'Save Europe from Software Patents', Urges Nonprofit FFII (ffii.org) 33
Long-time Slashdot reader zoobab shares this update about the long-standing Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, a Munich-based non-profit opposing ratification of a "Unified Patent Court" by Germany:
The FFII is crowdfunding a constitutional complaint in Germany against the third attempt to impose software patents in Europe, calling on all software companies, independent software developers and FLOSS authors to donate.
The Unitary Patent and its Court will promote patent trolls, without any appeal possible to the European Court of Justice, which won't be able to rule on patent law, and software patents in particular. The FFII also says that the proposed court system will be more expensive for small companies then the current national court system.
The stakes are high — so the FFII writes that they're anticipating some tricky counter-maneuvering: Stopping the UPC in Germany will be enough to kill the UPC for the whole Europe... German government believe that they can ratify before the end of the year, as they consider the UK still a member of the EU till 31st December. The agenda of next votes have been designed on purpose to ratify the UPC before the end of the year. FFII expects dirty agenda and political hacks to declare the treaty "into force", dismiss "constitutional complaints", while the presence of UK is still problematic.
The Unitary Patent and its Court will promote patent trolls, without any appeal possible to the European Court of Justice, which won't be able to rule on patent law, and software patents in particular. The FFII also says that the proposed court system will be more expensive for small companies then the current national court system.
The stakes are high — so the FFII writes that they're anticipating some tricky counter-maneuvering: Stopping the UPC in Germany will be enough to kill the UPC for the whole Europe... German government believe that they can ratify before the end of the year, as they consider the UK still a member of the EU till 31st December. The agenda of next votes have been designed on purpose to ratify the UPC before the end of the year. FFII expects dirty agenda and political hacks to declare the treaty "into force", dismiss "constitutional complaints", while the presence of UK is still problematic.
Lots of incentive where there's lots of money. (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a lot of incentive to get software patents into law, because it means a *metric* *fuckton* of money into some peoples pockets.
This is best blocked, stomped on, set on fire, and then sent into the sun, just to be sure.
Re: Lots of incentive where there's lots of money. (Score:2)
Hey, I'm the sun, you insensitive clod!
Rotate around me!
Let's make this more general: (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's make every business exchange illegal, where what is exchanged is not based on the same amount of work.
So theft, robbery, usury, fraud, profit, interest, imaginary property, and so on.
No, you cannot count work twice.
No, you definitely cannot count your work an infinite number of times. Nor even if you lower the price per "sale" to a fraction of the work costs.
No, nobody cares if you're too greedy to run a legitimate business model like every damn normal *service* buisness did in the history of mankind.
Musicians (Score:4, Insightful)
So how do musicians get paid? They only recorded the music once. Each CD or stream is just the same thing over and over again. So they can only sell their CDs for, what, twenty cents or something? 'cause that's what CDs cost in bulk. Or they can only get paid when playing live, but only if they write new music each time? Or you get paid less if you play covers? Who sets the rates?
This is going to get confusing.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not yet sure if I wholeheartedly agree with GP but, it would set some limits. For live performances, yes, you'd get a usual fee as per number of hours preparation and performing. No matter if you play a cover or original work. The fee could still be negotiable, so performances with a higher demand in the market could ask a higher up-front fee than those not. Every person involved in such a show of course have their own wage. Many are fixed by their contract, job description and thus their expected perfo
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I'm not yet sure if I wholeheartedly agree with GP but, it would set some limits.
GP isn't talking about setting limits, but the elimination of intellectual property entirely. So no copyright at all. Unlimited copying of everything. It sounds like you are advocating going back to the original copyright regime in the US, where the original creator of a work gets *very* limited copyright protections on it.
