Copyright, When, if ever? (2 Viewers)

Thales750

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Ok, I'm really not great at this either, and I don't know how original my program is, but if we are thinking of trying to sell it more as a concept, how important is the programming copywrite as opposed to the concept? I feel like our concept is much more worthy of being bought than my programming/programming ability.

Most everything that's been done has been using access default stuff, and very rarely I've had to clean up something in the code.

Obviously your ability to capture market share is more important than legal protection.

But remember this, only a fool believes he can dominate any tech market for long.
 

Vassago

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Yes, and with all of the free resources for Access out there, it'd be difficult to market a product that isn't VERY specific in what it does and unique.
 

Thales750

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Yes, and with all of the free resources for Access out there, it'd be difficult to market a product that isn't VERY specific in what it does and unique.

I think there are lots of untapped markets. Integrating with Quickbooks alone is hugh.
 

Steve R.

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Ok, I'm really not great at this either, and I don't know how original my program is, but if we are thinking of trying to sell it more as a concept, how important is the programming copywrite as opposed to the concept? I feel like our concept is much more worthy of being bought than my programming/programming ability.(Emphasis Added)
The word "concept" is what is wrong with our patent/copyright system today. People are getting patents and copyright protection over "concepts". Do you realize what that means?

Think of the lawn sprinkler. Go to the hardware store. You will see all sorts of different sprinklers. Now, if you were somehow able to patent the concept of a lawn sprinkler that would mean that every manufacturer of a lawn sprinkler would be infringing. An obvious absurdity.

My opinion is that you should be able to get a patent on a specific design. Others should also be able to still design, patent, and sell their own lawn sprinklers. Competition in the free market should be based on product quality and customer service, not locking out competition through legal gymnastics.

You may be interested in this book (its free!): Against Intellectual Monopoly
 

boblarson

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My opinion is that you should be able to get a patent on a specific design. Others should also be able to still design, patent, and sell their own lawn sprinklers. Competition in the free market should be based on product quality and customer service, not locking out competition through legal gymnastics.
A big AMEN to that statement!
 

Thales750

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A big AMEN to that statement!

Have either one of you ever gotten a patent? I've been involved in several in my life, and nothing you're saying sounds remotely familiar.

Without patents, research, and movies, and drugs, and music, and a host of other things would simply not provide a living for people.

Ya’ll seriously need to watch out for snake-oil sales people, trying to sell you a bottle of anarchy.
 

Steve R.

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Have either one of you ever gotten a patent? I've been involved in several in my life, and nothing you're saying sounds remotely familiar.

Without patents, research, and movies, and drugs, and music, and a host of other things would simply not provide a living for people.

Ya’ll seriously need to watch out for snake-oil sales people, trying to sell you a bottle of anarchy.

People do acquire knowledge through reading and discussion you know. You may be interested in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Patent Busting Project. Would you believe that a company obtained a patent on podcasting.

As for the assertion "Without patents, research, and movies, and drugs, and music, and a host of other things would simply not provide a living for people." People have been creating without patent/copyright protection since they "discovered" creativity. This forum is an example of altruism in action. Cute cartoon by Nina Paley -> My Works are Like My Children

Next, we supposedly live in a free-market system. What that means, if you can't make money inventing/writing, your product is simply not economically viable. To bad, so sad. Furthermore, if someone else were to independently invent/write a closely similar product by what what right can you deprive them of a living by asserting "infringement"?

Please take a look at Orson Scott Cards rebuttal concerning the claim by J.K Rowling that the fan based arrangement of Harry Potter facts somehow constituted "infringement". In that rebuttal, Mr. Card compared the Harry Potter novels to his Ender Game novels and humorously remarks: "Well, heck, I feel like the plot of my novel Ender's Game was stolen by J.K. Rowling."
 

boblarson

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I'm all for patents. But I am against patents which are overly general (as we said, more concept than substance). So, if I come up with a concept of

I can control my computer over the Internet from wherever I am.

And then I actually get the patent office to patent that idea, then that is ludicrous because someone can come to the same general concept as to that is something that can be done (albeit in maybe varying ways). And so nobody but me can now come up with a way to control a computer over the Internet without a license from me. Now I can't give you specifics at the moment because I can't remember which they were but I have seen, several weeks ago, where it would appear that some company has been granted something almost as general. And it made me just cringe as to how the Patent Office could issue a patent for that.

That is what I was referring to.
 

Thales750

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There are over 7,000,000 Patents in the US alone. I'm sure you won't have a problem finding some that are broader than is average.

