Software Reuse In Embedded code

Hi David,

On 6/19/2011 11:52 PM, David Brown wrote:

> (IANAL, and rules may vary from country to country.)

Nor am I -- thankfully!  :>

> If you are doing the reverse engineering for the purposes of
> compatibility or interaction, then it is in fact legal regardless of
> what the EULA says - most EULAs contain clauses that are not legally
> enforceable.

Also, the "injured party" has to have demonstrated an
active and consistent defense of their IP.  I.e., if
lots of folks are doing this and they only come after
*you*, then you have a stronger defense.  Conversely,
if they religiously go after *everyone* known or
suspected of this type of "violation", you have a
harder time defending yourself.

This, IMO, is one of the biggest arguments *against*
copyright, patent, etc. "protection" -- the burden falls
on the IP holder to defend it.

On 20/06/11 18:56, Don Y wrote:
> Hi David,
>
> On 6/19/2011 11:52 PM, David Brown wrote:
>
>> (IANAL, and rules may vary from country to country.)
>
> Nor am I -- thankfully! :>
>
>> If you are doing the reverse engineering for the purposes of
>> compatibility or interaction, then it is in fact legal regardless of
>> what the EULA says - most EULAs contain clauses that are not legally
>> enforceable.
>
> Also, the "injured party" has to have demonstrated an
> active and consistent defense of their IP. I.e., if
> lots of folks are doing this and they only come after
> *you*, then you have a stronger defense. Conversely,
> if they religiously go after *everyone* known or
> suspected of this type of "violation", you have a
> harder time defending yourself.
>

No, that's not correct - it depends on the type of "IP".  If you have a 
trademark and you don't defend it, you lose the rights to it.  But if 
you have the copyright to something, you keep those rights regardless of 
how much you fight for it or not.  Success in past court cases will 
often make it easier to win new cases (or to persuade people to settle 
out of court), but you don't have to litigate or otherwise fight for 
your rights if you don't want to.  The same applies to patents.

> This, IMO, is one of the biggest arguments *against*
> copyright, patent, etc. "protection" -- the burden falls
> on the IP holder to defend it.

The biggest problems are exactly the opposite, especially with patents. 
  The patent holder will sue someone, who then has to pay to defend 
themselves in court - and if the defendant believes the patent is 
invalid, the burden of proof is on them to prove it invalid.  This means 
that in many cases, especially with software patents, the innocent 
defendant in patent cases has to pay high legal costs - it is cheaper 
for them to pay the protection money.

On Mon, 20 Jun 2011 08:52:06 +0200, David Brown
<david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com> wrote:

>(IANAL, and rules may vary from country to country.)
>
>Reverse engineering and other inspection is not a crime.  It might be 
>against a EULA or other license or contract, which makes it illegal but 
>not a crime.  Like copyright infraction, which is not a crime (and 
>certainly not "piracy"), you can be sued for economic or other loses by 
>the injured party, but it is not a crime (meaning you are prosecuted by 
>the state, and can be jailed) unless you are economically motivated and 
>working on a reasonably large scale.  (There are other exceptions where 
>your activities are a crime if you live in the land of Micky Mouse laws.)
>
>If you are doing the reverse engineering for the purposes of 
>compatibility or interaction, then it is in fact legal regardless of 
>what the EULA says - most EULAs contain clauses that are not legally 
>enforceable.

IANAL either ...

... but unfortunately in the USA, some reverse engineering IS a crime.
The DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) forbids most use cases of
reverse engineering encryption/decryption, anti-copying and digital
rights management schemes. 

DMCA contradicts itself, patent law and consumer protection law ...
and few aspects of it have been challenged in court despite the law
being 15 years old.  It has been amended a couple of times, but the
result has been that the law has only gotten murkier.

Moreover ... and this just happened ... a new bill in Congress is
trying to make copyright infringement a punishable crime as opposed to
the civil offense it now is.  This is very worrisome because it
interacts with the more nasty twists of DMCA which make it unclear
when, if ever, fair use applies.

