I think anything that makes it to the block chain has to be public domain.  Once its copied to thousands of machines you give up your right to enforce any IP rights on it.   I'm uncertain as to how to make that happen. 

The block chain itself needs a public domain license that is the only license it is allowed to be used under.

Yes, I remember when it happened.  I believe I downloaded WorldWideWeb over gopher to a NeXT Workstation to try it out.

I've also been an expert witness in a federal trial in the U.S. federal court system.

I appreciate that you have strong feelings on the subject, but legally there is all manner of precedence for the world wide web being a vehicle for interstate communication.

Idealism isn't what's needed here.  What's needed is a clear legal foundation for everyone to understand and operate from.  That is a massive undertaking that crosses international boundaries and pushes the limit of the current legal system.

The promotion and advertising of securities through the means of interstate communication is a large part of what the SEC regulates in the U.S.

Establishing that a Bitcoin security is a pooled venture which is expected to generate profit by relying on the actions of a third party seems to be straightforward.  The only missing piece is an exhibit showing that Bitcoin exchanges for money. 

During discovery, the prosecution could just bring out BitInstant's FinREC registration as a money exchanger.  Or get expert witness testimony from MtGox.  Or both.  Everything else is already in place (profit motive and third party). Expecting a judge to advocate for Bitcoin at this point in the proceedings would probably be a strategic mistake.  The courts don't care how you dress it up.  Precedence in U.S. law makes that very clear.

After that, you are defending against wire fraud.  Which has nothing to do with what constitutes a security.

The funny part is that selling securities isn't illegal in the U.S.,  it's just highly regulated.  Form D gets you private share sales up to $1 million dollars without a full registration.  You just can't advertise or promote them.  And you have to declare and comply with every state law you declare as well.

IANAL.  But I find this discussion fascinating.

Becoin, we know the law is outdated.  But it is very clear.

If you advertise or promote shares of a company or investment using interstate communication, you are under the jurisdiction of the SEC in the US.  That includes telegraph, telephone, mail, internet, email, cell phone, facebook, twitter, anything.

IANAL, but here's a summary of what I've learned watching the GLBSE situation:

Crowdfunding is not legal in the U.S. yet.  The JOBS Act was passed in April of 2012 but the SEC was given 270 days to rule on the actual mechanisms of enforcing the law.  They have dragged their feet.  In August, they came out with a ruling about Title II, but that only affects crowdfunding for accredited investors.  It only lifted the public advertising restrictions to accredited investors.  Title III affects the general public rights.  They have said nothing and probably wont well into next year.

Also, all crowdfunding will go through SEC cleared broker/dealers or designated crowdfunding portals.  You can't just start your own exchange and start crowdfunding anymore than you can run a bank out of your garage.

So current law still applies.  If this forum is considered a public place, and you advertise the sale of shares of a security (which only needs to pass the Howey test to qualify), then you are under the SEC jurisdiction in the US.

If its a private business, then you can raise up to $1 million by selling shares and only need to file a Form D with the SEC.  See a lawyer for all the details.

No matter which path you take, none of these securities can be trade for 2 years or so after they are purchased.  (Someone with more knowledge please correct me).

In the UK, the FSA has the authority over the sale of securities.  In general, if the collecting of funds is a donation, then you are in the clear.  If there is any kind of return of money to the investors, then the FSA has authority.  One unique exception to this rule is if the "securities" are clearly labelled "bets".  I have no idea how that holds up, see a barrister for all the details.

It would seem that "IPO, shares, dividends, etc" is the wrong language all together since it also implies incorporation and other regulations.  These mining contracts are private contracts between individuals.  You are selling computational time to a private citizen.  You probably still want to follow the basics of contract law which lawyers will be more than happy to take your money for.

It wouldn't extend by default.  I'd argue that the keys themselves are the created works, the expressions if you will.

Copyright law was intended to cover the expression of ideas, not the ideas themselves.  So a copyright on an equation would be tough to defend.  I don't know of any precedence chain that lets you defend it, but IANAL.  Any law students want to chime in? 

It sounds like the application of the equation could be novel, meaning you could try for a patent on it.  I think that is a steep hill to climb also.

A created and destroyed private key that is stored in wetware (brain matter) is a whole other thing.  I think I'll punt on that one until more of the basics are sorted out.  The fact that it can be recreated means its not really lost.  In litigation, you would have to produce the key in discovery.  Since you can produce it, it might not matter that it was lost. Did you lose your rights while it was missing?  I have no idea.

So my first impression is to stick with copyright law and build a case for an implicit "Right To Spend".

It goes something like this:

The source code for the reference client is MIT licensed but the copyright is assigned to "Satoshi Nakamoto" (2009-2010) and more recently "The Bitcoin developers" (2009-2012).  I suspect this gets transferred to "The Bitcoin Foundation" or some other active legal entity.

