{"id":3497,"date":"2011-07-27T20:25:51","date_gmt":"2011-07-27T19:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/?p=3497"},"modified":"2011-07-27T20:25:51","modified_gmt":"2011-07-27T19:25:51","slug":"patent-copyright-oh-no-you-didnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/?p=3497","title":{"rendered":"Patent? Copyright? Oh, no you didn’t!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Greenock<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m disturbed a bit after having read this article: http:\/\/www.chicagolawyermagazine.com\/Articles\/2011\/07\/01\/infotechcolumn-07-2011.aspx<\/a>. Read the last paragraph and think upon what it really means for those of us who write code<\/b>.<\/p>\n

When I think about code, I think that, well, I wrote it. Sure, I wrote it when I was employed by XXX company. They have it, they “own” it. But do I not, also, own it? Why is it that copyright \/ patent law should be able to dictate that my prior employer owns my code exclusively<\/b>? Can I not also<\/b> own that code? After all is said and done, they still have<\/b> that code. They still get the benefit of using<\/b> that code. Why should it be that they get to slap some other company for using the same concepts?<\/p>\n

The next company I work for will need for me to build the same kinds of things that I built for the last company (after all, I focus on companies who need my services and skills, and I’m very skilled in a very narrow area). I’ll no doubt use the same methodology as I used for the previous employer. Am I violating copyright by using the concepts inside my own brain<\/b>? According to U.S. copright law, well, yes, I am. I’m “stealing” from my previous company.<\/p>\n

I wrote the code. I thought of the code. And now I’m “stealing” the code. No – I really don’t think so.<\/p>\n

In “the days of old,” coders would bring their code with them. That was one of the reasons people hired<\/b> old coders: they’d have a wealth of code when they came. Today, though, such things are copyrighted \/ patented, so that the “old coder” is essentially no different from the “young coder” except that the “old coder” is … well, older, more likely to die, or retire. How is this better for the world? How does this improve things?<\/p>\n

Copyright \/ Patent Law is entirely broken. Its purposes have been subverted for the profit of a few and only serve the interests of those few.<\/p>\n

Copy at will.<\/p>\n

Creative commons license<\/a>: attribution, non-commercial, derivatives OK.<\/i><\/p>\n

-D<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m disturbed a bit after having read this article: http:\/\/www.chicagolawyermagazine.com\/Articles\/2011\/07\/01\/infotechcolumn-07-2011.aspx. Read the last paragraph and think upon what it really means for those of us who write code. When I think about code, I think that, well, I wrote it. Sure, I wrote it when I was employed by XXX company. They have it, they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}