Re: Attn: Gordon: Your "Electronics for Dummies"

D. Jay Newman wrote:

mlw wrote:
D. Jay Newman wrote:

mlw wrote:

Sorry. Fair use includes copying part of a work under certain
circumstanses, but not the whole of a work. This includes
non-profit uses.

Actually, there are four tests for fair use, that is only one of them,
they are:

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is
of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantially of the portion used in relation to the
copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the
copyrighted work.

Not all of these tests have to be satisfied as far as I know.

I may be wrong, but I think that in practice *all* of the tests
must be considered.

Yes, "considered."

Notice that test #1 specifically states "nonprofit educational
purposes" rather than just "nonprofit purposes".

"educational" is a very slippery word, there is no institutional requirement
that I am aware of.

This would not need to be included if it was not meant to
be considered together with the other rules.

And I believe that "educational purposes" are legally for
the purpose of teaching others, not yourself.

Why? People have the right to teach themselves.


I am not a lawyer. As a writer I am starting to look
into copyright law.

I have had to study a *lot* of IP crap the last few years. In much of this
discussion, I am playing devil's advocate, but I am *very* concerned about
intellectual property law running crazy.


If it isn't worth it to buy it, thenb it isn't right to use it.

I'm pretty sure no one who uses a computer deeply believes this. They may
think they believe it, but unless you are a rarity you have programs you
have copied.

Maybe I'm naive, but I don't believe this. The only applications on
my computer are legally obtained. I do *not* illegally copy software
(or anything else if possible).

Then I applaud you! I don't know anyone else that doesn't have an
unregistered copy of WinZip or something on their machine.


I have no illegal software on any of the computers in my house to my
knowledge. Neither my wife nor I would use such software anyway.

Again, good for you, you lead an honest life. Did you ever see "Dogma?" Loki
won't kill you.


I know this isn't copyright, but did you send unisys money to use the GIF
decoder? Are you going to send Forgent Networks money to use your JPEG
software?

Actually both of these entities have agreed that the decoders are
fine. Only the software that make such images costs money. And
I have paid for such things indirectly by buying commercial
graphics programs.

Assuming, of course, that you don't have devices or programs purchased
before the JPEG patent was announced or were produced without paying
royalties. Have you actually verified that you are in compliance? It is
probably impossible to know for sure.


For example, if I have a house that nobody is living in, you
cannot live in it without coming to some arrangement with me.

That is fundamentally different, and you should know that. Merely using a
house creates wear and diminishes the value.
>
However, if I stayed there, and you never, ever knew, and I left nothing
broken or worn, would it really make a difference?

I might not know if a single book from my library was stolen, but
it would still be theft.

You would know because it wasn't there.


Even if, as a squatter, you added value to the house (by keeping
the garden flowering and repainting and such), you would still
be there illegally.

Yes, yes, "illegally," sure, everyone breaks the law every day doing
something: littering, speeding, saying curse words in public, eating
peanuts in church, or thousands of other "important" laws. It is
impossible in the U.S.A. to go 24 hours and NOT break the law in some way.
Some things are more illegal than others. Typically, though not always, the
important measure is "harm" in the choice of enforcement.


An even better analogy, for software. If I get a copy of software, who
cares what. It isn't something I would ever buy, but if someone gives me
a copy, I should be able to use it as long as: I do not profit from it
and my use of it does not diminish the value of the work.

If you use software that you have not paid for then you are gaining
some value that you are not passing back to the copyright owner.

It doesn't matter if you downloaded a copy of the work or somebody
gave you a copy.

I think there is a cultural "IP" brainwashing going on that people need
to really sit back and think about. We *really* need to think about what
"property" is.

Think carefully about libraries, the property is the paper on which the
work is published. The library allows anyone to borrow the book. Surely
that is a violation of your "use without compensation" ideals.

No, the library has legally obtained that book. This would be like
loaning a book of your's to a friend. While I have the book checked
out of the library, nobody else can read it.

That's because of the physical property of matter having to be in only one
place at a time. That is an artifact of an old process of using chemicals
to stain dead trees. Sooner or later, human kind will abandon such
antiquated practices.

Then what? When there is no more physical media to regulate usership. The IP
movement in this country sees this inevitable change as a gold rush!!! What
happens when you have a book and you can't re-read it or loan it or sell
it? What of "fair use" then?


Now, lets go back to the copy of the software. In the 1980s it was
PERFECTLY legal to use a single copy of software as long as only a single
copy of it was used at any particular time.

