British Court Issues Bizarre Copyright Ruling 418
dipfan writes "In a re-run of the Lotus v Borland case that went to the US Supreme Court, the High Court in London has allowed a copyright infringement battle between two rival airline booking programs to go to trial, despite agreement by all sides that the two programs are written in different code. The airline Easyjet is being sued by software house Navitaire, creators of an online booking system called Openres, over Easyjet's booking system named eRes, developed by Bulletproof Technologies of California. Openres was written in Cobol, while eRes was written in Visual Basic, and the programs are also different in structure.
But, according to the FT article: 'Parallels had been drawn between appropriating the "functional structure" of a computer system and commandeering the plot of a book, the judge noted.' If Navitaire wins, then any program that works like another program - even if written in different code - could be vulnerable. What happened to the principle that you can't copyright an idea? Bulletproof is counter-suing
Navitaire in the district of Utah."
You got sued, yay! (Score:4, Insightful)
This is silly. I am suing all males of the human species, because their penis infringes upon my own penis's "functional structure" (although I admit that due to their vastly smaller size, our structures are different).
Come to think of it, I guess that my father would call me out on the whole "prior art" thing there.
another case of. . (Score:5, Insightful)
From an outsider's point of view, a stranger to word processing, one would draw EXTREME similarities to MS Word vs. a Corel alternative.
Is it copyright infringement? They both allow you to do the same thing in almost exactly the same way. .
seems crazy right?
-rich
Copyright or patent? (Score:3, Insightful)
Possibilty (Score:5, Insightful)
Ideas... (Score:1, Insightful)
Most notable, is that there are cheap knockoffs of everything popular. It is not illegal though. That is, unless they are trying to mistaken themselves for the originals.
Remember how many clones of the PC was made of the IBM computer. The only way it was illegal is when Compaq slapped an IBM sticker on the computer.
Good luck... It all comes down to whether or not the judge's had their cornflakes urinated in or the bowl lined with diamonds.
Code choice is irrelevant (Score:4, Insightful)
Copyrighting an idea is wrong, but that's not what the question is here. This is an example of determining whether both products implement the idea in a close enough way to be infringement and code is completely irrelevant to that discussion.
The implementation is not the issue (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not unreasonable: if I sing "happy birthday" on the air, I have to pay copyright fees. So if I rewrite someone's code in another language (or even the same language), why do copyright fees not apply?
It is far better that copyright be applied to this kind of case (assuming the infringing program actually is a rewrite, not a coincidence) than patent law. At least with copyright you know that a clean-room rewrite is safe. With patents you won't know until the lawyers knock.
Why is this bizarre? (Score:4, Insightful)
Copyright != Patent (Score:5, Insightful)
You patent an idea. You only copyright a work.
Copyrighting and Idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Copyrighting Ideas (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
If I took the linux kernel, ran it through a C to C# (or whatever) translator, is that an infringement?
What if I just compiled it, and disassembled the binary into ASM?
What about translating a French/Russian novel into English, then selling it as my own?
Things aren't as black and white as you think they are.
Re:Copyright != Patent (Score:4, Insightful)
so! The world is going mad (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who thinks the courts are logical should remember that in France a court found a cow guilty of murder and in Salem a court convicted women of being witches.
Not much has changed since then it would seem.
Technologically Challenged Judges (Score:2, Insightful)
Who want's to bet that this judge is one of those "computer experts" who's call's to tech support make the christmas party laugh track.
Re:You got sued, yay! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Code choice is irrelevant (Score:4, Insightful)
So what if it's written in different code? I can play pop songs on a trombone and record it. It's still the same song and it's still infringement.
If you wrote your own dance song, just because it had 3 stanzas, a bridge, and a chorus, and was in F sharp, that doesn't mean that the authors of every other dance song that had 3 stanzas, a bridge, and was in F sharp could sue you for copyright infringement. That's the best analogy to this issue.
If the algorithms and the basic structure of the programs (the program flow) were absolutely identical, maybe, just maybe there would be a point here. But just the purpose of the program and some details of how it works for the user? Isn't that like suing every movie that has a chase scene in the beginning and a love scene just before the big climax?
Re:The implementation is not the issue (Score:4, Insightful)
I just keep wondering... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Maybe not so cut-and-dried... (Score:3, Insightful)
But the article clearly states that Bulletproof had no access to either the source code or objects from the previous (Navitaire) application.
It's a "clean room" reimplementation of the functionality - an entirely different thing than porting an application using a different language.
If this is decided against Bulletproof, it has *enormous* consequences for the software industry - open and proprietary alike.
Prior art, of a different sort. (Score:2, Insightful)
As a very basic example, every english student is taught pretty much the same way to write an essay. Does that mean that whoever wrote the first essay can now file a lawsuit against all students across the world and history?
From a more recent perspective: Cars have four wheels, a power source, and a passenger compartment. Does that mean the inventor of the first "horseless carriage" can file a lawsuit against everyone one supplies a product satisfying those requirements?
