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0 pointstikhonj1y ago0 comments

The puzzle case is no different to how you can't sell somebody a rubiks cube without allowing them to "solve" it by taking it apart and putting it back together.

You can make a physical item intentionally hard to work with or modify, but I see that as a shortcoming of our current legal standard—that's why we need some kind of "right to repair" framework. Requiring people to distribute human-readable code alongside software follows the same underlying philosophy as physical "right to repair" requirements.

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drdeca1y ago

I wasn’t thinking forbidding them from decompiling it or anything. I don’t think any rights are violated if government doesn’t issue any further copyright protections (even though I don’t think this for the best).

I am not saying that the puzzle author should have any legal authority to restrict people from disassembling the puzzle.

I’m just saying that the government shouldn’t compel the puzzle designer to distribute disassembled versions of the puzzle.

If other people want to take apart their rubix cubes, they’re free to, I just shouldn’t be forced to help them take it apart.

ndriscoll1y ago

A reasonable tradeoff to explore is that software ought to work like a halfway-point between copyright and patents: in exchange for an exclusive right to distribute your binaries for 10-15 years, you provide your documentation for how it works (including source code) so others can build on your work after the exclusivity period ends. The exclusive right does not cover the basic idea/independent implementations of the same functionality.

Potentially utilitarian software and creative software could be treated differently, e.g. have an escrow for games (for which user customizations are less important).

Obviously DRM to restrict user modifications is unethical and harmful toward functioning markets and should be illegal.

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