What Steve's obsession fails to comprehend is the amount of work it takes to create on speculation, and the nature of leap frog technical advancement.

Many millions of failed hours are involved in new products getting to the market every year. If you could not protect the right of patent holders the amount of development would decline.
We live in a time of exploding new products and a time when products are better built than any time in history. We have a system that is not broken, why the obsession to destroy it?
 

Vassago

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Patents are supposed to be for specific ideas only. I know it doesn't work that way all of the time. I write that off more to human error than anything else. A judge who doesn't understand the technology being patented should not have a right to issue the patent or rule on any cases where infringement may have occurred. Unfortunately, most of the judges in these cases don't seem to know enough about the item or technology involved when infrigement is accused. Case in point, the RIAA lawsuits against alleged downloaders where the RIAA were able to obtain subpoenas for ISP customer information on no real evidence at all. There were people who were accused and sent extortion letters that didn't even have any download software installed, must less share it with other people. People make mistakes, but the RIAA and the judge should have been liable for making those mistakes and applying for/issuing the subpoena for the information from the ISP without sufficient evidence to support such a release of personal information. It really pisses me off that they were able to get away with such extortion measures for so long without any real evidence but computer printouts that didn't mean anything and could easily have been doctored or, more than likely, accidentally recorded wrong.
 

Steve R.

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@Thales750: My concern is that many patents today are no longer being issued for valid reasons. In one of my prior posts, I even stated that I was OK with patents being issued on a specific design that left others free design, patent, and market similar competing products.

Yes - it may take significant amounts of work and expense to design a product. But just because you speculated that the product would sell should not mean that you are entitled to deprive a competitor of their ability to make a profit by selling a similar item. After all the competitor would also have spent significant resources in their product development.

Success in the free-market should be based on product quality and customer service.
 

ankrumc

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Ok,

So concept was the wrong word of choice :) Simply put, If we were to sell this program, I think it would have to be done by someone else, very possibly not on access. You are all smart programmers, but I've just been putting together a process for a business. Its not a vague thing, the concept is more that it work ok on access, but needs to be cleaned up for users to use and not have to have access as a front end program.

So.....when you all say copywrite, do you think more in code or in content? And is one more important than the other?
 

Thales750

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@Thales750: My concern is that many patents today are no longer being issued for valid reasons. In one of my prior posts, I even stated that I was OK with patents being issued on a specific design that left others free design, patent, and market similar competing products.

Yes - it may take significant amounts of work and expense to design a product. But just because you speculated that the product would sell should not mean that you are entitled to deprive a competitor of their ability to make a profit by selling a similar item. After all the competitor would also have spent significant resources in their product development.

Success in the free-market should be based on product quality and customer service.

I couldn't disagree more. It's thousands of times easier to copy someone else’s work than to do your own. I have 3 patents in the approval stage right now, all you have to do to get in the market is copy them. Why should you be allowed to do that?

You guys are taking an extremely narrow view and extrapolating it to include all intellectual property. Without these protections why would anyone invent?

Plus you have it all wrong about the way patents work. If I invent something, first it goes through a comprehensive search to make sure no prior art exist. And then it references every patent that has similar art.

Next it must prove that it is not “obvious” then it must work. The elimination process is extremely rigorous.

Finally it allows others to make improvements to my design and have their own patents that are based off my designs. So we could end up in a shared license arrangement.

I simple cannot understand why anyone would advocate lessoning of patent law. If anything they should be strengthened. Patent law promotes better design, and a much more productive inventing environment.
 
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Thales750

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Ok,

So concept was the wrong word of choice :) Simply put, If we were to sell this program, I think it would have to be done by someone else, very possibly not on access. You are all smart programmers, but I've just been putting together a process for a business. Its not a vague thing, the concept is more that it work ok on access, but needs to be cleaned up for users to use and not have to have access as a front end program.

So.....when you all say copywrite, do you think more in code or in content? And is one more important than the other?

Once again, Marketing is everything. It will only take someone weeks to improve on your process and beat you to the market. Thinking you have unique technology is a fallacy.
 

Steve R.

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@Thales750: Well I respectfully disagree. Obviously we are at loggerheads. I wish you the best of luck with your patents. I hope that your patents prove profitable for you.
 

Thales750

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You might want to give inventing a try. I guarantee it will expand the box.
 

Steve R.

