HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Child Pornography was Re: Sysops' Top 20 Legal Questions
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 03:25:32 GMT

In article <Bv92zs.95L@ibmpcug.co.uk> gtoal@ibmpcug.co.uk (Graham Toal) writes:
>In article <1992Sep27.064325.16495@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
>>Many states have "invasion of privacy" torts that the child (and his/her
>>parents or guardian) could use to recover damages from the perpetrator of
>>such a use of the child's image. These torts include, but may not be
>>limited to, "false light" and "appropriation of one's likeness."
>
>And if the whole image is completely computer-generated?  (Sorry, I know
>we're getting sidetracked; I'm just amused at the concept and wondering
>how many lawyer-hours might be expended on it...)

I'm not sure how your question raises a different legal issue. Could you
elaborate? What different legal issue do you think your question raises? 


--Mike



-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact 
mnemonic@eff.org| of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, 
(617) 864-0665  | both are transformed."
EFF, Cambridge  |                           --Carl Jung
From: David.Heiney@f20.n112.z1.fidonet.org (David Heiney)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Sneakers
Date: 24 Sep 92 19:01:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: puddle.3332.2AC4C483
Organization: FidoNet node 1:112/20 - Medical Information, Jacksonville Fl

BL>  I just saw "SNEAKERS" - awesome movie.  Almost as good as Wargames
  >when I first saw it.  Anyone else with thoughts on this movie?

  If it's as good as Wargames, then it isn't worth anything!

  Wargames just promoted fear in people... "Someone with a computer can change everything on any computer!"... Crud like that is what makes alot of people scared to use one.  Fact is, WG is fiction, and very little could actually happen.  Only people who know about computers, can tell the like that they try and feed you.  Hollywood has tainted the 'Hacker' name, from the Electronic hobbyist, to the blood sucking vampire teenager with a 10$ computer that has taken over the world.  I was watching a show the 



other day and they had a 'Hollywood' computer virus on there that was ridiculously fake... made me *SICK* that anyone can twist the truth to such proportions.

  Enough soap box for tonight.  I'm glad if you like watching fiction, based on no reality... but some of us can see the real thing.

/ David Heiney  4804 Oakside Dr ------ medinfo.jax.fl.us  R/O Compat.  \
\ ->MEDINFO --- Jacksonville FL 32244  1:112/20 --------- Netmail Cpt. /



--  
uucp: uunet!m2xenix!puddle!112!20!David.Heiney
Internet: David.Heiney@f20.n112.z1.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,comp.unix.bsd,comp.os.mach,misc.int-property,alt.suit.att-bsdi,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva)
Subject: Re: Letter asking for help with Apple from the US VP
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 18:45:45 GMT

Just tossing in a comment, in an attempt to get the discussion on track:

In article <1992Sep26.171807.24908@rwwa.COM> witr@rwwa.com writes:
> In article <BZS.92Sep25214624@ussr.std.com>,
>   bzs@ussr.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:
> | I honestly do not believe you know what you are talking about, and you
> | are just recording some personalized, internal belief system.

> Barry, I honestly do not believe you know what you are talking about,
> and you are just recording some personalized, internal belief system.

> | Have you ever heard someone, for instance, criticize
> | the US Internal Revenue Code [...]

> Yes.  Myself.  Frequently.  However not soley on the basis that 
> I can accidentally violate the code, but on the basis that 
> (paraphrasing another poster) it is nearly *impossible* to avoid
> violating the code and still conduct a going concern.  The two
> concepts are not identical.

And that's exactly what Barry is saying about software patents, as they
currently exist.

If you disagree, address that. Neither of you (you too, Barry) will convince
the other by attacking them.

You need to demonstrate that it's possible to reform software patents.

