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Cyhist Aug 29 1997
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========================================================================= Date: Fri, 29 Aug 1997 01:42:09 -0400
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: Carl Ellison <cme@CYBERCASH.COM>
Subject: Re: Computer code as free speech
In-Reply-To: <199708271412.KAA14547@callandor.cybercash.com> Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
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Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
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At 09:52 AM 8/27/97 -0400, Janet Abbate wrote:
>I saw this on Edupage (see below) and was struck by the court's argument that computer code constitutes free speech (in the American legal sense) and that government controls on software can therefore be considered "censorship". This seems like a bizarre interpretation of "speech," especially since the programs in question would probably be exported in binary form, which doesn't much resemble human language.
I wrote a document in support of this idea for the Bernstein case and the only thing we were arguing was that source code was a human-to-human language as much as (or more so) than a human-to-computer language. The judge agreed. If you want to extend this to binary, it doesn't rely on the evidence I presented in my document.
- Carl
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+------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Carl M. Ellison cme@cybercash.com http://www.clark.net/pub/cme | |CyberCash, Inc. http://www.cybercash.com/ |
|207 Grindall Street PGP 2.6.2: 61E2DE7FCB9D7984E9C8048BA63221A2 | |Baltimore MD 21230-4103 T:(410) 727-4288 F:(410)727-4293 |
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______________________________________________________________________
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: Carl Ellison <cme@CYBERCASH.COM>
Subject: Re: Computer code as free speech
In-Reply-To: <199708271412.KAA14547@callandor.cybercash.com> Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
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At 09:52 AM 8/27/97 -0400, Janet Abbate wrote:
>I saw this on Edupage (see below) and was struck by the court's argument that computer code constitutes free speech (in the American legal sense) and that government controls on software can therefore be considered "censorship". This seems like a bizarre interpretation of "speech," especially since the programs in question would probably be exported in binary form, which doesn't much resemble human language.
I wrote a document in support of this idea for the Bernstein case and the only thing we were arguing was that source code was a human-to-human language as much as (or more so) than a human-to-computer language. The judge agreed. If you want to extend this to binary, it doesn't rely on the evidence I presented in my document.
- Carl
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+------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Carl M. Ellison cme@cybercash.com http://www.clark.net/pub/cme | |CyberCash, Inc. http://www.cybercash.com/ |
|207 Grindall Street PGP 2.6.2: 61E2DE7FCB9D7984E9C8048BA63221A2 | |Baltimore MD 21230-4103 T:(410) 727-4288 F:(410)727-4293 |
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