removal of copyright protection ?

["Nick Fleming" <Nick@bigfatpanda.fsnet.co.uk>]

Greg,
    Given the current problems with  allowing
both patent and copyright protection on software,
 what legal protection would you suggest for software
that is not patented, if copyright was removed ?

("none" is not a viable answer!)

regards,

Nick Fleming.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Gregory Aharonian" <srctran@world.std.com>
To: "Gregory Aharonian" <srctran@world.std.com>; "Bouthier Christophe"
<Christophe.Bouthier@loria.fr>
Cc: <patents@aful.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2002 10:04 PM
Subject: Re: [Patents] Research on Free Software Economics


> Christophe citation of precedent to defend software copyright is
> half-assed to say the least.
>
> For example, he cites the a fair number of laws saying that software
> is copyrightable.  For example, he cites the WIPO Copyright Treaty
> which cites the Berne convention.
>
> What he deliberately refuses to cite are these same treaties
> PROHIBITION on the copyright of ideas and processes.
>
> What he deliberately refuses to cite in addition is thirty years of
> struggling court decisions on both sides of the Atlantic trying to
> find any aspects of software that aren't idea and process.
>
> (A history of this software copyright mess is published in the latest
> issue of Copyright World, a fuller version of which is one my Web
> site, www.bustpatents.com/aharonian/softcopy.htm.
>
> So the reason why GPL is so impotent is that the courts and politicians
> have refused to deal with the contradictions in copyright law concerning
> software.  Contradictions which don't exist in the patent world, a
> contradiction never resolved.
>
> Greg Aharonian
>
>