Barry needs (perhaps) to demonstrate that this isn't practical, if that is
what he believes.
-- 
Peter da Silva                                               `-_-'
Ferranti Intl. Ctls. Corp.                                    'U` 
Sugar Land, TX  77487-5012
+1 713 274 5180                                   Har du kramat din varg idag?
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,comp.admin.policy,soc.college
From: waider@glas.rtsg.mot.com (Ronan Waide)
Subject: Re: Banned Computer Material 1992
Organization: Motorola Ireland Ltd., Cork, Ireland.
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 17:11:03 GMT

brad@optilink.UUCP (Brad Yearwood) writes:

>In article <1992Oct1.173240.7942@glas.rtsg.mot.com>, waider@glas.rtsg.mot.com (Ronan Waide) writes:
># 
># In the University of Limerick, Ireland, there was a security incident involving
># a user who had the process name "Baader". Subsequent to his "trial" and
># expulsion from the college for a year, another student set his process name to
># "Baader" and promptly found himself disusered.

>What is the significance of "Baader"?  What if your name happens to be Baader?
>(I once worked with someone with that name.)  How can the EC survive if what
>is a perfectly good name in one part is a banned epithet in another part? 
>Does invoking this name cause giant chickens to issue forth from cracks in
>the Earth, or termination of pregnancy, or what?

>Also, from Kadie's original post:

No, no, no, no and no! The point was that Student A, with a process name of X,
cracked the system. Big time. Got rapped on the knuckles so hard for it that he
fell out of college for a year :-7. Student B, for whatever reason, set his
process name to X, and within _seconds_ found himself disusered. Like as in
there was a program somewhere watching for 'X' to log in.....

Mind you, one year on from 'Baader''s expulsion, every student who logged in
set his process name to `Baader lives', `Baader II' and the like :-) 

>Brad "Baader than you wanna be" Yearwood  brad@optilink.com
>Petaluma, CA

Right buddy, that's _your_ account gone....;-)

Ronan
-- 
Ronan Waide, Motorola Ireland                        waider@glas.rtsg.mot.com

"You watch a talk show recently?  They're doing one next month on a normal,
happy heterosexual couple, assuming they can find one." - Prof R. Noble @ RPI
From: kelsey@mdd.comm.mot.com (Joe Kelsey)
Subject: Re: Patents: What they are. What they aren't. Other factors.
Organization: Motorola, Mobile Data Division - Seattle, WA
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 21:29:06 GMT

In alt.suit.att-bsdi you write:

>In article <1992Oct2.013258.20331@netcom.com>, mcgregor@netcom.com (Scott Mcgregor) writes:

>| Mr. Bernstein keeps changing the question to manipulating
>| "information" an abstract mental concept.

>Actually, he is simply begging the question.  He *defines* rubber curing
>as a physical act, but data compression as a non-physical act.

No.  He clearly says that both processes involve physical actions but that he
considers the physical action in the data compression process as legally
``inessential'', and I agree with him.  The rubber curing patent allows a
machine to control the process of curing rubber, but it does not provide any
protection to the software used in the computer controlling the rubber curing
process!  This means that I can use the same algorithm for a different process
without infringing the patent!

On the other hand, the LZW (and MW, and Jung,..) claim more than just a
specific transformation of data.  They claim as patentable the very *idea* of
manipulating data using a specific set of formulae.  Thus, the physical
process becomes *inessential* to the patent claim, and, as Dan points out, the
courts consider this an unpatentable process.

>His claim is false, I beleive, because (as you have noted) at no time can
>you separate ``data'' from *some* physical phenomina expressing it (even
>in your mind).  In this way data is similar to heat, in that you can't
>fill a bucket with heat any more than you can fill a bucket with data (but
>you can fill a bucket with hot matter as you can fill a bucket with
>matter expressing data).  This has not stoped the rightfull patenting of
>devices that manipluate heat (i.e. various thermodynamic ``engines'', etc).
>I don't see why it should prevent the patenting of devices that manipulate
>data...

Consider your heat example.  I can patent a steam engine which uses a boiler
to produce steam to drive a piston to eventually turn a wheel.  You can still
take the boiler and use it to produce steam to heat your house *without
infringing my patent*!  I did not receive a patent on heat or even on the
transformation of heat, but on the use of that transformation to do work.

The owners of the LZW patent claim that their patent covers any use of the
algorithm at all, not just its use in the claimed device.  They want to
broaden the scope of coverage beyond a single device to include the mere
existence of similar formulae in any computer program at all, and I do not
believe that they have the right to do this, under Dan's ``mental process''
model, at least.

