He's right
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| caitlyn Feb 15, 2013 11:53 AM EDT |
I don't care if you're conservative or liberal or what party you belong to. I don't care if you like the President or think he's horrible. You've got to admit on this he's right: patent law has to change and patent trolling needs to be done away with. |
| jdixon Feb 15, 2013 12:02 PM EDT |
Of course, but the devil is always in the details. Which you'll notice he's not providing. |
| caitlyn Feb 15, 2013 12:05 PM EDT |
I can't disagree with you. When we see details that will be the subject of a healthy discussion, I'm sure. The principle is sound and I don't ever remember a President, any President, talking about this before. |
| Bob_Robertson Feb 15, 2013 12:05 PM EDT |
Indeed, it must be changed. I have no problem supporting any decrease in the duration or scope of patent or copyright. The abuses are crazy! |
| caitlyn Feb 15, 2013 12:11 PM EDT |
I'm not willing to say "any" though I agree that right now "crazy" is the right word to describe the abuses in the system. I'm not willing to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Bob, you read the article by Glyn Moody where he wants to do away with FOSS licenses entirely and throw everything into Public Domain. I don't want copyrights or patents eliminated entirely. They do serve a legitimate purpose. I just want them reduced to something reasonable. |
| Bob_Robertson Feb 15, 2013 1:48 PM EDT |
Caitlyn, I'm happy to get into this discussion, but I worry. Such discussions have gotten deleted before. While F/OSS licenses leverage copyright, I don't see them as dependent upon it. They're licenses, and I can see how they would still be "enforceable" as voluntary contracts if copyright didn't exist. It really comes down to the Social Standard. The licenses are only valid as long as they are adjudicated as such, and at this time in history and in this society they are being so validated. |
| caitlyn Feb 15, 2013 2:12 PM EDT |
First, so long as we stay narrowly on topic I think we'll be fine. Second, my understanding is that when there has been GPL enforcement it has depended on copyright law. I'm not an attorney and certainly no expert so I'm not qualified to dispute you or debate you but my understanding has always been that copyleft depends on copyright. If you have some references that explain why this isn't so I'd be happy to read them over the long weekend. |
| jdixon Feb 15, 2013 2:24 PM EDT |
> They're licenses, and I can see how they would still be "enforceable" as voluntary contracts if copyright didn't exist. As I understand it, the problem with seeing them as voluntary contracts is that there's no good agreement mechanism in place. For a contract to be considered valid, you have to show that both side voluntarily agreed to it. With a license, that's not necessary. |
| Bob_Robertson Feb 15, 2013 4:10 PM EDT |
JD, I agree that with the over-arching automagic tool of "copyright" which now applies to everything (even this post whether I would want it to or not), the present does not have such an agreement mechanism. Caitlyn, like fish in water, copyright just "is". The structures that now exist were created within that copyright environment. I'm not saying I have an answer that will solve all objections. Neither do I think that what exists now must always exist, or that what exists now solves all the possible objections either. I honestly do not think that any one-size-fits-all statute is going to work for everyone. What someone wants to do will always be marginalized. The problems we're seeing with the breadth and scope of copyright (and patent) having been made as large as they have been, in my opinion, have always existed. Those problems have just expanded along with the expansions of IP until everyone sees them. There is a good reason that monopoly grants are universally decried for the abuses that follow from them. Reducing the breadth and scope of the monopoly grants that are copyright and patent is something we all agree on. |
| dinotrac Feb 15, 2013 9:46 PM EDT |
Well...politically I am somewhere to the right of Attilla the Hun if ATH doesn't want to see the planet trashed and objects to a "health care system" that protects oligopolies and profiteers at the expense of sick people, but.. The President is right on this one. The patent system as we have it is a big stinking mess. * (copyright 2013, dinotrac, no patent pending) |
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