Development of Creative Commons licenses

[drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com>]

On Sunday 20 March 2005 08:53 pm, Greg London wrote:
> drew Roberts said:
> > On Sunday 20 March 2005 12:02 pm, Rob Myers wrote:
> > Any why is the binary not considered a recipe, which other's have stated
> > is not subject to copyright?
>
> I'm guessing because a recipe for cake is completely functional.
> 3/4 cup sugar, one stick butter, 4 eggs, put in bowl and mix.
>
> But software and other code has quite a bit more room
> for creative expression. Some people have a very
> distinct signature and you could tell their software
> without a single comment attached to it.
>
> A cookie recipe is more like a logic table,
> purely functional, and not subject to copyright.
>
> > Ah, but aren't there indeed works which are the creation of someone's
> > intellect, which are novel, which have taken some nonzero effort to
> > create and which still cannot be copyrighted?
>
> Alice's clock design book most likely.
> Someone's collection of recipes for another.
>
> Everything human requires some intellect
> else they'd be replaced by machines.
> But not everything human can be claimed
> to be protected by copyright or patent law.
>
> Thankfully.
>
> > Second, if we could find some automatic way to take a general purpose
> > machine (computer) and a binary and convert the two into a single purpose
> > machine that does only what the general purpose machine would do under
> > the guidance of the binary, will the single purpose machine be or not be
> > a copyright violation of the binary?
>
> Hm, a very unique corner case, if I understand correctly.
> i'm trying to think of an engineering design that would allow it.
>
> The thing of it is that almost anything in ROM that is processed
> by a CPU will be far too complicated to flatten out into simple
> flops, glue logic, and state machines.
>
> The logic required to do MS-Word, for example, as a purely hardware
> implementation would be so huge as to be unfeasible for any time to
> come, even with Moore's law.
>
> But a simple scenario, of a ROM+CPU implementing some simple logic
> being replaced by hardware would be possible. It is common to put
> a small processor into a chip with a bit of executable code and
> have that implement an interface to an odd piece of logic or some
> unique interface. The reason is usually because if you do it with
> a processor and software, you can build the chip and then tweak
> the software later when you find a bug, wheras if you implement
> it in silicon and there's a bug in silicon, then you've got to
> spend serious money to fix it. $300K if it's a complete respin
> of the chip.
>
> But theroretically, you could take the processor code and come up
> with some conversion that could turn it into pure logic,
> flops and gates, with no processor and no rom. Whether or not
> it's an automatic conversion I think is irrelevant.
>
> But I think in that situation, you might be able to argue that
> the software+processor reduced down into purely funcitonal logic
> with no software and no processor, would not infringe on the
> ROM's copyright.

Thanks for the answer.
>
> No clue how it would pan out in a real court case.

And for me, this is a real problem. The law is seriously complex. Lots of 
exceptions. Lots of things handled differently. Hard to reason what things 
should be. You need to find out what thye are held to be.

Also, people slap a copyright page on the front of a book without being 
specific as to what inside is copyright nad what isn't. (Or what can be 
pulled out without violating the copyright.)

For instance, and I think I posted this before, I bought "The Folksong Fake 
Book" and while it does not seem to have the standard type copyright notice 
anywhere that I can see on the first several pages, it does say this on the 
first inside page that is not the cover - "For all works contained herein: 
Unauthorized copying, arranging, adapting, recording, or public performance 
is an infringement of copyright. Infringers are liable under the law."

Then on page 355 it has a song titled "Nassau Bound" which it lists as a Sea 
Chantey from the Bahamas It is a song we learned in school as children. We 
learned it, and you would probably know it, under the title "Sloop John B."

The song itself has this copyright notice:

Copyright (C) 2000 by Hal Leonard Corporation - where (C) is actually the 
copyright symbol.

Now, how in the world can a presumably american company have obtained a 
copyright on a traditional song of my country? In the year 2000 no less.

They claim a similar copyright on Greensleaves which they list as 16th 
Century 
English and yet they obtained a copyright on this song in 2000?

Same with Molly Malone which we also learned as children and they list as 
Irish.

Same with Old MacDonald Had A Farm which is listed as an American Folksong.

I am sure you get the picture. What exactly are they claiming to have a 
copyright in? It can't be the words and music can it? I mean, that would mean 
when children sing Old MacDonald in a public place they are making a 
violating public performance.

all the best,

drew