The value of a creative work can be limited by the amount of time and resources spent to get to make the creative work
Well, that's a non-starter right off the bat. Professionals are professionals for a reason - they've spent years working at it. I have a friend who is a professional graphic designer. Whe
Re: (Score:2)
Your 2 examples don't need copyright you design a logo, you get paid for a logo, it is irrelevant if you take a week or a year come up with it, you charge what the market will bear to come up with a logo. You don't charge for ever every time someone sees your logo. Just like a plumber they charge for the work done, not every time someone uses the faucet. As for locksmith again charge for the work, I would be angry at a lock smith messing up my door, especially if I had seen a quality locksmith at work. Als
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Your 2 examples don't need copyright you design a logo, you get paid for a logo, it is irrelevant if you take a week or a year come up with it
It is entirely relevant if, as a professional, you take less time to do something, as the OP was saying there would be rate limits on what artists can charge depending on *how long* it took to make. An amateur artist would put a lot of work into making something mediocre. A professional artist would put little work into making something excellent. By OP's logic, the professional should be paid less as they put less effort into the work.
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Music is copyright, not patented.
Different issue.
From Original Post (Score:3)
So theft, robbery, usury, fraud, profit, interest, imaginary property, and so on.
The "imaginary property" part would also cover copyright, I think.
Re: (Score:2)
"So how do musicians get paid?"
So you really don't know the answer? Then it is **you** who lack the imagination, it is **you** how have the problem, and it is **you** who will have to look for a solution, if it's of so much interest to you.
Too late (Score:5, Informative)
The call for donations is from October 8. The German Bundestag voted on November 26 in favor of the proposal:
https://www.bundestag.de/parla... [bundestag.de]
Re: Too late (Score:5, Informative)
The final vote in the Bundesrat is next friday the 18th. Our complaint is ready, but we still miss some euros to pay the lawyer.
Re: Too late (Score:2)
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That vote was about "do we want a European patent court?"
And not about Software Patents.
Re: Too late (Score:3)
A specialized patent court would be free to adopt the EPO weird interpretation of the exclusion of computer programs, like they do with the 'as such' or their invention of the 'technical effect' doctrine. We are not against the creation of a European patent court 'as such', but against the fact that they have the last word over software patentability, and not the European Court of Justice. This would be similar to suppressing the Supreme Court in the United States, and leave the power to décide t
Re: (Score:2)
A patent court
Is not an patent office
but against the fact that they have the last word over software patentability, and not the European Court of Justice. ...
And that is nonsense. The court judges in patent disputes. And that is all.
To have a patent dispute, the first must be: a patent. Opps
Software Patents (Score:3, Insightful)
The entire idea of the original concept of patents was to encourage innovation, and reward it with a monopoly on the invention. But the founding fathers didn't foresee corporations and having a "patent portfolio" to coerce licensing fees. Just look at Unisys and GIF image files:
https://mike.pub/19950127-gif-... [mike.pub]
An individual inventor is one thing, a legal fiction of a corporation with a patent portfolio is another...
The UK has left the EU (Score:4, Informative)
(At this point I should add "unfortunately", as I think it a catastrophic mistake to have left.)
Not that I think the UK government would object to Software Patents, unfortunately. However, they would strongly object to the idea that the UK was still a member of the EU!
One Thing To Bear In Mind... (Score:5, Interesting)
So the EU needs to understand that it is looking down the barrel of a gun that will destroy the entire EU software industry over a period of no more than a couple of decades. Any time an EU based software house releases a product, some US corporation will step up and claim that the new software infringes one of their patents and demand hefty licensing fees.
The problem with introducing a change to something like patents is that when your system [of patenting innovation] has a worldwide scope, then whichever country accepts patents for a new field "first" is effectively giving their national corporations a head-start.
When the US negotiates for trade deals [see e.g. the USMCA, the (now torpedoed) Trans-Pacific Partnership], recognition of patents from all partner nations was included in the terms and conditions. In other words, if you strike a trade deal with the US now, chances are you're going to have to respect US patents - all US patents, whether you agree with them or not. In other words, for countries other than the US, it is basically a complete surrender to US corporate dominance.
The entire principle of software patents should be thrown out [you cannot patent an algorithm]...
More than that, the entire principle of patents needs to be completely overhauled. Today, a patent lasts for 20 years. The first patent was granted in July 1790 for a method of creating potash. If you think about the amount of technological advancement [generally speaking, not just in potash production] from 1790 to 1810... and then compared that with the advances we've seen between 2015 and now, chances are that the world has experienced an order of magnitude more innovation in the last 5 years than in the 20 years from 1790 to 1810. In other words, the context in which patent law has to be applied has changed out of all recognition from when it was first introduced.
