The linked article also says: "Façonnable also claimed that the use of its business name violated its trademark rights protected by the Lanham Act." So, they're claiming that I can't even talk about a company without their permission, else it's a trademark violation? Why? I guess because someone might confuse my criticism of a company as originating from that company. I don't even think that meets the "brain-dead zombie in a hurry" standard of trademark confusion.
Can we sue the government officials and economic planners that sold us on the various bailout packages and economic recovery programs that were supposed to lead to economic recovery and haven't led to economic recovery?
So, if this ever goes to court, then one question might come down to how original it is; if not original enough, then not copyrightable. But, of course, you can't quantify originality. So, it's just going to be up to the completely arbitrary opinion of a judge. One of the absurdities of copyright: creating a yardstick for something completely intangible like originality.
"Imagine if the tech giants used their powers of innovation to better detect and control online copyright infringement rather than the bare minimum steps"
This is silly because tech companies have provided content suppliers with many tools to stop piracy, it's just that people find ways to around them. If there's someone at Google that could think of a way to stop all piracy, then there's someone out there who figure out a way around it. Just look at the history of it. They introduced DVDs with encryption to prevent copying, and then someone cracked it. They introduced DRM, and people found out ways to crack it; they have locks on PDfs and those are easily cracked. They've got all types of copy-protection on software, and people find ways around them. Apple even went so far as to craft the OS for its iPhones so that you couldn't transfer any files except through iTunes and couldn't install any apps except through their App Store, which would completely prevent piracy, if someone hadn't figured out ways to jailbreak the iphone.
And, of course, the more crack-proof you make your anti-piracy measures, the more it has to inconvenience users. Just think of how much a pain DRM is, and it's not even uncrackable.
"It's an interesting argument. The main flaw that I see (and I hope that someone in authority to make these determinations sees it too) is that there is no law suggesting that linking is a crime"
The point, I guess I was trying to make was that with civil asset forfeiture, the idea is that the asset is used in the commission of a crime. So, the basic gist is that the website was used in the commission of the act of piracy. Now, you might say that the owner of the web domain didn't commit the crime and the linking to sites is not a crime, but that doesn't matter. The decision in Bennis v. Michigan was about a woman whose car was seized because her husband used the car to have sex with a prostitute. She committed no crime, but she was penalized because someone used her asset (the car) to commit a crime. ICE would use the same argument here (I'm not sure what, if any, legal arguments they've presented), saying that since some person used a website to link to another website where they pirated content, the first website was used in the commission of a crime and is thus open to civil forfeiture.
Now, it doesn't take too much thought to see that the implications of such an argument would be huge, suddenly google and youtube and a whole bunch of other legit sites are now up to be seized (in fact, the whole point of DMCA was to prevent that problem with its system of takedown notices that would define third party liability). You'd thus have to circumscribe your argument to define what exactly makes the sites seized different from other sites that are sometimes used in the process of piracy, probably by arguing that certain sites are primarily used for piracy. The rationale usually used to defend civil forfeiture is that it takes the profit out of illegal activities, so if they can show that these sites profit from the piracy, that might also bolster the case.
Additionally, you might try to deflect free speech arguments by claiming that links are not a form of expression, but merely a service or a tool. Namely, you'd say that when you provide a link you're not stating an opinion or presenting a fact, you're merely pointing somewhere, like opening the door for someone. So, if you've got a site like atdhe.net, which was seized just before the superbowl, which was purely links, you might be able to claim the site really isn't protected speech, it's just a set of instructions your browser uses to get to infringing content.
As I said before, I wouldn't advocate such arguments. The whole idea of civil forfeiture is completely against the 4th amendment, and end all IP law if I could. But considering these are the arguments that might be presented, it's worth thinking about them.
