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A Fairy Tale In Akademia
Comments by the na.list and mod.legal readership are sollicited on the
following Fairy Tale (Caveat Receptor, no guarantee is given that the story
is either true or fiction). Note that Copyright must be explicitly invoked
under American Law, while Copyright exists by default in many other countries,
especially those that have ratified the Berne Copyright Convention.
Under U.S. and British Law, Copyright limitations are offset by the
fair use / fail dealing doctrine. Under the BCC, the sovereign states have
the right to grant similar rights. At the present time, there is a tendency
that software copyright is excluded from the fair use / fair dealing doctrine
(e.g., France and the Federal German Republic).
A FAIRY TALE IN AKADEMIA
(C) 1986 Herman J. Woltring
Eindhoven, The Netherlands
e-mail: na.woltring@su-score.arpa ; ortho_rh@hnykun51.bitnet
"In 561", he began in the mild-mannered tone of a tourist guide,
"the only battle in the world that was ever fought on account of
a Copyright matter, was waged here".
Shaking my head I looked at him.
"It is really true", he said, "the followers of St. Columba had
copied a psalmbook that belonged to St. Fenian, and a battle re-
sulted between the followers of St. Fenian and the followers of
St. Columba. Three thousand people were killed -- but the king
decided about the fight; he said: 'like every cow has its calf,
so has every book its copy.' ".
After Heinrich Boell, Irisches Tagebuch
(Kiepenheuer & Wirtsch, Cologne 1957)
Once upon a time, there was a professor in the country of Akademia, whose
software belonged to the best in the whole, wide world. As was the custom
in his country, he published extensively about his research, and he wrote
once in a paper that his software was available on request.
Unfortunately, Akademian publications did not yield sufficient funds for
conducting further research, and the professor tried to improve his finances
by exporting his software to the neighbouring country of Kommerzia. This
caused a problem since Akademia and Kommerzia were often at arms with each
other. So, Copyright and Trade Secret conditions were imposed [cf. 1].
Another researcher became intrigued by the professor's work, and he asked him
for a copy of his software. The professor replied that the original package
was based on unreliable Akademian software, and that a better version was
available from a software house in Kommerzia.
Now, our researcher did not have much grant money left, so there were no means
to do business in Kommerzia. Fortunately, he could legally acquire the package
because Kommerzian law did not apply in Akademia. After a while, he owned a
copy of what seemed to be the package from Kommerzia, because it contained
the appropriate Copyright Notice.
He went on to study the package, presented some results at a conference, and
informed the professor how to improve and update the original package.
It appeared that the package did, in fact, originate from the software house,
because Kommerzia invaded Akademia with all the armaments that it could muster.
Dismayed by the hue and cry, the researcher looked further into the properties
of his package, and some more publications followed.
After a while, the software house claimed that the researcher was about to
illegally enter Kommerzia. Instead, he designed a new and completely different
package, published it, and distributed it within Akademia by electronic mail.
In order to emphasize copyfreedom in Akademia, Copyright was imposed [cf. 2].
The professor and the researcher started a lively debate about customs in
Akademia, in the spirit of an earlier publication [3]; however, they could not
collaborate under Akademian law, since no peace treaty had been signed with
Kommerzia.
Finally, new export laws were passed in Kommerzia, and the inhabitants of
both countries tried to live happily ever after [4].
REFERENCES
[1] D.G. Johnson (1985), Should computer programs be owned? Metaphilosophy
16(4), pp. 276-288 [special issue on Computer Ethics].
[2] R.M. Stallman (1985), GNU Emacs General Public Licence. Free Software,
Inc., 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Boston MA 02138, U.S.A.
[also distributed via UUCP/Usenet's net.legal newsgroup].
[3] L.F. Peltier (1983), Guerin versus Malgaigne: a precedent for the free
criticism of scientific papers. Journal of Orthopaedic Research 1(1), pp.
115--118.
[4] R.E. Wilson (1985), A threat to scientific communication. Editorial,
Physics Today, July 1985, p. 128.
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