Re: [bitcoin-dev] Open Block Chain Licence, BIP[xxxx] Draft

[Warren Togami Jr. via bitcoin-dev]

I am skeptical that any license for the blockchain itself is needed because
of the possibility that the blockchain is not entitled to copyright
protection.  While I am not a lawyer, I have stared hard at the copyright
doctrine of the U.S. in multiple law school Intellectual Property courses
and during my previous career in Open Source Software where copyright
matters a great deal.

As each owner of a
> coin makes a transfer by digitally signing a hash of the previous
> transaction along with the
> new owner’s public key, the block chain is a perpetual compilation of
> unique data.
> *It is therefore compiled in a creative and non-obvious way.* In the USA,
> for example, these
> attributes confer legal protections for databases which have been ruled
> upon by the courts.


This portion of your paper I believe is not true and requires citations if
you want to be convincing.  Is it truly "creative and non-obvious"?  My
understanding under at least U.S. law, the blockchain may not be entitled
to copyright protection because a compilation created in a mechanical
manner is not a creative work of a human.

I suppose a transaction could contain a "creative" element if it contains
arbitrary bytes of a message or clever script.  For the most part though
most of what you call "digitally signing a hash of the previous transaction
along with the new owner’s public key" is purely the result of a mechanical
process and really is not creative.  Furthermore, even if that output were
"non-obvious", obviousness has nothing to do with copyrightability.

Your license is correct in intent in attempting to exclude from the royalty
free grant works within the blockchain that themselves may be subject to
copyright of third parties.  The elements within the blockchain may be
entitled individually to copyright if they are in any way a creative work
of a human, but as a compilation I am doubtful the blockchain itself is
entitled to copyright.

I understand copyright with respect to databases can be different under
other jurisdictions.  Your paper mentions the European database law that is
indeed different from the U.S.  Your paper is incomplete in scholarly and
legal citations.  I myself and we as a community don't know enough.  I
suppose this topic merits further study.

Warren Togami

On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 6:30 AM, Ahmed Zsales via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> We believe the network requires a block chain licence to supplement the
> existing MIT Licence which we believe only covers the core reference client
> software.
>
> Replacing or amending the existing MIT Licence is beyond the scope of this
> draft BIP.
>
> Rationale and details of our draft BIP for discussion and evaluation are
> here:
>
>
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwEbhrQ4ELzBMVFxajNZa2hzMTg/view?usp=sharing
>
> Regards,
>
> Ahmed
>
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>
>
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Re: [bitcoin-dev] Open Block Chain Licence, BIP[xxxx] Draft

[Ahmed Zsales via bitcoin-dev]

Thanks Warren, very good feedback.

To avoid taking up too much of everyone's time at this point, I
think Wladimir's suggestion of placing this in a BIP advisory box for a
while is a good one. We did indicate that this might take a while to
gestate.

It is probably for us to do some further investigations and possibly engage
some input from a few miners.  We don't want to play at being lawyer, but
our review does point towards this being something worth coming back to.

In terms of citation, we did reference a case called *Feist*. We also found
some general database protection details which are relevant to the USA, if
you need any bed time reading:

http://copyright.gov/reports/dbase.html

For now, thanks to everyone for feedback and comments.