Though I agree that the seizures aren't constitutional, I think that ICE could make an argument based on civil forfeiture. This only comes to mind because Don Bordreaux wrote about the awful supreme court decision in Bennis v. Michigan this weekend. In short, ICE could claim that the web domain is a property, and that property has committed a crime (by linking to piracy) and therefore can be seized. It's then up to the owner to prove that it wasn't used in a crime (guilty until proven innocent). Since the supreme court has upheld civil forfeiture as not violating the fourth ammendment, then they might in this case. Now, I'm hoping no one in ICE is reading this because I don't want to give them any ideas. It's just that attorneys can be very creative in crafting legal arguments and courts very permissive in accepting these arguments when they want to find justification for denying something that they just don't like. So, if you find judges that simply don't like piracy and you come up with a coherent argument, they might be prone to buy it without too much critical thought (at least that's the only way I can explain the supreme courts bad decisions in the past).
I like the general idea and agree there are many cool ideas in there. But I see it differently. One part I see as implausible is that people would pay for these sessions. It seems like it would be more free, possibly ad-supported, possibly with premium services. I also see it much more as a community of writers, not just a single writer, several writers that can build around some sort of fictional world. I really see such projects as a good direction for writing. But to me, the part that I really like about the interactivity is the possibility of using lots of user feedback and input to make books much more collaborative and hopefully harness that to produce better books. And I still think the ultimate goal is to make a finalized version of the book, one that isn't changed anymore. Yes, you can tweak a book forever, but at some point, you just have to let it go. Also, I like the idea of books being released as the author is writing them; it reminds me of the old days of serial novels (something that seems like a good idea in the current technological climate).
The lesson is that it's not just one idea, it's a whole bunch of ideas in tandem, plus the labor hours behind making them work, plus investing the money and taking the risk (and the risk is already bad enough, considering so man ideas fall flat, and the patents just new inventions more risky and more costly). That idea is such a small piece of the whole puzzle.
I don't see why Righthaven doesn't hire the Winklevii. It seems like a marriage made in heaven: unwarranted sense of entitlement, excessively litigious nature, abhorrence of productive activity, never say die attitude.
Looking through the comments, two separate people said they got nothing with the safe search off. I on the other hand definitely did see pornography: 2 pictures on the first page, 5 on the second, 4 on the third page, and on and on. Either you people don't have the safe search really off or my google is much more porn-prone than the rest. This makes it hard to say whether it was a flimsy reason or not.
But even if it's a flimsy reason, a school has every right to fire whoever they please, so long as it doesn't violate their contract. Why doesn't anyone here believe in freedom of association, freedom of contract and so on?
The article seems to assume that old people are more short-sighted because they have less life left to live, but you could also argue that young people are more short-sighted because they haven't lived as long, or that they're more short-sighted because far fewer of them have born and raised kids yet. Moe broadly, any system of differential weighting of votes just seems inevitably arbitrary in how it weighs them.
As for other suggestions for alternative votes: how about a system of changeable votes? What if, say, you voted for Obama, and then decided, two years into his term, that you don't like what he's doing and then could change your vote to another candidate. If Obama lost the plurality to another candidate, say McCain, he'd be replaced by that other candidate? Anyone think that would work well? It would make politicians much more responsive to the will of the people, but it would cause more political dislocation.
How about a system of divisible votes? What if, say, everyone had ten votes and could allocate them however they wish? For example, you could give 6 votes to Obama, 3 to McCain and then 1 to Bob Barr, or something. How would that work?
Then there's the AV system that was proposed in Britain (also called Instant Run-Off) is that a good idea?
It's good that we have copyright to protect such embattled forms of artistic expression as b-grade. nunspoitation revenge movies. This heaven-sanctified genre is barely surviving, due to the demonic threat of pirates, almost impelling a person to take action in the way of the films noble protagonist and dress up as a nun and hunt down all of those 5,865 infringers one by one.
