The legality of using PGP within the United States was a hotly debated topic on the Net for the next couple of years. In general, copyright law has covered the expression of ideas and facts, not the ideas or facts themselves. The European Community considered this question and decided to class it as a literary work. The difference is profound. Copyright protects the precise arrangement of words and letters on the page.
Patents protect functionality, that is, what the program actually does.
At least one company, Cygnus Support, has been set up with the idea that software should be free and companies should derive their incomes from selling services and support for that free software, following the same kind of argument circulated by John Perry Barlow. Not surprisingly, one of Cygnus Support's founders was also one of Barlow's EFF co- founders and the man who invented the alt hierarchy, John Gilmore. Stallman, Gilmore, and many other industry leaders argue that the widespread use of software patents can chill technological development. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without written permission of New York University Press is prohibited.