Regards,

Ahmed

On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 9:56 AM, Warren Togami Jr. via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> I am skeptical that any license for the blockchain itself is needed
> because of the possibility that the blockchain is not entitled to copyright
> protection.  While I am not a lawyer, I have stared hard at the copyright
> doctrine of the U.S. in multiple law school Intellectual Property courses
> and during my previous career in Open Source Software where copyright
> matters a great deal.
>
> As each owner of a
>> coin makes a transfer by digitally signing a hash of the previous
>> transaction along with the
>> new owner’s public key, the block chain is a perpetual compilation of
>> unique data.
>> *It is therefore compiled in a creative and non-obvious way.* In the
>> USA, for example, these
>> attributes confer legal protections for databases which have been ruled
>> upon by the courts.
>
>
> This portion of your paper I believe is not true and requires citations if
> you want to be convincing.  Is it truly "creative and non-obvious"?  My
> understanding under at least U.S. law, the blockchain may not be entitled
> to copyright protection because a compilation created in a mechanical
> manner is not a creative work of a human.
>
> I suppose a transaction could contain a "creative" element if it contains
> arbitrary bytes of a message or clever script.  For the most part though
> most of what you call "digitally signing a hash of the previous transaction
> along with the new owner’s public key" is purely the result of a mechanical
> process and really is not creative.  Furthermore, even if that output were
> "non-obvious", obviousness has nothing to do with copyrightability.
>
> Your license is correct in intent in attempting to exclude from the
> royalty free grant works within the blockchain that themselves may be
> subject to copyright of third parties.  The elements within the blockchain
> may be entitled individually to copyright if they are in any way a creative
> work of a human, but as a compilation I am doubtful the blockchain itself
> is entitled to copyright.
>
> I understand copyright with respect to databases can be different under
> other jurisdictions.  Your paper mentions the European database law that is
> indeed different from the U.S.  Your paper is incomplete in scholarly and
> legal citations.  I myself and we as a community don't know enough.  I
> suppose this topic merits further study.
>
> Warren Togami
>
> On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 6:30 AM, Ahmed Zsales via bitcoin-dev <
> bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> We believe the network requires a block chain licence to supplement the
>> existing MIT Licence which we believe only covers the core reference client
>> software.
>>
>> Replacing or amending the existing MIT Licence is beyond the scope of
>> this draft BIP.
>>
>> Rationale and details of our draft BIP for discussion and evaluation are
>> here:
>>
>>
>> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwEbhrQ4ELzBMVFxajNZa2hzMTg/view?usp=sharing
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Ahmed
>>
>> ___
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>> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
>>
>>
>
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Re: [bitcoin-dev] Open Block Chain Licence, BIP[xxxx] Draft

[Milly Bitcoin via bitcoin-dev]

We don't want to play at being
lawyer, but our review does point towards this being something worth
coming back to.

In terms of citation, we did reference a case called /Feist/.


I don't see how you can possibly conclude this effort is worth any 
additional time.  The legal reference is:  Feist Publications, Inc., v. 
Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991).  The court ruled that 
Rural's directory was nothing more than an alphabetic list of all 
subscribers to its service, which it was required to compile under law, 
and that no creative expression was involved. The fact that Rural spent 
considerable time and money collecting the data was irrelevant to 
copyright law, and Rural's copyright claim was dismissed.


If some entity puts a copyright notice, demands a license, signs 
software with a certificate, claims developers or miners are some legal 
entity, etc. then those entities are setting themselves up to be sued or 
prosecuted (whether legitimately or not).  There is no benefit to 
claiming such ownership or authority or issuing any license because 
nobody is going to enforce anything and they don't even have that 
authority anyway.  A 5-minute talk with an IP lawyer should confirm that 
... but you sound like you are not going to do that.  Bitcoin certainly 
attracts quite a number of completely irrational people.


Russ



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Re: [bitcoin-dev] Open Block Chain Licence, BIP[xxxx] Draft

[Btc Drak via bitcoin-dev]

Without commenting on your proposal at all, the general problem with
licensing after the fact is you require the permission of every
copyright holder in order to make the change.



On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 2:30 PM, Ahmed Zsales via bitcoin-dev
 wrote:
> Hello,
>
> We believe the network requires a block chain licence to supplement the
> existing MIT Licence which we believe only covers the core reference client
> software.
>
> Replacing or amending the existing MIT Licence is beyond the scope of this
> draft BIP.
>
> Rationale and details of our draft BIP for discussion and evaluation are
> here:
>
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwEbhrQ4ELzBMVFxajNZa2hzMTg/view?usp=sharing
>
> Regards,
>
> Ahmed
>
> ___
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>
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Re: [bitcoin-dev] Open Block Chain Licence, BIP[xxxx] Draft

[Milly Bitcoin via bitcoin-dev]

I would just like to labour the point that users pay to use the network,
but they have no defined rights, anywhere.


That is an interesting point.  That is a feature of Bitcoin, not a bug. 
 If the user did have rights to sue someone then the system would not 
be decentralized.  User rights = someone else has a liability for 
violating those rights.


As it is now a user would have the right to sue all the miners, node 
operators, and developers collectively.  Of course that is not realistic 
which is the way a decentralized system should be.  If you want to try 
to define specific entities that have liability then they must be in 
control or otherwise they would not be liable.


