A copyright cannot be applied to any material object, save things like
buildings, sculptures, and other things, merely for their form as an
object of art. TO be patented, something must have a demonstrated
usefull function that is new and unique, or that performs the function
in a new and unique way. By definition, art work has no functional
utility aside from its form and thus cannot be patented. However a
method of creating art that is new and unique CAN be patented. it is
very important that you understand the differences between types of
intellectual property like copyrights, patents, and trademarks. Each
functions and is treated differently in a legal context.
The idea of
> copyright is to protect the financial rewards from a certain idea. If you
> build it yourself rather than buy it you are taking away money from the
> legal owner of the invention (of course the logic is twisted if the
> copyright owner is just sitting on the patent, but I don't think this
> changes anything legally).
Once again, you are confusing copyrights and patents. However, any
intellectual property can be recreated by an individual for individual
use only. If the individual gains commercially in any way it is a
violation of the creators property rights. THis is why software licenses
allow business users of software who are the users of that copy more
than 80% of the time to copy the software onto their personal computer
at home. Exceptions to this are software that could only be used for
business purposes, like marketing management software, business
management software like Microsoft Profit, engineering software, etc.
Otherwise it would be OK for a group of people
> with mutual interest to form, then make and distribute a copyrighted
> invention in a non-profit manner. The size of the group could be same size
> as the market for the original invention. Even if there is a loophole in
> the law that allows this to happen I doubt that it would last very long
> once it was exploited.
Distribution to others is not allowed and does not fit into the context
of "personal use". Law does not mandate that you make a profit to
qualify as a commercial enterprise. If people are reimbursing you for
the cost of reproduction, then they are helping to defray the initial
cost to purchase the book, tape, disk, patent file, or painting. THis
reimbursement is a recognised commerical gain. Every individual must
purchase at least one piece of intellectual property, even just a copy
of the patent file at the patent office. In the case of a patent, the
person is not buying the actual product, but merely a relatively simple
description of the product. It is still up to them to create engineering
drawings, production drawings, tooling drawings, the production tooling,
etc to build copys, and in that event can still only make as many as
they can personally use.
-- TANSTAAFL!!! Michael Lorrey ------------------------------------------------------------ mailto:retroman@tpk.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive Agent Lorrey@ThePentagon.com Silo_1013@ThePentagon.com http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/Mikey's Animatronic Factory My Own Nuclear Espionage Agency (MONEA) MIKEYMAS(tm): The New Internet Holiday Transhumans of New Hampshire (>HNH) ------------------------------------------------------------ #!/usr/local/bin/perl-0777---export-a-crypto-system-sig-RC4-3-lines-PERL @k=unpack('C*',pack('H*',shift));for(@t=@s=0..255){$y=($k[$_%@k]+$s[$x=$_ ]+$y)%256;&S}$x=$y=0;for(unpack('C*',<>)){$x++;$y=($s[$x%=256]+$y)%256; &S;print pack(C,$_^=$s[($s[$x]+$s[$y])%256])}sub S{@s[$x,$y]=@s[$y,$x]}