Comments by the na.list and mod.legal readership are sollicited on the following Fairy Tale (Caveat Receptor, no guarantee is given that the story is either true or fiction). Note that Copyright must be explicitly invoked under American Law, while Copyright exists by default in many other countries, especially those that have ratified the Berne Copyright Convention.
Under U.S. and British Law, Copyright limitations are offset by the fair use / fail dealing doctrine. Under the BCC, the sovereign states have the right to grant similar rights. At the present time, there is a tendency that software copyright is excluded from the fair use / fair dealing doctrine (e.g., France and the Federal German Republic).
A FAIRY TALE IN AKADEMIA
(C) 1986 Herman J. Woltring
Eindhoven, The Netherlands
e-mail: na.woltring@su-score.arpa ; ortho_rh@hnykun51.bitnet
"In 561", he began in the mild-mannered tone of a tourist guide,
"the only battle in the world that was ever fought on account of
a Copyright matter, was waged here".
Shaking my head I looked at him.
"It is really true", he said, "the followers of St. Columba had
copied a psalmbook that belonged to St. Fenian, and a battle re-
sulted between the followers of St. Fenian and the followers of
St. Columba. Three thousand people were killed -- but the king
decided about the fight; he said: 'like every cow has its calf,
so has every book its copy.' ".
After Heinrich Boell, Irisches Tagebuch
(Kiepenheuer & Wirtsch, Cologne 1957)
Once upon a time, there was a professor in the country of Akademia, whose software belonged to the best in the whole, wide world. As was the custom in his country, he published extensively about his research, and he wrote once in a paper that his software was available on request.
Unfortunately, Akademian publications did not yield sufficient funds for conducting further research, and the professor tried to improve his finances by exporting his software to the neighbouring country of Kommerzia. This caused a problem since Akademia and Kommerzia were often at arms with each other. So, Copyright and Trade Secret conditions were imposed [cf. 1].
Another researcher became intrigued by the professor's work, and he asked him for a copy of his software. The professor replied that the original package was based on unreliable Akademian software, and that a better version was available from a software house in Kommerzia.
Now, our researcher did not have much grant money left, so there were no means to do business in Kommerzia. Fortunately, he could legally acquire the package because Kommerzian law did not apply in Akademia. After a while, he owned a copy of what seemed to be the package from Kommerzia, because it contained the appropriate Copyright Notice.
He went on to study the package, presented some results at a conference, and informed the professor how to improve and update the original package.
It appeared that the package did, in fact, originate from the software house, because Kommerzia invaded Akademia with all the armaments that it could muster. Dismayed by the hue and cry, the researcher looked further into the properties of his package, and some more publications followed.
After a while, the software house claimed that the researcher was about to illegally enter Kommerzia. Instead, he designed a new and completely different package, published it, and distributed it within Akademia by electronic mail. In order to emphasize copyfreedom in Akademia, Copyright was imposed [cf. 2].
The professor and the researcher started a lively debate about customs in Akademia, in the spirit of an earlier publication [3]; however, they could not collaborate under Akademian law, since no peace treaty had been signed with Kommerzia.
Finally, new export laws were passed in Kommerzia, and the inhabitants of both countries tried to live happily ever after [4].
[1] D.G. Johnson (1985), Should computer programs be owned? Metaphilosophy 16(4), pp. 276-288 [special issue on Computer Ethics].
[2] R.M. Stallman (1985), GNU Emacs General Public Licence. Free Software, Inc., 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Boston MA 02138, U.S.A. [also distributed via UUCP/Usenet's net.legal newsgroup].
[3] L.F. Peltier (1983), Guerin versus Malgaigne: a precedent for the free criticism of scientific papers. Journal of Orthopaedic Research 1(1), pp. 115--118.
[4] R.E. Wilson (1985), A threat to scientific communication. Editorial, Physics Today, July 1985, p. 128.
