Re: Mass bug filing: Cryptographic protection against modification
@ 06/05/2004 11:43 : wrote John Hasler :
Florian Weimer wrote:
The problem here is that we have no workable definition of
"copyrightable".
Perhaps we don't but the law does. It's not an algorithmic definition
but it is quite workable.
For illustration: Brazilian Law has a definition which is almost
algorithmic. Let's see.
In the "author's rights" law, under the section "protected works" (Lei
9610, art. 7, /caput/, and I-XIII, for the Brazilian folks here):
Art. 7. Those are protected intellectual works: the creations of the
spirit, expressed by any means or fixated in any support, tangible or
not, known or to be invented in the future, as, for instance:
I - texts of literary or scientific works/ II - conferences, lectures,
sermons and other works of the same nature/ III - theatrical and
theatrical-musical works/ IV - coreographical and pantomimical works,
for which the execution is fixed in writing or any other form/ V -
musical compositions, with or without lyrics/ VI - audiovisual works,
including cinematographic ones/ VII - photographical works and those
produced by any process similar of the photography/ VIII - drawings,
pictures, engravings, sculptures, litography and kinetical art/ IX -
illustrations, geographical charts, or other works of the same nature/ X
- projects, drafts and other plastical works referring geography,
engineering, topography, architecture, gardening, scenography, science/
XI - the adaptations, translations, and other transformations of
original works, presented as new intellectual creations/ XII - computer
programs/ XIII - compilations, antologies, encyclopedias, dictionaries,
databases or other works that, by its selection, organization, or
disposition of content, are an intellectual creation.
In the "computer programs law", (Lei 9609), the definition of "XII -
computer programs" above (art. 1) is: "the expression of an organized
set of instructions in natural or encoded language, in any physical
support of any nature, that must be employed in automated machines for
information processing/treatment[*], devices, instruments, or peripheral
equipments, based on digital or analog techniques, to make them work in
determined ways and to determined ends" [*] = my doubt of English
translation.
I don't see how a crypto key could be any of the ones above. Let's see.
It's not an intellectual creation (so, it's not more copyrightable than
a Mandelbrot or Julia fractal image -- is just generated automatically).
It's not similar to any of the examples supplied by the law. And it's
not a set of instructions.
You know, this says something about the whole "software" x "programs", too:
* A TrueType font file is considered by Brazilian Law a program.
* A LaTeX/PDF/PS document, too.
* The text embedded in a PDF document, altough not a program, is
protected by author's rights.
* The image expressed in a PNG image file is protected, the PNG file
itself is not... unless you consider that a PNG image is a program, that
in natural language, would say: put a black pixel, now 10 white pixels,
now a circle of center x,y and radius r, of the colors going from cc to
yy from the center to the outside (no knowledge of how a PNG is encoded,
but this is a valid reading even for a raw pixmap of the form black,
white, green, green, green, blue,...)
Is any of this useful information? You tell me. I don't know, but I hope
it is.
--
br,M
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