Intellectual Property Law in Source Code Reuse and Remix - Finding Source Code on the Web for Remix and Reuse - page 317

A natural language processing library is a non-trivial piece of software. There
are many novel ideas and much labour woven into its fabric. The inability to use
an existing library was a loss, not just in time, but also in know-how and expertise.
It would take Bob a long time and would not be as good as one created by an expert.
We include this scenario here to illustrate the importance of IP law in software reuse
and remix. Without appropriate protections and freedoms for copyright, patents,
licenses, and trade secrets, the worst case scenario would be a complete lock down
of source code. We are not being fear mongers in including this scenario; one of our
respondents reported this anecdote to us in a survey (see Chap. 3 ).
Information and computer scientists and engineers who are trained in program-
ming, and have engaged in software reuse and remix have a different perspective
on what counts as an idea that is worth protecting, the value of effort that goes into
an idea, and status of copying in computer systems. Legal experts have put forth
a number of proposals for reforming copyright, such as regulating only commer-
cial copying, but not private copying [ 14 ]; and granting copyright protection only
upon registration of a work rather than automatically at the moment of creation [ 18 ].
Technical experts can strengthen and improve such proposals with suggestions for
what kinds of protections can be wrought through technology without compromis-
ing existing Internet infrastructure. If the conversation is dominated by those with
only an economic incentive and large lobbying budgets, average citizens and soft-
ware developers will lose out.
References
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copyright, trade secrets, and anticircumvention measures. Utah Law Review ,
2008(1395), 2008.
[3] Dan L. Burk. Method and madness in copyright law. Utah Law Review ,
2007(3), 2007.
[4] Imran Chaudri, Bas Ordling, Freddy Allen Anzures, Marcel Van Os,
Stephen O. Lemay, Scott Forstall, and Greg Christie. Unlocking a device by
performing gestures on an unlock image, 2009.
[5] Simson L. Garfinkel, Richard M. Stallman, and Mitchell Kapor. Why Patents
Are Bad for Software . The MIT Press, 1996.
[6] Douglass A. Hass. A gentlemen's agreement assessing the GNU public lic-
sense and its adaptation to linux. Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Prop-
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[7] Paul Heckel. Debunking the software patent myths. Communications of the
ACM , 35(6):121-140, June 1992.
[8] Lewis Hyde. Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership . Farrar, Straus
and Giroux, 2010.