>>What happens if Blackboard goes under and the patents are sold? Can the purchaser go ahead and sue everyone?
Probably. Patent trolls can always sue, and there are very few incentives for them not suing.
Blackboard's public granting of the licences would undoubtedly be a strong argument for the defense, and it would probably prevail after the defendants spent a great deal of money on legal fees.
Also, some of the patents in question are pretty old. It is very possible that Blackboard will survive until at least some of the patents expire. Blackboard is getting wiped out of the education market pretty quickly, but they still have a loyal corporate training market that will keep them going. In fact I can almost read their actions as saying that they are giving up on making money in the education part of the market.
Beiber and his managers are now insiders who benefit from the existing system. Now their first instinct is to pull up the ladders to keep others from climbing aboard.
If they want to build gates and fences on their own property and with their own money, that's fine with me and probably with most of the people here. It only hurts themselves.
Unfortunately with Protect-IP and the E-Parasite proposals they want to build the fence on other people's property and have other people pay for it. Plus, they know the fence won't be effective, so they want special laws for themselves that lets them shoot people that they thing might possibly want to come on their property with no consequences even if most of the people they shoot are innocent.
E-Parasite is probably the most appropriately named bills seen in Congress in several years. The traditional gatekeepers will become parasites on tech companies and ISP. They will install themselves as parasites on the one part of the economy that is growing and creating jobs.
Perhaps the managers at WB are secret supporters of piracy. They seem to be intent on doing things that cut their revenue and simultaneously drive people to piracy to obtain what they cannot get legally. It is the only explanation that fits the facts, unless you assume that the people running WB are morons.
>>The only "reasonable" price is free of course. Who cares how much money they invested in the product.
In classical economic theory you are correct! Basic microeconomic theory says that the market will drive the price of a product down to the marginal cost of production. The marginal cost of reproducing an electronic file is about as close to zero as you can get. The amount of money invested in a product is considered a "sunk cost" and is irrelevant in the calculation of marginal cost. Therefore by basic microeconomic theory you are absolutely correct! The reasonable cost is free, and the investment cost is irrelevant just as you say.
Who says the AC trollers are dumb? They grasp the basic problem with the RIAA and MPAA models in an electronic age. And it scares them to death because they lack the imagination to figure out any other ways to make the kind of easy profits they were making in the era of vinyl records.
Windowing causes a lot of infringement. I would love to see an independent study of infringement rates as geographic windows for major motion pictures expire around the globe.
Media windowing is also a problem that drives infringement. One of my favorite authors has a huge fan base among young readers who really prefer ebook formats. Unfortunately his publisher likes to hold ebook release until after the traditional hardbound/paperback release cycle has run its course. It is apparent on the various forums that piracy is rampant until the ebook is formally released. I noticed that during the last book release cycle there was a constant drumbeat of "where can I get a copy in ebook format." This ended entirely once the ebook came out. How many book sales did the publisher miss because they held back the ebook edition for almost two years? I doubt if it came close to balancing the number of physical copies that they forced people to buy.
Windowing systems were created before the economy was global at the consumer level. Unfortunately the media companies have had the windowing system ingrained into their corporate cultures for so long that they no longer question it.
>>So, how the hell does she get away with the SAME EXACT CONSTITUTIONAL VIOLATION in her revised law?
Obviously you are not part of the music industry, otherwise this would be clear to you. If you start making some types of music illegal then you cut into industry profits and available campaign funding. In that case it is legitimate to appeal to constitutional issues. If something only involves personal expression then you are just a whining pirate. /sarcasm
The BLR is one of those addictive, dirty pleasures. It ranks in there with http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/ and http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/ as sites that you can only stop watching if someone happens to walk in the room and you are afraid of getting caught watching it.
My apologies to the people who have now had their whole morning wasted.
It looks like I have to amend my previous description of Apple's trademark claims. It appears that they claim apples, rectangles, the color white, and all words starting with the letter i.
It is ironic that Apple is such a trademark bully considering all the legal problems it had with the the name "Apple." I wonder how many of the old arguments that Apple used in its case against the Beatles music label will resurface in these cases.
