Computer Ethics, Spr 2016


Class 9

Week 9 Readings

You should read Chapter 3 of Baase, on Speech

Some patent papers

These are also assigned reading.

1. Simpson Garfinkel, Patently Absurd, 1993
GARFINKEL, SIMSON
Garfinkel's article is pretty easy reading, pointing out some problems with software patents specifically.

2.Richard Stallman on PatentsSee full size image, 2002





Stallman is against software patents, of course. However, his case here is better than many open-source-related arguments; in fact, it is squarely aligned with the interests of software-development businesses.

3.Paul Graham, a computer scientist and one of the partners of the venture-capital firm Y Combinator, wrote a 2006 essay Are Software Patents Evil?

Graham makes the following claim early on:

One thing I do feel pretty certain of is that if you're against software patents, you're against patents in general. Gradually our machines consist more and more of software. Things that used to be done with levers and cams and gears are now done with loops and trees and closures. There's nothing special about physical embodiments of control systems that should make them patentable, and the software equivalent not.

Is this true?

Does it matter that Graham is also a radical proponent of using the lisp programming language, which everybody else stopped using in the 1990's?

Graham also says,

Frankly, it surprises me how small a role patents play in the software business. It's kind of ironic, considering all the dire things experts say about software patents stifling innovation, but when one looks closely at the software business, the most striking thing is how little patents seem to matter.

But that paragraph is about software companies being sued by other software companies, and not "patent trolls".

Graham also makes some other claims, in particular some about the role of the patent system in business competition generally. Check out what he says about Reveal.


Debates

Free Internet

Remember Internet.org and Facebook Free Basics? The idea was that customers in developing countries would get access to some basic Internet sites for free, and would only have to pay if they wanted to sign up for full Internet access. The free sites would include Wikipedia.org and, of course, Facebook.com.

But this may be backfiring; see the story http://motherboard.vice.com/read/wikipedia-zero-facebook-free-basics-angola-pirates-zero-rating. Users in Angola are finding ways to engage in music/movie file sharing by embedding the files within Wikipedia, simply because access to Wikipedia is free for them. A user edits a Wikipedia page so as to include a link to the uploaded file, typically including it in an otherwise very obscure article.

This could be extremely damaging to Wikipedia, especially if Wikipedia becomes known as a haven for copyright infringement. So far, however, most of Wikipedia's proposed fixes are to disallow editing from free accounts, which has the collateral effect of disallowing Wikipedia editing from most Angolans.

Icelandic Pirates

The Icelandic Pirate Party was created shortly after the Swedish Pirate Party; their original platform was the loosening of strict copyright laws. But they are now poised to capture over 35% of the vote in the 2017 elections: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-19/-arr-forget-icesave-iceland-s-next-scare-is-the-pirate-party.

Their platform has, however, evolved. They are now seen as akin to Bernie Sanders: in favor of direct democracy, in favor of prosecuting bank fraud, in favor of expanded workplace rights.


Speech


Speech and Diversity

In some ways the biggest free-speech-related change wrought by the Internet is that it's made all of us publishers, or potential publishers. In particular, this has allowed all sorts of marginalized groups to find a voice on the Internet, and to associate with fellow believers.

Sometimes these groups are viewed positively: for example, people with various afflictions can now find support and acceptance online. Some groups are darker: promoting racism, for example, or religious intolerance. Some groups, like ISIS, use the Internet for recruiting terrorists.

But the underlying theme is that any speech can easily be shared. We no longer need to find a publisher, or become one.

The flip side to diversity is fragmentation. As an example in the US, Republican and Democratic voters no longer necessarily see the same news sources. The view of how the United States should evolve may be very different between someone who watches news coverage of environmental damage versus someone who watches news coverage of yet another factory closing.


Continue with the McLibel case