Russ






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Re: [bitcoin-dev] Open Block Chain Licence, BIP[xxxx] Draft

[Zach G via bitcoin-dev]

 The only reason someone would want to make a license is so they can 
sue/threaten people for not following the license rules. At best this is 
pointless since Bitcoin cannot be controlled, and at worst it will result in a 
group of people using coercion against the community to gain profits. 
 
 There is no legal ground for anyone to make a Bitcoin license, it simply 
wouldn't stand in court. Not even the MIT license is valid or meaningful. But I 
wouldn't be surprised if people tried scaring people with a license even if 
they knew it was invalid.


It's actually disgusting that you wrote what people are allowed and not 
allowed to do with Bitcoin. Pure centralization ideology. Maybe go work for the 
government and make regulations instead of trying to centralize one of the only 
de-centralized things left on the planet.

   


 

 

-Original Message-
From: Ahmed Zsales via bitcoin-dev 
To: Bitcoin Dev 
Sent: Tue, Sep 1, 2015 9:30 am
Subject: [bitcoin-dev]  Open Block Chain Licence, BIP[] Draft


 
Hello,  
   
  
  
We believe the network requires a block chain licence to supplement the 
existing MIT Licence which we believe only covers the core reference client 
software.  
  
   
  
  
Replacing or amending the existing MIT Licence is beyond the scope of this 
draft BIP.  
  
   
  
  
Rationale and details of our draft BIP for discussion and evaluation are here:  
  
   
  
  
   
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwEbhrQ4ELzBMVFxajNZa2hzMTg/view?usp=sharing   
  
  
   
  
  
Regards,  
  
   
  
  
Ahmed  
 
 

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Re: [bitcoin-dev] Open Block Chain Licence, BIP[xxxx] Draft

[Ahmed Zsales via bitcoin-dev]

To avoid repetition, we have actually covered the general points and
questions you have raised in the draft BIP, which includes a draft licence
to assist discussions:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwEbhrQ4ELzBMVFxajNZa2hzMTg/view?usp=sharing

Regards,

Ahmed

On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 11:02 PM, Btc Drak  wrote:

> I think it gets worse. Who are the copyright owners (if this actually
> applies). You've got people publishing transaction messages, you've
> got miners reproducing them and publishing blocks. Who are all the
> parties involved? Then to take pedantry to the next level, does a
> miner have permission to republish messages? How do you know? What if
> the messages are reproducing others copyright/licensed material? It's
> not possible to license someone else's work. There are plenty rabbit
> holes to go down with this train of thought.
>
> On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 8:36 PM, Ahmed Zsales via bitcoin-dev
>  wrote:
> > That is a very good point.
> >
> > We considered whether data existing before a licence change would be
> > covered, but we hadn't factored the potential need for gaining
> permissions
> > for a change to be considered effective.
> >
> > We have proposed that miners be the main beneficiaries of licensing and
> > there is a consideration on whether they should vote to adopt the new
> terms.
> > While not the preferred route, that would overcome any issues to what is
> an
> > otherwise honest 'error and omission.' There doesn't seem to be anyone
> who
> > could claim to have suffered any economic losses so this may not be an
> > issue. It merits further investigation.
> >
> > The block chain is in perpetual change, so the sooner a change is agreed
> > upon, if at all, the more data it will cover without any reservations. At
> > any rate, we believe the changes would be considered effective on a
> > retrospective basis.
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 7:12 PM, Btc Drak  wrote:
> >>
> >> Without commenting on your proposal at all, the general problem with
> >> licensing after the fact is you require the permission of every
> >> copyright holder in order to make the change.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 2:30 PM, Ahmed Zsales via bitcoin-dev
> >>  wrote:
> >> > Hello,
> >> >
> >> > We believe the network requires a block chain licence to supplement
> the
> >> > existing MIT Licence which we believe only covers the core reference
> >> > client
> >> > software.
> >> >
> >> > Replacing or amending the existing MIT Licence is beyond the scope of
> >> > this
> >> > draft BIP.
> >> >
> >> > Rationale and details of our draft BIP for discussion and evaluation
> are
> >> > here:
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwEbhrQ4ELzBMVFxajNZa2hzMTg/view?usp=sharing
> >> >
> >> > Regards,
> >> >
> >> > Ahmed
> >> >
> >> > ___
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> >> > bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
> >> > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
> >> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ___
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> > bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
> > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
> >
>
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Re: [bitcoin-dev] Open Block Chain Licence, BIP[xxxx] Draft

