The Python 1.6 License Explained

[Alex Martelli]

"Paul Robinson" <paul.robinson at quantisci.co.uk> wrote in message
news:39A4FC1E.C96064D4 at quantisci.co.uk...
    [snip]
> being displayed in some sense is also available to be copied in a way
> that differs from recording a telephone call or copying the words of a
> poem from a notice board. The work is available to be copied in an exact
> way - a consumer of this work can effectively retrieve an exact copy of
> the original.

So, if the phone call proceeded under entirely digital ways, so that
recording by suitable means could guarantee 'an exact copy', then it
would suddenly, and because of this, become a publication rather than
a performance?  Sorry, I can't see that the difference between analog
and digital recording/transmission/reproduction of sound is so 'huge'
as to warrant this sudden jump from 'performance' to 'publication'.

Given that the protected work of authorship, in the case of a poem,
is the sequence of words (rather than the penmanship aspects with which
the words have been rendered into glyphs), I would further assert that,
due to the inherently "digital" qualities of words, the exact copy _of
the protected work of authorship_ is also quite possible in the case
of the poem read aloud by its author in public, or displayed (also in
public) on a bulletin board.  Each of these is a very clear case of
"public performance" as opposed to publication: the author distributes
no copies, nor does he offer to distribute them, despite the fact that
his public-performance makes it quite feasible for listeners/viewers to
execute an exact copy of his sequence of words (without any need for
fancy or modern technology... stenography, which may be needed for
"exact copy" of a read-aloud poem, was apparently first developed by
Tiro, the secretary of Cicero, over 2,000 years ago).


Alex