cwc@mhuxd.UUCP (06/02/83)
I have been intimately involved with the Copyright Law of 1977 (which took effect 1/1/78) from the point of view of one who had/has to write/maintain systems to account for and pay royalties on the photocopying activities at Bell Labs. Believe me when I tell you that I have read, re-read and had lawyers explain to me that law until I am sure of only one thing: at this point, the law means exactly what your lawyers say it means, no more, no less. As was pointed out by one of BTL's more up-front lawyers, the law really has no teeth until someone is sued and the meaning of the law is decided in court (I believe the term is "becomes part of case law"). Well, this is 1983, and there still is little "case law" applicable to the Copyright Law of 1977, no less the more recent legislative "clarifications" for software. There is a suit in progress which (hopefully) will establish precedent for systematic photocopying, but to my knowledge, the only computer related cases have been very narrowly defined in such areas as whether one manufacturer copying (stealing) another's RAM mask is a violation if the originator forgot to paint a (c) on it. Basically, I think the legal profession would just as soon avoid software for a few years until there are some judges who have more than a "Time" magazine understanding of what computing is all about. Still utterly confused in Murray Hill, Chip
mckeeman@wivax.UUCP (04/12/84)
Speaking as a non-lawyer, I think the following summary is accurate: There are three methods of legal protection for software: patent, copyright, and trade secret. The body of law in this area is developing as it comes to grips with the peculiarities of "intellectual" property. A patent is a contract with the government to enforce 17 years of control by the patenter in trade for complete, public, disclosure of the idea. It is not very popular because 17 years isn't very long and it is pretty hard to prosecute. Some people patent software as a defensive measure in case someone else tries to stop them from using or selling their own stuff. A copyright lasts for the life of the author. It is subject to the "doctrine of fair use", which is a set of limited, but universal, permissions to use copyrighted material. The courts seem to be holding that anything that can be made human-readable (through some device, including a computer) can be copyrighted. This extends to ROM which for awhile was excluded. Straight ASCII copyright notice at "address-zero" of the ROM is probably a good idea. Copyright does not protect the idea behind the material, only the material itself. Trade secrets show up as contractual arrangements between buyers/users and the owners of software. The users promise to keep it a secret. Illegal users can be sued. It can get hard to enforce because it is hard to know when the secret has been violated or just reinvented. But that is what courts and expert witnesses are for. This is the most common form of legal protection. The final alternative is just to make it hard to steal, as many inventive suggestions on this topic have recently suggested. Bill McKeeman Wang Institute ...decvax!wivax!mckeeman McKeeman.Wang-Inst @ CSnet-Relay