X-eGroups-Return: sentto-1665105-1602-1053589078-goguen=cs.ucsd.edu@returns.groups.yahoo.com X-Sender: ms@ms.lt X-Apparently-To: thinkingpowerfully@yahoogroups.com To: thinkingpowerfully@yahoogroups.com User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 From: "minciusodas" X-Originating-IP: 80.95.113.115 X-Yahoo-Profile: minciusodas Mailing-List: list thinkingpowerfully@yahoogroups.com; contact thinkingpowerfully-owner@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 07:37:55 -0000 Subject: [thinkingpowerfully] The Algebra of Copyright Reply-To: thinkingpowerfully@yahoogroups.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 8747 Hi from Prague! I am about to head out to Vienna for blogtalk.net where I will give my talk "The Algebra of Copyright". I got to practice my talk at Joseph Goguen's User Interface Design class. Joseph, it was great to talk with you. Also, it was wonderful to see Joseph talk in class about the LifeLog project which he learned about here from Shannon Clark. And on the flight up I read in Monday's New York Times about wikis, and they wrote about how Denham Grey was, at the company he works at, using SocialText software. If you remember our OIP chat with Jeff last fall, that is where Denham dropped by and asked about Wiki hosting, and we hooked him up with Pete. So these are two wonderful examples where our activity spills over outside our groups, which simply means that our lab is real. Here are my notes that I have written for my talk tomorrow, and will think about as I ride the train. A new idea is that the boundaries of a work have to do with the stand alone units that are digested by the parsers that parse the constructors. I hope to meet some of us in Vienna, and William, it would be fun to meet you in Slovenia, on my way to do some organizing of Islamic independent thinkers in Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo. Oh, yes, my paper "Spine for the Web" was rejected, not enough references. Peace, Andrius http://www.ms.lt ****************************************************************************** The Algebra of Copyright by Andrius Kulikauskas ------------------------------------------ Motivation ------------------------------------------ Wealth is relationships. Minciu Sodas laboratory serves independent thinkers. Need to be able to organize them and their projects around shared endeavors that might attract enterprises. Need to be able to promote people by means of the content they produce. Encourage them to work openly, generate material, show process. Current laws state that material is automatically copyrighted by author, need to ask for permission. Asking for permission is very taxing when working with micro-content. Need material to be generated in the public domain. But most material tends to be mixed, using excerpts from others. Therefore need primarily public domain, "except as noted". We created such a license that could be used with our discussion groups, wikis, blogs, etc. ------------------------------------------ Copyright and User Interface Design ------------------------------------------ But how to implement such a license? In particular, how do we define the boundaries of a work? Where do we post the rules and the exceptions? This is an issue in user interface design. Want to understand copyright issues in terms of user interface design. However, copyright law leaves a lot of room for interpretation. There is a rich body of particular guidelines, but they are not brought together by any explicit conceptual theory. Therefore seek to find such a conceptual theory that would help understand copyright issues in terms of user interface design. Algebraic semiotics is a mathematics of user interface design. Therefore look to algebraic semiotics for ideas. A work resides in a sign system, and likewise legal decisions reside within a sign system. Therefore there is a mapping, known as a semiotic morphism, between them. What we are looking for is an abstract model within a conceptual sign system. We can then map from a work in any particular sign system to this abstract model, and from this abstract model to any particular legal system. ------------------------------------------ Conceptual Model for Copyright ------------------------------------------ What is involved, conceptually, in the notion of copyright? A work is considered in several very different ways. The work must be fixed. But the rights do not extend to the fixed work, but rather to the formulated work that they fix. Also, the work may not be any random material, but must have an author with a purpose. Finally, the act of copying implies that the work exists in the world. These four levels are familiar from Aristotle, Plato and other philosophers. So these four levels show that a work exists in the world, but also is structured by the mind in various ways. At each level the mind draws different boundaries for the signs. In the world, we can find the atomic signs, the smallest signs that have physical expression that carry meaning within the sign system. For example, words or notes. A fixed work is one that is built from such atomic signs. It is a constructor of atomic signs. There is a parser associated with that constructor. The act of parsing isolates the basic construction that stands by itself. In language, that basic construction is typically the sentence. A work may be parsed in terms of its sentences. We might call that syntactic parsing. A fixed work is one that presents each of these first level constructions so that it is available for parsing. A formulated work is one that is expressed in terms of such basic constructions... We might call that pragmatic parsing. An idea in the mind is one that is ... We might call that semantic parsing. ------------------------------------------ Conceptual Mappings ------------------------------------------ These levels help us think about the various ways that a work is expressed. Consider a professor giving a lecture, which may or may not be from a set of notes. Copy - In copying a work, we create one fixed form (one copy of notes) from another fixed form by means of the physical world. Interpret - We express the formulated work in the physical world. This is the object of copyright law! Transform - We express the formulated work as a fixed work by translating, abridging, modifying, editing, etc. This is also an object of copyright law. Author - We express the ideas in the mind as a formulated work. Intend - We show our intent as an author by expressing the ideas in the mind in various fixed works. Perform - We express the ideas in the mind directly in the physical world. This is not an object of copyright law, but may still be protected. Note that copyright law deals with issues of style. ------------------------------------------ Model for Copyright Law ------------------------------------------ We may freely use the first level constructors. The second level constructors fall within the domain of fair use. We must consider whether or not we need to ask permission. This depends on whether our work is of a commercial nature, whether it is spontaneous, etc. Here it is not a problem to make modifications, etc. The third level constructors require that we ask for permission. Here we are not allowed to make modifications, either. Generally, we may say that we may use several second level constructors by way of fair use, but if we use an order of magnitude, say ten, then we should ask for permission, and arrange for some kind of compensation, not necessarily monetary. Another order of magnitude should require monetary compensation. ------------------------------------------ Unanswered ------------------------------------------ Need to clarify the relationship between parsers, stand alone structures, and the boundaries of works. Consider embeddings of one work into another, what do they mean? What kind of recursion takes place? How is this to be understood in terms of semiotic morphisms? Where does the "except as noted" clause fit here? What is the role of social context? Consider, for example, the various aspects of the Creative Commons licenses. What is the role of plausibility arguments here? As in theorem proving? As in backing of arguments? As in effects of a cause? How does this theory help with the original goals of my paper to define zones of fair use, moral laxity, hypermorality? How might moral behavior be expressed in terms of various kinds of semiotic morphisms? What are the aspects of user interface that we may choose to preserve or not in mapping between a work and the law? ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Each letter sent to thinkingpowerfully@yahoogroups.com enters the PUBLIC DOMAIN whenever it does not state otherwise. http://www.primarilypublicdomain.org/letter/ Please credit our authors! To Post a message, send it to: thinkingpowerfully@yahooGroups.com To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: thinkingpowerfully-unsubscribe@yahooGroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/