RE: [dvd-discuss] Copyright ranges

[Richard Hartman <hartman(at)onetouch.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: microlenz@earthlink.net [mailto:microlenz@earthlink.net]
... 
> No progress here....I'm beginning to be 
> skeptical of the claims 
> that software is speech that deserves copyright but not that 
> it is speech that 
> deserves FA protection.
> 

That's because software is generally much more like an invention
that it is like a book or a piece of art.  Well ... some
software.  Applications (e.g. word processors) are tools,
and analogous to inventions ... but games, especially the
ones w/ definiate story lines (e.g. Myst, Deus Ex) are
more analogous to movies.

In truth software -- taken as a whole -- is neither animal
nor vegetable, but something unique and a -new- form of
IP protection (neither copyright nor patent) should be 
developed.  Then the limitations, obligations and protections
could be specified in a way that is appropriate to the
medium.

I agree on the FA protection -- regardless of the 
copyright/patent/other issue software _can_ be used
to express ideas.  Note: it _can_, but it does not
_always_ do so ... Deus Ex told a quite dark story
of government & big business conspiracies ... and
yet, what idea is expressed in MS Word or Excel?
IMO Deus Ex would deserve 1st Am. protections, but
Word?  Nah.

-- 
-Richard M. Hartman
hartman@onetouch.com

186,000 mi./sec ... not just a good idea, it's the LAW!