is not being "shared" ?
      - kube-system 2y ago
        Hopefully it does enter the public domain, and I'd be happy if that happened much sooner than it does today. But public domain rights are certainly not needed for people to enjoy the arts. Basically all popular media is enjoyed without the right of people to republish them. Ask anyone to list famous American media, and they will mostly list copyrighted works.
        mindslight 2y ago
        Sure. I think our disconnect is that I don't think it's appropriate to use the word "share" to describe this. Exchanging something for money is not "sharing", it's business. So when you said "the primary purpose of [imaginary property] law is to encourage sharing", I took that to be referencing when a work enters the public domain after the exclusive copyright term. And my overall point is that a work that has been compiled/DRMed/etc will never enter (be shared with) the public domain even after the copyright term expires - rather it will still remain subject to the technical protections. And so I don't think it's at all appropriate to use the word "sharing" to describe such works.
        kube-system 2y ago
        The type of "sharing" that copyright was intended to facilitate is "make it part of the corpus of cultural works enjoyed by the people" in contrast to "art is something that rich people commission and then hoard in a palace". You can disagree with my choice of word if you want, it's orthogonal to the point I was making above -- people can access more media today than ever, art and culture is flourishing. Copyright (in general) is observably fulfilling the purpose it was intended to serve. Kings do not sit in their palace and listen to Taylor Swift and watch Marvel movies, the people do. > compiled/DRMed/etc will never enter (be shared with) the public domain even after the copyright term expires - rather it will still remain subject to the technical protections. You could argue da Vinci did the same with his underdrawings. And many other artists have similarly not shared their sources. You're making more of an argument about a right of collaboration, which is not only a completely different argument, it is the opposite of what copyright attempts to do, which is to give rights to the original artist. If you're making the suggestion that artists should be compelled to share sources, I disagree and think that is extremely shortsighted. Sharing should be done voluntarily by the artist, and if they don't want to share their sources and methods, they shouldn't be required to. In absence of that right, chilling effects on artistic freedom are an obvious outcome. I love FOSS licensing, but those types of arrangements should be voluntarily chosen by authors, not compelled by the force of law.
cornholio 2y ago
That's impossible for a great number of reasons, at the very least the fact that the distinction between the source and the binary is irrelevant for copyright and impossible to define in the general case. The GPL defines the source as the preferable working format to make changes and updates to the program, but you can see how that definition blows up in your face when there is no published source to begin with. "Your honor, that 50MB binary file that has a signature of a GCC compiled program IS the preferred working format for our company; indeed, it was created from temporary text files, but they were deleted as they were deemed unnecessary for a technically advanced company such ourselves. All further updates will be made in assembly language via binary patching, for maximum efficiency".
- mindslight 2y ago
  The distinction is that the binary is a derivative work with no added creativity. I'm not saying this is how things are today, but rather I'm saying this is how things should be. In order to qualify for copyright protection, one should have to put the created work in escrow so it can actually enter the public domain when the copyright expires. If one wishes to control access to their work with other mechanisms that prevent fulfillment of even the very lopsided bargain that was struck with copyright, then one shouldn't get the privilege of copyright. Also if the best of your "great number of reasons" is fallacious legal reasoning of the type software engineers tend to be drawn to, then I don't think that's much of an argument.
  - cornholio 2y ago
    Again, how do you prove my binary that I put in your copyright escrow facility is a derivative work and not a handcrafted assembly program? Sorry, but you are just uttering nonsense.
    - mindslight 2y ago
      Do you think the idea of binary analysis does not exist? Or that courts don't have a long history of deciding questions of judgement? The problem is also fundamentally quite similar to proving that a published binary is/isn't a derivative work of someone else's work. Also handcrafted assembly isn't sufficient for your argument, but rather one would have to directly write a binary with a hex editor. Show me any binary larger than say 1 MB that was written with a hex editor. So really the burden of proof would be on anyone claiming that a large binary is direct creation.