Yes, this is a very real problem in trading. The 'industry' already has nearly 100 years of history and thousands of 'traders, many of whom have been armed with computers for a least a decade, and are highly skilled analysts to boot, have been pouring over the same data.
As I said before, our field of endeavour is actually very small, if we confine our discussion to stock trading (exotic instruments and IT advances have added some refinements but the basics remain the same). To emphasise the point .... the trading universe is a very small pool, and a relatively unimportant one at that .... IMO many of us take it, and our role as traders, far too seriously. Trading ideas and specific expressions of those ideas have filtered out from books, private conversations and trading material (free or sold) onto the internet where we all absorb this info without knowing where it originated. Generally I find it a bit rich when a new crop comes along, reassembles the info a little and claims it as original/copyright material. I also find it a bit rich when they become uncomfortable about the fact that after they have sold their 'secret' it leaks out onto the net and then they want to claim privilige and scare off the readers. Anyone who wants to keep a secret should start with keeping it themselves. This is a very real issue. To provide an example. 4-5 years ago I purchase a 'trading system' from a USA mentor for approx USD$300-400. The gentleman had an impressive an upstanding resume. The site was well presented and credible and the support was excellent. The 'system' claimed a performance record of around ProfitFactor = 2 and to be universal i.e. it worked in any timeframe and any market. I signed a confidentiallity clause and purchased the 'system'. At their website they maintained a trading log for the system with a 12 month history (on the SPY I think). At the time I was using MetaStock ..... within a week or two I had backtested the system in MS and found I couldn't see anyway to get the system to perform as they claimed it did. Furthermore, when I tallied the trades recorded in their own log, it didn't add up to PF 2 either ....more like 1.4. which I now understand to be a typical statistical abherration of break even systems. I duly sent them a friendly and helpful email, assuming I was misunderstanding something. After a few days of silence the trading log came down from the site and a new system hit the headlines about two weeks later. On top of that, part of the system involved manual calculation and entry of some 'envelope' settings. I played around with the system in MS and luckily came across a way to automate, via simple code, the envelopes. I was going to 'give' the code to the guy but when I emailed him about it to open the discussion there was another silence followed by a reply email congratulating me on my fine effort and claiming that "they already had an automated algorithm for the envelopes, in beta and that it would soon be released". I spent many hours pouring over that 'system' and I still don't believe it is a particularly profitable system. Furthermore it is not original but only a rehash of scores of other systems based on a few core trading principles. The moral of the story: - I purchased a system and signed a 'copyright' agreement when I was somewhat naive from a trading point of view - the ethics of the situation don't compel me to honour the agreement - legally I am obliged (just in case ... murky waters as Bill says) - I would like to post the system on this site but I might am restricted In fact, on account of the agreement, the trading 'mentor' owns a hackneyed, recycled system and has it locked up for years. He who publishes first and longest wins! IMO this is not a good outcome for the trading community. brian_z --- In [email protected], Michel Guibert <michel...@...> wrote: > > > If I follow all the copyright , I can't do anything , everybody has done everything before me. > Many formulas were published in many books or review and you think there is copyright on them ??? > Personnaly when they are published in a review I consider them in the public domain. > > MG > > > > To: amibro...@...: ohnec...@...: Sun, 21 Dec 2008 12:05:28 - 0800Subject: Re: [amibroker] Re: COPYRIGHT > > > > > > Whenever you write something, you own the copyright to it such -- even these posts are the IP of the individual poster and they own the copyright to the contents. Yahoo does not own it, the group owner does not own it and in the Yahoo TOS, this is so stated. > > In another group that suffers from overt estrogen overloaded, 1 person wrote a guide, lifted whole posts of other members and put them in her guide (without credit or permission) that she sold and was called on it. The person who was charging for the information had to refund money and revise her guide to be strictly and exclusively her own words. That is an example of copyright violation. > > I use and quote George C Lane and his application of the stochastic formula all the time and it is NOT a violation of copyright because the settings are mine that I have played around with, I give credit where I have learned something from someone else such as David Elliott about stochastics settings, etc., and don't lift entire paragraphs or words in the same series as their works. These are not copyright violations. These come under the fair and free use concept. > > If I am discussing something from a trading book or manual that is copyrighted and put it into my own words even though it is not my original idea, that is not a violation of copyright. > > If I write a book or prepare a PP presentation and pass the work off as my own when it is based on someone else's work and the charts are THEIRS I lifted entirely, word for word or exactly the same indicator settings, other than my own stochastic settings I've developed, and sell it, that is a violation of copyright. > > The two elements are: passing stuff off as your own when you copied it from someone else and selling it as your own idea. > > Judith > > > > From: Barry Scarborough <razzba...@...>To: amibro...@...: Friday, December 19, 2008 10:32:28 PMSubject: [amibroker] Re: COPYRIGHT > > No. It appears there is a lot of confusion on copyright laws. A good discussion is at http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Copyrights. OF course this isn't official but it is an easier read than the law books. People like Wilder published his works so others could benefit from his discoveries. What the copyright laws do is prevent someone from copying his work and selling it. But the intellectual property he disclosed is for our use. Why else would he publish it?Barry--- In amibro...@yahoogrou ps.com, "binjobingo" <binjobingo@ ...> wrote:>> Does referring to Wilder's Relative strength Indicator,or Lane's> Stochastics, or Chande's Vidya & so on lead to copyright violation?> > Say one reads An Author's book & am not able to write AFL for the> Indicators & so ask the forum members to write it for me Is it> copyright violation?> > If one give a link to the Website say some other website which> explains the parameters & use of the said "indicator" but the website> may not be owned by the Author himself does it lead to copyright> violation ?> > If it is so I think all the forums would close down & nobody would> discuss their trading strategy since trading strategies use some> Indicator by some author.> > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Drag n' dropGet easy photo sharing with Windows Live Photos. > http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowslive/photos.aspx >