There were a lot of things that other companies have "preemptively copied" from Apple. The most recent example I can think of are drop-down notifications which Android had the audacity to copy from Apple a few years before Apple put them in IOS 5. (I work with a bunch of Apple fan-boys who are always citing things that Windows/Android/RIM have copied from Apple. Sometimes those are things that Apple copied, and I refer to the phenomenon as "preemptively copying from Apple." So far they haven't caught on to what I mean by preemptive copying.)
>>Unless they use the actual words posted on reddit, reddit has nothing to say about any work based on this idea. Why don't more people understand copyright?
Your post is correct. Unless they use the exact words from the Reddit material they are probably not violating copyright. That is why I mentioned "imaginary" rights. The IP lobby has been telling themselves lies about copyright for so long that they seem to forget what the law actually says and doesn't say. There is also just enough terrible case law (can you say "The Wind Done Gone?") trying to expand copyright beyond the statute that lawyers have some tiny little hooks that they can base a case on. The big media companies have gone around for years saying that copyright covers things that it doesn't, and now they often believe that it actually does cover things like "story rights."
This could kill the project at WB. WB is basically a lawyer-run company. I can't see their lawyers letting them move ahead on a project where they don't have 100% lock-down on all IP issues, real or imaginary. At very least, before the project goes forward WB will probably want to get Reddit to sign away its own rights.
When the main reason for having patents is defensive it calls into question the validity of the entire patent system. Hording patents as a defensive move does absolutely nothing to "promote the progress" as the Constitution mandates. Currently companies must divert money that could go into research into buying defensive patents. Small businesses without a horde of patents are blocked from entering the market; even if they have a patent on their product, there is probably a nexus of related patents that surround it and keep the small business from going into production. The current patent system is hindering progress, not promoting it.
The Olympics have become a contest to see who is best at using performance enhancing drugs without getting caught. Ridiculous IP shenanigans further reduce any lingering desire I might have to watch.
It seems like an easy situation to fix. SoundExchange should stop sending statements to artists. If it were not for those pesky statements the artists would not be forcing SoundExchange and the major labels to do all the paperwork required to temporarily fix the problem. It is no wonder the record labels are not making money; all those artists are just nit-picking the payments and driving up costs.
False claim of copyright should be a crime with some big statutory damages.
Right now it is probably fraud, but the big labels have been pretty successful at getting off the hook on the fraud charges with an "Oops. It was a mistake. I'm sorry." Then they turn around and do it again.
>>Perhaps one hundred years from now, a historian will be able to look back on this legislation and say "this is where it started"
I am afraid that they will say "this is where it ended." Or perhaps they will say nothing because speech that might be interpreted as criticizing the government/industrial complex is illegal.
The irony of the situation is that the young girls they are trying to protect probably have a much better understanding of how beauty images are photoshopped than the couple proposing the legislation.
On the post: E-Learning Company Blackboard Bows To The Growing Power Of Openness Again
Re: Will it hold?
Probably. Patent trolls can always sue, and there are very few incentives for them not suing.
Blackboard's public granting of the licences would undoubtedly be a strong argument for the defense, and it would probably prevail after the defendants spent a great deal of money on legal fees.
Also, some of the patents in question are pretty old. It is very possible that Blackboard will survive until at least some of the patents expire. Blackboard is getting wiped out of the education market pretty quickly, but they still have a loyal corporate training market that will keep them going. In fact I can almost read their actions as saying that they are giving up on making money in the education part of the market.
On the post: Justin Bieber Sends Cease & Desist To FreeBieber Campaign
On the post: New Letter From Artists & Content Creators Against PROTECT IP/E-PARASITE Act
Re:
Unfortunately with Protect-IP and the E-Parasite proposals they want to build the fence on other people's property and have other people pay for it. Plus, they know the fence won't be effective, so they want special laws for themselves that lets them shoot people that they thing might possibly want to come on their property with no consequences even if most of the people they shoot are innocent.
On the post: New Letter From Artists & Content Creators Against PROTECT IP/E-PARASITE Act
On the post: Warner Bros. Hates Libraries, Wants To Embargo DVD Sales To Libraries For A Month
On the post: High Prices, Lack Of Availability Driving Lots Of Infringement
Re: oh mikey..
