Map makers should just copyright the lines that represent the borders of states, counties, and cities. Heck, copyright lines, points, and legends too.
Facts cannot be copyrighted, only specific arrangements of facts can be copyrighted.
Computer Scientists Ask Supreme Court to Rule APIs Can’t Be Copyrighted
51–60 of 170 posts
Re: Computer Scientists Ask Supreme Court to Rule APIs Can’t Be Copyrighted
#52Quick question, where do Mono/Xamarin or similar projects stand on this whole API copyright? Aren't they essentially writing a library with the same API as the .NET or other single-platform framework? Or am I misunderstanding what they meant with API in this case?
Microsoft has issued a do not sue statement.
Re: Computer Scientists Ask Supreme Court to Rule APIs Can’t Be Copyrighted
#53Signed by 1. Harold Abelson.* 2. Alfred V. Aho 3. Tom Ball.* 4. John Perry Barlow 5. Brian Behlendorf 6. Richard A. Belgard 7. Jon Bentley 8. Matthew Bishop 9. Joshua Bloch 10. Dan Boneh 11. Gilad Bracha.* 12. Eric Brewer.* 13. Frederick Brooks 14. Rick Cattell 15. Vinton G. Cerf.* 16. William Cook 17. Ward Cunningham 18. Mark Davis.* 19. Jeffrey Dean.* 20. L Peter Deutsch 21. David L. Dill 22. Les Earnest 23. Brenda…
It is interesting that eg Rod Canion was not included in this.
Re: Computer Scientists Ask Supreme Court to Rule APIs Can’t Be Copyrighted
#54This world where judges are effectively used to write laws is bullshit and it sucks. Judicial activism sucks ass. Judges are not supposed to be lawmakers. If API's should not be protected by copyright then we should be writing letters to actual lawmakers who can write that explicitly into law. Not rely on interpretation of political appointees.
Urgh.
Re: Computer Scientists Ask Supreme Court to Rule APIs Can’t Be Copyrighted
#55Map makers should just copyright the lines that represent the borders of states, counties, and cities. Heck, copyright lines, points, and legends too.
This is actually a very major issue. They are copyrighted to varying degrees. The fact that feature "z" is located at "x,y" can't be copyrighted, but the data file that describes exactly that can be and is. (There are good reasons for this. It's not as simple as the straw man I set up there.) The US is very fortunate to require all government-produced cartographic data is solidly in the public domain. This is not the…
The US is very fortunate to require all government-produced cartographic data is solidly in the public domain. This is not the case in most countries.
You can make the argument that making these maps costs money, so those that benefit from the maps should actually pay the government for them - thus people who don't need these maps don't have to pay for them through their taxes.
I'm not entirely sure I subscribe to that - often having something publicly available like some kind of a utility is more beneficial to everybody than properly allotting the cost.
But I don't think it's clear cut in the case of maps, and in any case it's a reasonable argument to make.
Re: Computer Scientists Ask Supreme Court to Rule APIs Can’t Be Copyrighted
#56This world where judges are effectively used to write laws is bullshit and it sucks. Judicial activism sucks ass. Judges are not supposed to be lawmakers. If API's should not be protected by copyright then we should be writing letters to actual lawmakers who can write that explicitly into law. Not rely on interpretation of political appointees. Urgh.
> This world where judges are effectively used to write laws is bullshit and it sucks.
Judges aren't writing laws - they're doing their job to "act as interpreters of statutes and the constitution by elaborating and precisely defining the broad language"[1]. There's a difference between "Judicial activism" and Common Law working as intended.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law#States_of_the_Unite...
Re: Computer Scientists Ask Supreme Court to Rule APIs Can’t Be Copyrighted
#57This world where judges are effectively used to write laws is bullshit and it sucks. Judicial activism sucks ass. Judges are not supposed to be lawmakers. If API's should not be protected by copyright then we should be writing letters to actual lawmakers who can write that explicitly into law. Not rely on interpretation of political appointees. Urgh.
Until precedence stops being part of Common Law, 'activist' judges will always be a thing.
Re: Computer Scientists Ask Supreme Court to Rule APIs Can’t Be Copyrighted
#58This world where judges are effectively used to write laws is bullshit and it sucks. Judicial activism sucks ass. Judges are not supposed to be lawmakers. If API's should not be protected by copyright then we should be writing letters to actual lawmakers who can write that explicitly into law. Not rely on interpretation of political appointees. Urgh.
To be fair, it's an aspect of our legal system that predates the nation itself [1], not some radical subversion of the founders' intentions.
Re: Computer Scientists Ask Supreme Court to Rule APIs Can’t Be Copyrighted
#59This world where judges are effectively used to write laws is bullshit and it sucks. Judicial activism sucks ass. Judges are not supposed to be lawmakers. If API's should not be protected by copyright then we should be writing letters to actual lawmakers who can write that explicitly into law. Not rely on interpretation of political appointees. Urgh.
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Re: Computer Scientists Ask Supreme Court to Rule APIs Can’t Be Copyrighted
#60In a world where people copyright the laws you are supposed to follow I can't imagine they won't let people copyright an API that absolutely is a creative work. Instead we should accept that they can be under copyright but make implementing and using them explicitly fair use.
Book Titles are not copyrightable, even though they are arguably the most important part of a creative work. While APIs are not a clear analog to titles, they are a huge exception to the copyright law, and it seems like APIs need this exception as well.
They can, however, be trademarked.