Another cause besides poverty we should be out on the streets for today is, of course, the upcoming vote for EU software patents. It’s a bit crowded in Edinburgh for software activism right now though… However, it’s still possible to make sure your MEP votes on this issue: Electronic Frontier Finland has some instructions (mainly relevant for Finns, of course) on how to go about this.
If you couldn’t care less about software patents, this excellent Guardian piece by Richard Stallman, the venerable St. Gnucius of Free Software Foundation, may change your mind: it examines what would have happened if similar laws would have been applied to novels in the 19th Century.
Here’s one example of a hypothetical literary patent:
Claim 1: a communication process that represents, in the mind of a reader, the concept of a character who has been in jail for a long time and becomes bitter towards society and humankind.
Claim 2: a communication process according to claim 1, wherein said character subsequently finds moral redemption through the kindness of another.
Claim 3: a communication process according to claims 1 and 2, wherein said character changes his name during the story.
If such a patent had existed in 1862 when Les Misérables was published, the novel would have infringed all three claims - all these things happened to Jean Valjean in the novel. Hugo could have been sued, and would have lost. The novel could have been prohibited - in effect, censored - by the patent holder.
This is not as unlikely as it sounds: for example, British copyright law classifies software as “works of literature”!
So if you’re tired of all the sound and fury of Sir Bob’s minions descending on Edinburgh, here’s another windmill to joust with.
i think we’re ok in edinburgh. i remember emailing everyone at the time of the EU elections and they were all anti patent. or at the least “patents only for software controlling a tech device”; so that you can patent a whole machine instead of just the gears.