As has been said, you can patent techniques, like in medicine or chemistry. But you can't copyright them. You can copyright, for example, a particular literary expression of, for example, a recipe, namely the language used or illustrations. The same would apply to origami: you can thus copyright the particular form you give the instructions. For example, if you wrote up and illustrated instructions for a Phu Tran Rose that would be copyright-protected. The same would apply to a folding-diagram. That also means you can use that copyright over derivative works. An example of a derivative work is a book adapted to a movie because you're translating the ideas of the book into a different medium. In origami an example of a derivative work would be, for example, making a steel sculpture that looks like a completely folded Phu Tran Rose. But adapting a painting from the folding instructions is not derivative, it's transformative. You're taking something which is just a functional set of instructions and transforming it into a visual work of art. This is not derivative since the real artistry of a Phu Tran Rose is not the process, but the final product. It'd be like if you took a video of someone painting a picture; they wouldn't have any copyright claims over that video, if it didn't show the painting.
Whether you can copyright an origami work seems like a tough question. Would you have to get Phu Tran's permission to diagram his rose design? A patent on an origami work might be appropriate, though you can imagine why people wouldn't like that since it costs so much money and time to file and is more short-lived. Perhaps you could apply trade secret protection for creating an origami work, though that would also be limited and would preclude publishing any instructions (and publishing such instructions is the main way to make money through origami). I think with the state of copyright law you could make the case that origami is copyrightable. But the sticking point seems to be the fact that these people publish instructions on how to replicate the works. The courts had argued that you can't copyright recipes because the ingredients and their proportions are facts. Does the same apply to published origami instructions? Would it have copyright protection if no instructions were published? We might imagine similar cases, such as, for example, a magic trick. Does David Copperfield have copyright over the disappearing Statue of Liberty illusion? Does Criss Angel retain copyright over his levitation illusion, though he published instructions on how to replicate it?
From a practical perspective it should be evident that the amount of innovation in origami in the 20th century is immense, just as in the fashion industry and among illusionists, despite (or perhaps because of) weak IP protection.
He's right that if you want to get users to pay, you're going to have to offer them something more, and it has to be something they can't easily just get somewhere else. The idea that they could have a premium version of, say, the NY Times that people would pay for is not impossible, it's really hard to see how they'd do it. It'd have to be something really amazing. It doesn't have to rely to on annoying the free users, since you'd just keep the newspaper as it is for the free users. But still, how you'd make a premium version so amazing people would willingly pay money for it is unclear, and there might be better ways to get people to pay (you've got skilled researchers, writers, editors and photographers on your staff. Use them for something. I don't know what. Use them to write books, sell photos, sell services. I don't know.)
It's possible his mind hasn't changed and it's just that he makes a distinction between good patent trolling and bad patent trolling. If there are patents on innovations that are really something genuinely new and genuinely non-obvious, then they should be protected. But if it's some ridiculously obvious patent that a five year old could've figured out, then protecting it is destructive. I can't say I agree with him, but I think that's what he might think.
"Do people just not really think through these things"
Yes, they do think these things through. They think:
Step 1: Find way to make profitable, litigatable complaint
Step 2: Call Lawyer
Step 3: ? ? ? (We'll figure it out along the way)
Step 4: Profit
For the politicians the reasoning is slightly different, but similar. They think:
Step 1: Discover something that people might get worked up over
Step 2: Call a press conference and get people worked up
Step 3: ? ? ? (We'll figure out something to do about it)
Step 4: Win elections
Looks like the most expensive books on Amazon is now $600,000,000 (here), and there's a number of others that seem to be also overpriced due to these faulty algorithms. I don't know if it's the same cause as The Making of the Fly, since all of them are just one bookseller.
I like to think that maybe one of those copyright maximalists that disseminated Gannon's argument actually thought to themself "Oh no! If I repeat this argument, it'll be like copying it! And copying the argument will reduce the value of it! But I don't want to reduce the value of this argument because it's so good! What do I do?!?! I'll be condemned to the third circle of hell for this, reserved for IP crime, the hell of being copied, where I'll be copied and recopied again and again until I'm but a faint trace of myself." But I imagine none of them thought that deeply about it.
I guess when a company tries to go all in on a gamble like this sometimes they lose. Jackpot justice is a high takes crap shoot and sometimes the dice don't go your way.
