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From: "mag" <mag@bunuel.tii.matav.hu>
Subject: Re: [Patents] gnu & patents
To: Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>
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Date: 03 May 2003 14:51:50 +0200
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2003-05-03, szo keltez=E9ssel Hartmut Pilch ezt =EDrta:
=20
> You may be confusing patents and copyright.

These come from different viewpoints, but there is
a good reason for confusion: both are Intellectual
Property laws, and both are widely abused to protect
and enhance the monopoly of big IT players.
In hungary we have much more harder rules in the copyright
law for software than for other forms of art. If you
buy a pirated game for your son on its original CD in=20
the local flea market, you can sit in the jail for five
years. And that law _is_ enforced upon us.
The difference (at least in Hungary), that if you do a
patent infringement, the patent holder is entitled to
go against you, but with copyright infringement, the
police have to go after you.

And now they preparing to change both of the IP laws, saying
that they should harmonize with the EU rules. We have found
it out from a slip of the tounge of a patent officer. They
were keeping quiet about it, no wide discurse, only the HPO
(and presumably BSA) got it to work on it.

When I have listed some activities which are potentionally
infirngements of copyright and patent law, and it would be
ridiculous to disapprove of them, I have received two kind of
responses. The response from west said that they are not even
illegal. The response from friends said: "don't do that
they will _actually_ jail you".

Still, I regard our country a free one, as opposed to the US,
as the law does not stand obstacles against developers of
open source.

EU is also a free country in this respect. But is not
guaranteed to remain free. After approving the EU directive,
the open source organisations will get weaker, and there
be no objections against the local governments to get the
copyright laws to the level of ours (our copyright law is
said to be EU conform). After that they will drop the right
to develop compatible implementations (as that will be
impossible due to patent issues anyway), and we will
loose our freedom to create completely.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

--=20
GNU GPL: csak tiszta forr=E1sb=F3l

