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Authored by: Wol on Friday, November 30 2012 @ 10:31 AM EST |
How does that damage software?
J K Rowling was free to write Harry Potter, despite it clearly being very
similar to Discworld's Sourcery.
The authors of 1-2-3 and Excel were free to write those programs despite them
being very similar to Visicalc.
The problem with patents is that you can infringe without knowing anything about
the thing you are infringing on. To infringe on copyright, it has to be a
deliberate act.
Okay, in the US you could still be bankrupted over false copyright allegations,
but that's the fault of the US legal system, nothing to do with copyright. Start
behaving that way over here, and firstly YOU will be the one who goes bankrupt
(our legal system tries to make victims whole, they shouldn't be out of pocket
defending against false allegations - see the Samsung-Apple case!), and secondly
you are likely to end up in jail - Judges don't like having their time wasted!
Cheers,
Wol[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, November 30 2012 @ 01:18 PM EST |
Like with patents, there are exceptions to Copyright. For example, one
cannot copyright required functionality (possibly even simply functionality -
IANAL) - or facts.
Only if the exceptions that limit Copyright are
removed do they become a much more serious threat.
RAS[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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