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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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,

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

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 =

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

- From: Ahmed Zsales via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> To: Bitcoin Dev <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> Sent: Tue, Sep 1, 2015 9:30 am Subject: [bitcoin-dev] Open Block Chain Licence, BIP[] Draft Hello, We believe the network requires a

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

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,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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: >

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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/

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

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