/Joe


Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: gtoal@ibmpcug.co.uk (Graham Toal)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Child Pornography was Re: Sysops' Top 20 Legal Questions
Date: 27 Sep 92 18:50:16 GMT
Organization: The IBM PC User Group, UK.

In article <1992Sep27.064325.16495@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
>Many states have "invasion of privacy" torts that the child (and his/her
>parents or guardian) could use to recover damages from the perpetrator of
>such a use of the child's image. These torts include, but may not be
>limited to, "false light" and "appropriation of one's likeness."

And if the whole image is completely computer-generated?  (Sorry, I know
we're getting sidetracked; I'm just amused at the concept and wondering
how many lawyer-hours might be expended on it...)

G
--
From: mcgregor@netcom.com (Scott Mcgregor)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Patents: What they are. What they aren't. Other factors.
Date: 6 Oct 92 08:18:11 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

In article <DGAY.92Oct3124402@disun46.epfl.ch> dgay@di.epfl.ch (David Gay) writes:
>In other words, you are using the existence of the computer as a
>physical element capable of following algorithms as a way of extending
>patents to cover algorithms (as now these algorithms can have a
>"physical" existence).  This smacks of sophistry to me. If you feel
>that algorithms should be patentable, say so (and I can understand
>people having that point of view).

I can certainly understand why Gay would see this as sophistry. Gay's
argument was essentially that which was made in DIamond vs. Diehr but
the court did not accept it.   The reason is that the court read the
patent as describing not an algorithm, but a process. The court held
that the process was patentable whether or not it was performed by a
computer. The fact that preferred implementation used a computer did
not make it less of a process and more of an algorithm.  So the court
upheld the patent. Gay may  see this as sophistry because he starts from a
different place than the court did.  Gay starts from an algorithm and
adds a computer and then other peripherals.  The court started from
the peripherals (performing a physical process) and noted that it was
controlled by a computer (running an algorithm). But it decided that
fact didn't undermine the fact that a real physical process had taken
place (albeit the steps were controlled by a computer according to an
algorithm encoded in a software program).  I believe it is entirely
reasonable that a court might look at a modem in the same way--observe
a physical process in an area where past patents have been granted
(electronic signalling) then see a CPU and a ROM with a program in it
but still conclude that the process applied in the modem was patentable.

>I would argue that computers are basically information processing
>devices (*), and that the existence of the physical storage systems
>(and in this case, the polarities on the media) is inessential. 
>--
>
>*: When the computers start controlling external devices, things
>change.

I believe that the courts would find it hard to draw a defensible line
that holds some peripherals to be "external" devices (e.g. robot arms,
sensors, oscilloscopes) while others (such as mass storage media, printers,
modems and graphical displays) which are connected using the same
kinds of parallel and serial connections are regarded as somehow not
external. This may be a distinction that makes a lot of sense to some
readers here, but I suspect it would be lost on the average judge or
juror.
-- 

Scott L. McGregor		mcgregor@netcom.com
President			tel: 408-985-1824
Prescient Software, Inc.	fax: 408-985-1936
3494 Yuba Avenue
San Jose, CA 95117
Xref: sparky comp.org.eff.talk:6037 misc.int-property:1056 alt.suit.att-bsdi:378
From: jpk@Ingres.COM (Jon Krueger)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,misc.int-property,alt.suit.att-bsdi
Subject: Re: Patents:  What they are.  What they aren't.  Other factors.
Date: 29 Sep 92 18:38:27 GMT
Reply-To: jpk@Ingres.COM (Jon Krueger)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Ask Computer Systems Inc., Ingres Division, Alameda CA 94501

Robert Krawitz wonders:
> how can I invent something and put it in the public domain
> without claiming rights to it

Publish it before someone else patents it.
Use a publication method that has a date stamp.
Now you don't own it and never did.

