Great decision, though it'd be better if it was embedded into law and couldn't go away down the line. At the least DRM and legal protection should be either/or, like secrets vs patents. Part of the return the public is supposed to see for granting legal protection to IP is that the IP is then made widely available (as well as eventually entering the public domain) and can be built upon for personal use, commentated upon, etc. If somebody wants to just try to keep something secret or protect it with technology maybe that's fine to try to do indefinitely, but they shouldn't be able to do that and then also get the full benefit of IP law that was originally created around non-technically restricted information.
This is also a good starting balance in that legal subsidies are removed but it doesn't require manufacturers to nerf their tech either, which is an area that needs to be navigated very carefully in law given the security implications and the risks of unintended consequences. I still wish "right to repair" was "right to have work" but this seems like an unalloyed Good Thing regardless. Maybe it can catalyze a bit of renewed fight against the worse parts of the DMCA and the like.
> Part of the return the public is supposed to see for granting legal protection to IP is that the IP is then made widely available (as well as eventually entering the public domain) and can be built upon for personal use, commentated upon, etc.
That's really well said. A bit of a tangent, but it's similar to how software patents should be as well. If you want to patent a software feature, then you have to include a working code sample and that sample code loses copyright protection forever.
Patents are already supposed to do that. They are required to describe embodiments of the claims, which can be used by anyone to implement the invention. However they are always redacted in the vaguest, most obscure way possible as to provide the legal protection without the disclosure part. That should be reason to reject any patent application in my opinion, but I'm not a patent examiner.
I don't think they use convoluted language to avoid disclosure. I think they use convoluted language to hide the fact that what's being patented totally fails the obviousness test. But I might have a biased sample here :p
I read that as, you would be able to use the sample code verbatim once the patent expired and would be able to read and understand the principle behind the patent.
I would argue this is better than congress passing new legislation because congress is broken and corrupt. If congresss were to write new legislation on DRM it would make things worse since they always take the copyright maximalist position since that's what corporate lobbyists want.
Something being non-democratic does not mean that it is corrupt. (Many companies are not democratic but also aren't subject to corruption). This is very much like a democratic ruling does not protect it from corruption.
Both the corruption and lack of it can happen in most systems of creating rulings.
Maybe. It’s easier for me to imagine corruption stopping if it’s tied to an election. Who votes over changing out the patent office? Nobody. What comes out of that office might as well be random in the best case, and openly corrupt in the worst (again, see the FCC).
Well the US[0] has a democratic government in the same sense that it has a capitalist/free market economy, namely <five straight minutes of mocking laughter>.
0: And the EU/most European countries/Australia/anywhere else that calls itself 'democratic' in a attempt to imitate the US rather than as a fig leaf for a dictatorship.
> though it'd be better if it was embedded into law and couldn't go away down the line
I'd go further and say that there's nothing of any significance in this decision since it will likely go away down the line since it was not codified in law.
>I'd go further and say that there's nothing of any significance in this decision since it will likely go away down the line since it was not codified in law.
I don't believe you're correct here. If down the road the LoC and USCO did not continue this exemption, it still would have applied for the whole intervening time and anybody who took advantage of it during that time would be in the clear. At a bare minimum this is a specific material benefit to many people, and any knowledge, tooling and techniques developed to aid that during that time would still be valuable. That's not insignificant.
More long term, ultimately this is politics and that can definitely be influenced by "temporary" measures which later become permanent. In general in politics it's much harder to take away something specific granted to people who gain a concentrated benefit from it then it is to not offer it in the first place. Before having it people may not be able to visualize a future benefit, but after getting used to it they'll resent having it removed if it was at all useful. Constituencies develop. So if for 3+ years some people were more easily and cheaply able to get something dealt with or saw more competition for it and in turn better quality/reliability/price, and then all of a sudden one day they walk in and get told "well the politicians just rescinded this so suddenly you can't but only because they said so" well that tends not to go over so well. Particularly if it seems like "common sense" and there is no harm any general member of the public can see from it either. Appeals to distant corporate profits tend to be curiously unmoving...
The US legal system is based on English common law, which uses precedent to make decisions. Companies will submit test cases to be judged to inform whether what they're doing is likely to be found legal or illegal.
I believe that the idea that patents are necessary for creativity and invention is false. I think patents are actually very detrimental to new invention since people often can't use past patented ideas.
Like licenses in professions, the only true reason we have patents is to reduce competition for incumbents. This is why VCs like them so much... It creates a moat.
At most patents should give a short head start in the market, not be a guaranteed competition crusher.
You don't need to believe, those are verifiable facts.
You can see the exact same cycle go through as industries develop. They start with no copyright/patents, they develop successful companies and business models, those companies lobby to increase protections for themselves resulting in lower amount of new competitors and a decrease in creative/technological development while increasing profits for existing entities.
You saw it from the early beginnings with Watts engine, you saw it in the film industry in the US, you saw it in the German, Japanese, South korean development, and now you see it happening in China.
Make a list of the most famous composers in the 1800s. How many of them made most of their work prior to the introduction of copyright in their place of business? How many did it after? You can see it clearly there.
This is also a good starting balance in that legal subsidies are removed but it doesn't require manufacturers to nerf their tech either, which is an area that needs to be navigated very carefully in law given the security implications and the risks of unintended consequences. I still wish "right to repair" was "right to have work" but this seems like an unalloyed Good Thing regardless. Maybe it can catalyze a bit of renewed fight against the worse parts of the DMCA and the like.