George

On 6/20/2011 10:32 AM, David Brown wrote:
> On 20/06/11 18:56, Don Y wrote:
>> Hi David,
>>
>> On 6/19/2011 11:52 PM, David Brown wrote:
>>
>>> (IANAL, and rules may vary from country to country.)
>>
>> Nor am I -- thankfully! :>
>>
>>> If you are doing the reverse engineering for the purposes of
>>> compatibility or interaction, then it is in fact legal regardless of
>>> what the EULA says - most EULAs contain clauses that are not legally
>>> enforceable.
>>
>> Also, the "injured party" has to have demonstrated an
>> active and consistent defense of their IP. I.e., if
>> lots of folks are doing this and they only come after
>> *you*, then you have a stronger defense. Conversely,
>> if they religiously go after *everyone* known or
>> suspected of this type of "violation", you have a
>> harder time defending yourself.
>>
>
> No, that's not correct - it depends on the type of "IP". If you have a
> trademark and you don't defend it, you lose the rights to it. But if you
> have the copyright to something, you keep those rights regardless of how
> much you fight for it or not. Success in past court cases will often
> make it easier to win new cases (or to persuade people to settle out of
> court), but you don't have to litigate or otherwise fight for your
> rights if you don't want to. The same applies to patents.
>
>> This, IMO, is one of the biggest arguments *against*
>> copyright, patent, etc. "protection" -- the burden falls
>> on the IP holder to defend it.
>
> The biggest problems are exactly the opposite, especially with patents.
> The patent holder will sue someone, who then has to pay to defend
> themselves in court - and if the defendant believes the patent is
> invalid, the burden of proof is on them to prove it invalid. This means
> that in many cases, especially with software patents, the innocent
> defendant in patent cases has to pay high legal costs - it is cheaper
> for them to pay the protection money.

You're missing the point.  No one is going to hunt down possible
infringers on your behalf.  It's a civil issue (in the US).  So,
*you* have to identify all potential infringers and bring suit
against them.  And, in the process, put *your* patent's validity
on the line (the "accused" can move that your patent is invalid
and, if he wins that point, you *lose* that patent protection).

You also have to spend time/money to investigate (reverse
engineer) the means by which the *suspected* infringement is
taking place.  I.e., unless your explicit independant claims
are infringed, you have no grounds for your case.  (I can
do the same thing that your patent claims to have invented
but do so *differently* and I'm not infringing; the patent
examiner's job is to try to get your patent application to be
as narrowly focused as possible)

I see no real value to modern day patents -- especially with
terms like 20+ years.

Note, also, that public disclosure of a patentable idea turns
it into prior art.  Making subsequent patentability a moot
point (though in some jurisdictions you may have up to a year
to capitalize on this)

IMO, the GPL is just as bad as patents.  The idea should be to
encourage people to *innovate*.  Forcing people to share their
innovations doesn't really do that -- any more than giving
people exclusive use of their innovations!  E.g., I use a
Berkeley style license on anything that I release...

