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by r3trohack3r 316 days ago
Copyright is but one pillar of intellectual property law.

I’d like to see an attempt by useful freedom respecting software projects to deploy patents to combat non-free reimplementations.

A GPL license that grants you rights to the backing patent as long as the software you develop with it is also released under the GPL license.

Use the library for closed source software? Copyright violation. Reimplement the software under another license? Patent violation. Create something slightly different and call it the same thing? Trademark violation.
2 comments
starkrights 316 days ago
Not sure of the rest of the world, but at least in the US, patenting “software” is a pretty murky subject legally (at least it feels that way when trying to do some basic research on it) Something that seems common among sources discussing it is that “Software Related Inventions” (eg, a computer that does XYZ) can be patentable, but software/code itself is not literally patentable. Seemingly, because we’re talking about libraries that would be pure software, not a product for sale based on it, you wouldn’t be able patent libraries like you’re talking about.

I’d provide links to some discourse of this, but honestly I think it’s better to search “can you patent software in the US” and do a brief read of various sources, because the terminology between them can seem somewhat counterfactual to eachother.

link
nextaccountic 316 days ago
Copyright mostly protects big corps nowadays. That's because you need lawyers to enforce copyright, and if the other side has more money the battle may not be worth it.

On the other hand, Meta was found torrenting terabytes of books and for them it's a nothingburger. The rules are really meant for commoners.

link