I think it would be helpful to distinguish between discussing code that achieves a particular result (the source code or executables for, say, bitcoind) and the output or results of using that code.
There should be no argument that Excel, the spreadsheet, is subject to copyright. And there should also be no argument that, if I use Excel (or some other computerized tool) to calculate the result of an equation or expression, that the result is not subject to copyright by virtue of the fact that I used copyrighted code to create it, versus working it out by hand with pencil & paper.
Agreed. Bitcoin is software, a messaging network, a distributed storage device, a collective of workers who modify storage, and a property concept.
The software license is explicitly stated, so I believe it's solid. MIT/X11.
The messaging network uses the software, its not particularly creative, but needs to be protected as speech.
The distributed storage device is the block chain which has no explicit license to go with it. None on the horizon.
The collective of workers (miners) are the ones who update the block chain. Not sure where they live in this whole picture.
The property concept is some kind of intangible, hopefully one that can live comfortably within the law.
I do not see a meaningful difference between a simple equation and a complicated one - I suspect that all of us would easily agree that "2 * 2 = 4" is not subject to copyright; I find the idea that "342972134893249 * 212312389547523 = 72817233507401087375017372227" is not copyrightable a tiny bit more uncomfortable, since obviously there's more work required to reach the result, and that's not exactly an equation that a lot of us wander around with at the tip of our tongues. But I can't come up with a principled legal reason to distinguish between them, that's meaningful in a copyright sense, since it's well established that copyright is intended to protect creative expression, not sweat-of-the-brow hard work (see, e.g.,
Feist v. Rural Telephone).
Its how people use the software/math that makes the difference. An MP3 encoder is just a set of equations too, but if you feed it a creative work, you still get a creative work no matter how much math is involved. In Bitcoin, the math is just a transport layer for the messages from people who have the freedom to speak. I probably can't make the copyright argument whole, but people sending messages to each other has to be protectable at least.
So I am curious to hear more about the argument that BTC could be protected by copyright - either the private keys ("wallet"), or the abstract idea of value which is represented on the blockchain and is controlled by the keys. The private keypair, as far as I know (and this is bumping up against the limit of my understanding of the technical side of BTC/Bitcoin) is simply a group of numbers that happen to have a particular characteristic; they were identified through an iterative process by which potential candidates were created randomly and tested for having that characteristic, and the first which were found to have that characteristic were selected. So I don't really see any of the traditional creative/editorial input from a human being which has historically been an essential part of the creation of a copyrightable work.
I've tried fairly extensively to make a copyright argument stick, but I've yet to find one that doesn't have a giant hole in it that a judge would plow right through.
Another possible outline: The private keys themselves are an number representing an idea (so not protectable). The address is an expression of that idea (too brief to be copyrighted). The broadcast of the message to the network is a person trying to say something very unique (speech). The miners writing it into the block chain is an update to a collective work (collection of speech).
Still lots of problems here. The address might be too brief (but its incredibly unique, which is the important legal test in precedence). The broadcast to the network might not be considered speech. And I have no idea where the block chain falls. I've suggested that it be explicit covered by a public domain license, but even that's murky waters at this point.
Vanity addresses make it even more interesting. Now you have a creative work that took a ton of effort to come upon. Its still very brief by normal standards. But I can't find anywhere in precedence where brevity prevented protection. I've only seen uniqueness. And addresses have mathematically provable uniqueness. This is another case of a program doing all the "creative" work since vanitygen or oclvanityminer will actually create the address.
For another analogy to a distributed money system, see Halwala. Someone mentioned it on the forums earlier. It came up in US vs Banki I believe. Similar to Bitcoin, but that case was more about moving money to Iran than anything else. Oh yeah, and they were using real money.
