Re: PCT (Patents, Copyright, Trademark) policy and Open Source
On Sun, 1 Feb 2004, Danese Cooper wrote: I know that some of the bigger firms in the US are explicitly copyrighting their briefs. Having a copyright on an expression of an information process is very different than having a patent on the process itself. As long as you don't infringe on their copy then you have no problem with a copyright, but with a patent it applies to all ways to express a given information process. Given the need to publish precedent with the legal system (a form of open source) the copyright on these briefs would have to be licensed adequately open already. I do believe that problems created in computer software ends up showing up in other fields. We need to eradicate information process patents here before it causes more serious damage in other more critical aspects of our society (legal system, electoral/parliamentary system, governance/democracy, etc - code is law). --- Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: http://www.flora.ca/ Governance software that controls ICT, automates government policy, or electronically counts votes, shouldn't be bought any more than politicians should be bought. -- http://www.flora.ca/russell/ -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: PCT (Patents, Copyright, Trademark) policy and Open Source
On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Ken Brown wrote: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1462778,00.asp I love it. They filed a patent for a process my company had a working example of long before the date of filing, and unlike these guys, we actually implemented it and ran it. We don't run our site, SourceXchange, any longer, but it's still infuriating to see IBM take credit for this. If anyone had a need to debunk this patent, let me know. Isn't there some clearing house for prior art should it ever be needed? Game theory lesson: file a patent on *anything* you're doing. I'm considering filing one on the particular way I walk down the hall after waking up in the morning. Brian -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: PCT (Patents, Copyright, Trademark) policy and Open Source
Brian Behlendorf scripsit: I love it. They filed a patent for a process my company had a working example of long before the date of filing, and unlike these guys, we actually implemented it and ran it. We don't run our site, SourceXchange, any longer, but it's still infuriating to see IBM take credit for this. If anyone had a need to debunk this patent, let me know. Isn't there some clearing house for prior art should it ever be needed? Since the patent was published less than 60 days ago, we are still within the window to send prior art directly to the USPTO. Please consider doing this. See http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200401/msg01114.html for what can be done to break patents *with* the system, rather than laboriously and expensively in court. Game theory lesson: file a patent on *anything* you're doing. I'm considering filing one on the particular way I walk down the hall after waking up in the morning. Why not? That Australian patent attorney who patented his kid's method of swinging on a swing is leading the way. Next step: the patented legal argument. -- By Elbereth and Luthien the Fair, you shall[EMAIL PROTECTED] have neither the Ring nor me! --Frodo http://www.ccil.org/~cowan -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: PCT (Patents, Copyright, Trademark) policy and Open Source
I know that some of the bigger firms in the US are explicitly copyrighting their briefs. D John Cowan wrote: Game theory lesson: file a patent on *anything* you're doing. I'm considering filing one on the particular way I walk down the hall after waking up in the morning. Why not? That Australian patent attorney who patented his kid's method of swinging on a swing is leading the way. Next step: the patented legal argument. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: PCT (Patents, Copyright, Trademark) policy and Open Source
On Mon, Jan 26, 2004 at 10:06:10AM -0500, Russell McOrmond wrote: I believe that with the speed of software innovation that comparing 20 years to 50 years (or 75-95 in the USA - I forget how far the USA has gone) for exclusive rights in software is like having a philosophical debate about whether infinity or infinity-minus-one is larger. Patents get 14-20 years depending upon the type of patent: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/iip/data.htm#PatentProtectionLength Copyright depends on the circumstances of the creation. Works for hire get 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shortest. An individual or more than one author who did not create a work for hire receive a term of life + 70 years. So at an age of 26 if I create a work not for hire and live to be 100, the copyright term could be 144 years. http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#hlc So assuming the longest possible fixed terms (120 years for copyright and 20 years for patents) a copyright term can be 6 times longer than a patent. If it's not a work for hire as most open source probably isn't, it can be even longer. I don't see how you can claim this is an infinity-minus-one vs infinity argument. Plus you entirely ignored the main point of my response. To my knowledge nowhere in the patent law does it strip a copyright holder of his copyright. Patents and copyrights