Google wins copyright fight

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

No it isn't, and just saying so doesn't make it true.
They haven't stolen the work I produced, they have bought it from me, bit by bit, hour by hour, at a rate agreed upon as a salary, in advance. This was known to both sides before I started the job.
It is as far from theft as you can get.

That's exactly what I said. Like the writers for Stratemeyer you are a hired worker. You have totally taken the word theft out of context

But due to the intellectual and creative nature of programming it would be morally fairer to share the copyright and some small percentage of royalty, if applicable.

I'm baffled why you are so negatively against the idea. Even if more companies adopted it, or the laws were somehow changed (I can't see how), it would have no effect on your contract or income.

I am absolutely not proposing an either/or. I'm not proposing an end to programmers or writers for hire. I'm proposing that under EXISTING contracts of employment that the in reality shared nature of the creative works should be recognised.

It's not some sort of socialist or Free Software manifesto.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

It wasn't novel, computer code is just words and number written down. The law didn't need to treat it any differently to any other collection of words and numbers to decide whether it should be copyrightable or not. Is it original? Is it creative? Is it more than minimal?

But that only protects the exact form that was written down, as with any 'normal' copyright. An independently developed second program that performed the same function would not be covered by the first program's copyright.



Regardless of the complexity of the code, or the innovation it might embody?
A million LOC project is the same as print("Hello world")?
That is saying that War and Peace is the same as "The sun rose in the east".

Article I Section 8 | Clause 8 – Patent and Copyright Clause of the Constitution. [The Congress shall have power] “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”

Claiming that programmers are authors and that programs are writings is very much a novel approach that distorts the purpose of copyright. Programming is a lot closer to inventing, but it's not inventing either. Copyright, the right to copy, started off as a monopoly to publish, i.e. make copies, of specific works such as the Bible. Until 1976, to get a copyright, you were required to register the work when it was first published. Of course, software was not published. That's why in 1908 the Supreme court found that piano rolls, something very similar to software, were not copyrightable. Interestingly, the first software copyrights were given to the printout of the code, not the code itself.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Quoth

That's exactly what I said. Like the writers for Stratemeyer you are a hired worker. You have totally taken the word theft out of context

You said: "But it's actually legalised intellectual theft."
What context am I missing?

But due to the intellectual and creative nature of programming it would be morally fairer to share the copyright and some small percentage of royalty, if applicable.

Any argument to morality is obviously subjective, and I disagree. I was employed to write programs for my employer. I knew the terms going in, and I agreed to them. They bargain struck included transfer of ownership. If it didn't, the company may well not have been willing to strike the same bargain. I see nothing immoral with the current setup.

If on being employed anything I'd previously written was claimed by my employer; or they continued to claim code I wrote after I left employment; or they claimed code I wrote in my own time, unaffected to their business, that would all raise moral arguments.

I'm baffled why you are so negatively against the idea. Even if more companies adopted it, or the laws were somehow changed (I can't see how), it would have no effect on your contract or income.

Of course it would.
You are saying that publishers/companies should pay a proportion of royalties to writers/programmers. You think they are just going to do that on top of the existing fixed prices they have agreed? No, they would reduce the initial fixed fees, so that the expected return was the same. Otherwise, they are just paying more for the same thing.

I am absolutely not proposing an either/or. I'm not proposing an end to programmers or writers for hire. I'm proposing that under EXISTING contracts of employment that the in reality shared nature of the creative works should be recognised.

You have said that the programmers/writers should share the copyright of the work. That is an end to work (for hire/in the course of employment), the very essence of which is that the employer owns the copyright.

[ekbell]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I am absolutely not proposing an either/or. I'm not proposing an end to programmers or writers for hire. I'm proposing that under EXISTING contracts of employment that the in reality shared nature of the creative works should be recognised.

Is it the loss of possible royalties or the fact that workers for hire are generally anonymous that most bothers you?

[Quoth]

Neither.
It's about recognising the difference of the KIND of work done for hire.

[hollowpoint]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I had forgotten about this case. I followed it closely at first. I'm not a fan of Google or Oracle, but I'm glad Google won this particular case.

Exactly. Detest them both: their business practices, their 'surveillance capitalism' business model (Google), and most of their crappy software. But in this instance, the decision was correctly decided to allow innovation and fair use to continue, and I always thought Oracle had a weak claim. I didn't even think they had standing originally, the case never should have been allowed to go forward and it's kind of a joke that it took this long to resolve.

