[CLUE-Talk] Legal breaking of the MS monopoly

[Timothy C. Klein]

* Matthew Porter (mfporter at c-creature.com) wrote:
> This isn't quite accurate as a description of copyright law.  You might be
> confusing copyright law with an aspect of patent law.  The ideas in a
> copyrighted work are not placed in the public domain "in exchange for" the
> privilege of copyright protection.  Rather, copyright protection simply
> doesn't extend to ideas, so ideas are *always* in the public domain as far
> as copyright is concerned.   Copyright only covers specific expression.  

You are right, IANAL, and I don't know a heck of a lot about copyright
law.  But from what I have read of the the Nation's founders had, what I
described was the *intent* of those that originally thought this stuff
up.  If it is different today, then our laws have betrayed the spirit of
what was intended.  Ideas were not allowed to be copyrighted on purpose,
not by accident.  Copyright is almost self-defining, it grants the "Right
to Copy" and nothing more. The fact that that is not so simple today
represents a failure on our part.
 
> Now, one tough question that arises is, where do expressions end and ideas
> begin? Your example of re-telling THE LORD OF THE RINGS in your own words
> exists in a grey area.  Last year a pitched legal battle was fought over
> the novel THE WIND DONE GONE, which re-tells the story in GONE WITH THE
> WIND from the point of view of a Tara slave.  (See
> http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/features/randall_url/ -- the 11th
> circuit eventually lifted its ban on publication of TWDG, but it was quite
> a fight.)

This should be a grey area in no way, shape, or form.  I had not heard
of this.  I find it terrifying.  *Any* ideas presented in a copyrighted
work, whether they be characters, ideas, the story, should be in the
public domain.
 
> Patent law, on the other hand, is designed with the kind of quid-pro-quo
> you describe.  In exchange for filing public documents which describe your
> invention in enough detail so that someone else could use it, you get a
> time-limited monopoly on the use of that invention.
 
I realize that patent law works this way.  I believe the first drafters
of copyright law intended something similar for copyright.
 
--
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== Timothy Klein || teece at silverklein.net   ==
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== "Hello, World" 17 Errors, 31 Warnings... ==
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