FREE ESSAY ON COPYRIGHT

COPYRIGHT

Copyright 
Current copyright and patent laws are inappropriate for computer software; their
Imposition slows down software development and reduces competition. 
From the first computer as we know them, the ENIAC, computer software has become more and
more important. From thousands of bytes on miles of paper to millions of bytes on a thin
piece of tin foil sandwiched between two pieces of plastic, software has played an
important part in the world. Computers have most likely played an important role in all
our lives, from making math easier with calculators, to having money on the go with ATM
machines. However, with all the help that has been given to us, we haven't done anything
for software and the people who write it. Software by nature is completely 
Defenseless, as it is more or less simply intellectual property, and not a physical
thing, thus very easily copied. Copied software does not make money for its creators, and
thus they charge more for what's 
Not copied, and the whole industry inflates. 
There are two categories of intellectual property. The first one is composed of writing,
music, and films, which are covered by copyright. Inventions and innovations are covered
by patent. These two 
Categories have covered for years many kinds of work with little or no conflict.
Unfortunately, it is not that easy when dealing with such a complex matter as computer
software. When something is typed on 
A computer, it is considered writing, as it is all written words and numbers. However,
when executed by the computer, it functions like an invention, performing a specific task
as instructed by the user. 
Thus, software falls into both categories (Del Guercio 22-24). Copyright laws, for most
mass-market software, generally cover it today at least. More advanced software or
programming techniques, however, can be patented, as they are neither obvious nor old.
This results
In many problems which I will go into later. 
Copyrights last the lifetime of the author, plus 50 years, and can be renewed. Patents
last only 17 years, but cannot be renewed. With technology advancing so quickly, it is
not necessary to maintain 
The protection of the software for the length of the copyright, but also, it is sometimes
necessary to renew them (Del Guercio 22-24), say, for a 10th sequel in a video game
series or version 47.1 of Bob's 
Graphic Program. With copyrighted material, one is able to write software similar to
someone else's, so long as the programming code is their own, and not borrowed from the
others (Del Guercio 22-24). This 
Keeps the industry competitive, and thus results in better software (because everyone is
greedy, and they don't want to fall behind). With patents no one is allowed to create
software that performs a similar 
Functions. Take AutoCAD and True Space 2, two 3D modeling programs. True Space 2 would be
a violation of patent laws, as it performs a very close task to AutoCAD's, which came
first. Luckily for us, CAD programs are not new; they have been around for more than 10 
Years, and no one thought to patent them. 
Thus, you can see the need for change in the system. The current laws regarding the
protection of intellectual material cannot adequately protect software; they are either
too weak or too strict. We 
Need a new category of protection. The perfect protection law would most likely last for
10 years, renewable. This is long enough to protect a program for as long as it is still
useful, and allows for 
Sequels and new versions just in case. It would also have to allow for others to make
similar software, keeping the industry competitive, but it would have to not allow
copying of portions of other software 
(Because you can't 'quote' something from someone else's software like you can with a
book). However, there are many who dispute this, and I can see their point. Current
copyright laws have and will protect 
Software effectively, it can be just as protected as other mediums (Cosgrove). This is
true sometimes, however, to copy a book would take time. You would have to type up each
page to make a copy of it, or at least photocopy or scan each page, and it would most
likely take 
up much more time than it's worth. To copy a computer program however, takes seconds. 
Changing the law would take time and money, you might be saying. It would be a tremendous
hassle in Congress to have a new law written just to cover that Information Superhighway
thingy. Yes, that's 
True too, but to not change the laws will cost more. With the ability to patent new and
non-obvious software functions come serious problems. The latest new technology is it
ray-tracing 3D engines, anti-aliasing software, or a new Internet exploring fad can be
patented. This would mean that only one company and its software could use it. Any other
companies that wanted to use the software would have to pay them a large sum of money for
the rights. Also, since patent hearings are conducted over a period of 3 years, and in
secrecy, company 'a' might create a software package and then apply for a patent, and
company 'b' may create better software during that period, and might become quite
successful, and then bam, the patent is given to the company 'a', who promptly sues the!
