[ILUG] Patent-VS-Copyright issues

[John Gay]

With the recent discussions regarding the patent issue, when I saw a 
campaining councilor today, I just had to ask his stand on Software Patents.

His response was not far from what I expected. He felt that software patents 
were important to ensure people paid for software written rather than 
down-loading pirated copies and taking money from the software creators.

I explained that this was the purpose of Copyright laws and not for Patent 
issues. As I didn't fully understand the LWZ issue, I just briefly explained 
how the copyright on LWZ compression was used to restrict many legitimate 
businesses, and suggested he check the groklaw web site for clear 
explainations of the differences between copyright and patent.

When he asked why I thought this was important, I explained about the recent 
U-Turn in the EU regarding software patents and explained that quite a few 
small and medium sized software companies in Ireland were very concerned 
about this. At this point he asked about the web site again and wrote it 
down. I think that caught his attention (-;

It was only later that I thought about possible simpler examples better suited 
for non-software types.

Motown used copyright to protect the song 'He's So Fine'. Had a patent been 
issued, this would have restricted a wide range of songs and prevented a 
large number of entertainers from making a living. However, when George 
Harison used the same chords, rhythms and tempos for 'My Sweet Lord', he was 
found to be in violation of the copyright and paided proper royalties.

If J. K. Rowling had been given a patent on stories about school children 
learning magic and witchcraft, the "Artimus Fowler' books could never have 
been written. Since she was only given a copyright on the 'Harry Potter' 
stories, 'Artimus Fowler' and other books are allowed. However, when an 
author from an eastern europian country wrote a story that followed the harry 
potter plot with only minor name changes, copyright was used properly to 
protect Rowling's works.

I think the main problems is that most politicians don't properly understand 
the differences between patents and copyrights, the one I talked to didn't. 
But after explaining it, and pointing out how Irish software industry was 
under threat and very concerned about patents, he seemed very interested in 
finding out more.

I thought I couldn't help wit this effort, but today's experience has 
convinced me to have plenty of info available and ask every canvasing 
polititian about software patents now!

Cheers,

	John Gay