European Patent Law Protests Heating Up
from the good-for-them dept
Realizing they don't want to get stuck with a US-style patent-law that allows for software and business process patents stifling innovation, people are taking to the streets and organizing online protests against a new patent law in Europe that has been condemned far and wide as being harmful to innovation. If the entire point of patents are to promote innovation, and it's easy to show how certain patents harm innovation, shouldn't that be reason enough to change the system? My only other (yes, completely random) question is why are "interested mimes" taking part in the protest? What is their "interest" in the matter?Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
A mime is a terrible thing to waste...
Ah, yes, but they cannot tell you what their interest is...they'll have to show you instead. (Or maybe they are interested MIMEs, as in MIME Header fields.)
Sorry, couldn't resist that one. I'll go back to my homebrew now and shut up....
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: A mime is a terrible thing to waste...
Then, in thinking about it, I began to wonder if it did have something to do with MIME headers, and thought about betting someone on whether or not anyone would make that connection as well.
Should have known...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
European Innovation?
http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2002/12/EuropeanDecline.shtml
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: A mime is a terrible thing to waste...
Nope, you weren't hallucinating, apparently they had shown up for another rally in May. The funny thing that brings up another question, is how do mimes protest? That would be some site to see. I figure that they probably have placards with anti-patent messages, but I am not sure how they could yell "No stupid patent laws" like the rest of the crowd.
Of course, the MIME header thing was purly a shot at dry English humor, but apparently it may have worked.
A strange world we live in, where mimes are allowed to protest freely, while women and children are afraid to go out side for fear of being accosted by circus clowns.
[ link to this | view in thread ]