For some software, yes. It was accepted practice regardless of the
legality for personal software. Professional software was different.

Why? Why is that allowed? Is it property or not? If it is property, I should
have the right to do with it as I please, if it is not property, then it is
governed by a set of rules that attempt to mimic property, and in a
democracy those rules are subject to the people.


In my previous example, what if I added the criterion that I would only
use that copy when the original copyright owner (or anyone else who had a
copy) was using it. Would it be legal then? An example may be a backup
program. One person buys, 7 people use, one on each day. Is that legal?
It used to be!

I believe that this is like lending a book. I believe that legally
(unless the EUL says differently) that the origianl owner must
uninstall his copy before lending to his friend, who must
install it.

Why does a software published have the RIGHT to define, beyond copyright and
"fair use" what I can do with something I purchased?


That's how we lived in the 80s it was a better way to live. This DMCA
ridden IP crazy world is the death of freedom of expression.

The DMCA is crazy, but this *isn't* the way *I* lived in the 80s.

Maybe *you* didn't, but everyone I knew in business and the universities
did. Everyone had "Copy II PC."

So everybody you knew was probably violating the law? Once clue
is that if you had to use special software to copy an program,
it probably is against the copyright agreement.

Think about "copyright agreement" in the sense of property. If I buy a book
shelf, do I not have the right to first sale? Do I not have the right to do
with it as I please? Can I not lend it to whom ever I want? Why is media or
software treated differently? Why is a bookshelf different from the book?

These are serious questions that very large companies are working hard to
answer, and not in yours or my best interest.


These days I use Linux and GPL software, it is just safer.

Yes. And there are special rules that govern GPL software.
You are allowed to sell it, but you must give the source
away.

Actually, people argue this all the time. You can't "sell" the software.
"Selling" software implies a new license of some sort or transfer of
ownership rights. You can not take someone's GPL code and sell it. You
are allowed to charge for the service of copying and distribution. Also
You don't have to give the source away if you make no modifications. You
are only required to make your changes public.

This is a very old argument. You *are* allowed to sell any GPL'ed
software as long as you adhere to the GPL. As of my last reading,
you either had to make the source available or point to where the
source was.

I can sell gcc. It would be silly of somebody to buy it, but
the sale would (as of my last reading of the GPL) be fully
legal. Of course, my customer could then sell lots more copies,
all in the name of the GPL.

This is a semantic argument, but I've been having these discussions for well
over a decade now and this is based on long standing legal advice.

When you sell software, you are assigning or conveying a license to someone
else for compensation. Unless you are the author, you have no right to do
any such thing. GPL software is available to anyone who abides by the GPL
and the GPL states that you are not legally permitted to re-license the
software.

You have every right to sell the CD on which the software is recorded.
You have every right to copyright an aggregation of GPL packages.
You have every right to sell the boxes in which your CD with your
copyrighted aggregation is transferred.

You do not, however, have the right to sell GPL software of which you are
not the author because you don't own it.

Practically speaking, there is very little differences in our position. I
may sell a CD of gimp, debian, firefox, and other packages as "MLW's
Backoffice Powerpack" for $199 at retail outlets, but I am selling the
package and my work in creating it, but it can not be said that I am
selling the software I did not write because it is not mine.

Technically speaking, the positions are hugely different.



In the case of the guy posting your book on usenet, that is a clear
violation because it can be argued that it diminishes the value of your
work, and that's wrong.

Yes. However it doesn't matter to me if your use of my work actually
diminishes the value of the work. If the work isn't paid for, I
don't want you using it.

The question is the definition of "property." Granted, software and
recorded music seem different from printed word, but never the less we
live with copyright.

Copyright is based on the notion that once something is made public, it
ceases to be the exclusive property of another. Thomas Jefferson wrote:

Actually copyright has to do with published works and not ideas. Earl
Stanley Gardener wrote some great lawyer/detective stories; this doesn't
prevent anybody else from using his ideas to write stoires of their
own. They just can't take his words or make a derivative work (say by
writing new Perry Mason stories without the current copyright owner's
permisson).

What is or is not protected by copyright is a crap shoot these days. It is a
dangerous world right now if you are in the "creation" business.


"It would be curious...if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an
individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and
stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than
all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power
called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he
keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into
the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself
of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less,
because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea
from me, received instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who
lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me."

This only talks about ideas, not their implementation.

For copyright, it is "expression," not implementation.

.

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