Qt/Embedded

David Johnson david at usermode.org
Sat Nov 18 06:44:39 UTC 2000


On Friday 17 November 2000 09:41 pm, kmself at ix.netcom.com wrote:

> >
> > The legal test of copyrightability (what is copyrightable) is "original
> > works of authorship, fixed in a tangible medium" [1].  Or at least the
> > second part of that.
>
> > This seems to be a different issue. Those are good attributes for what
> > can be copyrighted. But it doesn't follow that they are necessarily
> > the same attributes for what can be regulated by the copyright holder.
> > One specific example is a movie. The author can restrict how a movie
> > is shown, even if it is displayed fleetingly on a movie screen,
> > failing the "fixed" attribute.
>
> Film and video qualify.  Performance is an exlusive right.

Okay, what am I missing here. Something is not following...

First you say that the copyright holder can restrict software in RAM because 
it is "fixed in a tangible medium". But you referenced a phrase that seems to 
apply to "copyrightability". So I questioned this by giving the example of 
film and video "display", which in not fixed in a tangible medium (the 
celluloid is, the transient images of light are not).

Then you switch over to performance! I wasn't arguing that authors could not 
restrict theaters from showing films, because I know very well that they can. 
But they restrict them based on performance, *not* because the transient 
photons on a screen are considered a copy of the work. This seems to me to be 
two completely different things.

Perhaps I don't understand the word "copyrightability". I assumes it to mean 
"a work that can be copyrighted."

So, apropos to the original question: does the GPL restrict dynamic linkage 
because it makes a derivitive work in the user's RAM? (the electrical states 
in a RAM chip being classified as "fixed in a tangible medium") Or does it 
restrict dynamic linkage because it is a performance? Or does it restrict it 
because the user has entered into an agreement with the author (which would 
be binding regardless of copyright law)?

> > In any case, restricting the user based on the presence of the
> > software in RAM is a bad precedence for Open Source licenses to take.
> > The *use* of the software should not be restricted in any way.
> > Regulating it based on derivation and distribution is much better.
>
> But grasshopper, our enemy's strength is our strength.  The same
> protections and provisions which apply to proprietary software apply
> equally to free software.  If in-memory operations on software were
> exempted from the domain of copyright law, this would be a large hole
> through which software intended to be used only with other free software
> might be used otherwise.

No true as I (in my layman's view) understand it. A license agreement would 
still restrict the user in any way that the author wishes. Such a license 
might sneak through the cracks of the OSD, it would be contrary to the 
general tone of Free Software, since the first "freedom" of Free Software is 
the freedom to run the software for any purpose. A license that attempted to 
regulate what a user can do with the software and his or her RAM would strike 
me as anti-free.

In-memory restrictions *should* be exempted from the domain of copyright law. 
What I do with a copyrighted work in the privacy of my own home and own RAM 
is no one's business.

-- 
David Johnson
___________________
http://www.usermode.org



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