So you're saying that society is best served by laws that prevent people from building on other peoples' works?
Sorry, I don't see how that's the case at all. Copyright should be, and used to be, exactly about fostering artistic expression by ensuring that authors would be able to collect for the *works* that they create, not for the *ideas*.
You've but together a good "fairness" argument: the unauthorized sequel wouldn't exist without the original, so the original author has a right to determine whether the sequel can be published. But in order to bring it full circle and address the social aspect of copyright law, you need do demonstrate how this practice would discourage authors from writing books.
Would Salinger have said "you know what, screw it, someone else might eventually make a buck off this and not cut me in, so I won't bother producing the work in the first place"? I'm going to argue that, no, Salinger has already been protected and still receives revenue from his work, and that that is the extent of what copyright should cover.
Um. So Mike layed out the four fair use prongs that the judge used, enumerated her reasoning, expressed his disagreement, and called out why (in his opinion) she was wrong on each count.
You think he's "way off the mark." Great, I'd be interested to hear why you think the unauthorized sequel will hurt the market for the original, or why parody really is the only way to build on what others have done before.
So far, Mike has a much stronger argument than you do.
I think you're operating from the way patents used to work, where it was OK to implement something functionally the same so long as the mechanism was clean-roomed.
Today, software and business model patents effectively preclude a company from achieving the same result, even if the approach is different.
For instance, a patent might be on a means of integrating the results from live news feeds into a store's pricing model. If IV is sitting on a patent relating to use of live feeds to adjust algorithms, you're going to trip over it even if you go about the code and differently.
For that reason, many companies no longer do patent searches, because it's better to not know. If a legal department (or, god forbid, an engineer) finds a patent and an effort is made to work around it, there's the potential for treble damages from willful infringement if courts determine the workaround wasn't different enough.
And, of course, the company will patent the workaround, making it more difficult for others to innovate in the same area (you can't do innovative and cool chimneys if the concept of having a roof is patented).
So, yeah, you've got how it *should* work. But that's not how it works.
The inventor gets their money when IV buys the patent. The innocent version of the model is that individual inventors don't have the clout to go after a Microsoft or Intuit, and the results of suits are uncertain and years away, so inventors get cash now and IV bets that the NPV of future proceeds from the patent will exceed the purchase price.
It wouldn't make sense for the inventor to get anything from the settlement or suit; they transferred all rights to the patent and those uncertain future cash flows to IV for guaranteed cash a long time ago.
- Inventor comes up with cool invention and patents it (let's even stipulate a genuinely patentable innovation).
- IV buys patent and puts it in a file drawer
- Engineer at Intuit comes up with same idea a year or two later, with no knowledge of the original invention
Explain to me again how, in that case, Intuit is "riding coat tails" or "just plain stealing"? This isn't an unlikely scenario; this is the bread and butter of IV's business.
It's one thing for IV to buy the rights to useful inventions and to license them as new technology. It's another to buy patents and file them, hoping someone will trip over them in the future. And, heck, I say that as someone who sold a patent to IV (and I'll bet everyone else here would have done the same).
These are the folks whose Quickbooks Online product *still* doesn't support any browser other than Internet Explorer (the site just says "your browser isn't support, please come back with IE").
The company's flagship Quickbooks product gets revved every year, with no discernable changes except to data like tax rates.
The last innovating the the company did was probably in 1998, when Quickbooks gained the ability to have accountant's copies and then to incorporate an accountant's edits back into the customer's books. That was cool.
So, yeah, IV is a manifestation of a real problem in IP laws. And I'd like to see that problem fixed. But this $120m isn't money that Intuit would have used to innovate. At best, they would have paid a dividend. More likely, they would have squandered it on yet another dead end product development effort.
Bandwidth is cheap; while it may be that a million simultaneous downloads of a song from one server is a problem, any reasonable CDN can handle it, and the costs are fairly low.
I'm skeptical that the cost savings of P2P outweigh the added complexity, security issues, and, heck, the *name* TPB.
But I have to thing the GGX folks aren't total morons, so they must have a model in mind that either removes unauthorized copyrighted material sharing, or monetizes it. My guess is that they figured the purchase price was so low that the PR alone ma be worth it. Heck, if the TPB had announced they were for sale *I* could have wrangled $8M to buy 'em.
Heck, you could probably turn around and sell TPB to the RIAA/MPAA for $15M, at least.
In fact, there are many cases where paying users actually makes something less attractive than free because they're doing things for non-monetary reasons, and the money actually changes the equation significantly
Indeed. This brings to mind an probably apocryphal anecdote from a professor I had. It goes like this:
There's a older guy who takes great pride in his lawn. It's a huge and gorgeous piece of grass, and he puts a lot of work into maintaining it, and has done so for years. One weekend, to his dismay, a bunch of high schoolers show up and start playing football on it.
The game is noisy and irritates him, and tears up his lawn. During the week, he repairs the damage, only to have the same thing happen the next weekend. He's really irritated, but he knows enough about kids to realize that he can't yell them off his lawn, and that if he calls the police or something, he'll probably get his windows broken or worse.
So, being a smart guy, one day he goes out to the kids and tells them how happy he is that they're playing football on his lawn, and that he gets great value out of the entertainment they provide, so he wants to pay them. He'll give them a dollar each, every day they show up to play. The kids are thrilled.
This goes on for three or four weeks, the old guy shelling out $20 or so a weekend. Then, one day, he very apologetically tells the kids that he can't afford to pay anymore, but that he hopes they'll still play on his lawn. "No way," the kids say, "if you're not going to pay us, we're going to take our game somewhere else!" And they do.
Note to the literal minded: this probably never happened; it's just told to illustrate the point that money changes perception, and perception changes behavior.
