Ever since then, they've been selling out the rights as their primarily (and I'm willing to bet, only) business. This could even be taken to the extremes of actually patenting simple methods of handling data, such as say, mouse support. Now, it can't happen to mouse support as it is today, but in the future, something undoubtedly will replace the mouse as the preferred method of input, for instance, in what may be a virtual reality future, the glove might be the input device. Anyway, say it did happen to mouse support. Every single program that uses mouse support would have to pay a fee for the rights to do so. This would result in higher software prices (aren't they high enough?), and reduced quality in the programs, as they have to worry about the legalities more. Needless to say, the patenting of software is not a widely loved policy, mostly embraced by large corporations like Lotus and Microsoft (Tysver "Software Patents"). Smaller companies and most often consumers are generally against it. Even with all the legal problems I've mentioned that arise with current laws, thats not all. The complexity of software protection laws brings up a large degree of confusion. I myself thought that Copyrights lasted 7 years until I read this. I asked 15 people in a chat room on the Internet what they knew about software protection laws, and only one of them knew that software could be patented. 12 of them thought that it cost lots of money for a copyright, which it doesn't. It's $20 for a copyright at most, and $10000 at most for a patent. 5 of them thought that software copyrights lasted 7 years (hey, it's a popular misconception, I thought so myself at one point). And last but not least, 10 of them believed that there were no laws regarding the copying of software (there are, but they're virtually ineffective). Now that you know all about the legal and business aspects of software protection, lets take a look a...