are not mutually exclusive rights. They exist in parallel. You maintain your copyright on an implementation of a patented algorithm. You simply may owe royalties to the patent holder for the term of their patent. If the length of a patent hurts software innovation was not the point. Nor did I make any commentary on that. I simply pointed out an inaccuracy in your statement. While you may not agree with what I am saying, I do not agree that I am distorting things. You implied that a patent was mutually exclusive to a copyright. If that's not a distortion then I'm not sure what your definition of the word is. I am being aggressive as most of the responses have been from Alexander Terekhov at IBM who is strongly opposed to what I had to say. It is hard for me to not get an aggressive tone considering the way he replied to my messages. Calling me a Communist was classic, and I doubt many other people here would have remained any calmer having read such things said of themself. I'd note I made specific note that some of the responses you got weren't good either. This is an interesting interpretation of things as I do not see very many people disagreeing with me, or even participating in this thread. By number of messages you may be correct, but most of the responses have been from Alexander. Other people posting? Okay maybe I got the number of people posting confused. But I do think Alexander posted a number of informative links. That included rational explantions for his position. You responded back and forth with him eventually posting a series of questions of him. At the end of which you said: When answering these questions please don't just think of what IBM or its employees would privately benefit from, but from what the larger software sector(s) and economy outside of IBM would benefit from. Thereby implying that he hadn't done that already. I'd argue that his previous informative links and commentary showed in my mind that he was trying to do that. Certainly if I were him I would have been offended that because you didn't share my opinion that you decided to call my opinion self centered after the effort he went into explaining his position. I can't defend him calling you a communist. But I don't think you were exactly being fair in your treatment of him either. I have reached out to many people at IBM over the years, and each offer the same general perspective which is that in their mind that software patents are good for software creators. While I agree that software patents are good for IBM, I (obviously strongly ;-) disagree that they are good for software creators generally. I opened the discussion here in the hopes that the OSI (which I am not a member of, just a supporter) could form a position on this important issue and publish that position. Alexander is going to be quite accessible as a participant in this forum and works for IBM. He has expressed what I believe to be an honest personal belief (and not just him towing the corporate line) that having software patentable is good for software creators. I do not understand his beliefs, but he has been quite clear. Didn't say he hadn't. There is little that can be said that the entire Open Source community agrees about, so that isn't reason enough to not discuss something ;-) Not talking about a quite critical issue when there is a lack of understanding isn't going to solve things either. Alexander has expressed that he believes that software patents are good for software
Re: PCT (Patents, Copyright, Trademark) policy and Open Source
On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Ben Reser wrote: I don't see how you can claim this is an infinity-minus-one vs infinity argument. ... If the length of a patent hurts software innovation was not the point. Nor did I make any commentary on that. I simply pointed out an inaccuracy in your statement. ... Just to clarify, I am not disagreeing with your interpretation of the law and it is how I interpret the law as well. What I was trying to say is exactly what you do not want to comment on which is that when talking about *software* creations and speed of *software* innovation that talking about 14-20 years vs 50-120 years (depending on country, when the creator died, etc) becomes a *practical* argument of infinity vs infinity-plus-one. Me authoring FLOSS software which I am not allowed to distribute until the end of the term of a patent I was unaware of when I created the software (and I have no way to innovate around) has the *effect* of not allowing me to exercise rights I would normally have in copyright such as the right to distribute my own software. It is true that I still hold copyright and will be able to exercise those rights at the end of the term of the patent, but with the speed of innovation in software this really doesn't offer me much. Having multiple rights to exclude being in parallel means that you can only distribute the work if you have somehow cleared all the exclusions. The suggestion that you can simply pay some royalty (assuming RAND of course - I shouldn't need a lawyer to author software..) ignores a lot of situations and business models that do not rely on monopoly-rent-seeking, or otherwise have no way to collect this rent. With FLOSS it doesn't matter if the royalty is a million dollars per copy or a millionth of a cent per copy, you do not have the right/ability to count copies under FLOSS license agreements so you cannot successfully