Article

2011-11-30 Science & Technology

Programming language can't be copyrighted: EU court

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Posted by Fred 2011-11-30 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11126 views ] Top

#1 To paraphrase Lasarus Long, public servants are objective---they hate all creative people equally.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2011-11-30 01:37|| 2011-11-30 01:37|| Front Page Top

#2 This decision is similar to many other decisions by the courts in the past.

Posted by BernardZ 2011-11-30 05:27|| 2011-11-30 05:27|| Front Page Top

#3 Can you copyright your own nomenclature for the computing-maths?

Probably not. Good decision.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2011-11-30 08:42|| 2011-11-30 08:42|| Front Page Top

#4 'programming languages...should be compared to the language used by a novelist...The functionalities of a computer programme should also not be eligible for copyright, Bot said, adding that they are the equivalent of ideas and that protecting them would "amount to making it possible to monopolise ideas."'

Nice. Throws Richthaven out with the bathwater.

Posted by Skidmark 2011-11-30 09:19|| 2011-11-30 09:19|| Front Page Top

#5 How do you copyright sequences which is what in the end all the layers of code lead to - (ex:00100101110001111000111000100111001110001010111000001)?

Posted by Procopius2k 2011-11-30 09:38|| 2011-11-30 09:38|| Front Page Top

#6 Can't copyright the language ... but you can still protect the compilers, interpreters, and run-time environments, which is where the magic happens anyway.

Posted by Extreme Moderate 2011-11-30 10:49|| 2011-11-30 10:49|| Front Page Top

#7 Then the question is whether it is more appropriately a patent rather than a copyright.

Posted by Procopius2k 2011-11-30 10:52|| 2011-11-30 10:52|| Front Page Top

#8 Things are copyrighted. Ideas are patented.

Posted by trailing wife 2011-11-30 10:59|| 2011-11-30 10:59|| Front Page Top

#9 Advocate general Yves Bot argued that programming languages -- different digital vocabularies such as HTML and Java used to make a computer perform certain tasks -- should be compared to the language used by a novelist.

Apparently this moron has no idea what is involved with programming a compiler to turn statements in this "novelist" language into machine readable code.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2011-11-30 12:15|| 2011-11-30 12:15|| Front Page Top

#10 So is the meta-language these programming languages often get translated to copywritable? I'm thinking about .NET, java, p-code, etc...
Those aren't written by a 'novelist'...

How about machine instructions? Can Intel copyright 'mov ds,bs'.

Posted by CrazyFool 2011-11-30 13:44|| 2011-11-30 13:44|| Front Page Top

#11 Actually, TW, you can't patent an idea - - only an invention or other embodiment of an idea. By a twist of fate I was speaking with 4 people at the US Patent Office about this earlier today!

Posted by pcarroll 2011-11-30 16:03|| 2011-11-30 16:03|| Front Page Top

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