[Will]

Originally posted by Jack Simth:
No, I'm not confused; If you'll notice, I said "Simply saying no direct copies is insufficient; for example" (emphasis added). Another way of saying that would be to say that I found the definition you posted to be lacking. Further, I later said "[...] and that which you would not [like to be acceptable] (changing a menu color)?" - which also implies that I know it isn't what you are actually after. That was just an example to demonstrate a problem with things as you had worded them; you now appear to be saying that you didn't mean things exactly as they were posted, so that's fine.

Well, I had a response written for your post, but I seemed to have hit "Add Reply" about five minutes after the forums went all narcoleptic... so my response essentially went *POOF!*.

The gist of it: I never said you were confused, I said you were misunderstanding what I posted. Confused would be the recipient having reduced mental faculties (I would consider saying confused in that situation unwarranted and an insult). Misunderstanding is a problem in the act of communication (and has absolutely no malice behind it), something being lost in the translation, so to speak.

To attempt to rehash my position on the limits to be put on copyright (not even going to touch trademarks or patents here, that's a completely different 900-pound purple gorilla): Copyright should protect against what is commonly accepted as plagerism, but nothing beyond that. That means that no significant portion of the copyright-protected work can be used by someone else. With the changing-menu-color example, that would violate copyrights because the rest of the game most certainly constitutes "significant". However, if the game was reverse-engineered, and every piece of it was created independantly, taking nothing but inspiration from the original, then that does not violate the copyright. Another example: say a writer has a terrible case of writers block. The writer comes across a short story done by someone else, and begins writing with the story as a model; the writer doesn't take a single sentance fragment from the original, but does use the same characters (with different names), plot, setting, etc. That, in my view, is more than a bit unoriginal, but should not violate copyright... the writer's story is its own, nothing tangible was taken from the "original". (As a side note, I would personally think it proper to let the "original's" author and any readers know about the source of the story idea, but I don't think that should be mandated by copyright law).

Also, there should be leeway given for personal use. There is already some in the current laws, but certain Groups are trying their damnedest to remove all personal copying. I think it's perfectly acceptable to do things like: make a backup copy of a CD, photocopy a poem and stick it on your wall, take a hex editor to SEIV and change menu colors (not to distribute, mind you!), multiple installations of software (several people on this board have more than one installation of SEIV on their computer), copy a DVD onto a VHS cassette so you can watch it with the VCR in the other room, etc. Not only are these legitimate uses in my view, but if copyright holders actually bother trying to collect payment for things so utterly trivial, then they seriously need to be institutionalized.