3 ms·

"The exemption already exists"... where? The rest of your comment only talks about how copyright is often unenforced in these cases, not that there exists an ex

by Flimm 12y ago

"The exemption already exists"... where? The rest of your comment only talks about how copyright is often unenforced in these cases, not that there exists an exemption.

drostie 12y ago
Sandworm is saying that the exemption exists de facto due to the structure of copyright, since copyright violations are generally civil, not criminal. My Dad works in biotech and he's fond of telling me the same thing about patents, which are crucial to that industry. "Patents are basically a tax that we have to pay to the lawyer industry, because a patent only exists insofar as you legally defend it. If we don't pay those lawyers, then much bigger biomedical and pharmaceutical companies will just steal our research for their profit." Or, "When your lawyers are preparing a patent, they sit you down and you have to describe exactly what you did. Then you describe it again. Then again, more and more abstractly, until you have something at the level of 'an object with a screen which a person reads medical numbers from', and they write all of this down, so that if someone steals only 50% of your idea, hopefully one of the levels in the middle is abstract enough to stop them, but not so abstract that the judge throws it out." Copyright describes some situations during which you can sue someone else. Having this perspective changes a lot of things. Copyleft licenses say, for example, "I won't sue you unless you threaten to possibly sue someone else, unless you threaten to possibly sue them for possibly suing someone else a la this very sentence." No wonder GPL is more convoluted than BSD, which merely has to say, "I promise not to sue you; in exchange you are promising not to sue me. Also don't erase the fact that I wrote this."
carussell 12y ago
> "The exemption already exists"... where? 17 U.S.C. § 1201, which is both named in the article and otherwise trivially googleable.
- schoen 12y ago
  But this "exemption" that "already exists" isn't a matter of statutory text, it's a claim that some people won't get sued in practice.
  - carussell 12y ago
    What kind of answer are you looking to see wrt the question "where?"
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]

by Flimm 12y ago

"The exemption already exists"... where? The rest of your comment only talks about how copyright is often unenforced in these cases, not that there exists an exemption.

drostie 12y ago

Sandworm is saying that the exemption exists de facto due to the structure of copyright, since copyright violations are generally civil, not criminal. My Dad works in biotech and he's fond of telling me the same thing about patents, which are crucial to that industry. "Patents are basically a tax that we have to pay to the lawyer industry, because a patent only exists insofar as you legally defend it. If we don't pay those lawyers, then much bigger biomedical and pharmaceutical companies will just steal our research for their profit." Or, "When your lawyers are preparing a patent, they sit you down and you have to describe exactly what you did. Then you describe it again. Then again, more and more abstractly, until you have something at the level of 'an object with a screen which a person reads medical numbers from', and they write all of this down, so that if someone steals only 50% of your idea, hopefully one of the levels in the middle is abstract enough to stop them, but not so abstract that the judge throws it out." Copyright describes some situations during which you can sue someone else. Having this perspective changes a lot of things. Copyleft licenses say, for example, "I won't sue you unless you threaten to possibly sue someone else, unless you threaten to possibly sue them for possibly suing someone else a la this very sentence." No wonder GPL is more convoluted than BSD, which merely has to say, "I promise not to sue you; in exchange you are promising not to sue me. Also don't erase the fact that I wrote this."

carussell 12y ago

> "The exemption already exists"... where? 17 U.S.C. § 1201, which is both named in the article and otherwise trivially googleable.

schoen 12y ago
But this "exemption" that "already exists" isn't a matter of statutory text, it's a claim that some people won't get sued in practice.
- carussell 12y ago
  What kind of answer are you looking to see wrt the question "where?"
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]