Re:I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as t...
by breck on Saturday July 03, 2021 @07:44PM
(#27725968)
> The intent from the beginning
We know that there was a written intent that it was "To promote the progress of science and useful arts". However, who knows whether or not that was the true intent of all those who signed off on it. We see that lots of written intent, (Exhibit A: Purdue's "Partners Against Pain" Oxycontin promotion), may not match the mathematical reality on the ground. Also, we know that there was plenty of places in the Constitution that were good to amend (the three fifths clause, for instance).
This site (http://www.copyrighthistory.org/cam/index.php) has lots of fascinating old docs where you can come up with your own impressions about the early days of copyright. My general impression was that while it didn't ever actually promote the progress of science and useful arts, it absolutely did in the early days serve as a super smart free hack for the new federal government to build a central intelligence and library of all the latest and greatest inventions from throughout the land.
> What does that even mean?
It means that if you analyze it using logic and put all assumptions on the table (start high up on the tree), you deduce that this is a system of intellectual slavery, not of intellectual "property". You deduce that if there is such a thing as stealing ideas, then all ideas with any value are majority stolen and but a fraction novel.
We know that there was a written intent that it was "To promote the progress of science and useful arts". However, who knows whether or not that was the true intent of all those who signed off on it. We see that lots of written intent, (Exhibit A: Purdue's "Partners Against Pain" Oxycontin promotion), may not match the mathematical reality on the ground. Also, we know that there was plenty of places in the Constitution that were good to amend (the three fifths clause, for instance).
This site (http://www.copyrighthistory.org/cam/index.php) has lots of fascinating old docs where you can come up with your own impressions about the early days of copyright. My general impression was that while it didn't ever actually promote the progress of science and useful arts, it absolutely did in the early days serve as a super smart free hack for the new federal government to build a central intelligence and library of all the latest and greatest inventions from throughout the land.
> What does that even mean?
It means that if you analyze it using logic and put all assumptions on the table (start high up on the tree), you deduce that this is a system of intellectual slavery, not of intellectual "property". You deduce that if there is such a thing as stealing ideas, then all ideas with any value are majority stolen and but a fraction novel.