The writers
would gain because they could demand payment for use of their software. The users would lose
because buying software would be more expensive. On the other hand users might gain because
more software may become available to buy.
The Social Contract Theorist would ask, ???Are most people willing to agree to allow copyrighting
and patenting of software, probably because it achieves a reasonable balance between the needs
of the writers and the needs of the users, so that all agree to be bound by such rules, as long as the
others are also????
9.2 Why does a copyright provide better protection for object code than for source code?
Copyrighting protects the expression of the idea, not the idea itself. Since a programmer can read
source code, a programmer could readily adopt a good idea expressed in C, and create a similar
program in another language, perhaps Java. Because the ???expression??? of the idea is now different
(in a different language), the copyright holder would have no means of protecting his idea from
free adoption by others.
Object code, on the other hand, is not generally readable by humans. Therefore, copyrighting the
object code, and shipping only object code, is a fairly effective way of protecting both the idea and
its expression via copyright.
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