[Natanael via bitcoin-dev]

Den 2 sep 2015 00:03 skrev "Btc Drak via bitcoin-dev" <
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>:
>
> I think it gets worse. Who are the copyright owners (if this actually
> applies). You've got people publishing transaction messages, you've
> got miners reproducing them and publishing blocks. Who are all the
> parties involved? Then to take pedantry to the next level, does a
> miner have permission to republish messages? How do you know? What if
> the messages are reproducing others copyright/licensed material? It's
> not possible to license someone else's work. There are plenty rabbit
> holes to go down with this train of thought.

Worse yet - transaction malleability creates derative works with multiple
copyright holders (the original one, plus the author of the modification).
Is that even legal to do? What to do if a miner unknowingly accepts an
illegally modified transaction in a block? And can he who modified it ALSO
sue anybody replicating the block for infringement?

Better just put everything in public domain, or the closest thing to it you
can get. Copyright in the blockchain is essentially the DVDCSS illegal
prime mess all over again, but in a P2P network.
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Re: [bitcoin-dev] Open Block Chain Licence, BIP[xxxx] Draft

[Btc Drak via bitcoin-dev]

I have read the proposal. I think you missed my point: every existing
transaction author would be required to agree to your proposals for
them to be legal, and that's clearly impossible. You'd also need every
single miner who published a block. You're much better taking the line
that actually, the data is public domain and unrestricted based on
various assumptions.

You make some assumptions that transaction authors use Bitcoin Core to
"contract with the network", but in fact transactions are written and
broadcast by a number of means, arguably very few are created by
Bitcoin Core these days. How exactly do you expect to get a legally
binding agreement from all future transaction authors agreeing to your
terms? How would you prove Alice agreed 10 years later? If it was a
proprietary system like Paypal who can force you to agree or close
your account, the Bitcoin protocol is permissionless and anyone can
author a transaction using any means they like, not just Bitcoin Core.
So again I come back to the point your proposal would have to get
permission from all existing authors, and all future authors to work.

Overall I think the proposal is trying to fix something that doesn't
need fixing and get into a quagmire in the process. In fact, I see it
as an impossible task.

On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 11:11 PM, Ahmed Zsales  wrote:
> To avoid repetition, we have actually covered the general points and
> questions you have raised in the draft BIP, which includes a draft licence
> to assist discussions:
>
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwEbhrQ4ELzBMVFxajNZa2hzMTg/view?usp=sharing
>
> Regards,
>
> Ahmed
>
> On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 11:02 PM, Btc Drak  wrote:
>>
>> I think it gets worse. Who are the copyright owners (if this actually
>> applies). You've got people publishing transaction messages, you've
>> got miners reproducing them and publishing blocks. Who are all the
>> parties involved? Then to take pedantry to the next level, does a
>> miner have permission to republish messages? How do you know? What if
>> the messages are reproducing others copyright/licensed material? It's
>> not possible to license someone else's work. There are plenty rabbit
>> holes to go down with this train of thought.
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 8:36 PM, Ahmed Zsales via bitcoin-dev
>>  wrote:
>> > That is a very good point.
>> >
>> > We considered whether data existing before a licence change would be
>> > covered, but we hadn't factored the potential need for gaining
>> > permissions
>> > for a change to be considered effective.
>> >
>> > We have proposed that miners be the main beneficiaries of licensing and
>> > there is a consideration on whether they should vote to adopt the new
>> > terms.
>> > While not the preferred route, that would overcome any issues to what is
>> > an
>> > otherwise honest 'error and omission.' There doesn't seem to be anyone
>> > who
>> > could claim to have suffered any economic losses so this may not be an
>> > issue. It merits further investigation.
>> >
>> > The block chain is in perpetual change, so the sooner a change is agreed
>> > upon, if at all, the more data it will cover without any reservations.
>> > At
>> > any rate, we believe the changes would be considered effective on a
>> > retrospective basis.
>> >
>> >
>> > On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 7:12 PM, Btc Drak  wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Without commenting on your proposal at all, the general problem with
>> >> licensing after the fact is you require the permission of every
>> >> copyright holder in order to make the change.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 2:30 PM, Ahmed Zsales via bitcoin-dev
>> >>  wrote:
>> >> > Hello,
>> >> >
>> >> > We believe the network requires a block chain licence to supplement
>> >> > the
>> >> > existing MIT Licence which we believe only covers the core reference
>> >> > client
>> >> > software.
>> >> >
>> >> > Replacing or amending the existing MIT Licence is beyond the scope of
>> >> > this
>> >> > draft BIP.
>> >> >
>> >> > Rationale and details of our draft BIP for discussion and evaluation
>> >> > are
>> >> > here:
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwEbhrQ4ELzBMVFxajNZa2hzMTg/view?usp=sharing
>> >> >
>> >> > Regards,
>> >> >
>> >> > Ahmed
>> >> >
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>> >> > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
>> >> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
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>> >
>
>
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Re: [bitcoin-dev] Open Block Chain Licence, BIP[xxxx] Draft