On 21/06/2011 05:54, Don Y wrote:
> On 6/20/2011 10:32 AM, David Brown wrote:
>> On 20/06/11 18:56, Don Y wrote:
>>> Hi David,
>>>
>>> On 6/19/2011 11:52 PM, David Brown wrote:
>>>
>>>> (IANAL, and rules may vary from country to country.)
>>>
>>> Nor am I -- thankfully! :>
>>>
>>>> If you are doing the reverse engineering for the purposes of
>>>> compatibility or interaction, then it is in fact legal regardless of
>>>> what the EULA says - most EULAs contain clauses that are not legally
>>>> enforceable.
>>>
>>> Also, the "injured party" has to have demonstrated an
>>> active and consistent defense of their IP. I.e., if
>>> lots of folks are doing this and they only come after
>>> *you*, then you have a stronger defense. Conversely,
>>> if they religiously go after *everyone* known or
>>> suspected of this type of "violation", you have a
>>> harder time defending yourself.
>>>
>>
>> No, that's not correct - it depends on the type of "IP". If you have a
>> trademark and you don't defend it, you lose the rights to it. But if you
>> have the copyright to something, you keep those rights regardless of how
>> much you fight for it or not. Success in past court cases will often
>> make it easier to win new cases (or to persuade people to settle out of
>> court), but you don't have to litigate or otherwise fight for your
>> rights if you don't want to. The same applies to patents.
>>
>>> This, IMO, is one of the biggest arguments *against*
>>> copyright, patent, etc. "protection" -- the burden falls
>>> on the IP holder to defend it.
>>
>> The biggest problems are exactly the opposite, especially with patents.
>> The patent holder will sue someone, who then has to pay to defend
>> themselves in court - and if the defendant believes the patent is
>> invalid, the burden of proof is on them to prove it invalid. This means
>> that in many cases, especially with software patents, the innocent
>> defendant in patent cases has to pay high legal costs - it is cheaper
>> for them to pay the protection money.
>
> You're missing the point. No one is going to hunt down possible
> infringers on your behalf. It's a civil issue (in the US). So,
> *you* have to identify all potential infringers and bring suit
> against them. And, in the process, put *your* patent's validity
> on the line (the "accused" can move that your patent is invalid
> and, if he wins that point, you *lose* that patent protection).
>

My point here is that you /don't/ have to hunt down possible infringers. 
  It is only with trademarks that you /have/ to pursue people, and even 
then it is only if they are "visible".  If you make a wheelbarrow, 
called it an "ipod", and sell a hundred per year, then Apple can and 
will ignore you, with no harm to their trademark.  But if you integrate 
a music system and sell ten thousand, then Apple /must/ sue you for the 
protection of their trademark.

For other types of "IP", there is /no/ requirement to pursue infringers. 
  It's up to you - if you think it is worth the time and cost, then go 
for it.  If not, then you can send them salesmen or lawyer's letters or 
just ignore them.

It is correct that you will have to invest money if you want to take the 
infringer to court - and I agree that in an ideal system, only the 
guilty party would ever have to pay.  But for such cases, either party 
could be guilty - patent trolls are as common as patent infringers.

A better system would be to have a cheaper, faster, more technical and 
less legal arbitration system to have technically competent independent 
experts decide on copyright and patent disputes.  Most issues could be 
cleared up quickly and at minimal costs (except, of course, for any 
damages paid by the guilty party), and either side could always appeal 
to normal civil courts if they disagreed with the judgement.

> You also have to spend time/money to investigate (reverse
> engineer) the means by which the *suspected* infringement is
> taking place. I.e., unless your explicit independant claims
> are infringed, you have no grounds for your case. (I can
> do the same thing that your patent claims to have invented
> but do so *differently* and I'm not infringing; the patent
> examiner's job is to try to get your patent application to be
> as narrowly focused as possible)
>

It's worth distinguishing a bit between different types of IP - 
trademark cases are usually easy to see one way or the other, because 
things are out in the open.  Copyright abuse is often harder to prove 
one way or the other.  But you seem to be talking mainly about patents, 
which are the most controversial of the three.  I agree that patents are 
a bigger problem, so we can concentrate on them.

> I see no real value to modern day patents -- especially with
> terms like 20+ years.
>

I've heard that there is no point in taking out a patent unless your 
invention is worth $10m - otherwise it's not worth the money suing people.

There is a vast amount that is wrong with the patent system we have 
today, and it is the total antithesis of the original aim of patents. 
This is most obvious in the world of "software patents" which some 
countries have, but applies more generally.

However, I don't agree with your feelings that it is unfair on the 
patent holder, who must invest so much to pursue an infringer.  It is 
/equally/ unfair on those who are sued by patent holders when they have 
not infringed on the patent, or when the patent should be invalidated. 
It is a terrible system for everyone, except the lawyers.