Pants off company 'b'. This stagnates the computer industry; it used to be that company
'a' would retaliate by making better software. 
For example, Lotus software. They used to make data organization software. Up until I did
this report, I thought they had gone out of business, because I hadn't heard about
anything new being done by them. Well, while I was researching, I found the appalling
truth. When patenting of software became acceptable in the early 90's, they closed up
their R&D departments and called in a bunch of lawyers to 
Get them patents on all their programming techniques (Del Guercio 22-24). Ever since
then, they've been selling out the rights as their primarily (and I'm willing to bet,
only) business. 
This could even be taken to the extremes of actually patenting simple methods of handling
data, such as say, mouse support. Now, it can't happen to mouse support as it is today,
but in the future, something undoubtedly will replace the mouse as the preferred method
of input, for instance, in what may be a virtual reality future, the glove might be the
input device. Anyway, say it did happen to mouse support. Every single program that uses
mouse support would have to pay a fee for the rights to do so. This would result in
higher software prices (aren't they high enough?), and reduced quality in the programs,
as they have to worry about the legalities more. Needless to say, the patenting of
software is not a widely loved policy, mostly embraced by large corporations like Lotus
and Microsoft (Tysver Software Patents). Smaller companies and most often consumers are
generally against it. 
Even with all the legal problems I've mentioned that arise with current laws, that's not
all. The complexity of software protection laws brings up a large degree of confusion. I
myself thought that 
Copyrights lasted 7 years until I read this. I asked 15 people in a chat room on the
Internet what they knew about software protection laws, and only one of them knew that
software could be patented. 12 of them thought that it cost lots of money for a
copyright, which it doesn't. It's $20 for a copyright at most, and $10000 at most for a
patent. 5 of them thought that software copyrights lasted 7 years (hey, it's a popular
misconception, I thought so myself at one point). And last but not least, 10 of them
believed that there were no laws regarding the copying of software (there are, but
they're virtually ineffective). 
Now that you know all about the legal and business aspects of software protection, lets
take a look at how it can affect you. Say you've got a web page, and you've got a link on
your web page to your friend Bob's web page, and he's got a link on his page to JoE's
LeeT PiRaCY aND WaReZ, and on that site, there is a link to a pirated copy of AutoCAD.
Then Joe gets busted. Joe will almost certainly be in trouble, Bob will likely be either
questioned or considered responsible, depending on the blatancy of the link, and YOU will
likely be questioned and your page might be monitored for a time (Bilodeau). One such
example is my web page. I had a link from my page (the Weird Wide Web) to Archaic Ruins,
which is a site regarding information on emulators of old video game systems. When the
operator of Archaic Ruins got sued by a video game company (I think it was Konami), I too
got questioned, and had my page had ANY questionable material on it, I would have been
sued. Thankfully, I was too lazy to work on the page, as I had planned to put up a page
that had really old videogames. Who said procrastination was bad? 
How can you prosecute someone for a crime that is undefined? That's a question many
people are asking. What is a copy of software? Is it a physical clone of the media it
came on? Or is it the code duplicated to someplace else? If so, where else? Currently,
software copying is generally considered a copy of the code someplace else... but that's
a problem. We all know that a backup of software is a copy, but did you know that even
running the software creates a copy of it? Yes, it does. When you load a program, it goes
into your computers memory, and is legally considered a copy. While the copy does not
stay indefinitely, it does stay long enough to perform a certain task, and can and has
been looked upon as a form of software piracy, as stupid as that sounds. (Tysver Software
Patents) 
BBS (Bulletin Board Systems, small online services run by normal people) Sysops (system
operators) are legally considered responsible for all the files that are available on
their system (Elkin-Koren). While at first this seems like an obvious thing, after all,
it is their computer, they should know what's on it. However, if you had ever run a BBS
before, which I do, you'd know that it's hard, if not impossible to know what's on your
computer. Planet-X, my friend John Morse's BBS, which I co-run, has 50 calls a day. Of
those 50 calls, about 35 of them upload or download software. Neither one of us is
constantly monitoring the system, nor is there a way to make the computer automatically
check to see what happens. Thus, about half of the public files on the BBS we don't know
about. 
