Re:Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Confere...
by thomastjeffery on Wednesday July 24, 2019 @10:04PM
(#20521995)
While I happen to agree with you, I think it's important to distinguish the two:
What A.G. Barr is insinuating is to regulate algorithms.
Copyright is regulation of implementations.
For example, GPG is a software implementation of encryption algorithms. It has a copyright (used as the basis for its copyleft license). RSA, however, is an algorithm: a mathematical reality that can be described by copyrighted works, but never itself copyrighted.
A.G. Barr has expressed a desire to compel every American who implements that algorithm to do so incorrectly.
What A.G. Barr is insinuating is to regulate algorithms.
Copyright is regulation of implementations.
For example, GPG is a software implementation of encryption algorithms. It has a copyright (used as the basis for its copyleft license). RSA, however, is an algorithm: a mathematical reality that can be described by copyrighted works, but never itself copyrighted.
A.G. Barr has expressed a desire to compel every American who implements that algorithm to do so incorrectly.