> Note, also, that public disclosure of a patentable idea turns
> it into prior art. Making subsequent patentability a moot
> point (though in some jurisdictions you may have up to a year
> to capitalize on this)
>
> IMO, the GPL is just as bad as patents. The idea should be to
> encourage people to *innovate*. Forcing people to share their
> innovations doesn't really do that -- any more than giving
> people exclusive use of their innovations! E.g., I use a
> Berkeley style license on anything that I release...

The GPL is an excellent (though not perfect) choice of licence for many 
types of software - but it is not appropriate for all types.  Very 
roughly speaking, it is a good choice for software that people will use 
as programs, but a poor choice for software that people will use as part 
of their own programs (then something like a BSD or MPL style is 
normally better).  The GPL forces the software to remain free - 
sometimes the "free" part of that phrase is the best part, sometimes the 
"forces" part is the worst part.

So the GPL is a good choice for gcc - there is no reason why anyone 
would want to take the source code of gcc and hide it away unless they 
wanted to sell some or all of it as their own proprietary code.  The GPL 
provides legal protection against it.  But on the other hand, the GPL is 
a poor choice for the gnu readline library - free software fanatics 
choose the GPL for readline as a way to try to force people to use GPL 
for their software.  The result is that lots of programs that could 
benefit from using the library, cannot use it because of the license - 
and that there are several "competing" libraries around with different 
developer-friendly licenses (mostly BSD-style).

When the GPL restricts /your/ freedom to choose a license for /your/ 
code, then it is non-free and a bad choice.  But when you /want/ your 
code to be free, then it is a good choice to help keep it free.

On 20/06/2011 20:44, George Neuner wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Jun 2011 08:52:06 +0200, David Brown
> <david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com>  wrote:
>
>> (IANAL, and rules may vary from country to country.)
>>
>> Reverse engineering and other inspection is not a crime.  It might be
>> against a EULA or other license or contract, which makes it illegal but
>> not a crime.  Like copyright infraction, which is not a crime (and
>> certainly not "piracy"), you can be sued for economic or other loses by
>> the injured party, but it is not a crime (meaning you are prosecuted by
>> the state, and can be jailed) unless you are economically motivated and
>> working on a reasonably large scale.  (There are other exceptions where
>> your activities are a crime if you live in the land of Micky Mouse laws.)
>>
>> If you are doing the reverse engineering for the purposes of
>> compatibility or interaction, then it is in fact legal regardless of
>> what the EULA says - most EULAs contain clauses that are not legally
>> enforceable.
>
> IANAL either ...
>
> ... but unfortunately in the USA, some reverse engineering IS a crime.
> The DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) forbids most use cases of
> reverse engineering encryption/decryption, anti-copying and digital
> rights management schemes.

Perhaps my reference to Micky Mouse laws was too subtle, but that's what 
I meant.

Apparently, the DMCA /does/ allow for reverse engineering for 
compatibility purposes, and for security issues, amongst its various 
exceptions.

>
> DMCA contradicts itself, patent law and consumer protection law ...
> and few aspects of it have been challenged in court despite the law
> being 15 years old.  It has been amended a couple of times, but the
> result has been that the law has only gotten murkier.
>

The DMCA contradicts most things, especially common sense and the basic 
human perception of fairness.

Remember, courts and laws are a /legal/ system, not a /justice/ system - 
and the law has always been heavily biased towards who has the most 
money.  (This is not just a criticism of the USA, though it is perhaps 
more obvious there than in most countries - it extends back at least as 
far as Roman times.)

> Moreover ... and this just happened ... a new bill in Congress is
> trying to make copyright infringement a punishable crime as opposed to
> the civil offense it now is.  This is very worrisome because it
> interacts with the more nasty twists of DMCA which make it unclear
> when, if ever, fair use applies.
>

What I always find difficult to understand is how this sort of thing can 
happen in a democracy.  You are supposed to be governed by the people, 
for the people.  It is unlikely that you will find a single living 
person in the USA above the age of 5 who has never infringed on 
copyright - with the huge majority doing so regularly and knowingly.  So 
this law would turn the entire population into criminals.  Have you ever 
taped a program off the tele, and watched it more than once?  Or kept 
the recording for more than 30 days?  Go directly to jail, do not pass 
go and do not collect $200.