The sports illustrated piece you linked to, also says there were toy bugles sold by the Dodgers in 1959 that played the tune. I'm sure they could dig up even earlier hard evidence to hopefully completely trounce this guy's copyright claim.
On the post: Judge Orders Unmasking Of Wikipedia Users; Fails To Follow Standard Anonymity Protections
Trademark violation too
On the post: Seismologists Tried For Manslaughter Due To Earthquake
Can we sue
On the post: Maori Angry About Mike Tyson's Tattoo Artist Claiming To Own Maori-Inspired Design
Quantify Originality?
On the post: Disney's Anthony Accardo: The Tech Community Owes Content Creators A Living
The Tech Giants do help stop piracy
This is silly because tech companies have provided content suppliers with many tools to stop piracy, it's just that people find ways to around them. If there's someone at Google that could think of a way to stop all piracy, then there's someone out there who figure out a way around it. Just look at the history of it. They introduced DVDs with encryption to prevent copying, and then someone cracked it. They introduced DRM, and people found out ways to crack it; they have locks on PDfs and those are easily cracked. They've got all types of copy-protection on software, and people find ways around them. Apple even went so far as to craft the OS for its iPhones so that you couldn't transfer any files except through iTunes and couldn't install any apps except through their App Store, which would completely prevent piracy, if someone hadn't figured out ways to jailbreak the iphone.
And, of course, the more crack-proof you make your anti-piracy measures, the more it has to inconvenience users. Just think of how much a pain DRM is, and it's not even uncrackable.
On the post: Here We Go Again: Operation In Our Sites Round 4 Kicks Off With More Domains Illegally Seized
Civil Forfeiture
The point, I guess I was trying to make was that with civil asset forfeiture, the idea is that the asset is used in the commission of a crime. So, the basic gist is that the website was used in the commission of the act of piracy. Now, you might say that the owner of the web domain didn't commit the crime and the linking to sites is not a crime, but that doesn't matter. The decision in Bennis v. Michigan was about a woman whose car was seized because her husband used the car to have sex with a prostitute. She committed no crime, but she was penalized because someone used her asset (the car) to commit a crime. ICE would use the same argument here (I'm not sure what, if any, legal arguments they've presented), saying that since some person used a website to link to another website where they pirated content, the first website was used in the commission of a crime and is thus open to civil forfeiture.
Now, it doesn't take too much thought to see that the implications of such an argument would be huge, suddenly google and youtube and a whole bunch of other legit sites are now up to be seized (in fact, the whole point of DMCA was to prevent that problem with its system of takedown notices that would define third party liability). You'd thus have to circumscribe your argument to define what exactly makes the sites seized different from other sites that are sometimes used in the process of piracy, probably by arguing that certain sites are primarily used for piracy. The rationale usually used to defend civil forfeiture is that it takes the profit out of illegal activities, so if they can show that these sites profit from the piracy, that might also bolster the case.
Additionally, you might try to deflect free speech arguments by claiming that links are not a form of expression, but merely a service or a tool. Namely, you'd say that when you provide a link you're not stating an opinion or presenting a fact, you're merely pointing somewhere, like opening the door for someone. So, if you've got a site like atdhe.net, which was seized just before the superbowl, which was purely links, you might be able to claim the site really isn't protected speech, it's just a set of instructions your browser uses to get to infringing content.
As I said before, I wouldn't advocate such arguments. The whole idea of civil forfeiture is completely against the 4th amendment, and end all IP law if I could. But considering these are the arguments that might be presented, it's worth thinking about them.
On the post: Here We Go Again: Operation In Our Sites Round 4 Kicks Off With More Domains Illegally Seized
The constitutional
On the post: What If Every eBook Was Its Own Social Network?
I see it differently
On the post: Malcolm Gladwell Discovers That Innovation And Invention Are Not The Same
Many ideas
On the post: Righthaven Facing Class Action Lawsuit Over Its Sham Copyright Transfer And Lawsuits
Winklevoss + Righthave
On the post: Doing A Google Search For 'Blonde' A Firable Offense For High School Teacher
Am I crazy?