negotiate a rent-seeking license agreement. The only way the copyright holder is able to distribute their software as FLOSS is if the patent holder offers a worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free, field-of-use-unrestricted patent license. If the motivation for applying for the patent was to collect monopoly-rents then why would they offer that RF license? If the motivation for applying for the patent was to exclude competitors and simply have a monopoly, then why would they offer that RF license? If the motivation for the patent was to ensure that only a small number of large companies could exist and compete in a given market, then why would they offer that RF license? Why should my right to receive the moral and material benefits from my own software under copyright be dependent on the benevolence of a patent holder who I received nothing from? If I actually read their patent and learned something then maybe there can claim to be an exchange, but I see little evidence that people in the software industry learn from patents. In fact most software creators I know avoid looking at patents for fear of being tainted by them. Thereby implying that he hadn't done that already. I'd argue that his previous informative links and commentary showed in my mind that he was trying to do that. Did you read all the links and commentary? I did, and I disagree that he was demonstrating thinking outside of the IBM box. I understand why unlimited patentability is good for very large companies like IBM and can't argue against. I do not believe that what is good for IBM is good for the software sector of the economy as a whole. I did not see explanations of how unlimited patentability would be good for SMBs or other sectors (such as the volunteer sector, private citizens innovating in their home, etc) for which information process patents are only a liability and a chill on their creativity. Certainly if I were him I would have been offended that because you didn't share my opinion that you decided to call my opinion self centered after the effort he went into explaining his position. I don't believe he explained his position. When asking direct questions they were avoided. I put a list of many of my questions in a single message just in case they were missed and did not receive replies. My hope was to bring the conversation to the point where the reasons for each side were clear, possibly even to the point some trusted third party could tabulate the pros-and-cons of information process patents. This would allow people to look at the core areas of disagreement and decide for themselves where their priorities were and what the balance of public policy goals should be. I am being honest when I say I am baffled by the views of those who support information process patents. I am not trying to be insulting when I try to get answers, but the other side suggesting that I am somehow 'stupid' for not understanding their logic, or that I am being dishonest, or that I am a communist or some other 'ist, doesn't help the
Re: PCT (Patents, Copyright, Trademark) policy and Open Source
Just a coupe of corrections: On Tuesday 27 January 2004 21:11, Robert Osfield wrote: The software patents directive which so far has been turned around at first vote in EP vote back in the summer which ratified that pure software is patentable, as per the 1974 Europen Patent Convention. Should read: The software patents directive which so far has been turned around at first vote in EP vote back in *September* which ratified that pure software is *not* patentable, as per the 1974 European Patent Convention. Regards, Robert. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: PCT (Patents, Copyright, Trademark) policy and Open Source
Hi Alex, On Wednesday 28 January 2004 15:19, Alexander Terekhov wrote: As an individual (being not at work and not part of some collaborative product development community [CPL terms are the best for it, I believe]), I release the code straight into the public domain, for example: www.terekhov.de/pthread_refcount_t/experimental/refcount.cpp I too have written ref counting code, open sourced of course. But this really doesn't have any relevance on whether SW-pats are good or bad, and nothing to do with whats going on in EU. Rober Osfield wrote: [...] The software patents directive which so far has been turned around at first vote in EP vote back in *September* which ratified that pure software is *not* patentable, as per the 1974 European Patent Convention. http://www.ipjur.com/2003_09_01_archive.php3 quote The misinformation campaign staged by the Eurolinux Alliance is really horrendous. /quote It is interesting that you quote one of the most pro software patent activists in Europe for nice unbiased analysis. To balance things here's a some background on the Author of this report Axel H Horns : http://swpat.ffii.org/players/horns/index.en.html Feel free to interpret what you think is the truth and from whom, I'll let the members of the list make their own opinions. I would suggest you take time to understand the concerns of others over software patents. We don't all have the luxury of being employed by a big corporations with big law departments. This doesn't make us less innovative or our opinions any less valid, but it does make use very aware of vulnerabilities and risks to our livelihood. Robert. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: PCT (Patents, Copyright, Trademark) policy and Open Source
