On Tue, May 24, 2005 at 09:32:03PM +0300, Tzafrir Cohen wrote: > > You seems to have missed Shlomi's valid point here: > > Infriging copyrights is not exactly stealing, because the copyrights > holder is still left with the "goods". It may be illegal, immoral and/or > publically non-hygienic, but it is still not stealing just as much that > rape is not murder.
It's taking of something that you don't have permission to. If that is not stealing, what is? > The term "intelectual property" is intended to bind together a set of > quite unrelated legal terms and make them appear similar. Patents are > originally intended to promote the generation of knowledge by revealing > new technologies (not making them trade secrets). Can you use a patent > description today to actually replicate the invention? Does a typical > patent has any use after its "protection" period has passed? Yes. It documents an invention. Once the period of the patent has passed, the invention passes into the PUBLIC DOMAIN. At that time you are free to copy it, manufacture it, sell it, whatever you want. And if someone sues you for doing it you can show the judge the patent and that ends their case. > Copyrights had a similar goal, but that goal has long been eroded. And > worse, they originalll only applied to distribution, but now they seem > to also apply to the use (with the lousy but legal excuse that every > practical usage with a computer involves copying). It's not a lousy excuse. It boils down to the fact that you are buying a LICENSE to use the software, not the software. It's a two edged sword, you can sue someone for stealing music or software and you can sue someone for violating the GPL. Note that without copyright laws the GPL would not exist. It would be a request, but your claim would have no teeth. GPL violations are copyright violation suits. > The way I see it the copyrights system gives authors too broad > protection. Thus too much work will practically never be in the public > domain and be a source of inspiration for future authors. It is well > known that with today's copyright laws, many of the early Disny films > couldn't have been made. That's your opinion. > Sadly too many people are not aware of those points and of the damage > caused to authors by "intelectual property" laws of today. However I > have not expected someone like you to be of those. Nor I, you. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel [EMAIL PROTECTED] N3OWJ/4X1GM IL Voice: (077)-424-1667 IL Fax: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838 VoN Skype: mendelsonfamily ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
