Richard Ahlquist [08.31.06 06:59 AM]

Interesting story. I've heard in the past of Postscript being called a programming language in this manner. Even though its not 'interactive'.

  Peter Bihr [08.31.06 07:10 AM]

Dear Tim,

Sorry for commenting OT here, but it seems to be the quickest way to get in touch... I'd like to send you an interview request: it's for a brief interview (maybe via IM?) for a study we're conducting. Could I contact you directly somewhere?

Thanks very much!

Cheers,
Peter

  chuck [08.31.06 07:59 AM]

Bah. Code *is* data, and data *is* code. Or so I've been told by some Lisp programmers.

  monopole [08.31.06 09:28 AM]

Richard Ahlquist:
Postscipt is a turing complete programming language. as Don Lancaster puts it:

"PostScript from Adobe Systems is an underappreciated yet superb general purpose computing language. In its spare time, PostScript
also excels at dirtying up otherwise clean sheets of paper."
see:
http://www.tinaja.com/post01.asp

I've implemented Galois field arithmetic in Postscript for Psudeorandom masks. I've also implemented computer generated holographic optical elements in it as well.

Needless to say the prepress guys dreaded me. The guy who came by with 10kB postscript files which took all night to render and generated 33"x44" images at 5 micron resolution.

  Kevin Farnham [08.31.06 09:45 AM]

It seems to me that distinguishing whether a set of symbolic information is code or data may depend on the point of view from which you're looking at the information. To a processor working with bits and bytes, assembly language instructions are input data; to a compiler, higher language code text is input data. To a developer, this same higher language text is code, and it is compiled and linked into a program.

We might say a program is something that receives input data, performs conditionally-constructed operations using the input data, and produces output data. Given the same input data set, a program produces the same outputs.

The sewing patterns are an encoded set of instructions placed onto the memory disk. You could say they are a program because they define a specific set of operations; hence they "control" what the sewing machine eventually does. But, the patterns could just as easily be viewed as data that is input by the sewing machine program, with the sewing machine program "controlling" the sewing machine's action based on a particular input data set.

If every set of higher level code is viewed as input data to the lower level process (which I think it can be), then the only true "program" is the laws of physics, upon which the electronic circuits inside the computer rely. By this definition, all human "coding" is really just arrangement of data into useful and/or interesting patterns. Our fundamental creativity becomes "seeing" data (in the world or in our minds), then inventing patterns that give the data structure; after which it becomes possible to engineer it all into something useful or enjoyable...

  justin [08.31.06 10:27 AM]

I hesitantly agree with the courts' decisions, based on a gut feeling of what "should" be data. But earlier comments are completely correct; code is data (Von Neumann?), data can be code (interpreted languages), and most programs aren't interactive. What if, in a dailywtf-esque twist, the Action Tapes' cartridges had actually contained object code (containing actual sewing mechanism control statements) that was linked on the fly by the sewing machine and run natively. Would the lower court's decision have been different? I'm not trying to restate the obvious here, but I'm really unsettled that the courts used such odd criteria for making their decisions. Failure to comply with Circular 61? It feels like the appeals court was reaching for a reason to support the lower court's decision. I can only imagine what kind of logic the courts would apply to something like "The Diamond Age"'s Feed...

  Dee [08.31.06 06:22 PM]

As a person with an embroidery machine and thousands of embroidery designs (all lawfully purchased I might add), I do not see the difference between playing a music CD in a stereo or even in my PC's CD-ROM and letting an embroidery design "play out on the sewing machine". Machine embroidery is much like an electric coloring book --- it colors with thread and it stays within the lines.

The embroidery designs (purchased on CDs or other storage media) are the final "end user" product and are considered "goods" under the UCC. All goods are transferable under the "First Sale Doctrine".

  Sadia [09.01.06 12:26 AM]

IP laws need to be revised and made clear. As a creator of these types of embroidery designs, I think I find it understandable that the Judge ruled against on technicality. To my way of logic, machine embroidery designs are data, but they also include the IP of the creator. Without the data the machine is useless in that particular field as it cannot create unless the data is fed to it.
As far as data being considered as goods...well, I tend to disagree. A cd of machine embroidery designs contains data instructions creating the designs. Those designs are the IP of the creator and therefore it is not the CD that is being sold rather the data. The data as such is only licensed to the purchaser. How can data be considered goods? Thus laws need to be made extremely clear in this regard and the sooner the better.

  Jane [09.01.06 02:18 AM]

I would speculate that the sewing machines that actually sew out the designs probably have some sort of "motherboard" (for lack of a better term) in which resides the actual computer programming. I would also speculate that the sewing machines "computer programming" reads the "data" on the design card or CD when they are inserted and based on the "data" contained on the design card or CD, the sewing machines "computer programming" moves or manipulates the sewing machine needle, etc. Surely all design cards or CDs do not have all of the "computer programming" necessary to run the sewing machines. If you try to upload a design to a machine that does not have the "computer programming" necessary to decipher the data contained in the design card or CD you will be unable to access the design. Much like trying to read a .pdf file when you don't have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer. Is it possible that the design card or CD contain nothing more that a set of coordinates read by the sewing machines "computer program" and upon reading the "coordinate data" the sewing machines "computer program" moves the needle to the next place to insert a stitch?