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by Quoth

But it's actually legalised intellectual theft.

It really isn't.

You're free to try and negotiate a contract where you retain copyright if you want to. You can ask to be be paid entirely based on a rate for the work, or you can ask to have your remuneration partially or wholly in the form of royalties, or shares in the employing company or anything else you like.

Of course, nothing can force the employer to accept any of those proposed deals if it doesn't work for them, but over the years I've worked under all those arrangements at one time or another.

Accepting a reduced fixed salary in return for royalties or stock (or stock options) is not unusual, but it does involve the individual taking on more of the risk. It's very common in the startup sector, but many (most?) are happier for their employer to carry the risk and just be paid a fixed rate.

What isn't fair is to accept a fixed rate contract where the employer carries all the risk and then to complain that it's "theft" that you didn't get royalties or copyright ownership as well. If you didn't like it, you shouldn't have agreed to the contract in the first place.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Quoth

[...] But due to the intellectual and creative nature of programming it would be morally fairer to share the copyright and some small percentage of royalty, if applicable.

I'm baffled why you are so negatively against the idea. Even if more companies adopted it, or the laws were somehow changed (I can't see how), it would have no effect on your contract or income.

I am absolutely not proposing an either/or. I'm not proposing an end to programmers or writers for hire. I'm proposing that under EXISTING contracts of employment that the in reality shared nature of the creative works should be recognised.

It's not some sort of socialist or Free Software manifesto.

Curiously enough, this demonstrates a similarity to the other contentious IP problem related (particularly) to software: patents.

Just imagine a project had to track every function (or line of code?) for its impact on IP: patents to be paid, patents to be applied for, shares of copyright to be allocated to the 50 programmers who have had a hand in maintaining that function over the last 20 years. It would be a nightmare! The practicalities of it negate the need to discuss the politics of it. On the plus side, it might be a way to drive more programmers over to open-source.

[Quoth]

Software is copyright. No patent should ever be issued for software.

[binaryhermit]

Or if there are software patents, they should expire way before the current 20 years.
For example, the last mp3 patents expired in 2017*. MP3 was largely obsolete by the time the patents expired.


*Remember the questionable "MP3 is dead" hot takes from 2017? That was Fraunhofer announcing they weren't licensing mp3 anymore (because the patents were no longer enforceable) and telling people to start using AAC (which they do have some patents on certain flavors of). Arguably MP3 was slightly less dead when those patents expired than immediately before.

[Quoth]

mp3 is not purely software. It's a compression system and can be implemented without any software.
But the like patent on FM Radio, perhaps it's mostly mathematics. Patents should never have been issued for the Superhetrodyne or Frequency Modulation systems, because ultimately they are mathematics. Particular implementations would have been copyright.

I have some experience of electronic patents (I had one that I thought invalid). However I don't know enough about mp3 to decide if it really should have had a patent, but it's not a software patent.

The majority of patents are bullying by rich corporations and on the basis of prior art, being simply a recipe, obvious to someone versed in the art, or lacking novelty, or not currently implementable, should never have been granted. The worst in the world is the USPTO because they get more income by approval than rejection and their theory is that the validity should be decided in a USA court, not having no prior art, not being simply a recipe, not obvious to someone versed in the art, ignoring novelty, and ability to implement.
Edison was the most famous start of the absolute abuse of the US Patent system.

[DiapDealer]

I think what bothers me most, is that you never, EVER, include the phrase "in my opinion", or something similar when you post. Your posts are often presented as objective fact, when they're actually anything but. Big=bad; leverage=abuse; for hire programming=legal ip theft; there needs to be X; Y are criminals. Your insistence that societal/business gray areas are black and white is why some see your posts as polemic or manifesto. That's not an attack, but rather just an observation that hopefully can hopefully lead to better dialog.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Software is copyright. No patent should ever be issued for software.

That is a political issue (ie. opinion). I happen to share it, but it completely misses the point I was making: Sharing copyright with employees, as you were suggesting, presents many of the same management problems (i.e. costs) as software patents, and those similarities (IMO) make it a really lousy idea. If you want to be nice to your employees, offer them shares in the company.