-- Jon
--
Jon Krueger  jpk@ingres.com  
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,misc.int-property,alt.suit.att-bsdi,comp.unix.bsd
From: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
Subject: Re: Patents:  What they are.  What they aren't.  Other factors.
Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 21:22:05 GMT

In article <1992Oct1.182955.13640@netcom.com> mcgregor@netcom.com (Scott Mcgregor) writes:
>Don't believe that licensing a hundred thousand pieces of non-identical
>intellectual property a year can be done cheaply, with a small all
>volunteer staff?  I can give a concrete example.  When I was in
>college, I worked in our radio station. A typical music radio station
>plays about one licensed song every 5 minutes. In a year that's over
>100,000 licensed songs!  Since we were a college radio station and not
>a top 40 station we had a relatively large large non-identical play
>list. However did we conclude licenses with over 100,000 composers and
>song writers, and probably millions of recording artists and
>background players?  We used a clearing house.

Given a list of songs and a list of songs with different property rights, it's
easy to look the first up in the second.  Doing so for lines of code is a lot
harder; the patent may affect any subset of the lines of code, and you can't
just check off "lessee, this line of code isn't patented, neither is this, etc."
--
"the bogosity in a field equals the bogosity imported from related areas, plus
the bogosity generated internally, minus the bogosity expelled or otherwise
disposed of."  -- K. Eric Drexler

Ken Arromdee (UUCP: ....!jhunix!arromdee; BITNET: arromdee@jhuvm;
     INTERNET: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)
Xref: sparky comp.org.eff.talk:6082 misc.int-property:1082 alt.suit.att-bsdi:403
From: terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,misc.int-property,alt.suit.att-bsdi
Subject: Re: Patents:  What they are.  What they aren't.  Other factors.
Date: 30 Sep 92 23:35:44 GMT
Article-I.D.: fcom.1992Sep30.233544.2637
Distribution: usa
Organization: Weber State University  (Ogden, UT)

In article <1992Sep29.183828.8844@pony.Ingres.COM> jpk@Ingres.COM (Jon Krueger) writes:
>Robert Krawitz wonders:
>> how can I invent something and put it in the public domain
>> without claiming rights to it
>
>Publish it before someone else patents it.
>Use a publication method that has a date stamp.
>Now you don't own it and never did.

After a year, you mean.  You have up to a year after initial publication
to patent patentable materials in the article/essay/book/magazine/etc..


					Terry Lambert
					terry@icarus.weber.edu
					terry_lambert@novell.com
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                        "I have an 8 user poetic license" - me
 Get the 386bsd FAQ from agate.berkeley.edu:/pub/386BSD/386bsd-0.1/unofficial
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,comp.unix.bsd,comp.os.mach,misc.int-property,alt.suit.att-bsdi,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: witr@rwwa.COM (Robert Withrow)
Subject: Re: Letter asking for help with Apple from the US VP
Reply-To: witr@rwwa.com
Organization: R.W. Withrow Associates
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 16:31:23 GMT

In article <JTW.92Sep25203600@pmws.lcs.mit.edu>,
 jtw@lcs.mit.edu (John Wroclawski) writes:

| One might well ask what criminal intent has to do with the (civil)
| patent law.

One might.  I didn't bring it up.  Mr. Shein did.  I simply responded
to it.

| The fact that a law -can- be violated
| accidently certainly doesn't provide a strong argument for reform. If,
| however, a law -is frequently- violated accidentally, or the cost of
| avoiding these accidental violations is higher than the benefits the
| law provides, then there is a good strong argument for changing the thing.

The part of this following ``, or the cost'' is a clear statement of, I
believe, a valid point.  (And was certainly clearer than Mr. Shein's
statement, assuming that is what he was trying to say.)  I think this
certainly applys to things like speeding and adultery laws.  Whether
the ``cost'' of software patents outweigh the ``benefit'' is certainly
a valid point for discussion.

| The
| patent system exists to serve a specific, useful goal. That goal, as
| we all know, is to benefit the public good by encouraging innovation.
| If the system is not meeting its goal, it should be reformed.

Which requires that one show that the system is *not* benefiting the
public good.  And, of course, since you say:

| It does not matter one whit whether the system meets its goal in theory
| if the practical effect is different.

