[Patents] PATNEWS: Software copyrights as threatening as software patents?

[Jean-Marc Libs libs@noos.fr]

On Thu, 22 Feb 2001, Gregory Aharonian wrote:

I'll keep it short, as long answers have already been given.

Maybe they were too long.

> !20010221  Software copyrights as threatening as software patents?


>     Not only is there little real evidence of this loss of freedom due to

You should read the messages of the other people who are subscribed
here. Examples abound.

> So the IP nirvana of relying exclusively on copyrights for software to
> escape the mostly hypothetical loss of freedom of patents, is illusory
> - software copyright can block software technology innovation as well.

Software copyright does not prevent anyone from *writing* software.
It just forbids to appropriate other peoples' software and 
using/selling it without authorisation.

Software patents, on the other hand, are designed for the sole purpose 
of forbidding *writing* new software. Even if the patent holder never 
bothered to write the software himself.

Writing innovative software promotes technology innovation. Preventing
people from writing new software does not.

> I say 'can', because there is little proof that such blocking is going on,
> and any such data will somehow have to distinguish blocking due to software
> copyright from blocking due to software patents.  I doubt any economist
> has data or models that sensitive.

> If anything, the threat from copyright is more severe than from patents
> because copyright's ability to block innovation lasts 70+ years, as

It blocks stealing, not innovation.

Jean-Marc Libs