Mike's Father's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week

from the happy-father's-day dept

Every week, we have a member of the community post their "favorite Techdirt posts of the week." Since tomorrow's Father's Day, I figured this week I should ask my Dad, an avid Techdirt reader.

Well this is a treat. I am Mike's father and this is my Father's Day present (sort of). I do read Techdirt on a regular basis and with very rare exceptions I don't comment. I have followed some of the more contentious comment streams out of curiosity and I have found it striking that articles on Techdirt arouse such intense reactions. In any case I will comment here on what I regard as the most interesting articles for me on Techdirt this past week.

I have followed with some interest the Megaupload case which has just taken a further step down the rabbit hole, as seen in US Continues To Try To Block Megaupload From Using Its Lawyers, Pretends It Has Jurisdiction Over The World.

It has been my experience that arguments that use logic, legal precedent, constitutional reasoning and sometimes even common sense almost never convince a person or organization that holds power to reconsider the path they have started on. Most people, regardless of their training, knowledge or instincts, go into defensive mode when challenged. Almost always. The trouble seems to come up extra strong when the person or agency is really powerful -- and the DOJ is about as powerful as you can get outside of military forces. Challenge the DOJ on what it has come to regards as its turf and you are gonna get a whale of a lot of pushback. They have a ton of weapons and almost no restraint in using their arsenal. And they can make it mighty expensive to challenge them. So my bias says that it’s usually a good thing to push back when they overreach. That way there's a chance (probably a small chance) that cooler heads or judicial review will set things right. That's probably not the way to bet, though.

We live in a world defined by the suffixes .com, .org etc. But that is about to change, possibly in a big way. As noted in .Rip .Off: Highlights From The Top-Level Domain Scrum.

There are currently 22 top level domains (like .net, .xxx, etc) but for an obscene amount of money ($375 million) there will be as many as 1,000 by the end of 2013. ICANN (International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), a not for profit corporation, charged $185,000 per application to 1930 organizations (groups and companies), to have their suggestions examined. The process, the prospective domain names, the competing companies that have proposed the same names and some potential problems with the process and the proposed names are discussed in this article.

Whatever the original purpose of copyright law was, a heavy dose of lawyering (and a compliant court) has brought us to the point where the level of impediments to normal commerce has reached new heights. It surprised me to learn that if I make a product, say a blender, outside the USA, and I put a tiny copyrighted symbol on the blender, that used blender may not be resold by the original purchaser to a third party without the permission of the copyright holder. For details on these and other nutty facts of life under USA copyright law, study: Why The Supreme Court Needs To Make Sure That Selling A Used iPad Isn't A Copyright Violation.

Many years ago, I worked in the research department of the Grumman Corporation. This was my first job out of graduate school and I loved it. My boss was a very smart guy named Bob McGill and he was, in addition to being a first class scientist/engineer, a very sophisticated investor. I had never invested a nickel up to that point so I was very impressed when, over lunch, Bob related to me some of the basics of investing. No one remembers it now, but before there was a dot com boom, there was a boom in computing stocks in the 1960s. The success of IBM and Xerox awakened investors to the potential profits in early investing in technology companies. Bob showed me a "red herring." That was the informal name for the prospectus that brokerages sent to customers who might be interested in investing (gambling) in the IPO for companies about to go public. The company described in the "red herring" was for an enterprise that would, at some point in the future, provide computer services for companies that did not have a computer of their own. I read the prospectus. The experience of the founder of the company noted that his previous position before starting this venture was working in "Tom's Bike Shop" and he wasn't Tom. That fact was enough to convince me that this was probably not a great investment opportunity. If you'd like to see a modern version of a prospectus for a "hot IPO", check out this tongue-in-cheek version: Prospectus for Silicon Valley's Next Hot Tech IPO.

Patents. We are in an era when patents (and their misuse) have created fits for technology companies. Long ago, just out of school, I met a prolific inventor with over 150 patents who told me that all his patents were an attempt to prevent him from being sued by someone else for patent violation. His most important invention, which made him and his investors very wealthy, he never patented. He kept that as a trade secret, zealously guarded. That was my first hint that something was wrong with the patent system in the USA. Attempts to explain the intrinsic value of our patent system are stretching, distorting or simply making up from whole cloth non-fact facts to justify the current system. Exhibit A is this article: Commerce Department's Own Study Debunks Commerce Department's Defense Of Said Study.

