Re: [Patents] That Article

[Seth Johnson <seth.johnson@RealMeasures.dyndns.org>]

Gregory Aharonian wrote:
> 
> >I therefore propose to forget about terms such as "idea vs expression"
> 
> You can't forget such terms when they are the language of multiple
> global copyright and IP treaties.
> 
> >Of course it does not.  Copyright works well in the software field
> >as everyone working there knows.
> 
> One of the major reasons that software patenting took off in the 1990s
> in the United States was the growing recognition then that software
> copyright was becoming increasingly impotent for anything beyond
> executables (i.e. pure piracy).  As the idea/expression dichotomy
> starts becoming part of European caselaw, the same thing will happen
> in Europe


"Impotent."

See, when we address the Gregbot on the usability of copyright,
its rules engine switches away from overt reference to terms
directly cognate with "protection," to more indefinite terms in
the family of "potency," a much more nebulous domain.

The Gregbot is designed to endorse forms of protection for
subject areas for which the law does not provide, and is not
intended to provide, protection, while occasionally venturing
forth into discourse which might to appear to some to exhibit a
constructive engagement in addressing certain indeterminacies in
the law -- whenever its rules engine provides it diversionary
techniques by which it may make those moves.

It might be fun to test the algorithm, to see by what means it
exploits the indeterminate aspects of the law in its attempts to
recast exclusive rights policy towards the wrong ends.  It might
be fun to entertain ourselves in this manner, while we attempt to
address the purposes of exclusive rights policy honestly and
forthrightly.

What is particularly interesting about the algorithm is that it
is designed to project the appearance of earnestness and
forthrightness, specifically by a technique of adhering closely
to references to indeterminacy (in this case, exploiting issues
associated with the idea/expression dichotomy and copyright's
nonapplicability to functionality).

However, after a while one bores of the enterprise and comes to
recognize that its analytical engine only goes in circles, is
simply directed toward an uninstructive and misdirected goal, and
in fact actually exhibits a fundamental dishonesty (if one can
attribute such to a bot) by dint of its algorithm's continual
resorting to indirection on the basis of the indeterminacy --
thereby attempting to create an appearance of placing in question
the arguments of those who are actually constructively engaged in
addressing the purposes of exclusive rights policy.

The algorithm does not synthesize solutions; it instead
constructs rhetoric that serves the purpose of diverting
onlookers who may not understand the principles that are actually
to be addressed.  Its technique is rather simple; it simply
utilizes various means of appealing to the common misperception
that a chief purpose of exclusive rights policy is to "protect"
creative products in a manner that would foremost maximize
creators' control over them.

But what does one expect?  Can a bot resort to the unity of the
transcendental and synthetic manifold of apperception to which we
rational and conscious beings have recourse?


Seth


> Copyright fundamentally does not protection functionality.  Software is
> fundamentally functionality.  The two will always be opposed.
> Worse, copyright software lasts an insane period of time (> 100 years),
> and copyright law discourages sharing to some extent (to claim independent
> creation and avoid infringement, you have to ignore all other similar
> programming efforts).
> 
> Greg

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