[Ahmed Zsales via bitcoin-dev]

This is good feedback. Thank you.

Very briefly:

> "To put a license on something you have to own it in the first place." ##
The block chain is a database. There are laws to protect databases. We have
suggested who might be best placed to be assigned rights to the block chain
and more importantly why.

> "A copyright is about protecting revenue" ## Not always. It can also be
about saying you have a right to something and you give up those rights.
There are likely to be many examples where this could be applied, for
example - if you transact with someone and government agencies develop the
means to reveal your transaction, a licence gives protections which might
otherwise not be there in the absence of a licence. The MIT licence does
something similar - the Core developers give up their rights to revenue
from the software. Not wishing to go down rabbit hole, why not just remove
the MIT licence?

> "it is not up to you, or anyone else, to come up with the form of a
license to control data owned by someone else." ## It is up to us to
produce some guidance and context to assist with the BIP discussion
process. If anyone else has any suggestions on wording or access to legal
advice, that will be helpful.

> "Then the miner can charge a fee for any public block explorer that wants
to display the block at their web site" ## I would oppose any wording that
attempted to do anything of the sort. Bitcoin works because the block chain
is in the public domain. We have included references to royalty free use of
the data.

> "If there are rights it is up to miners to come up with their license."
## The original reference client did everything. A block chain licence was
probably not envisioned. Mining has taken a different path from that which
was intended. Nevertheless, one needs to start somewhere. The proposal to
assign rights to miners is just that, a proposal.

I would just like to labour the point that users pay to use the network,
but they have no defined rights, anywhere.

Regards,

Ahmed

On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 11:42 PM, Milly Bitcoin via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> The general points and questions you have raised are covered in the
>> draft BIP:
>>
>
> No, the BIP makes some weird statements that don't really make sense.
>
> Number one rule here:  To put a license on something you have to own it in
> the first place.
>
> Let's say for the sake of argument that Miners own the copyright on a
> block they find (as pointed out something like does not normally get
> copyright protection but let's just pretend).  Then the miner can charge a
> fee for any public block explorer that wants to display the block at their
> web site.  They could also try to collect a fee from anyone who distributes
> it (like Bitcoin users using p2p to distribute the blockchain).  A
> copyright is about protecting revenue.  Is there some other purpose of
> putting a license on intellectual property?
>
> Also, it is not up to you, or anyone else, to come up with the form of a
> license to control data owned by someone else.  How can you force miners
> or users to use any specific license that you come up with?
>
> There are a number of other weird statements that really don't make any
> kind of sense:
>
> "In the USA, for example, these attributes confer legal protections for
> databases which have been ruled upon by the courts."  I have no idea what
> this means or what court cases you are referring to.
>
> "The Bitcoin Core Miners" is not an identifiable entity and cannot own
> intellectual property rights.  What is the purpose of you putting a notice
> that some unidentifiable entity has some sort of rights over the blockchain
> data?  You are not that entity and neither are the developers.  If there
> are rights it is up to miners to come up with their license.
>
> "[users] own the rights to their individual transactions through
> cryptograph security."  I have no idea what this means.  It is certainly
> not intellectual property rights of anything I am familiar with.  Once
> again, if the users do have intellectual rights then someone else cannot
> dictate the terms of the license.  They could charge a fee for miners
> publishing their transaction data.
>
>
> Russ
>
>
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Re: [bitcoin-dev] Open Block Chain Licence, BIP[xxxx] Draft

[Wladimir J. van der Laan via bitcoin-dev]

On Tue, Sep 01, 2015 at 02:30:17PM +0100, Ahmed Zsales via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> We believe the network requires a block chain licence to supplement the
> existing MIT Licence which we believe only covers the core reference client
> software.