But even if it's a flimsy reason, a school has every right to fire whoever they please, so long as it doesn't violate their contract. Why doesn't anyone here believe in freedom of association, freedom of contract and so on?
On the post: Should Young People Have Their Votes Count More?
Other voting systems
As for other suggestions for alternative votes: how about a system of changeable votes? What if, say, you voted for Obama, and then decided, two years into his term, that you don't like what he's doing and then could change your vote to another candidate. If Obama lost the plurality to another candidate, say McCain, he'd be replaced by that other candidate? Anyone think that would work well? It would make politicians much more responsive to the will of the people, but it would cause more political dislocation.
How about a system of divisible votes? What if, say, everyone had ten votes and could allocate them however they wish? For example, you could give 6 votes to Obama, 3 to McCain and then 1 to Bob Barr, or something. How would that work?
Then there's the AV system that was proposed in Britain (also called Instant Run-Off) is that a good idea?
On the post: Dispute Over Nude Nuns Copyright Leads To Second Firm Copying First Firm's Lawsuit
God praise thee copyright
See the trailer here
(Poe's Law disclaimer: the above is not meant to be taken seriously)
On the post: Origami Creators Sue Artist For Copyright Infringement Concerning Crease Patterns
Confusion of types of IP
Whether you can copyright an origami work seems like a tough question. Would you have to get Phu Tran's permission to diagram his rose design? A patent on an origami work might be appropriate, though you can imagine why people wouldn't like that since it costs so much money and time to file and is more short-lived. Perhaps you could apply trade secret protection for creating an origami work, though that would also be limited and would preclude publishing any instructions (and publishing such instructions is the main way to make money through origami). I think with the state of copyright law you could make the case that origami is copyrightable. But the sticking point seems to be the fact that these people publish instructions on how to replicate the works. The courts had argued that you can't copyright recipes because the ingredients and their proportions are facts. Does the same apply to published origami instructions? Would it have copyright protection if no instructions were published? We might imagine similar cases, such as, for example, a magic trick. Does David Copperfield have copyright over the disappearing Statue of Liberty illusion? Does Criss Angel retain copyright over his levitation illusion, though he published instructions on how to replicate it?
From a practical perspective it should be evident that the amount of innovation in origami in the 20th century is immense, just as in the fashion industry and among illusionists, despite (or perhaps because of) weak IP protection.
On the post: Why Every News Site Should Focus On Being First Class All The Time
How to get users to pay
On the post: Woz Completely Changes Tune On Patent Trolling From Just Months Ago
Maybe they're consistent
On the post: Google Street View Is Invasion Of Privacy... But The BBC Showing Everyone At The Royal Wedding?
The thinking process
Yes, they do think these things through. They think:
Step 1: Find way to make profitable, litigatable complaint
Step 2: Call Lawyer
Step 3: ? ? ? (We'll figure it out along the way)
Step 4: Profit
For the politicians the reasoning is slightly different, but similar. They think:
Step 1: Discover something that people might get worked up over
Step 2: Call a press conference and get people worked up
Step 3: ? ? ? (We'll figure out something to do about it)
Step 4: Win elections
On the post: The Infinite Loop Of Algorithmic Pricing On Amazon... Or How A Book On Flies Cost $23,698,655.93
The most expensive books
On the post: If You Can't Understand The Difference Between Money And Content, You Have No Business Commenting On Business Models
Copying the argument
On the post: Mattel's Attempt To Claim Ownership Of Bratz Comes Back To Bite Them: Now They May Owe $88.5 Million
Jackpot justice
On the post: Guy Sues Over 'Da Da Da Da Da Da.... CHARGE!' Jingle He Might Not Have Written
In the Flintstones
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZsWd2ke-I4#t=10m50s
The sports illustrated piece you linked to, also says there were toy bugles sold by the Dodgers in 1959 that played the tune. I'm sure they could dig up even earlier hard evidence to hopefully completely trounce this guy's copyright claim.
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