Robert Osfield wrote: [...] vulnerabilities and risks to our livelihood. If you don't intend to eliminate all IP laws (as an ultimate solution to the problem of vulnerabilities and risks), then something like www.pubpat.org is the way to go, I think. regards, alexander. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: PCT (Patents, Copyright, Trademark) policy and Open Source
On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Alexander Terekhov wrote: Robert Osfield wrote: [...] vulnerabilities and risks to our livelihood. If you don't intend to eliminate all IP laws Please stop trying to prove Richard Stallman correct by abusing the term Intellectual Property to suggest that you are either for IP, or against IP. http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#IntellectualProperty Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks are self contradictory (if you offer more protection to one group you are taking that protection *AWAY* from another) and are a balance between competing interests. Sometimes, just sometimes, the public interest is considered in this area of public policy (but unfortunately not as often as it should be). Patents and Copyrights are to inventors and creators like water is to humans: too little and you dehydrate and die, and too much and you drown and die. Only with the right balance can we survive. Hopefully most people will see through attempts to drown us, and instead work with us to try to create the right balance between competing interests that best serves the entire software sector (software manufacturing and FLOSS) as well as the public good. (as an ultimate solution to the problem of vulnerabilities and risks), then something like www.pubpat.org is the way to go, I think. This is like thinking that the solution to nuclear weapons in the hands of bad people is to have more nuclear weapons in the hands of good people (recognizing of course that who is bad and who is good is an extremely subjective and political determination). The problem is that patent pools and expensive fights against the extremely high number of poor quality patents in information processes only works for organizations with a lot of money (Like IBM) or some sort of benefactors of those monied special interests. Threats and chills on innovation are not reduced by this, and the only real solution is non-proliferation treaties to try to rid us of the problem in the first place. http://www.pubpat.org/ is not a solution to the information process patent problem, but I would agree it will help in subject matter areas where patent policy is mostly helpful but poor patents still get in. The first part of recognizing the problem we are trying to discuss here is to recognize that those who are against information process patents are not necessarily against patents in other sucject matter. We just believe that the logic and justification behind patent policy fails in some of the recently expanded subject matter areas. Subject-matter independent economic analysis is needed, and this analysis is currently not being done. Those who support patents in other subject matter should be helping us with these subject-matter independent analysis as the integrity of the entire patent system is being questioned because of improper expansion of patent policy into bad subject matter areas. Try this out: Offer the software community the justifications for patents, and we will explain why this doesn't apply to information processes like software. Here are just two of the most common ones and one possible response: Justification: the alternative to patents is trade secrets where we never learn about the invention. Patents get inventors to disclose the invention so that it is available to the public after the term of the patent, in exchange for a temporary monopoly. Response: distributed software is already published and not a trade secret. Whether the software is Open Source or not, the right to reverse engineer to create compatible products means that the 'invention' is never secret. In the case of many existing software patents the distributed software (disassembled) still provides more disclosure of the invention than the legalistic wording of the patents do. Non-distributed software embedded in internal processes (such as software that controls a robot to manufacture something) is a very separate situation. In this case if the process is patentable it is patentable regardless of the existence of the software (software neither adds to nor subtracts from the patentability of an invention). That does not mean that the software alone taken outside of the context of that manufacturing process should be patentable -- that is what the per say talks about, and the concept is quite simple even if obfusticated by those who wish to expand patent policy to information processes. Justification: long expensive up-front RD needs temporary monopoly to recoup capital costs. Response: I think FLOSS and small-business software manufacturing software authors (including shareware and freeware) have always tossed this idea out the door. Network effects and first mover advantage are often far more effective than a patent can be in gaining market share, and these effects apply equally in a free market sense to the entire sector and not just the largest players. As we move from
Re: PCT (Patents, Copyright, Trademark) policy and Open Source