Lets take a look at an example of BBS's and copyright, and how they oh-so-beautifully
coincide. Sega Ltd., maker of the Sega Genesis and Sega Gamegear, recently sued the
Maphia BBS for making Sega Genesis ROMs publicly available in a download section. This
section was a type of digital rental as it is commonly known in the BBS community.
Commercial software publicly available for download, on an on-your-honor system, you had
to delete the files after a short period of time (24-48 hours). Unfortunately for the
Maphia BBS, they did not have a disclaimer, stating that the files must be deleted after
a trial period, and thus, Sega was able to sue them for it, as without the disclaimer,
there was no proof that they had used the digital rental system, and thus it was not fair
use, as it could be used for monetary gain by the down loader (not having to buy the
game). Of course, it could be used for that purpose WITH the disclaimer, but the
disclaimer does just that, disc! Claims the BBS operator of the responsibilities of that
copy of software. 
Another such case was the case between Playboy (I think we all know who that is), and the
Frena BBS. The public file areas on the Frena BBS frequently contained image files, and
more often than not, they were adult image files. Well, I don't know exactly how it
appended, but Playboy somehow found out that this BBS had some scanned photos from a
Playboy magazine, and because they have the copyright to all their photos, they were able
to sue the operator of the Frena BBS. The operator had no idea that there were any
Playboy images on his system. 
Speaking of image files, they too can be a problem with software protection. Say you've
got an image file that someone had copyrighted. You load it up in a photo-retouching
program, and add a big old goat in the background and paint the sky red. Then you remove
the artists file name. Viola, the picture is now semi-legally copyrighted to you, as it
has been significantly changed from its original, although I wouldn't recommend going to
court over it . All you have to do is change a very large portion of the image files
coding. Technically, darkening or blurring the image, changing the file format, or
interlacing the file changes the file entirely, and thus, it's yours. Sounds too easy? It
is. 
Copyrights and patents are designed to help the media it protects. But in the case of
technology, it's actually hindering it. CD-ROMs contain a lot of information, and are the
perfect media for music. A lesser known media, the Digital Video Disc, or DVD, is much
more versatile, containing 26 times the storage capacity of a CD-ROM, and 11500 times
more than a standard floppy disk, or about 17 gigabytes (the largest hard drives are 9
gigs). However, DVD's are not available to the public. Why? Because of the ease of
copying them. We've all dubbed tapes; it's easy to do. However, we often opt for higher
quality originals, because there is always a bit of degradation in the copies (although
its very small now). With DVD's, a copy is exactly that, a copy. No degradation, no
reason to buy an original. All the big companies are really scared by this technology,
because it will take another five bucks out of their pockets. DVD's would be one of the
greatest advancements in the short history of computers, but because of the shadier uses
it could be used for, we'll never see it. I like to compare it to the Internet, its very
useful, but it can be used for illegal purposes. You be the judge. 
Luckily, we may yet someday see DVD's, because several companies are developing copy
protection schemes for them, to stop the casual home hacker/copier. Macrovision, for
instance, is producing hardware for the DVD player that will make them incompatible with
VCRs (the easiest dubbing-to platform, the equivalent of CD to audio tape). It will send
output through the audio/video out ports that when played on a TV, will appear normal,
but when played through a VCR, will have color stripes running sideways across the
screen. That is due to the difference between the ways the two works. 
So as you can see, current methods of protecting software are a hindrance on the software
industry. The problems outweigh the benefits, but with a new law, the industry would be
able to keep the benefits and minimize any drawbacks. Instead of having to nitpick over
who wrote something that did something similar, it would be back to who wrote something
more powerful than the other guy, and that's what makes the industry great, competition.
Oh, and I'd like to add that I broke copyright law a total of 13 times in the making of
this report, when I made a copy of each reference with the school copying machine,
although it was fair use, so I'm not in any trouble.