AT&T could actually make a lot of money by amending their fine print to create reverse lotteries. Something like:
Unlimited* Data plan: $70/mo
* Not valid for data connections from latitudes and longitudes that add up to prime numbers when decimal point is disregarded, which are billed at 0.015 cents
...nobody's going to figure that stuff out, and it's not going to hit most users much, if at all. But across a large enough population, there's some extra revenue to be had there.
On the post: District Court Bans 'Catcher In The Rye' Sequel; Since When Did The US Ban Books?
Re: Re:
Sorry, I don't see how that's the case at all. Copyright should be, and used to be, exactly about fostering artistic expression by ensuring that authors would be able to collect for the *works* that they create, not for the *ideas*.
You've but together a good "fairness" argument: the unauthorized sequel wouldn't exist without the original, so the original author has a right to determine whether the sequel can be published. But in order to bring it full circle and address the social aspect of copyright law, you need do demonstrate how this practice would discourage authors from writing books.
Would Salinger have said "you know what, screw it, someone else might eventually make a buck off this and not cut me in, so I won't bother producing the work in the first place"? I'm going to argue that, no, Salinger has already been protected and still receives revenue from his work, and that that is the extent of what copyright should cover.
On the post: District Court Bans 'Catcher In The Rye' Sequel; Since When Did The US Ban Books?
Re: First Amendment and Copyright Injunctions
You think he's "way off the mark." Great, I'd be interested to hear why you think the unauthorized sequel will hurt the market for the original, or why parody really is the only way to build on what others have done before.
So far, Mike has a much stronger argument than you do.
On the post: Intuit Pays $120 Million 'Don't Sue Us' Tax To Intellectual Ventures
Re: tripping up?
Today, software and business model patents effectively preclude a company from achieving the same result, even if the approach is different.
For instance, a patent might be on a means of integrating the results from live news feeds into a store's pricing model. If IV is sitting on a patent relating to use of live feeds to adjust algorithms, you're going to trip over it even if you go about the code and differently.
For that reason, many companies no longer do patent searches, because it's better to not know. If a legal department (or, god forbid, an engineer) finds a patent and an effort is made to work around it, there's the potential for treble damages from willful infringement if courts determine the workaround wasn't different enough.
And, of course, the company will patent the workaround, making it more difficult for others to innovate in the same area (you can't do innovative and cool chimneys if the concept of having a roof is patented).
So, yeah, you've got how it *should* work. But that's not how it works.
On the post: Intuit Pays $120 Million 'Don't Sue Us' Tax To Intellectual Ventures
Re: Re: dead weight?
It wouldn't make sense for the inventor to get anything from the settlement or suit; they transferred all rights to the patent and those uncertain future cash flows to IV for guaranteed cash a long time ago.
On the post: Intuit Pays $120 Million 'Don't Sue Us' Tax To Intellectual Ventures
Re: dead weight?
- Inventor comes up with cool invention and patents it (let's even stipulate a genuinely patentable innovation).
- IV buys patent and puts it in a file drawer
- Engineer at Intuit comes up with same idea a year or two later, with no knowledge of the original invention
Explain to me again how, in that case, Intuit is "riding coat tails" or "just plain stealing"? This isn't an unlikely scenario; this is the bread and butter of IV's business.
It's one thing for IV to buy the rights to useful inventions and to license them as new technology. It's another to buy patents and file them, hoping someone will trip over them in the future. And, heck, I say that as someone who sold a patent to IV (and I'll bet everyone else here would have done the same).
On the post: Intuit Pays $120 Million 'Don't Sue Us' Tax To Intellectual Ventures
Are you *familiar* with Intuit?
The company's flagship Quickbooks product gets revved every year, with no discernable changes except to data like tax rates.
The last innovating the the company did was probably in 1998, when Quickbooks gained the ability to have accountant's copies and then to incorporate an accountant's edits back into the customer's books. That was cool.
So, yeah, IV is a manifestation of a real problem in IP laws. And I'd like to see that problem fixed. But this $120m isn't money that Intuit would have used to innovate. At best, they would have paid a dividend. More likely, they would have squandered it on yet another dead end product development effort.
On the post: The Pirate Bay's New Owners: Service Providers Will Pay Us, We'll Pay Users
Re: Re: show me the money
Bandwidth is cheap; while it may be that a million simultaneous downloads of a song from one server is a problem, any reasonable CDN can handle it, and the costs are fairly low.
I'm skeptical that the cost savings of P2P outweigh the added complexity, security issues, and, heck, the *name* TPB.
But I have to thing the GGX folks aren't total morons, so they must have a model in mind that either removes unauthorized copyrighted material sharing, or monetizes it. My guess is that they figured the purchase price was so low that the PR alone ma be worth it. Heck, if the TPB had announced they were for sale *I* could have wrangled $8M to buy 'em.
Heck, you could probably turn around and sell TPB to the RIAA/MPAA for $15M, at least.
On the post: The Pirate Bay's New Owners: Service Providers Will Pay Us, We'll Pay Users
Payment does change the equation
Indeed. This brings to mind an probably apocryphal anecdote from a professor I had. It goes like this:
Note to the literal minded: this probably never happened; it's just told to illustrate the point that money changes perception, and perception changes behavior.
On the post: Mythbusters' Adam Savage Discovers Insane Roaming Fees: $11,000 iPhone Bill For A Few Hours Surfing
Reverse lottery?
Unlimited* Data plan: $70/mo
* Not valid for data connections from latitudes and longitudes that add up to prime numbers when decimal point is disregarded, which are billed at 0.015 cents
...nobody's going to figure that stuff out, and it's not going to hit most users much, if at all. But across a large enough population, there's some extra revenue to be had there.
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