On Wednesday 28 January 2004 17:59, Alexander Terekhov wrote: Robert Osfield wrote: [...] vulnerabilities and risks to our livelihood. If you don't intend to eliminate all IP laws (as an ultimate solution to the problem of vulnerabilities and risks), then something like www.pubpat.org is the way to go, I think. I certainly wish to eliminate all Intelectual Property laws, but I do believe in appropriate Intelectual Property laws. I don't believe that Software Patents are good for the Software Industry or Consumers, but I believe very strongly in Copyright law's applicability to the Software Industry. We *publish* our works which Copyright is designed for and fits pefectly. I welcome the help that Public Patent Foundation might provide in reducing the harmful affects of in appropriate Patenting, but its gotta be said this is a band aid rather than a cure for the problems that Software Patents can bring. Fixing the Directive's in European to ensure that pure Software and Business Methods arn't Patentable in Europe and elsewhere is very much preferable and effective as its cures the problem at the outset, rather than try to fix it late and downstream. Robert. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: PCT (Patents, Copyright, Trademark) policy and Open Source
Another interesting read is the U.S. Federal Trade Commission reaserch into patent policy and competition policy, you find extracts at: http://www.ffii.org.uk/ftc/ftc.html The conclusion are that in the software sector competition is much more important factor in driving innovation than patent protection. Robert. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: PCT (Patents, Copyright, Trademark) policy and Open Source
(Copying Eric Raymond in case he would find this thread interesting -- not sure if he is a member of the license-discuss list) While the discussions of copyright and patent law and licensing might be seen as on-topic, I suspect we are really sliding off-topic for this list with this message. It does go to the whole justification of patent policy in information processes, and how this area of policy is being abused. I just wish the OpenSource.org site had more appropriate lists to be discussing this. On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Ken Brown wrote: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1462778,00.asp Russell, Have you read this article? What are your thoughts? I read it and many other references posted to other forums. To me it it is standard IBM FUD suggesting that creating a monopoly on a business model will somehow make more money in a given market sector. The reality is that there is more money to be made in a free market where any entrepreneur can set up their own business. As a proponent of free market economics (free as in free market, not as in free beer) I strongly oppose business model and other information process monopolies. Having a business model monopoly does mean that the employees of the monopoly may appear to make more money given they don't have free market competition, but it is harmful to the economy as a whole. Great if you want to work for IBM, but I am an entrepreneur who wants to work for myself. I see this as yet another attempt by IBM to try to claim ownership over something in order to slow down a transition in the economy which IBM otherwise cannot control. This transition would force them to compete in a free market, including compete for highly competent employees who have far more options in a free market. I wish Eric Raymond would get as upset about this as he does the Microsoft Memos and write a new Halloween document about it. I agree that It Ain't Necessarily SCO, but think that we should stop staring at Microsoft to the point of not noticing what IBM is doing. Note: If all IBM wanted to do is prevent Microsoft from getting a patent on this method they could simply very publicly publish prior art. The suggestion some have made that IBM did this to protect the movement from Microsoft is rather amusing. If it were not for IBM lobbying for the creation of information process patents we would not likely have patents in this subject matter to need protection from in the first place. IBM was already pushing for information process patents back in the days when Microsoft was still on our side opposing software patents. http://swpat.ffii.org/players/microsoft/ --- Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: http://www.flora.ca/ Governance software that controls ICT, automates government policy, or electronically counts votes, shouldn't be bought any more than politicians should be bought. -- http://www.flora.ca/russell/ -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: PCT (Patents, Copyright, Trademark) policy and Open Source