From the doomsayer's department: SCO, here we go...again
Re:Copyrighting and Idea (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:You got sued, yay! (Score:3, Insightful)
I think they'd be more worried about being sued by WordPerfect (Corel) and whoever owns the rights to Harvard Graphics and VisiCalc.
Re:another case of. . (Score:5, Insightful)
In a non-monopolistic market, we call that 'competition'.
Re:Maybe not so cut-and-dried... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Copyrighting and Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
If Disney existed since Shakespeare's time, copyright would last 500 years after the death of the creator, now. Naturally that doesn't mean that Disney would pay a penny to the descendants of Shakespeare.
Copyright = perpetual patent (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's an idea (Score:3, Insightful)
How about we make it such that software is protected by neither copyright nor patents!
With the WWW, the first person to post his code gets the credit, and anyone else who claims that code under their name has to face the prior art of the first person. There would be no legal recourse; the surfacing of the truth should be sufficient.
This is probably much more in line with BSD licensing, where anyone can use the code with proper credit given. Given that the WWW/Usenet/etc. provide a widely mirrored hard-to-fake timeline of history, it is extremely unlikely that devious behavior could last long nor is it likely that everything would decompose into anarchy.
Re:I don't want to be the ass who brings up SCO... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:You got sued, yay! (Score:3, Insightful)
I think this whole nonsense about "Intellectual Property" is going to just implode in upon itself. The system is going to have to get seriously reformed. If it does not then we will have corporations suing each other, and individuals into oblivion. Respect for IP will decrease from the current high regard that people have for IP (as evidence by the success of Kazaa) to even lower depths. When nobody in society has any respect for even the concept of IP, then what will happen as the children of such a generation grow up and some of them get into politics?
Re:Interesting dilemma (Score:1, Insightful)
As are price-fixing and fraud.
Software (usually) is functional, not expressive. Music (usually) is expressive, not functional. Your analogy is specious.
Stop trying to treat software as art, and that problem vanishes. (Of course, this would cause even greater problems if not coupled with patent reform.)
I see none, and in the sentence immediately preceding you suggested that to fabricate such differences would be obviously infeasible.
Incidentally, half the reason intellectual property law is such a mess is the confusion introduced by conflating four diverse legal concepts--copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret--and calling them by the name of a fifth distinct notion, property. Please do not perpetuate this.
What would happend in a free world with no (c) (Score:1, Insightful)
Imagine if we erase all laws and we rebuild them from scratch but we omit the (c) laws.
Everything you create can me taken by someone else, but then again you can use the knowledge/creation of someone else: your initial effore is less and you are rewarded by a free upgrade someone else made for you(isn't that the essence of science btw? the one which alowed mand to fly and go high above? Imagine the horror if someone patened Newtons gravity theory? would we all have to flot in the void of space?).
(c) holders argue that there are "no free lunchs". But paying the lunch can happend in different ways. After all money is just a "almost timeless storable value of your effort." So if you take the work of someone and ad alitle which will be taken, you got no free lunch, the time value is transfered into a colective work.
Hey but this would allow creativity, everyone enhance the work of the other which will be ehnanced. (yes, it sound like GPL but GPL would not exist in a no (c) world because it would not be needed)
What is happening now, you are sue for this and for that. Soon you will no longer be able to whistle a beat you like with out being sued. All the strees just to go though the license agreement before you can boot your computer. You are woried about being sued more thant contributing to the society or enjoying the timevalue you have stored.
Some will argue, who will put all his time working less to enjoy the future enhencement of his inigtion? Who would create songs and story to be an anonimous donor?
Let me ask you a question, who wrote all those folk fary tales with countless ages? who wrote the songs that tell mankind history since the old days. People are willing to create. (c) hinder better enhancement. Patten on a unbuild technology forcing a small company who invest heart and sweat to make it happend for real should be criminal, not the reverse.
Well that is what i have to say.
Re:You got sued, yay! (Score:4, Insightful)
Knowing the meaning of the word wanker might be though. Your usage of the word suggests a wanker is a penis. It isn't, at least not in British slang, which is where the word originated.
wank
wank - to masturbate e.g. He was wanking, or He had a wank
wanker - person who masturbates. More commonly used to insult, e.g. You fucking wanker!. Associated hand gestures often used.
wankered - drunk. e.g. He was totally wankered.
Other infinitely useful gems of the British lexicon include...
bollocks
name for testicles. e.g. she kicked him in the bollocks.
bollocksed - drunk, e.g. I'm totally bollocksed,
bollocked - in trouble. e.g. Jimmy got bollocked by the teacher for punching Tom.
bollocking - see bollocked e.g. Jimmy got a good bollocking for punching Tom.
bollocks - crap / not very good e.g. MS Windows is a load of bollocks or Fred talked such utter bollocks at the meeting
bollock - Single testicle, or insult e.g. You stupid bollock
knackers
knackers - testicles only. not used as insult. e.g. she cut off his knackers
knackered - exhausted e.g. I'm completely knackered. Also means in trouble. e.g. Jimmy got knackered for skipping class.
knackering - tiring - see knackered