Finally, this past Fall saw the SOPA/PIPA debacle in which various vested interests attempted to put forth prospective legislation to protect legacy companies, business models and enterprises in some fairly heavy handed ways. Once the online community caught on to what was being proposed, they arose real fast and real hard. But some of the more egregious features of those now defeated attempts are nonetheless part of current law and causing all kinds of troubling problems. For a description of one such case, check out: Tell The White House To Stop Illegally Seizing & Shutting Down Websites.

Well that's all for now. I'm probably off the hook to do this again until next Father's Day.
Hide this

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


  1. identicon
    arcan, 16 Jun 2012 @ 12:43pm

    is it just me or would the ideal outcome for the megaupload case is that Mega gets the case dismissed with prejudice and gets copies of all the feds evidence? that way when the fed re-bullies the company none of their original evidence can be used.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jun 2012 @ 12:47pm

    "It has been my experience that arguments that use logic, legal precedent, constitutional reasoning and sometimes even common sense almost never convince a person or organization that holds power to reconsider the path they have started on."

    Did you just figure this out now?

    If you want to convince them what you need is a thing called $$$$$$

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    Greevar (profile), 16 Jun 2012 @ 1:38pm

    Re:

    They have to have evidence to begin with for that to happen.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. icon
    Anonymous Coward of Esteemed Trolling (profile), 16 Jun 2012 @ 3:20pm

    Happy Father's Day Mike's Dad

    Hope you still troll your son..... It's your duty.

    This comic is for you, Mike's Dad. http://i.imgur.com/w5Hn7.png

    Happy fathers day.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    Richard (profile), 16 Jun 2012 @ 3:46pm

    Patents

    Long ago, just out of school I met a prolific inventor with over 150 patents who told me that all his patents were an attempt to prevent him from being sued by someone else for patent violation. His most important invention, which made him and his investors very wealthy, he never patented. He kept that as a trade secret, zealously guarded.

    Exactly!

    Anything that is genuinely innovative and can be kept secret is kept secret. Given that the purpose of patents is to encourage disclosure of genuine innovations it follows that patetn law fails

    Patents are only used for things that should not be patentable!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. icon
    Charles (profile), 16 Jun 2012 @ 3:46pm

    Re: Happy Father's Day Mike's Dad

    That was great.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    arcan, 16 Jun 2012 @ 5:00pm

    Re: Re:

    they probably have a ton of evidence. I just assume almost all of it hurts their case however. but if they have 1 email that helps their case and put forward as evidence, and then the case is dismissed with prejudice i think they could not use it in any future attack on mega. correct me if i am wrong on that but i think i remember reading that somewhere.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jun 2012 @ 7:01pm

    Someone wants a burrito?

    http://burritob0t.com/

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jun 2012 @ 7:14pm

    Re:

    Next time I fall off a cliff, I'll be sure to hold out a $100 bill.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. icon
    ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 16 Jun 2012 @ 7:49pm

    Re: Patents

    And yet there are laws in place to protect trade secrets.

    How the frak does that make sense?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Jun 2012 @ 7:35am

    Thanks Mike's dad! This is exactly what I look for when I read the Saturday higlight post, a nice short summary and thought about your favorite post.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. icon
    Watchit (profile), 17 Jun 2012 @ 9:59am

    Re: Happy Father's Day Mike's Dad

    :D haha

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. icon
    Watchit (profile), 17 Jun 2012 @ 10:00am

    Nice to meet you Mike's dad :D happy fathers day

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Jun 2012 @ 7:09pm

    Bravo!

    Bravo Mike's Dad!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  15. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Jun 2012 @ 8:36pm

    Happy fathers day Mike's dad (now that it's fathers day :)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  16. identicon
    6, 18 Jun 2012 @ 10:03am

    "Patents. We are in an era when patents (and their misuse) have created fits for technology companies. Long ago, just out of school, I met a prolific inventor with over 150 patents who told me that all his patents were an attempt to prevent him from being sued by someone else for patent violation. His most important invention, which made him and his investors very wealthy, he never patented. He kept that as a trade secret, zealously guarded. That was my first hint that something was wrong with the patent system in the USA. Attempts to explain the intrinsic value of our patent system are stretching, distorting or simply making up from whole cloth non-fact facts to justify the current system."

    Um of course. Companies will try to keep everything they can, especially the very valuable and hard to figure out portions of their products or methods a trade secret. Which is why we have patents. Note that we got 150 advances to the useful arts out of this guy, and he only kept 1. Without a patent system, he would have kept 151 secret.

    You could simply try to outlaw trade secret, thus "forcing" him to probably have to file a patent on that 1 thing, but gl with that. It is in place at the behest of the people that benefit from it, and they are much more powerful than you, probably more powerful than the gov when it comes down to it.

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.