Robert, I am really interested in this stuff. First all, I have to say that I suspect a tad bit of paranoia in the reporting about what's happening overseas. What sources are you quoting that talk about criminalization for patent infringement? I'd like to read that stuff. Russell McOrmond was saying that IBM is actively lobbying countries to change their software patent laws. Again, I haven't seen the reporting...not that I doubt it, but I just haven't seen any of the evidence. Meanwhile, Red Hat is a patent holder. What say you about that? kb -Original Message- From: Robert Osfield [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 4:51 AM To: Russell McOrmond; OSI license discussion Subject: Re: PCT (Patents, Copyright, Trademark) policy and Open Source Hi Russel, I expect your position is held by 95% of software developers, I havn't met one software engineer in my career, wether working on closed or open source, who has ever believed that software patents are good for the software industry. It is clear that software patents benefit large coorporations and patent lawyers, but the vast majority software industry is not in either of these catagories. Its my belief that software patents are the single greatest threat to SME's in the software sector and open source development. Open source depends upon contributions for many individuals, be them working for a corporation or on their own behalf. The increasing threat of patent litigation and the threat crimialisation of patent infringement (yep there's a directive including this going through the EU right now) is surefly going to make contributors think twice about submitting code, or starting a new project. Software engineers are often really generous with giving them time to public projects, by won't be happy doing time for doing so. Without contributors there is no open source. With copyright you can eaily be aware of when you're breaking someone elses copyright, you can manage this risk entirely. But with patents is very difficult to know whether you infringe or not, a patent can pop up even after you've developed something and published it, but then its down to the ficklness of court to prove that you don't infringe, if you can't afford to get to court then the onwer of even a bogus patent wins. Clearly their are lots of downsides to the open source from software patents. I have yet to so single positive reason for open source that software patents might bring. The only reason I've seen for pursuing software patents is that of defense, which pre-presumes that software patents exist or will exist which you'll need to defend against, but this is hardly a positive reason. Robert. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: PCT (Patents, Copyright, Trademark) policy and Open Source
Hi Ken, On Tuesday 27 January 2004 20:16, Ken Brown wrote: I am really interested in this stuff. First all, I have to say that I suspect a tad bit of paranoia in the reporting about what's happening overseas. Not overseas for me. I'm based in the Scotland, very much part of the EU for better or for worse. I prefer to be view myself as informed is being even a tad bit paranoid :) What sources are you quoting that talk about criminalization for patent infringement? Here's some source of information on the European situation. Basically there's two directives the Directive on Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement and the Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions. Two source for these are respectively: http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/IPEnforcementDirective http://ffii.org/ Both directives are controversial, the IP enforcement covers software patents and includes highly controversal criminal sanctions section. This is will go to the vote in the European Parliament (EP) in early February. The software patents directive which so far has been turned around at first vote in EP vote back in the summer which ratified that pure software is patentable, as per the 1974 Europen Patent Convention. However, the likes of IBM, Microsoft, Nokia, the patent lawyers are heavily lobbying to revert back to making software patentable. The Europen Commision is pro software patent, as is the Concil. The Council and the Commision aren't democratic bodies or carry out their work in public. Currently the Directive is back in the hands of the Council. So this particular battle is far from one. Once the Council has amended the directive, it'll be back to the EP for a final vote. I'm not an expert on this matters, its best to go to the above links, join the mailing lists, sign the call for action etc. Meanwhile, Red Hat is a patent holder. What say you about that? The thing called defensive patenting, so its nothing to worry about while the patents sit there idle. A waste of Red Hats time and money, but nothing too worrisome. The problem comes when the likes of Red Hat start to think they have nothing to loose and go on the Patent offensive. I can't ever imagine Red Hat becoming another SCO but management and circumstances can change. The real dangers lurk in other organisations though, the ones with more patents, or less to loose by unleashing them. Robert. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: PCT (Patents, Copyright, Trademark) policy and Open Source
Ken Brown wrote: [...] I am really interested in this stuff. First all, I have to say that I suspect a tad bit of paranoia in the reporting about what's happening overseas. What sources are you quoting that talk about criminalization for patent infringement? Sources in opposition to the following proposal for a directive (without later amendments), I guess. http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/com/pdf/2003/com2003_0046en01.pdf (see Article 20) I'd like to read that stuff. Read also this: http://www.europarl.eu.int/meetdocs/committees/juri/20031126/498789en.pdf (see Amendment 2 and Amendment 27) I may be missing and/or misunderstanding something, of course. Well, http://www.digital-law-online.com/lpdi1.0/treatise16.html (II.L.4. Criminal Infringement) regards, alexander. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
