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John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

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Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#131

Post by dragonwriter »

efraim wrote: post #120
ChuckMcM wrote: post #18

Interesting rant on expert witnesses. Mostly interesting because I've done some expert witness testimony and found it fascinating. I completely resonate with John's issue with the expert's testimony and his understanding of it. John mentioned that their own expert testified differently but he didn't say whether or not their lawyers attempted to impeach their expert with cross examination. In the two cases I participa…

>And, like John, I consider the notion of 'non-literal copying' to be pretty ridiculous. What about translating from one language to another, like in Carmack's book example? You can't literally copy from c++ to Java, but it can look pretty similar. Would that be considered copyright infringement?

I'm actually currently involved in non-literal copying of a very old C code base into Python (legally, independent of whether that's protected or not, as it's GPLv2 and the result will be as well), and the code doeant much look the same (and wouldn't even if I was copying it into C in a more modern style.)

There's certainly a point where you are just duplicating unprotected function rather than making a copy dependent on the expression of that function in the original, and that's a tricky legal line with software, but non-literal copying is certainly a thing.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#132

Post by notahacker »

afthonos wrote: post #74
Avenger42 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring the idea of a corporation being judged by other corporations, the idea that "peers" should be judged more strictly (i.e., limited to "people in similar situations" monetarily, professionally, etc.), I feel like you would run a very clear risk of creating juries that function similarly to "good-old-boy networks" that are unwilling to judge too harshly.

That's the whole (original) point though. Historically, people would be taken away from people who had known them all their lives, be accused of something fantastical, and be condemned on the strength of he-said, she-said. In the specific case of the USA, a big complaint of colonists is that they would be whisked back to England for trial ("For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury: For transpor…

Historically, English juries have ranged from 12 people selected by the defendant to swear his innocence to 12 people claiming to have knowledge of the crime charged with investigating it. There's a reason that we've abandoned the pretence that preconceived opinions about a person's likelihood of committing the crime (and significant potential to gain or lose from returning a particular verdict) are an improvement in the fairness of the trial and retain juries only because they're not part of the state apparatus.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#133

Post by emodendroket »

ue_ wrote: post #25
addisonj wrote: post #10

I don't have the evidence so I can't make a judgement about whether Zenimax or Carmack is in the wrong here, but this does point out something strange in our court system and that is where a "jury of peers" which translates to normal people with little to no knowledge of the underlying subject matter. As our society becomes more specialized it seems a bit absurd to have people make judgements mostly based on how well…

This is a very common argument against juries, and I think it's one of the most powerful. Of course if you start to fill a jury with people competent in the area being judged, you run different risks, such as bias within the field. And it's still not clear that it would help with delivering justice. But if we take the idea of a jury to be about judging by one's peers, it should be patently clear (heh) that the jury o…

I think your example illustrates clearly one problem with such a system, which is that it's ripe for conflict of interest.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#134

Post by 794CD01 »

jly wrote: post #55
ChuckMcM wrote: post #18

Interesting rant on expert witnesses. Mostly interesting because I've done some expert witness testimony and found it fascinating. I completely resonate with John's issue with the expert's testimony and his understanding of it. John mentioned that their own expert testified differently but he didn't say whether or not their lawyers attempted to impeach their expert with cross examination. In the two cases I participa…

Cleary with a lot of money on the line from one side or the other, either side can likely find a 'expert witness' who is credentialed and willing to say what they want. At least that's true in a lot of cases. Regardless of how this handled in court, it's an issue. How is a jury built of non-experts to handle such a situation? In this case they clearly believed one side's testimony over the other, against what one cou…

It's not the jury's job to discredit a bad expert witness, the opposing side should be doing that in cross examination.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#135

Post by emodendroket »

Avenger42 wrote: post #47
ue_ wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very common argument against juries, and I think it's one of the most powerful. Of course if you start to fill a jury with people competent in the area being judged, you run different risks, such as bias within the field. And it's still not clear that it would help with delivering justice. But if we take the idea of a jury to be about judging by one's peers, it should be patently clear (heh) that the jury o…

Ignoring the idea of a corporation being judged by other corporations, the idea that "peers" should be judged more strictly (i.e., limited to "people in similar situations" monetarily, professionally, etc.), I feel like you would run a very clear risk of creating juries that function similarly to "good-old-boy networks" that are unwilling to judge too harshly.