The block chain is public domain.  The public is free to do whatever they want with it.  In practice, official changes are enforced in software and distributed to the public only as transactions are confirmed by the miners.

The private keys are private intellectual property copyrighted by the owner of the address as before.

The private keys give the user an implicit right to modify the accounting elements in the block chain.  Specifically, to transfer a numerical value represented by their private key collection to another private key.  Lets call this the "Right To Spend".

So where does the "Right To Spend" live?  In the license of the software?  A separate license that accompanies the block chain?  In the transactions?  How do you construct the right to spend from a contractual stand point?  How do you guarantee it is enforceable?

In this model, the public "owns" the entire block chain but the "Right To Spend" is what makes it valuable.  So the valuable property is the rights given to you by owning the copyright on private keys.

If coins were stolen from me and I brought a civil case, wouldn't I trying to be establishing that I did have property and had been wronged?  Perhaps I've misunderstood you.  Walk me through it if you don't mind.

Taking the other side of the argument, the non-zero probability of guessing the private key doesn't completely destroy property rights in the U.S. where you have patents, copyrights, and trade secrets for intellectual property.  You can accidentally guess the contents of each of these protections with a comparable probability to guessing a private key: non-zero but impractical to ever accomplish.

For patents, it doesn't matter that you guessed it after it was filed, you still need to license it in order to use it.  Not doing so is a tort.  This applies even if you guess something close (i.e. covered in the claims).

For copyrights, there is a burden to prove who was first to create it to establish ownership, right to copy/assign/transfer, etc.

For trade secrets, the legal protection is very weak.  In essence, you can steal it by guessing because it was not afforded to the other two protections.

This is why I believe in establishing that private keys are copyrightable speech.  Then they can be afforded a first line of protection from "theft" under existing U.S. law.

The value of a copyrighted work has all manner of precedence to draw from in U.S. law as well.

Do you have any low RPM alternators? Say 100RPM-200RPM or so?

Ah.  Thanks.  I didn't know that about UE.

ASIC based Single is 60GH/s.  You are looking at FPGA numbers.

They have also announced a "Little Single" which will be 30GH/s.

Cheers.

The question "Are Bitcoins Legal?" should be replaced with "What Are Bitcoins, Legally?".

Technically, a Bitcoin address is a public expression of a private key.  The private key infers a right to "spend" on the Bitcoin network which keeps a public chain of transactions.

Are the private keys speech?  
Is a private key protected by copyright law?  
Do the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions apply?
Are the rights to "spend" private intellectual property?
Are block chain entries public intellectual property?
Is a right to "spend" transfer from one address to another a private intellectual property transfer recorded in a public instrument?

Clearly you can see my bias in this line of thinking.  But hopefully it's helpful.

Try rolling back to 2.6?

If UE was supposed to be US, then the owner of https://www.quickbitcoins.net/ advertises his service in IRC.  I've never tried it.  I believe it requires phone verification of some kind as well.

I'd idle there.

+1

Dear BFL,

If you test on main net, please forward the earned BTC to my BTC address.

Sincerely,
Someone who is not very concerned about thus issue.

p.s.  Please test my order first and for as long as you can.

The TYGRR delisting topic is pretty good review of what happened.  Someone please correct me if my summary is wrong:

Pirateat40 offers really high returns by laundering money for some illegal stuff in BTC.
A bunch of pirate pass through listings show up on GLBSE and lots of people jump on board.
Pirateat40 "defaults" and runs with or loses all the money.
Everyone gets their feelings hurt in one way or another.
An SEC investigation is started.
Nefario gets legal advice then delists everything that is probably criminal because he is making the exchange legitimate.
He can no longer be an accomplice now that everything fell apart.
Goat calls him out for being a scammer and reaffirms that he still wants to keep Nefario involved,
Nefario goes silent.
The forum panics and starts selling everything because Nefario is a "hot head".
Now Maged is going to give Nefario a scammer tag if he doesn't support the illegal activity as an accomplice i.e. relist the assets.

Sound about right?

I bet if someone comes up with an option where Nefario isn't an ongoing accomplice for drug trafficking/money laundering/whatever pirate was doing and securities fraud he would be interested.  Why everyone is defending the listing of crooked assets as a customer service issue is fascinating.  It makes legal sense for him to file first so he can control the initial venue/jurisdiction and take the tempo as the plaintiff In a civil case.  That will really get him a hell of a scammer tag on these forums I bet.

I've had 2.0 GH/s on 5830/5770s pointed at Coinlab for a while now.

Turned it off today to enjoy the silence. Taking time to decided whether to pay cash for this months BTC or keep the engines running until ASIC arrives.