As long as it's an open system, one can't require a specific license for 
everything added to the chain.

You could of course make the BIP advisory, but I'm not sure what that would 
help. You still wouldn't have any certainty what license the contents of block 
# would be under.

Wladimir
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Re: [bitcoin-dev] Open Block Chain Licence, BIP[xxxx] Draft

[Ahmed Zsales via bitcoin-dev]

Russ,

The general points and questions you have raised are covered in the draft
BIP:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwEbhrQ4ELzBMVFxajNZa2hzMTg/view?usp=sharing

Regards,

Ahmed

On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 10:36 PM, Milly Bitcoin via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> We considered whether data existing before a licence change would be
>> covered, but we hadn't factored the potential need for gaining
>> permissions for a change to be considered effective.
>>
>> We have proposed that miners be the main beneficiaries of licensing and
>> there is a consideration on whether they should vote to adopt the new
>> terms. While not the preferred route, that would overcome any issues to
>> what is an otherwise honest 'error and omission.' There doesn't seem to
>> be anyone who could claim to have suffered any economic losses so this
>> may not be an issue. It merits further investigation.
>>
>
> Like I said, you need to talk to a lawyer.  What exactly would be the
> purpose of any license?  How can someone be a "beneficiary" to a license
> when you can't even explain who holds the license to begin with?  How do
> they "benefit?"  I don't see any purpose to putting a license on the Core
> software or the blockchain because nobody can explain who actually holds
> the license and there is no mechanism to enforce any license and there is
> no revenue to be shared.  The whole discussion makes no sense.
>
> Russ
>
>
>
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Re: [bitcoin-dev] Open Block Chain Licence, BIP[xxxx] Draft

[Milly Bitcoin via bitcoin-dev]

The general points and questions you have raised are covered in the
draft BIP:


No, the BIP makes some weird statements that don't really make sense.

Number one rule here:  To put a license on something you have to own it 
in the first place.


Let's say for the sake of argument that Miners own the copyright on a 
block they find (as pointed out something like does not normally get 
copyright protection but let's just pretend).  Then the miner can charge 
a fee for any public block explorer that wants to display the block at 
their web site.  They could also try to collect a fee from anyone who 
distributes it (like Bitcoin users using p2p to distribute the 
blockchain).  A copyright is about protecting revenue.  Is there some 
other purpose of putting a license on intellectual property?


Also, it is not up to you, or anyone else, to come up with the form of a 
license to control data owned by someone else.  How can you force miners 
 or users to use any specific license that you come up with?


There are a number of other weird statements that really don't make any 
kind of sense:


"In the USA, for example, these attributes confer legal protections for 
databases which have been ruled upon by the courts."  I have no idea 
what this means or what court cases you are referring to.


"The Bitcoin Core Miners" is not an identifiable entity and cannot own 
intellectual property rights.  What is the purpose of you putting a 
notice that some unidentifiable entity has some sort of rights over the 
blockchain data?  You are not that entity and neither are the 
developers.  If there are rights it is up to miners to come up with 
their license.


"[users] own the rights to their individual transactions through 
cryptograph security."  I have no idea what this means.  It is certainly 
not intellectual property rights of anything I am familiar with.  Once 
again, if the users do have intellectual rights then someone else cannot 
dictate the terms of the license.  They could charge a fee for miners 
publishing their transaction data.


Russ


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Re: [bitcoin-dev] Open Block Chain Licence, BIP[xxxx] Draft

[Btc Drak via bitcoin-dev]

I think it gets worse. Who are the copyright owners (if this actually
applies). You've got people publishing transaction messages, you've
got miners reproducing them and publishing blocks. Who are all the
parties involved? Then to take pedantry to the next level, does a
miner have permission to republish messages? How do you know? What if
the messages are reproducing others copyright/licensed material? It's
not possible to license someone else's work. There are plenty rabbit
holes to go down with this train of thought.

