Michael Jay Lissner

How to Protect Your Open Source Code from Theft and a Mercurial Hook to Help

2010-01-15T10:27:18-08:00

Updated, 2010-01-24: Some edits regarding the Affero license (thanks to Brian at http://cyberlawcases.com for the corrections).

I’ve finally begun doing some of the actual coding for my final project so the time has come to set up a mercurial repository to hold the code.

Once we complete our project, we will have built a free product that competes with some of the core functionality of both LexisNexis and Westlaw, so something we wanted to do was make sure they couldn’t steal our code, enhance their product and thus moot ours.

To achieve this, we’re using the GNU Affero General Public License v3, which allows people to take our code for free, but requires that they publicly share any modifications that they make to the code. The normal GNU General Public License allows the code to be used at no cost, but only requires that changes to the code be shared with the public if one distributes the changed version to the public. With a server-based project, like ours, one could operate modified versions of the code without ever having a need to distribute any of the software to the public. This loophole is closed by the Affero license.

In order to license our work, we must be its copyright holder. This is easy enough, since we get copyright instantly in the U.S., but, as has been demonstrated in Jacobsen v. Katzer, in order to seek remedies for copyright violations, we would have to register everything we made with the copyright office. This costs $35 per registration, and with open source software, it’s not clear whether each and every version needs to be registered or just major releases, or what.

Since this is too onerous to be practical, an additional approach to protecting our works is useful, and in the DMCA (17 U.S.C.§ 506(d)), remedies are provided for the “fraudulent removal of copyright notice.” Although these do not (in any way) match the protections provided by normal copyright registration, they are a useful place to begin. Thus, if we place a copyright notice into each file of our code, those using our code must either risk violating the DMCA by removing these notices, or leave our copyright information intact. (Placing such notices in each file is also the recommendation of the Free Software Foundation.)

To place our information into each and every file of code that we upload publicly, I wrote a short mercurial hook that adds copyright and licensing information it to the top of every file that is modified or added to the repository. To use the script, simply make it executable, place it in the .hg directory of your project, and add the following lines to .hg/hgrc:

[hooks]
pretxncommit = .hg/checklicense.py

A couple of things I should note about this script is that it currently only checks for java and python files, and that it requires files called java_license.txt and python_license.txt to be in the root of your repository. It should be fairly easy to modify though to fit your own needs.

Jacobsen v. Katzer Article Posted

2009-10-03T21:52:21-07:00

Today I finally finished an article I have been writing for Wikipedia, as part of my IP Law class. The professor for this class is the same as the one that taught the Cyberlaw class I took in the Spring, and once again, he has asked us to work on Wikipedia as part of our classwork.

We were able to choose an article on Wikipedia that was related to the class, and I chose to work on the article on Jacobsen v. Katzer, which is a very important case as it relates to open source licensing, patent law, copyright, DMCA, and just about every other possible IP law issue.

Ultimately, it was a very complicated case because Katzer has attempted to throw the book at Jacobsen (and vice versa). The court has not yet resolved all the issues, but from reading through about half of the court documents that Jacobsen has posted, it appears that Katzer has:

Patented technology that was not his to patent
Attempted to get licensing fees from Jacobsen for those patents
Stolen the intellectual property of an open source project, stripped it of its license and then incorporated it into his own commercial project
Attempted to sue Jacobsen for copyright violation for something - I’m not even sure what
And more - see the article for details

In short, it’s a nasty, nasty case, but ultimately it should work out for Jacobsen, and he should come out the better (or at least none the worse). At a minimum, he has to prove that the patents are invalid, Katzer stole his IP, and that he didn’t steal Katzer’s IP - a walk in the park.

Clearly, that’s easier said than done, but he’s fighting what appears to be the good fight, and it looks like if he keeps at it, he will win in the end.

Dear Mr. Gore

2008-12-29T22:55:21-08:00

Honorable Al Gore 2100 West End Avenue, Suite 260 Nashville, TN 37203

29 December 2008

Mr. Gore:

I applaud your efforts towards educating the world on the subject of anthropogenic climate change, and I congratulate you on your Nobel Prize.

I write today to urge you to adopt a more open copyright on your materials. From what I can deduce, you are relying on the standard American copyright for your movie, presentations and books. As a lawyer, I am sure you are aware that this copyright system gives you incredible strength to protect the fruit of your efforts, however for many people, this system hampers their access to reading your books, watching your movie, or enjoying your presentation.

You and the IPCC have been recognized as the greatest laborers towards educating the world on this subject, and I understand if you have taken the traditional route with your work. Recently however, as I began purchasing the third copy of your movie to give away to a friend, I couldn’t help but think about how great it would be if it were simply streamed from your site.

There are many options for creating a more open copyright system, and I hope you will take the time to consider the implications of your current method.

Sincerely,

Michael Lissner

A Music Cost Inventory

2008-11-22T17:21:02-08:00

According to Title 17, Chapter 5, section 504c2 of the US copyright law, if you get caught with music that you have downloaded illegally from the Internet, you can get charged up to $150,000 per infringement. I thought I would do a little experiment to see how much I would be in for if my entire collection were to be found to be illegal.

Let’s do some math. I have 3,876 tracks, at $150,000 each. So if my entire collection were to be found illegal, that means it would cost me $581.4 million dollars — about .6 billion dollars.

OK, let’s assume that I can live with that reality. It just seems odd that I could have bought those songs for $3,876 on amazon.com, or iTunes.

Something isn’t quite right here. Also, did I mention that all US digital music sales are estimated to total $2.9B in 2007? That makes my music worth about 20% of the 2007 revenue.