  Chris Adamson [09.01.06 03:45 AM]

Kevin-- Your comments remind me of computability class in college (which I had to take twice because I SO didn't get it), particularly the time that the prof just said "Think about your Mac: the contents of its memory are really just one massive binary number." This was the lead up to the weeks of proving Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem (the first step of which is to create a scheme to represent any Turing Machine program as a number), but it stuck with me and is exactly what you describe: what looks like program is still just data. And as Chuck points out, Lisp programmers understand this better than anyone.

  Denise [09.01.06 06:45 PM]

I think that Kevin and Dee have it right. As someone who loves Computability Theory to the point that I have published on it and someone who creates designs for embroidery machines, I believe that the designs are data. They are data that takes skill and talent to produce, in the same way that it take skill and talent for a musician to create a first rate CD. But, in the same way that a CD is subject to the First Sale Doctrine, so should the embroidery designs. I do think that purchasers of embroidery designs should be able to sell their only copy if they choose as is their right with a book, CD or other type of data.
I think the ESPC and Action Tapes should have approached this issue by using the arguments that were used against Napster. Sharing music and sharing embroidery designs is the same issue. Music is data and embroidery is data. Both need to have some legal protections in place for the creator of that data. Eventually, the law will work this out. But it is a shame that Action Tapes and the ESPC didn't do a better analysis before bringing their case. Had they argued that creating embroidery designs takes skill and talent in the same way that making music take skill and talent, perhaps we would be closer to getting the law to deal with this and similar issues.

  Sadia [09.05.06 03:26 PM]

Denise, don't think there is any problem with selling the CD under First sale doctrine, as long as the infringement of IP is not involved. Rather tricky to do that though. I believe ESPC and Action Tapes achieved exactly what they wanted to...to bring notoriety to the issue.

  John [09.09.06 09:07 AM]

This was a great achievement for the Sewing industry as a whole. Everyone who has purchased embroidery designs in general will confirm the fact that in order to use the designs purchased you must also invest hundreds, if not thousands of dollars additional, into other equipment necessary to use the designs which have been purchased by retail or thru private sellers. The people who have purchased designs thru eBay and other websites who have received the "ESPC AMNESTY Letter demanding a buyer "PAY UP $300 or $400 OR ELSE" should be able to breathe a sigh of relief. All lawsuits filed by Action Tapes, i.e. Great Notions against "alleged sellers" have stated repeatedly in their Court Complaints Filed that their embroidery designs are COMPUTER SOFTWARE, NOT DATA FILES. The Computerized sewing machine mearly reads certain "DATA" files in a particular format designed for that particular sewing machine. You cannot purchase an embroidery design Memory Card, or cd, and it work in a Janome, Pfaff, Viking, Singer, Brothers, etc., all by use of the ONE PURCHASE of a memory design card, or cd. In order to use the designs in various sewing machines you also are required to have: A COMPUTER, COMPUTER SOFTWARE DESIGNED FOR READING AND WRITING OF EMBROIDERY DESIGNS TO VARIOUS FORMATS, and A BOX SUCH AS: (The Ultimate Box, Simplicity's Box, The Amazing Box (various editions), and other BOXES which are specifically designed for the reading and writing of different DATA formats for Designs,) and a BLANK MEMORY CARD DESIGNED FOR YOUR PARTICULAR Sewing Machine Format.

In purchasing Action Tapes, Great Notions, Amazing Designs, embroidery designs it is a simple act of purchase for their design assortment. Action Tapes, Great Notions, Amazing Designs is a company where you walk into a retail outlet, look at a book of designs and when you see what you want you tell the store clerk which set of designs you want to purchase. The retail clerk walks back to the store computer, gets out a black 3-l/2" floppy disk and sticks the blank into the stores computer slot. The clerk then "BURNS" you your set of floppy disks for the particular set of designs you have chosen. For this store burned set of floppy disks, you will Pay RETAIL prices. God help you if you get home and the designs are corrupt or the disk is damaged. You walk out of the store, you paid for it, your problem. These floppys are not replaced. Unlike the music industry, if a CD is defective, there is a warranty and the damaged or defective CD is replaced. I have purchased embroidery designs before and once you open the package, they are yours faults and all. I don't personally trust all retail stores to have a totally virus free computer or all undefective disks. Errors do happen, alas for the poor unsuspecting buyer of Amazing Designs, by Great Notions and Action Tapes. You would do well to stick to well known suppliers or independent digitizers. Make sure you have recourse if the product is defective.

  Cynthia [02.27.07 04:24 AM]

A card or CD of embroidery designs is very analogous to a music CD. If I want to give or sell a music CD, I can do that. However, if I first burned myself a copy or ripped the songs to my computer, I have violated copyright protections of the music. Similarly, as long as I have cleared my computer of the designs that I want to give or sell, I should be able to do that. The program that I use to create a design is very different from the data that that program gives me back that will then run my embroidery machine.

  Delores [09.20.07 09:07 AM]

I personally don't see any difference between giving somebody a copyrighted book or CD that I purchase or giving them an embroidery design I purchased. If the copyright laws hold true across the board, people who resell books and CDs are going to be hounded by the copyright police. I don't believe that is what the copyright laws are about; they are to prevent plagiarism, and you cannot plagiarize an embroidery design that is sold by the millions.