Re: [dvd-discuss] Gedanken Experiment -Unix and Norton

[Seth Johnson <seth.johnson(at)realmeasures.dyndns.org>]

Richard Hartman wrote:
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: microlenz@earthlink.net [mailto:microlenz@earthlink.net]
> > Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2003 7:10 PM
> > To: dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
> > Subject: RE: [dvd-discuss] Gedanken Experiment -Unix and Norton
> >
> > Actually, it must be one set of algorithms that are data
> > driven (although I
> > assume that Norton etc update the DLLS as well when theyneed
> > a new algorithm.
> > Everything else is data driven)
> 
> Once the signature is discovered and encoded, _applying_
> that encoding to check against a target file is algorithmic.
> 
> However, the nature of the signature itself -- and especially
> the _discovery_ of that signature -- is an independant research
> effort each time.
> 
> >
> > Once discovered becomes a fact.
> >
> 
> In that light, "Gone With the Wind", once written, is a fact.


As such, it is.

But it is also original expression.  This is what exclusive rights means --
authors are granted exclusive rights on a hunk of expression that is
original, despite the fact that its elements are factual (and despite the
fact that its being as a whole is a fact).

Exclusive rights have nothing to do with the "research effort" expended in
the production of a work.  They have to do with whether the expression as
such is original.  But they don't have to do with the factual elements of
the work.


Seth Johnson


-- 

DRM is Theft!  We are the Stakeholders!

New Yorkers for Fair Use
http://www.nyfairuse.org

[CC] Counter-copyright: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cc/cc.html

I reserve no rights restricting copying, modification or distribution of
this incidentally recorded communication.  Original authorship should be
attributed reasonably, but only so far as such an expectation might hold for
usual practice in ordinary social discourse to which one holds no claim of
exclusive rights.