Today, a default patent should last no more than 3 years or so, 5 at the most.
And most important of all, PTO's around the world need to do a much, much, much better job of performing the "obviousness" test.
Re: (Score:2)
So the EU needs to understand that it is looking down the barrel of a gun that will destroy the entire EU software industry over a period of no more than a couple of decades.
Not really, the US software industry hasn't been destroyed. It's a drag on the industry and a threat to open source, but it hasn't destroyed it.
Re:One Thing To Bear In Mind... (Score:4, Insightful)
You are correct in stating that the US software industry hasn't "been destroyed". It has, however, been completely re-structured thanks to software patents - and not in a good way.
The reason that the industry hasn't "been destroyed" is because all the large, established software players have amassed their own patent portfolios and are using them to strike cross-licensing deals [usually at zero cost to either party] with their largest competitors. This doesn't destroy either the industry or the market sector, but it does make it virtually impossible for a new player to enter that marketplace without being sued for patent infringement.
So the software industry still exists, but, now the choices you have as a consumer are limited to a small number of major players in each sector. This stifles innovation [because the players have a captive market] and it drives up prices [because the players can charge what they like, knowing that the small handful of competitors they have will want to do the same thing.
If you look across the United States - in all major industry sectors - what you see in each sector is starting to look increasingly like a cartel... a small number of "major players" that represent 85%+ of each sector and who dictate terms to other users... Let's test this theory with software, shall we?
1. Desktop Operating Systems: Windows 10, Mac OS/X, GNU/Linux. Easily 95%+ of the market...
2. Office Productivity Tools: Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, Google G Suite...
3. Web Browser: Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge, Opera and maybe the Samsung browser for their Android Phones and Tablets and you're at or over the 95% mark.... 4. Dedicated Email Client: Apple iOS Mail, MS Outlook, Android Mail Client Mac OS/X Mail... and you're over the 95% mark...
We could keep going, but hopefully you can see the point. And if you want to enter one of these sectors and compete, you no longer have to concentrate solely on your software development, you've got to go out of your way to research potentially conflicting patents [which, in the case of software, are often written to be outrageously vague] and then try and come up with a way to show that your innovation doesn't replicate the claimed invention. Good luck with that.
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There are a small number of players in the markets you mention, but there are a large number of players in other markets (airline booking websites, for one example).
We all know some markets have a small number of players, you don't need to demonstrate that. You need to demonstrate that the small number of players is because of software patents, which you didn't (and the large number of players in other markets, despite software patents available to those players, make it seem like you are wrong).
The European patent industry is jealous (Score:2)
Of the US patent industry. There is a lot of money to be made in preparing, defending and litigating patents. Such beautifully fuzzy stuff.
The European patent office grants software patents, but they are not generally enforceable. The patent industry wants them enforceable. And the patent industry is an expert at the politics of patents.
The law says patents are not applicable to software ("as such"). The patent industry tried to get the law changed some years ago, but that failed in the euro parliame
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And what exactly would be or could be patented in an eMail client?
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Note, Software patents are legally outlawed in Europe, in that the law states software can not be patented (just as in the US). The fear is that this new court will be regulatorily captured and start accepting things explicitly forbidden (just as in the US).
swpat.ffii.org is farked. (Score:2)
Their site is farked:
http://swpat.ffii.org/ [ffii.org]
"Contact your Member of Parliament" is incorrect (Score:2)
"Contact your Member of Parliament" is not quite right for most countries
That should be: "Contact your political representatives", or "Contact your MEP" if that is what's meant.
Double nonsense (Score:2)
German government believe that they can ratify before the end of the year, as they consider the UK still a member of the EU till 31st December.
a) the UK is out of the EU - since a year - they have nothing to say, what so ever
b) in Germany there is no one pro software patents, most certainly not the government
Re: Double nonsense (Score:2)
There is also a dispute over the interpretation of the withdrawal agreement, which redéfines what is EU Law, including international agreements. While the European Commission and Germany interprets it as including treaties that were signed but not into force, others say it incluses only treaties not into force, like the UPC. How can you respect laws which are not into force?