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Ok,

So concept was the wrong word of choice :) Simply put, If we were to sell this program, I think it would have to be done by someone else, very possibly not on access. You are all smart programmers, but I've just been putting together a process for a business. Its not a vague thing, the concept is more that it work ok on access, but needs to be cleaned up for users to use and not have to have access as a front end program.

So.....when you all say copywrite, do you think more in code or in content? And is one more important than the other?
Three points.
Like the word "concept", the word "process" is a poor word choice. Do you really think you can patent the process of entering one room from another room through the use of horizontal bi-peddle thrust through a swinging solid surface? From my point of view you cannot patent or copyright a "process". However, in the case of State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group the ability to patent business methods was unfortunately recognized.

Copyright applies to your original work. The Wikipedia article writes "Initially copyright law only applied to the copying of books. Over time other uses such as translations and derivative works were made subject to copyright. Copyright now covers a wide range of works, including maps, sheet music, dramatic works, paintings, photographs, sound recordings, motion pictures and computer programs."

As the Wikipedia article notes, copyright has been expanding over time in terms of scope and length of time that it is in effect. Regretfully, few people equate this expansion as theft from the public domain and depriving the consumer of their right to fair use to the content. With that I will end.

I wish you success with your endeavor.
 

Thales750

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Three points.
Like the word "concept", the word "process" is a poor word choice. Do you really think you can patent the process of entering one room from another room through the use of horizontal bi-peddle thrust through a swinging solid surface? From my point of view you cannot patent or copyright a "process". However, in the case of State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group the ability to patent business methods was unfortunately recognized.

Copyright applies to your original work. The Wikipedia article writes "Initially copyright law only applied to the copying of books. Over time other uses such as translations and derivative works were made subject to copyright. Copyright now covers a wide range of works, including maps, sheet music, dramatic works, paintings, photographs, sound recordings, motion pictures and computer programs."

As the Wikipedia article notes, copyright has been expanding over time in terms of scope and length of time that it is in effect. Regretfully, few people equate this expansion as theft from the public domain and depriving the consumer of their right to fair use to the content. With that I will end.

I wish you success with your endeavor.
Sadly your argument overlooks the fundamental basis for society. And that of course is commerce. Without an economy we will live much the same way that people in feudal Europe lived prior to the revolutions that created modern government.

With a very few people owning the entire economy and very little in the way of innovation. The entire industrial revolution, and thus the middle class was based on creating economies through innovation.
To say now that it is stifling the growth invention or that the public owns intellectual properties is to throw out the entire basis for our lively hood. It’s easy to say we don’t need it. But the very machine you type on is a result of decades of research and development paid for by people speculating on creation.
I wrote that last night.
This morning while making coffee, I was contemplating general beliefs and the propensity now days of people to blindly follow the piper. Lost in our society is intellectual rigor, what we have now is a society that merely mimic what we are told to think.

So to that end, without any link to other peoples thinking, how do you suppose life will be made better by the reducing the protection of intellectual property? First I guess you should define what you see as the correct level of protection is and then make a case for it. Now that all the help I’m going to give you.
 

Steve R.

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So to that end, without any link to other peoples thinking, how do you suppose life will be made better by the reducing the protection of intellectual property? First I guess you should define what you see as the correct level of protection is and then make a case for it. Now that all the help I’m going to give you.
Well here we ago again. The problem is that the scope of so-called "intellectual property" has been unfairly expanding. So any supposed "reduction' that I am talking about is the restoration of an old balance. So I consider it "unfair" for those who believe in "strong" copyright to complain that they are somehow being deprived when the law is repeatedly strengthened to their sole benefit. When will it be enough? This is akin negotiating with North Korea. As soon as the ink is dry, new assertions of unfairness emerge. With consequent demands for ever stronger "protection". Look at the Wikipedia graph below.



Our discussion needs to recognize that copyright is not for the sole benefit of the content creator. I have a degree of sympathy concerning the ability of the content creator to make money off their works. However, copyright law should not deprive the content user of their private property rights to the content. Regretfully this is exactly what is happening.

The issue of the consumers rights to the content is nearly three hundred years old! Lord Kames's opinion in the case of Hinton v. Donaldson (1773) In that commentary Lord Kames wrote: "When a man composes a book, the manuscript is his property: if it be stolen from him, he may demand it by a rei vindicatio: it may be gifted by him, or sold. But by such gift, or sale, the property is transferred to the purchaser: he has now the same right over it that the composer had originally: he may suppress it, or he may publish it to the world." Today the rights of the purchaser are being extinguished!
 

Thales750

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I ask again, what is the benifit of not providing these protections?
 

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