=== Patents aren't "physical" ===
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20071101145010612
This interpretation ".... software patents are even more foolish than physical world patents......" thus makes a logically erroneous distinction between "physical" and "spiritual"(software) as per this logic "....Patent law in most countries says that algorithms aren't patentable. This rule is left over from a time when "algorithm" meant something like the Sieve of Eratosthenes. In 1800, people could not see as readily as we can that a great many patents on mechanical objects were really patents on the algorithms they embodied....." from
http://www.paulgraham.com/softwarepatents.html. Which makes perfect sense, when you patent a mechanical contraption , you are actually patenting an idea of it. In the same way you can't patent the world of software ideas. If one can't "steal" a software idea such as one-click from Amazon then by the same logic you can't steal an idea of how to make an electric car.
From
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Software/9693.html
http://www.paulgraham.com/softwarepatents.html
"..... Are software patents a bad thing? According to Paul Graham, if you are opposed to software patents, you logically are opposed to patents in general. ...."
Which has been precisely the point of many articulate authors as per
http://bit.ly/7JkmM. A Linux geek will hack a software patent but somehow feels it is immoral to hack Lipitor cholesterol drugs and giving these drugs away for free or at cost price. Both Lipitor drugs, Solar energy generation and Amazon's one-click patent is the implementation of an idea. It exists as an abstract concept in somebodies mind. The opensource Linux freesoftware movement isn't being logically consistent in their view that software(which is just an idea) shouldn't be patentable but making Lipitor (which is an idea) should be patentable. You can't have this both ways: Spoor & Fisher is correct in their view. If hacking the Lipitor patent is immoral then so is hacking the One-click idea immoral.
Now what is morality? That depends on your religious belief system. If you believe in the Bible then where does the Bible say copying somebodies idea is theft. If you know that God doesn't view copying the formula for lipitor as theft and yet you as a sheister lawyer are using the Bible to convince Xtians that they are immoral in saving a person's life who can't afford Lipitor then you are a liar.
Theft in the Bible is only defined as taking physical property and deceiving other people as to what the Bible says so as to make money out of them is at the level of a false prophet. You can't own an idea. Violating someone's copyright is no more "theft" than violating their right-of-way is. Not all rights are property rights. As Richard Stalman said: "Pirates physically attack ships, giving away an idea for free isn't attacking anybody." The media empires says we can't "pirate" their Discovery DSTV video stream, but if you copy the video stream DSTV still has a copy of it.
And one can take this logic one step further: To whom does 900Mhz belong God or Icasa? Did the Bible give any government the right over air molecules, light or the electromagnetic spectrum. Air molecules as a means of communication belong to us all, but this doesn't mean one can install a speaker and beam noise at 100db. In the same way one can't pollute the electromagnetic spectrum by over-amping but by implementing the correct technology such as a combination of FSO and Wimax. There is nothing wrong with setting up your own cell LTE service on 900Mhz in such a way that Vodacom's networks aren't disrupted: The reasonable man principle applies.
Thus if you morally can't patent Amazon's one-click buying
Idea, you can't patent or license or arbitrarily control:
1) FSO nor methods of generating energy
2) Neither he formula for Lipitor drugs
3) The electromagnetic spectrum
Copyright is a semantic play on the word Patent: They both are essentially the same thing, the arbitrary control of an abstract concept. A concept which like the number 4 is neither here nor there, it exists only in your head.
And thus if you can't patent something then neither can you copyright something. If you can't patent software, you can't patent hardware and thus by logic neither can you copyright software, DSTV Discovery video streams or any other implementation of an idea.
