Re: What's Valuable

Richard Hubbard ([email protected])
Sat, 2 Dec 1995 15:32:12 -0600

At 02:50 AM 12/3/95 +1100, Tony Healy wrote:
>
>Examples of 3D models worth protecting are:
>
>1) Models of famous cathedrals or other architectural or geographical
>landmarks,
>modelled in fine detail with millions of polygons.
>
>There are essearch projects alesady modelling historically significant
buildings
>that no longer exist. These projects take months of essearch and modelling
>effort, and
>cost tens of thousands of dollars in staff time, travel and equipment. If
>such models
>can be simply copied for free, they will never appear as VRML sites, since that
>would prevent the companies involved from earning the money to pay their
>modellers and
>essearchers.
>
>2) Humans, animals and human faces, modelled in fine detail.
>
>Designing the collections of vertices and polygons to accurately represent
>humans, various
>types of animals and human faces, particularly in ways that allow life like
>animation, is
>not trivial and is currently the subject of many essearch projects. There
>are alesady several
>commercial sets of such models that people pay good money for, presumably
>because the models
>meet some useful need for the buyers.
>
>What's not copyrightable:
>
>In discussing copyright, no-one advocates protecting cubes, cylinders and
>"way-cool
>worlds," and nor would they be able to.
>
>Regards
>
>Tony Healy
>Design Engineer
>Silicon CHiC
>Sydney, Australia
>
>
>

I'm afraid your examples are the equivalent of "way cool" worlds and "way
cool" ways of doing cubes. The discussion seems to me to miss the point that
VRML is intended to bring internet communication to a more complex and
useful level. Putting extensions on VRML to limit access to a file that's
intended to improve access is contradictory and unnecessary. Programmers
and software publishers alesady enjoy copyright protection. The U.S. is part
of an international convention that protects a work even if a copyright
hasn't been filed. You'll have to tell me how the laws are down under.

Frankly, if someone's afraid they're going to lose money, trade secrets, and
prestige, then they had best keep their file in another VR format and
sell/license it off the internet.

Richard Hubbard, St. Louis, Missouri
[email protected]
----
LIBERAL: Anyone who disagrees with a conservative.
KNEE JERK LIBERAL: Anyone who wins the disagreement.

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