Firefox market share bounces back 6706

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Well, you could define any scale you liked and get the result you want, I suppose, so using your definition, you're right. I don't think that MS are in reality anywhere near as vehement or extreme on this as the Pop and Film industries, though.

Whilst that argument appears sound at first blush, in reality, intangibles cannot be property, because intangibles are abstracts, like ideas, and property is something with, amongst other things, some fairly firm legal definitions (otherwise theft would be hard to nail down). Here's how I see it:

Patent is about providing a monopoly on an idea for a limited period, copyright is providing protection for an implementation of something for it's full period of existence, and a trademark provides protection for a name. Copyright is used for things which are tangible, and can be reproduced in some way, like a book or film. Patent is a monopoly on an idea of some kind for a period, with the original intention that the costs of development of that idea, whatever it might be, could be recuperated. This worked quite well until the US began granting software patents, then it all fell apart into a total mess.

Or possibly not caring, for that matter... I suspect it often serves people well to leave these items ill-defined, however.

Which is kind of my problem with it!

True.

As was said elsewhere, it probably suits the record industry to take this position, because they get to re-sell the same material many times over to their victims. Sorry, customers...

-- end Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk Spouse, n.: Someone who'll stand by you through all the trouble you wouldn't have had if you'd stayed single.