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News Pick Alsup is Wrong: APIs Must be Given Copyright Protection | 103 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
News Picks (Web Balancing Act)
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 03 2012 @ 05:48 AM EDT
How many people really want personalisation of their web responses ? Personally I've always thought it was a ploy by marketroids to extract personal information and be able to send more targeted (and hence offensive) adverts.

Opinions please.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Nokia-Monopoly Patent Blockade
Authored by: webster on Sunday, June 03 2012 @ 12:46 PM EDT
.

PJ has whipped up a News Pick followed by her comment and
links. She is of course suspicious of Nokia's denial and
rightly so.

The failing Barnes and Noble received $300 million from the
Monopoly in defending against a suit where they made this
accusation against MOSAID and thus Nokia and the Monopoly.
They regret not settling before this accusation was made.

Google has the wherewithal to repeat it broadly and prove
it. The utter destruction of Nokia as it previously existed
is the best proof of this scheme.

.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Ari’s New Message to Googlers: Let’s Hug It Out, Geeks!
Authored by: jbb on Sunday, June 03 2012 @ 05:08 PM EDT
li nk

This is a very interesting idea. I am fascinated by what happens when different realities collide. I believe Google's Susan Wojcicki summed it up clearly:

This is not a technical problem, this is much more of a business issue.
This is the big challenge such a meeting would face. The Internet is here. It is not going away. Business models based on the scarcity of content (information) distribution are bound to fail. The main problem is that there will be two opposing agendas in the meeting. Hollywood's agenda is about crippling the Internet in order to keep their scarcity based business model alive. Silicon Valley's agenda will be to convince Hollywood to adapt their business model to take advantage of the new technology, not cripple it.

Max Planck said:

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
The same is true with new technology. I think the current leaders in Hollywood are unable to grasp the new reality created by the Internet. We may have to wait many years for new leadership to emerge before Hollywood starts to act in a rational and sensible manner. I wish with all my heart there was some way to convince the old guard of the dire need for them to accept the new reality.

Here is a proposal for a sensible business model that would take advantage of the Internet and also greatly improve the content created by Hollywood. Give it all away for free. I know this sounds crazy and I know this is anathema to the existing leaders in Hollywood but it is the only sensible long term solution.

The obvious criticism of this idea is that there is no way for content creators to make money if they don't restrict access to their content. This antiquated viewpoint is the heart of the problem. As long as Hollywood clings to it, the meetings proposed by Ari Emanuel will be useless. The obvious solution is captured in the phrase:

Don't applaud, just throw money!
I'm willing to pay for content. Millions of people are willing to pay for content. Hollywood's current business model is based entirely on the idea that many people are willing to pay for content. The only question is the timing. Should they pay before or after?

It is true that if creators don't get paid, they will eventually stop creating. This truth is self-evident. If I see a commercial-free fan-fic movie and I like it then I donate to the movie makers to thank them for what they gave me and to encourage and fund them to make more. Even if some people (perhaps even a majority) refuse to ever pay for the content they enjoy, this system will still generate a lot of money for creators.

The wonderful thing about this system is that it is vastly more efficient than the current system. There will be no need for the massive movie advertising campaigns we have now. Just post your trailers on YouTube. In addition, we won't have to infest content with commercials, which, for the most part, only serve to fuel economic inefficiencies.

People will vote with their pocketbooks based on the actual content received, not based on the lies and false promises of movie advertisements. Creators of popular content will be rewarded by the market and creators of unpopular content will be punished based on the actual content provided. The fact that only morally advanced people will vote is a feature not a bug.

Of course, this system would force Hollywood to make content that morally advanced people like instead of making content that is easy to sell. I can see why they would find such a prospect threatening and frightening but even they have to admit this would make the world a better place and allow them to greatly improve the benefit they provide to society.

Likewise, movie theaters would be forced to provide a viewing experience that people enjoy enough that they are willing to pay for it. Such theaters already exist. Propping up shoddy, unpleasant movie theaters by making content scarce is a great disservice to society. It allows movie theaters to thrive that don't add value. It is not just a disservice to the patrons, it is also a disservice to the people who work at such places. They are only there to make a buck, they are not there to provide a valued service. Their vacant stares and robot-like gestures tear my heart. And yet the owners wonder why patronage is declining and their only response is to compound the real problem by desperately trying to enforce information scarcity.

I think the model I've proposed is the only sensible end-point. Our only other choice is to disable the Internet and all other forms of efficient information transfer. If Hollywood is not willing to take even baby steps in the direction of this new model then meeting with them will be a waste of time and we will have to use the waiting solution proposed by Max Planck.

---
Our job is to remind ourselves that there are more contexts
than the one we’re in now — the one that we think is reality.
-- Alan Kay

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

News Pick Alsup is Wrong: APIs Must be Given Copyright Protection
Authored by: dio gratia on Sunday, June 03 2012 @ 07:38 PM EDT

See Alsup is Wrong: APIs Must be Given Copyright Protection. Alsup being wrong would imply the law being wrong as well.

Every developer who takes their first programming class is completely mystified by the utter silliness of all of the abstract classes and seemingly useless interfaces that pepper the Java API. Implementing all of these codeless interfaces always seems academic and laborious to a newcomer. But there's always a point where a developer leaves the college classroom and starts doing some real development where the light goes on and they hit that Eureka moment where they finally appreciate the benefit and beauty of the way the various Java components participate in interface based polymorphism, or inheritance based abstraction.

Maybe only developers know what developers know?

I don't think any lawyer or Judge on a district court would have any appreciation or understanding of what was written in the previous paragraph, but every Java developer does. Beauty, symmetry, form and functionality are only created out of nothing in the Bible. When it happens in the real world, it's a product of intellect and ingenuity, and when that type of ingenuity manifests itself in an API, the minds responsible for it are entitled to some type of protection for their creation.

Contrast the rights of the author of a literary work under § 106 and the expanded rights for the author of pictorial, graphical and sculptural works under § 113. The music of the spheres for software is in it's function (operation). Expanding the rights of software authors would result in patent like protection for the life of the author plus 70 years, enclosing ideas. Onomatopoeia aside ( § 102 ):
(b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.
If you want to be a performance artist, try wind sculptures, meanwhile the premise for expanded author's rights for software literary works appears in error as does casting aspersions on the Judge's legal opinion by emotional appeal.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

News Pick Alsup is Wrong: APIs Must be Given Copyright Protection
Authored by: calris74 on Sunday, June 03 2012 @ 08:18 PM EDT
Here is a simply oustanding comment on that thread:
If APIs were copyrightable, then every time you override a method or implement an interface, you'll have to pay up.
Why? Because before you were using a pay-for product without paying for it, and now that you override a method, you have to pay? You have a deluded (i.e. Groklaw) view of software and licenses.

For example, now that APIs are not copywritable, I can link to GPL without having to publish my work under GPL (since the linking portion of the GPL license is only enforceable if APIs are copywritable).

Peace,

Cameron Purdy | Oracle

(Writing as an individual and not a spokesperson.)
This really shows just how poorly a lot of people understand what is really at play here

What the 'non-copyrightability' of the API allows for is a clean-room implementation of the GPL library. This is essentially what Linus was pointing out what all the FUD about copyright violations in Android due to use of the Linux headers was floating about.

If Judge Alsup had ruled that APIs were copyrightable (or if the appeals court decides to overrule) then Linux would be in major trouble as a result of it being a clean-room implementation of the POSIX API - Maybe this was really what Oracle were after...

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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