Re: [OT] Right to use vs. sue (was: No call for Ada...)

[Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Mon, 3 May 2004 12:28:12 -0700, "Marius Amado Alves"
<amado.alves@netcabo.pt> wrote:

>> ... talking in programming language terms you can copyright a type but
>> not its instance.
>
>In general yes, but there are a lot of fuzzy cases. Inheritance,
>prototype-bases languages, languages where types are first class objects,
>etc.

Then let's talk about second class objects! (:-))

>> So one can copyright an engineering decision, not an
>> example of its use. It would be a nonsense to copyright a car, but it
>> is what actually happens with software.
>
>Again, I believe the music example can help. Reward is due when the work is
>executed. So it works for items that can be executed. Music scores,
>programs, in a straightfoward way.

It might work, if there were an infrastructure ready to count runs.
However, I do not think that customers would enjoy a model of paying
per run. We see that people prefer DVD to concerts. And the major
problem is that to play music you need orchestra, musicians etc. It is
a lot of work and this is why it worked (before file swapping came).

>For cars, one can view the construction
>and sale of a batch of them as the execution of their blueprint. Similar to
>books.

--
Regards,
Dmitry Kazakov
www.dmitry-kazakov.de