Mr. Rogers on the Usage of VCRs

2008-11-22T17:13:23-08:00

I found a good quote by Mr. Rogers himself today. I knew I always liked this guy. Too bad he couldn’t live forever. This quote is a bit dated, but the point is still good. It also helps to imagine his voice before reading this:

Some public stations, as well as commercial stations, program the “Neighborhood” at hours when some children cannot use it. I think that it’s a real service to families to be able to record such programs and show them at appropriate times. I have always felt that with the advent of all this new technology that allows people to tape the “Neighborhood” off-the-air, and I’m speaking for the “Neighborhood” because that’s what I produce, that they then become much more active in the programming of their family’s television life. Very frankly, I am opposed to people being programmed by others. My whole approach in broadcasting has always been “You are an important person just the way you are. You can make healthy decisions.” Maybe I’m going on too long, but I just feel that anything that allows a person to be more active in the control of his or her life, in a healthy way, is important.

You tell them Mr. Rogers. You tell ‘em.

Amazon Has mp3’s! I Wish I Could Download Them…

2008-01-22T19:04:40-08:00

It made some headlines, and is about to make more during superbowl. Amazon has started selling mp3’s from all four of the major record labels. It’s a pretty cool revelation, so I went ahead and checked it out.

Guess what? Linux users, you are screwed. In order to download albums from Amazon, you must “Get the Amazon mp3 downloader”…which is not available for Linux. Excuse me? Say what? I have downloaded literally hundreds upon hundreds of files from the Internet, and never have I needed a special tool other than Firefox. Why now?

Amazon, if you’re going to do something great like this, do it whole hog. Don’t make me install junkware. After all, I’m choosing to give you money, right?

I want ogg on my iPod

2007-09-16T19:59:23-07:00

I know this post is going to alienate just about everybody that would ever consider reading my blog, but here’s the deal: I want all iPods to support the ogg file format.

For the uninitiated, the ogg format is like the MP3 or the AAC format, except for a couple of very important differences. One, it’s free, which is to say that it doesn’t belong to some company, and every time I use it I’m not supposed to be giving them a nickel or something. (The MP3 format technically is licensed to the company that created it, so theoretically, every time you buy a computer, MP3 player, etc., you’re supposed to give them some quantity of money.)

The other reason that I am hereby requesting ogg on my iPod is because it’s better. It sounds better. It compresses better. Are there other metrics that we should be using? None that I know of. I want ogg. Steve Jobs, do you hear me now?!

Now, the theoretical argument above holds water, but I have personal reasons for this desire: I have 357 ogg files that I can’t listen to on my iPod! This pretty much gives me three choices: One, install Rockbox on my iPod (I have, it didn’t work reliably). Two, convert the ogg files to MP3s (this solution would create inferior-quality songs). Or, three, only listen to those songs on my computer (also a lame solution). I should also mention while I am on this rant that I have flac files as well. Why doesn’t the iPod support those! iPods are great, but these are serious shortcomings.

Richard Stallman, Eccentric or Rather Well-Spoken?

2007-09-12T21:48:22-07:00

I had the chance to see Richard Stallman speak the other day at the UC Berkeley School of Information, and it was quite an experience. In case you don’t know the name, Richard Stallman is the man behind GNU, and GNU is the software/philosophy that makes GNU/Linux what it is. Stallman’s belief is that all software, and indeed just about everything that you create should be freely available to anybody that wants it. This is in stark opposition to the Microsoftian or even the Apple perspective of software, and indeed Stallman has written a book about this called *Free Software, Free Society*. As you might expect, from a man with such beliefs, the book itself is free, and you can find it here.

If that doesn’t convince you of his awesomeness, allow me to roughly quote a part of his introduction:
     Moderator: “…Richard Stallman has been awarded with four PhD’s — “
     Stallman: “—That’s six now.”
     Moderator: “I guess somebody needs to update Wikipedia…”

The speech he chose was “Copyright vs. Community in the Age of Computer Networks.” It was a real real eye-opener for me. I assumed that the recording and publishing companies were essentially screwing the artists, but I had no idea just how bad it really was. Imagine, if you will, that your garage band suddenly became really popular, and that you got signed with a big recording company. They publish your album, and they distribute it across the USA, where it sells well. You’d expect that your art would probably be making you some good money, would you not? I know I would, but apparently that’s not how it works.

The way Stallman tells it, the first place they nail you is by charging you for the distribution. So, until your album has sold some critical quantity, you’re still paying back the record company the loan they gave you to distribute your album (sounds vaguely like the mafia here, but it gets worse). The next place they nail you is by not giving you much of the album sales. I would think that you’d be given a good buck or two of each album sold, but apparently it’s more like a quarter, or maybe 50 cents. Not much profit there.

The third place they nail you is by owning your creativity. You created something from nothing, but if you want to make a copy of your album and give it to a friend, that’s just too bad, you’re going to have to buy the album for your friend just like everybody else. And you know what’s worse? Even many years later, after your album has pretty much stopped selling, and the record company has stopped pressing it, you still don’t own your creativity. In fact, as of 1998, the copyright they own for your creativity can last as long as 120 years, so even after you are long dead, they still own your music. It doesn’t stop there. You now have a schedule to produce more albums for them, each with the above problems.

Now, aren’t you glad you made it big, and that copyrights are there to protect you?

As you might expect, Stallman explains this a bit more thoroughly in his presentation, but that’s the basic gist of it. As is the case with just about everything related to Richard Stallman, this essay is available for free. In fact, if you’re interested in a bit of reading, it’s here.