> George

David Brown wrote:

> The biggest problems are exactly the opposite, especially with patents.
>   The patent holder will sue someone, who then has to pay to defend
> themselves in court - and if the defendant believes the patent is
> invalid, the burden of proof is on them to prove it invalid.  This means
> that in many cases, especially with software patents, the innocent
> defendant in patent cases has to pay high legal costs - it is cheaper
> for them to pay the protection money.

Frivolous software patents are essentially a self correcting problem.
They have a limited life and most of them have already died.

The whole issue of IP protection is to create an incentive for people
and companies to risk a disproportionate amount of resources to
the potential individual gain in the development of new ideas. A large
percentage of these developments never produce enough revenue
to pay development costs. Something is needed to to protect the
ideas that are truly unique and useful. Real technical innovation has
slowed down a lot in the last decade.


Regards


walter..
--
Walter Banks
Byte Craft Limited
http://www.bytecraft.com

On 22/06/2011 11:10, Walter Banks wrote:
>
>
> David Brown wrote:
>
>> The biggest problems are exactly the opposite, especially with patents.
>>    The patent holder will sue someone, who then has to pay to defend
>> themselves in court - and if the defendant believes the patent is
>> invalid, the burden of proof is on them to prove it invalid.  This means
>> that in many cases, especially with software patents, the innocent
>> defendant in patent cases has to pay high legal costs - it is cheaper
>> for them to pay the protection money.
>
> Frivolous software patents are essentially a self correcting problem.
> They have a limited life and most of them have already died.
>

If only that were true!

There are huge numbers of software patents around, and /very/ few of 
them would ever have been granted if the rules were followed - to get a 
patent on something, it must be an /invention/ that is /new/, 
/non-obvious/, and /useful/.  Many people feel that a purely software 
solution is not an "invention" - thus all pure software patents are 
invalid and frivolous.  Even if you allow that a software algorithm is 
an "invention", the majority of granted patents are not new, or are at 
least very similar to existing software or methods, and a very large 
proportion are obvious to experts in the field.

And even in cases where the patent is clearly frivolous beyond any 
reasonable doubt, if the owner sues an "infringer", it can still be 
cheaper for the victim to settle out of court.  And the victim, being 
(typically) bound by law to put their shareholders profits above their 
own sense of morality and justice, will do exactly that.  Then when the 
patent owner attacks the next "infringer", they can point to the 
previous settlement as extra evidence.  So frivolous patents are a 
self-reinforcing problem, not self-correcting.

Case in point - if what I've read is correct, Microsoft makes more 
profit from Android phones than from Windows 7 phones, because 
manufacturers like HTC must pay them royalties for the use of patents 
that are "infringed" by Android (and the Linux kernel in particular). 
They have not revealed exactly which patents are covered, but they are 
almost certainly mostly frivolous (MS was awarded a patent on the "PgUp" 
and "PgDn" keys three years ago, as an example).

> The whole issue of IP protection is to create an incentive for people
> and companies to risk a disproportionate amount of resources to
> the potential individual gain in the development of new ideas. A large
> percentage of these developments never produce enough revenue
> to pay development costs. Something is needed to to protect the
> ideas that are truly unique and useful. Real technical innovation has
> slowed down a lot in the last decade.
>

Oh, I agree on the principle behind the original aim of patents - it's a 
good idea to have a system that rewards innovation, inventiveness and 
people willing to take risks for a good idea.  It was designed to allow 
small inventors to have a good idea and let big manufacturers 
mass-produce the inventions for the public good, while letting the 
inventor get a solid share of the profits.