In classical economic theory you are correct! Basic microeconomic theory says that the market will drive the price of a product down to the marginal cost of production. The marginal cost of reproducing an electronic file is about as close to zero as you can get. The amount of money invested in a product is considered a "sunk cost" and is irrelevant in the calculation of marginal cost. Therefore by basic microeconomic theory you are absolutely correct! The reasonable cost is free, and the investment cost is irrelevant just as you say.
Who says the AC trollers are dumb? They grasp the basic problem with the RIAA and MPAA models in an electronic age. And it scares them to death because they lack the imagination to figure out any other ways to make the kind of easy profits they were making in the era of vinyl records.
On the post: High Prices, Lack Of Availability Driving Lots Of Infringement
Media windowing is also a problem that drives infringement. One of my favorite authors has a huge fan base among young readers who really prefer ebook formats. Unfortunately his publisher likes to hold ebook release until after the traditional hardbound/paperback release cycle has run its course. It is apparent on the various forums that piracy is rampant until the ebook is formally released. I noticed that during the last book release cycle there was a constant drumbeat of "where can I get a copy in ebook format." This ended entirely once the ebook came out. How many book sales did the publisher miss because they held back the ebook edition for almost two years? I doubt if it came close to balancing the number of physical copies that they forced people to buy.
Windowing systems were created before the economy was global at the consumer level. Unfortunately the media companies have had the windowing system ingrained into their corporate cultures for so long that they no longer question it.
On the post: California Politician Discovers That You Can't Ban Specific Type Of Music; Admits 'I Didn't Know What Was Going On'
Re: Uhhhhhh
Obviously you are not part of the music industry, otherwise this would be clear to you. If you start making some types of music illegal then you cut into industry profits and available campaign funding. In that case it is legitimate to appeal to constitutional issues. If something only involves personal expression then you are just a whining pirate. /sarcasm
On the post: Universal Uses Copyright To Censor Bad Lip Reading Parody; Why Not Embrace It?
My apologies to the people who have now had their whole morning wasted.
On the post: Apple Continues To Insist Only It Can Use An Apple In A Logo; Threatens Small German Cafe
On the post: Apple Continues To Insist Only It Can Use An Apple In A Logo; Threatens Small German Cafe
On the post: Steve Jobs Was Willing To 'Rip Off' Everyone Else... But Was Pissed About Android Copying iPhone?
On the post: Could Reddit Make Its Own 'Rome, Sweet Rome' And Compete With Warner Bros.?
Re: Re: You'll never see this movie.
Your post is correct. Unless they use the exact words from the Reddit material they are probably not violating copyright. That is why I mentioned "imaginary" rights. The IP lobby has been telling themselves lies about copyright for so long that they seem to forget what the law actually says and doesn't say. There is also just enough terrible case law (can you say "The Wind Done Gone?") trying to expand copyright beyond the statute that lawyers have some tiny little hooks that they can base a case on. The big media companies have gone around for years saying that copyright covers things that it doesn't, and now they often believe that it actually does cover things like "story rights."
On the post: Could Reddit Make Its Own 'Rome, Sweet Rome' And Compete With Warner Bros.?
On the post: Europe Says Stem Cells Are Not Patentable; Confused Scientists Freak Out
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: London 2012 Olympics Go For Gold in the Extreme 'Ambush Marketing' Law Event: 'Guilty Until Proven Innocent' – And No Streaking Allowed
On the post: Universal Music Keeps Trying To Claim Zoe Keating's Royalty Checks, Despite Having Nothing To Do With Her
/sarcasm
On the post: Universal Music Keeps Trying To Claim Zoe Keating's Royalty Checks, Despite Having Nothing To Do With Her
Right now it is probably fraud, but the big labels have been pretty successful at getting off the hook on the fraud charges with an "Oops. It was a mistake. I'm sorry." Then they turn around and do it again.
On the post: Wyden: PROTECT IP Act Is About Letting The Content Sector Attack The Innovation Sector
Re:
I am afraid that they will say "this is where it ended." Or perhaps they will say nothing because speech that might be interpreted as criticizing the government/industrial complex is illegal.
On the post: Couple Pushes For Law To Limit Photoshopping Models; Because It Hurts Young Girls' Self-Esteem
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