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Prose analogy patentsProse analogy patentsPosted Dec 4, 2008 18:59 UTC (Thu) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625)In reply to: Kill software patents by lysse Parent article: KSM runs into patent trouble I haven't seen an argument in favor of software patents that doesn't also apply to prose analogy patents. For example, should Steve Oualline's thorough mailbox analogy to explain pointers in Practical C Programming be patentable? If it helps people get pointers and start programming in C sooner, it has immense value--but another author could reimplement it in different words and using newly-drawn pictures without licensing it from the patent department at O'Reilly and Associates. The lack of a patent here means that Steve lacks an incentive to create more prose analogies of value.
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Prose analogy patents Posted Dec 4, 2008 23:23 UTC (Thu) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]
This falls into the trap that got us software patents and a dozen other types of silly "intellectual property" in the first place.
Who says Steve lacks an incentive? It takes a profoundly narrow mind to look out into the world and conclude that (to pick some famous names from the shelves near me somewhat at random) Lewis Carroll, Ambrose Bierce and William Goldman were coldly calculating individuals, writing whatever would generate the maximum income. No, each of them had his reasons for writing, whether a pittance or a fortune was the reward, and in no case is their best work that which an accountant or a lawyer would have said was most certain to be profitable.
When we look historically, we find that the incentive granted by these new monopolies was always an incentive to people who were already rich, to screw people and get richer. The reality of software patents is patent trolls, just as the reality of US prohibition was organised crime and massive corruption in the police and judiciary. When you find yourself making a law to "fix" a problem that didn't exist and the law causes you problems you never had before, it's a bad law and ought to be repealed. And if the courts or the patent officials make bad law by practice where there was no law by statute, drive it out with better laws.
Prose analogy patents Posted Dec 4, 2008 23:43 UTC (Thu) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]
I wish I knew how to second this properly. I have never understood why so many people think copyright is a necessity, but I have gotten so used to others thinking it necessary that my brain retreats into thinking of ways to fine tune it, when what it really needs is to disappear altogether. People wrote and painted and sang long before there was any copyright, and people still get together in garage bands and write blogs and create websites and youtube parodies without any renumeration.
I know it would eliminate the GPL, but I also believe that the GPL is only necessary in a world of copyright lawyers. The core idea behind GPL is that it is in everyone best interests to share work, such as the linux kernel, rather than hoard your own copy and struggle to keep up to date with continual merges to keep up with public changes. I have done that too often to think it a viable development method.
Thank you for reminding me again how much I detest the very idea of copyright.
Prose analogy patents Posted Dec 5, 2008 1:20 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> when what it really needs is to disappear altogether
This really is a political problem. A powerful and influential minority convinced governments around the world that keeping their monopolies is a good idea. Well, if people are complaining when the price of petrol goes up, so should they when the price of music, books, films and software does the same. Otherwise, we've go nobody to blame but ourselves.
Prose analogy patents Posted Dec 5, 2008 1:43 UTC (Fri) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]
The big money interests are digging their own grave as far as I'm concerned. They build these big life + 95 year fences around their factory work and forget that fences work both ways; not only have they kept their factory work safe from the public, but they have given the public every incentive to do their own work and ignore the factory work. Sooner or later, as Britney has shown, factory work will be so blandized and homogenized that it will only be used for elevators and dentists' offices. All the real popular culture has long since moved beyond their fences and out of their control. I don't know how much is under Creative Commons licenses, but I suspect it will only increase, and the entertainment factories have locked themselves out of that with their copyright fences.
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