You must show that it is failing in practice, not theory.  Which is to say
that you must show that ``innovation'' has, in practice, been stifled.

-- 
 Robert Withrow, Tel: +1 617 598 4480, Fax: +1 617 598 4430, Net: witr@rwwa.COM
 R.W. Withrow Associates, 21 Railroad Ave, Swampscott MA 01907-1821 USA
Xref: sparky comp.org.eff.talk:6225 comp.admin.policy:1189
From: mark@kraken.ucsd.edu (Mark Anderson)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,comp.admin.policy
Subject: Re: What is "banning" anyway?
Date: 3 Oct 92 19:22:14 GMT
Followup-To: comp.org.eff.talk
Distribution: na
Organization: W.A.S.T.E.

In article <1992Oct2.094816.20638@resonex.com> michael@resonex.com (Michael Bryan) writes:
>However, I would personally
>take offense at somebody telling me what I could and could not put in
>my .plan file.  If someone *requests* information on me by issuing the
>finger command, they are asking to see what I have to say.  That is a
>far cry different from me doing something like putting up a flyer in
>a hallway, or standing on a street corner shouting out obscenities.
>

Since you are posting from a commercial site, I'll take the
perhaps invalid assumption that you are posting from a
business.

I think you'll find somebody in the form of the State has told
you what you can or cannot put in your .plan file, the wall
of your office at work, or the screen saver you happen to use.

You might want to check with the Human Resource Department
about sexual harassment law and the concept of a hostile 
workplace.  Of course there is no problem until someone
is actually offended.  Your insistence that they *requested*
the information is unlikely to wash.

mark
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
From: dan@cae.prds.cdx.mot.com (Dan Breslau)
Subject: Re: Letter asking for help with Apple from the US VP
Organization: none
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 15:32:18 GMT

mcgregor@netcom.com (Scott Mcgregor) writes:

>Or alternatively, they may find cheaper ways to discover and license
>other companies intellectual property.  It is practically impossible
>to manufacture a car today without using hundreds of patented parts
>and processes.  But car companys do it.  Radio stations couldn't be
>economic if they had to make individual license agreements with every
>songwriter and recording artist.  Some suggested that they should
>therefore be allowed to replay recorded music without paying
>royalties, essentially equivalent to excluding software from patent
>laws.  Instead the industry created the clearing house system.
>Licensing thousands of protected materials now goes on each year at
>radio stations, at extremely low costs, and with widespread access.
>Patents and copyrights are different things but this arguement is
>about the onerousness of licensing, or avoiding licensing, and that is
>common to both.

I have heard, but cannot cite sources at this time, that the present
clearinghouses (BMI, and to a lesser extent ASCAP, which is a co-op)
greatly favor the larger artists and publishers in their distribution
formulas.  If this statement is true, then the music clearinghouse system
is far from a good example of how to deal with software patents.

Dan Breslau
dan@codex.com
Disc claimer:  "Hey!  That's my floppy!"


Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,misc.int-property,alt.suit.att-bsdi,comp.unix.bsd
From: peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva)
Subject: Re: Patents:  What they are.  What they aren't.  Other factors.
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 20:28:12 GMT

In article <1992Oct3.161033.12237@rwwa.COM> witr@rwwa.com writes:
> All of this hand-wringing about the number of <whatever> == number of potential
> patent infringements is largely absurd.  It is like claiming that one
> must, when building an airplane, patent-search every nut, bolt, washer, wire,
> shim, grease, and whatnot, *and* every *combination* of nuts, bolts, washers,
> wires, shims, greases, and whatnots.

If you also built the nuts, bolts, and washers yourself you would have to
do that, yes. There are a large number of patents on threads, for example.
-- 
Peter da Silva                                          `-_-'
Ferranti Intl. Ctls. Corp.                               'U` 
Sugar Land, TX  77487-5012           "Heeft u vandaag al uw wolf geknuffeld?"
+1 713 274 5180      "If you want PL/I, you know where to find it." -- Dennis
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,misc.int-property,alt.suit.att-bsdi,comp.unix.bsd