The trouble is that the modern patent system, especially in more modern 
areas like software, simply does not do that.  It fails in almost every 
conceivable way, and is a very big reason why technical innovation has 
slowed down.  When technical companies spend more on lawyers than on 
engineers, the system is unrecoverably broken.

mvh.,

David


>
> Regards
>
>
> walter..
> --
> Walter Banks
> Byte Craft Limited
> http://www.bytecraft.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Hi Walter,

On 6/22/2011 2:10 AM, Walter Banks wrote:
> David Brown wrote:
>
>> The biggest problems are exactly the opposite, especially with patents.
>>    The patent holder will sue someone, who then has to pay to defend
>> themselves in court - and if the defendant believes the patent is
>> invalid, the burden of proof is on them to prove it invalid.  This means
>> that in many cases, especially with software patents, the innocent
>> defendant in patent cases has to pay high legal costs - it is cheaper
>> for them to pay the protection money.
>
> Frivolous software patents are essentially a self correcting problem.
> They have a limited life and most of them have already died.

<frown>  I guess it depends on what you consider "frivolous".

Part of the problem (IMO) is that engineers (except those who
seem to delight in listing patents on their CV's) look at
most patents and consider them "obvious" -- which contradicts
the idea of "innovative" (in our minds).

So, to an engineer, most patents are "a joke".

However, that doesn't stop a patent from being *granted*
Hint:  patent examiners are civil servants and this is
just a *job* to them.  they may not even have any real
technical proficiency in the areas for which they are
critiquing the patent applications!  (and, from speaking
with one, there is apparently a lot of nonsense "mechanism"
involved in the process that rewards them for "shuffling
paper" instead of "doing the right job")

> The whole issue of IP protection is to create an incentive for people
> and companies to risk a disproportionate amount of resources to
> the potential individual gain in the development of new ideas. A large
> percentage of these developments never produce enough revenue
> to pay development costs.

While that seems irrational on the face of it, note that those
developments must obviously add value to the products to
*justify* those costs else they simply wouldn't be undertaken.
You don't build a *different* mousetrap unless it will also
be a *better* mousetrap and, presumably, generate more
revenue, recognition, etc. for you!

> Something is needed to to protect the
> ideas that are truly unique and useful. Real technical innovation has
> slowed down a lot in the last decade.

+42

The problem is the profit-and-loss side of the equation.
It's easy to encourage innovation.  Get 6 "motivated"
engineers in a room and have them see who can one-up
the others.  It won't take long for a "better" (though
perhaps not "best") idea to surface.  And, they'll
probably *enjoy* the "competition"!

But, in the business world, "motivate" is spelled with
two $'s!  Which means there has to be some reckoning at
the end of the day to square up accounts.  Businesses tend
to be greedy and self-serving (that's not a criticism, just
a statement of fact).  They aren't inclined to discard a
financial/business advantage if they don't have to!

(can someone explain why CompuServe so stodgily held onto it's
"ownership" of the GIF format?  Did they even have any real
corporate existence anymore??  Or, was this their "sole asset"?)

Businesses expect to be "reimbursed" for their innovations
in terms of *profits*.  :>

Coming up with a practical scheme that addresses innovation,
protection and dissemination is what patents were *supposed*
to do.  Unfortunately, times have changed so much in the
decades since their inception that the time scales just
don't make sense!  They now *hinder* (IMO) more than
*help*.

On Tue, 21 Jun 2011 10:02:06 +0200, David Brown
<david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com> wrote:

>On 20/06/2011 20:44, George Neuner wrote:
>> On Mon, 20 Jun 2011 08:52:06 +0200, David Brown
>> <david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com>  wrote:
>>
>>> (IANAL, and rules may vary from country to country.)
>>>
>>> Reverse engineering and other inspection is not a crime.  It might be
>>> against a EULA or other license or contract, which makes it illegal but
>>> not a crime.  Like copyright infraction, which is not a crime (and
>>> certainly not "piracy"), you can be sued for economic or other loses by
>>> the injured party, but it is not a crime (meaning you are prosecuted by
>>> the state, and can be jailed) unless you are economically motivated and
>>> working on a reasonably large scale.  (There are other exceptions where
>>> your activities are a crime if you live in the land of Micky Mouse laws.)
>>>
>>> If you are doing the reverse engineering for the purposes of
>>> compatibility or interaction, then it is in fact legal regardless of
>>> what the EULA says - most EULAs contain clauses that are not legally
>>> enforceable.
>>
>> IANAL either ...
>>
>> ... but unfortunately in the USA, some reverse engineering IS a crime.
>> The DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) forbids most use cases of
>> reverse engineering encryption/decryption, anti-copying and digital
>> rights management schemes.
>
>Perhaps my reference to Micky Mouse laws was too subtle, but that's what 
>I meant.
>
>Apparently, the DMCA /does/ allow for reverse engineering for 
>compatibility purposes, and for security issues, amongst its various 
>exceptions.
>
>>
>> DMCA contradicts itself, patent law and consumer protection law ...
>> and few aspects of it have been challenged in court despite the law
>> being 15 years old.  It has been amended a couple of times, but the
>> result has been that the law has only gotten murkier.
>>
>
>The DMCA contradicts most things, especially common sense and the basic 
>human perception of fairness.

Well, I happen to be related to two IP attorneys and count several
others as friends ... I considered going into IP law myself at one
point.  IP attorneys are /required/ to have a science or engineering
background so they tend to be much more reasonable about things.

Every one of them considers the DMCA a crock of $%^& and would love to
have a multi-million contra case to try.



>Remember, courts and laws are a /legal/ system, not a /justice/ system - 
>and the law has always been heavily biased towards who has the most 
>money.  (This is not just a criticism of the USA, though it is perhaps 
>more obvious there than in most countries - it extends back at least as 
>far as Roman times.)
>
>> Moreover ... and this just happened ... a new bill in Congress is
>> trying to make copyright infringement a punishable crime as opposed to
>> the civil offense it now is.  This is very worrisome because it
>> interacts with the more nasty twists of DMCA which make it unclear
>> when, if ever, fair use applies.
>>
>
>What I always find difficult to understand is how this sort of thing can 
>happen in a democracy. 

Your first mistake is thinking you live in a democracy ... you don't
(no matter where you live).  I can't think of a single nation that
actually is a democracy.

There are republics, federated republics, constitutional monarchies,
actual monarchies, dictatorships, theocracies, and some of the
apparent dictatorships might really be oligarchies (it's hard to tell
the difference sometimes) ... but AFAICS, no democracies.  Some
countries may embrace classic democratic elements such as public
elections, but that doesn't make them democracies.  

In a democracy every voice is equal and every issue that affects the
public is put to collective vote.  Any form of government that
involves representation rather than direct public involvement is not a
democracy.

The fact that the U.S. is NOT a democracy is enshrined in the Pledge
of Allegience, which reads:
   "... and to the Republic, for which it stands ...".  

The U.S. is, in fact, an example of a federated republic.  For decades
now, schools have been misteaching and misleading students into
believing they live in a democracy.  I normally don't subscribe to
conspiracy theory, but in this matter I have come to believe that this
particular misteaching is by design ... the misconception is far too
widespread to be the result of students misunderstanding their civics
lessons.
[YMMV and I really don't care to debate it ... at least not here.]


>You are supposed to be governed by the people, 
>for the people.  It is unlikely that you will find a single living 
>person in the USA above the age of 5 who has never infringed on 
>copyright - with the huge majority doing so regularly and knowingly.  So 
>this law would turn the entire population into criminals.  
>
>Have you ever 
>taped a program off the tele, and watched it more than once?  Or kept 
>the recording for more than 30 days?  Go directly to jail, do not pass 
>go and do not collect $200.

Actually, recording television and radio for the purpose of
"time-shifting" is expressly PERMITTED by law regardless of the
idiotic warnings you hear during some broadcasts.  That was settled by
the US Supreme Court back in the 1970s and subsequently was written
into copyright law.  I don't have the cite handy, but time-shifting
falls under fair use and DMCA did change existing law regarding it.

As you mentioned above, you must destroy a "time-shift" recording
within 30 days and you aren't permitted to profit in any way from it.
You can, however, watch it as many times as you wish within the time
limit.

George