That's a good point and probably illustrated by, say, the Jim Crow South.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#136

Post by sqeaky »

Retric wrote: post #122
sqeaky wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> demonstrate using basic logic that the simplest components of two source trees (something that is extremely basic) If you think that is "extremely basic" I think you may be overestimating how poorly 1 in 12 people understand computer related concepts. I suspect it is far more, but I am biased. Before software development I worked tech support. I have heard some nightmarish misunderstandings. I have had people who l…

The simple approach would be to take pictures of several houses that look very similar and show they are not copies of each other. Have an architect show why some elements where similar between houses because of similar choices and constraints. Then show how what the two programs do are similar in they both sit between a game and computer hardware. Further, demonstrating they both share similarities with some other p…

Sticking with my examples of people who fundamentally cannot understand files, how do you explain the core differences of two file managers?

I presume the VR software is an order of magnitude more complex than files and file managers.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#137

Post by sokoloff »

rayiner wrote: post #75
addisonj wrote: post #10

I don't have the evidence so I can't make a judgement about whether Zenimax or Carmack is in the wrong here, but this does point out something strange in our court system and that is where a "jury of peers" which translates to normal people with little to no knowledge of the underlying subject matter. As our society becomes more specialized it seems a bit absurd to have people make judgements mostly based on how well…

I think the Google v. Oracle example actually cuts against your theory. In that case, the jury found non-infringement on the patent claims, and literal infringement of portions of the code and API. The real question in that case was a legal one: whether the structure and organization of APIs was copyrightable. On appeal, the federal circuit found that it was, and remanded for a determination on Google's fair use defe…

Take Lego-branded building bricks. The functional aspects of the bricks (the sizes and tolerances of the pips) are not copyrightable. Being essential to their function, I am allowed to make competing bricks with interoperably-sized pips and voids. (I am of course prohibited from putting the Lego script on the pips or from marketing them as "Legos" or anything more than "compatible with Lego brand building bricks".)

In so doing, I'd be profiting in part on the Lego-built platform, yet it seems crystal-clear in IP law that this is permissible.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#138

Post by [deleted] »

addisonj wrote: post #10

I don't have the evidence so I can't make a judgement about whether Zenimax or Carmack is in the wrong here, but this does point out something strange in our court system and that is where a "jury of peers" which translates to normal people with little to no knowledge of the underlying subject matter. As our society becomes more specialized it seems a bit absurd to have people make judgements mostly based on how well…

[deleted]

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#139

Post by timtadh »

I have do (academic) work [1, 2] on finding semantic code duplication. Two points that I have learned about code duplication:

1. There is are a lot, A LOT, of code regions that share similar constructions when analyzed in terms of dependencies. Dependencies only consider data flow and control dependencies. Where a statement X is control dependent on another statement Y (usually a if-condition or loop-condition) if Y decides whether X executes.

In my studies I have found modestly sized Java programs (~ 75 KLOC) have > 500 million patterns representing duplication in their dependence graphs.

2. Not all dependence structures which are "duplicate" would be considered duplicated by a human programmer [2]. It takes discernment by someone familiar with the code base to decide whether or not regions are actually duplicated.

I would argue you can draw similarities using automated metrics between disparate code bases. Those similarities are not evidence of copying. To decide whether similar regions are actually copied you would need to do further and subjective analysis. Without directly evidence of copying it would be very difficult to make a solid claim one way or the other. But, given the vast amount of similar code regions that exist (and assuming most code is not copied) I believe it should be given the benefit of the doubt.

Note: I have not studied density of duplicated code between different projects. The above is merely an conjecture based on my experience.

[1] http://hackthology.com/rethinking-dependence-clones.html [2] http://hackthology.com/sampling-code-clones-from-program-dep...

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#140

Post by fjdlwlv »

ISL wrote: post #60
ue_ wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very common argument against juries, and I think it's one of the most powerful. Of course if you start to fill a jury with people competent in the area being judged, you run different risks, such as bias within the field. And it's still not clear that it would help with delivering justice. But if we take the idea of a jury to be about judging by one's peers, it should be patently clear (heh) that the jury o…

I once espoused a similar opinion, but have since changed my mind. I'm a physicist, and once expressed to a judge I had met on the trail that I wished I could be judged by my academic peers. It was my belief that they would be more receptive to logical argument, understanding in their analysis, and more committed to fundamental principles. The judge was visibly surprised, but said little. What later changed my mind w…

Educated and principled people are generally excluded from juries during voir dire because they are less susceptible to attorney's arguments.
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