On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 8:36 PM, Ahmed Zsales via bitcoin-dev
 wrote:
> That is a very good point.
>
> We considered whether data existing before a licence change would be
> covered, but we hadn't factored the potential need for gaining permissions
> for a change to be considered effective.
>
> We have proposed that miners be the main beneficiaries of licensing and
> there is a consideration on whether they should vote to adopt the new terms.
> While not the preferred route, that would overcome any issues to what is an
> otherwise honest 'error and omission.' There doesn't seem to be anyone who
> could claim to have suffered any economic losses so this may not be an
> issue. It merits further investigation.
>
> The block chain is in perpetual change, so the sooner a change is agreed
> upon, if at all, the more data it will cover without any reservations. At
> any rate, we believe the changes would be considered effective on a
> retrospective basis.
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 7:12 PM, Btc Drak  wrote:
>>
>> Without commenting on your proposal at all, the general problem with
>> licensing after the fact is you require the permission of every
>> copyright holder in order to make the change.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 2:30 PM, Ahmed Zsales via bitcoin-dev
>>  wrote:
>> > Hello,
>> >
>> > We believe the network requires a block chain licence to supplement the
>> > existing MIT Licence which we believe only covers the core reference
>> > client
>> > software.
>> >
>> > Replacing or amending the existing MIT Licence is beyond the scope of
>> > this
>> > draft BIP.
>> >
>> > Rationale and details of our draft BIP for discussion and evaluation are
>> > here:
>> >
>> >
>> > https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwEbhrQ4ELzBMVFxajNZa2hzMTg/view?usp=sharing
>> >
>> > Regards,
>> >
>> > Ahmed
>> >
>> > ___
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>> > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
>> >
>
>
>
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Re: [bitcoin-dev] Open Block Chain Licence, BIP[xxxx] Draft

[Ahmed Zsales via bitcoin-dev]

Thank you. We hadn't seen that before.  It is an interesting discussion.

We did think about including some references to protections for private
keys while they remained in your control and you could prove as much. In
theory it should be no different to dropping money on the floor. The money
still belongs to you, even if someone else comes along and finds it. The
onus of proof is on you as the owner to demonstrate private keys are yours,
but you also need the goodwill of the person finding the money.

However, this raised a number of issues including whether finding private
keys attached to coins and moving the funds constituted theft, in which
case there are already criminal protections if you are able to track the
coins to an individual. We decided not to include anything specific in the
draft licence to keep it simple, relying instead on the generic definitions
of rights to *private transaction data* of which private keys would come
under.

Regards,

Ahmed



On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 2:50 PM, Bryan Bishop  wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 8:30 AM, Ahmed Zsales via bitcoin-dev <
> bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>
>> We believe the network requires a block chain licence
>
>
> Here is a previous discussion of this topic (2012):
> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=117663.0
>
> - Bryan
> http://heybryan.org/
> 1 512 203 0507
>
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Re: [bitcoin-dev] Open Block Chain Licence, BIP[xxxx] Draft

[Bryan Bishop via bitcoin-dev]

On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 8:30 AM, Ahmed Zsales via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> We believe the network requires a block chain licence


Here is a previous discussion of this topic (2012):
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=117663.0

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507
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Re: [bitcoin-dev] Open Block Chain Licence, BIP[xxxx] Draft

[Milly Bitcoin via bitcoin-dev]

We believe the network requires a block chain licence to supplement the
existing MIT Licence which we believe only covers the core reference
client software.


I suggest talking to a lawyer first.  To have a license you need an 
entity that holds the license.  What entity actually holds the MIT 
license?  There is a copyright notice on the Core Client that claims the 
license is held by the developers.  It that the main core developers, 
anyone who has ever submitted an accepted pull request, or something 
else?  I don't think there is any kind of valid license on the software 
to begin with.  Just posting a notice does not make it true just like 
all those "terms of use" web notices are generally not valid contracts 
(see "click wrap vs. "browser wrap" discussions).


What entity would actually hold a "blockchain license" and who decides 
who would hold the license?  If the developers decide there should be a 
license that means the developers own the blockchain and I don't think 
that is consistent with what is going on here.


Russ


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