After a patent like this has been declared null and invalid - has anyone successfully gone back and sued the company who formerly sued them for patent infringement in hopes of getting their money back?
In other words, Company A sues Company B for patent violation and wins - the patent is later declared invalid - has there ever been a Company B that has gone back sued Company A to get their losses back?
After all, if the musicians need to get money for every time a song is played at some time in the future, then maybe the union workers should get a bit of money every time a car is sold or resold or driven, etc...
If I put information out there, I should have the right to take it down later.
Why's that? You gave the information away. It's not yours anymore.
I can put out a sign offering free lemonade and later take down the sign - I can't ask you to give back the lemonade I've already given you - but I can put an end to giving out more lemonade. I should have the same rights with my private info.
I can see a use for this for websites like Facebook or MySpace where the person who requests the information be removed is the person who put it there in the first place. If I put information out there, I should have the right to take it down later.
As long as they limit the bill to situations like that, I don't have a problem with it.
The real reason that TV broadcasters was upset was that government was forcing them to change over from analog to digital but was not providing them with any financial motivation or compensation for doing so.
The American people got free coupons good for $40 off of a $40 converter box - the broadcasters got a deadline - spend $X,000,000 on new digital transmission equipment or go off the air.
The public outcry over the transition was huge and it basically cost them nothing (financially) and for most people they gained access to more channels and better picture quality. The broadcasters got stuck with a huge bill for a new transmitter, had to eat the cost of hundreds of person-hours of work to get switched over, had to give up a lot of advertising inventory to run the mandatory "The Big Switch Is Coming!" spots over and over and we got nothing from the government.
You may not like the fact the government "gave" the digital spectrum to TV broadcasters, but you seem to overlook the fact that TV broadcasters have to turn around and "give" their broadcasts back to the community for free. The public gains access to free television broadcasts, that is the public's compensation for "giving away spectrum".
Other than radio, I don't know of any other privately owned businesses that are "given free spectrum" and then turn around and provide a free service in return.
If you want to gripe about companies "taking our spectrum" take it up with the cell phone companies who don't give it back to the public, but sell it back at grossly inflated rates.
What if we proposed to the copyright holders that we want to implement a 180° 3 Strikes Law - You can make 3 faulty DMCA claims before you lose your right to make further complaints.
Maybe if the rights holder take the extra 3 minutes to think "Hmmm... do I really want to risk a strike against me for issuing this incredibly weak and vague DMCA claim or should I wait and only complain when it's an actual issue and I'm 100% confident I can win?" we'd see a lot fewer filings.
Excuse me if I don't hold my breath waiting for that law to pass.
Wouldn't the copyright (if there was one, and I think we all agree there isn't...) technically belong to his parents as they created him and his name? Unless he legally changed his name to something completely new and different, I don't see how he can claim the ownership of his name...
The way we (the buying public) see it is that since ebooks have no cost to ship, stock, print, etc. then the final price should be significantly less - it should be about however much the publisher nets on the paperback edition + a minor cost to cover production of the original, bandwidth, etc. and how dare they try to jack it up to some outrageous pricing point?
The way they (the publishers) see it is that the price should be the same as (or close to) a just published hard cover and that the difference between that and the actual cost for the ebook is their huge, huge, huge, glorious profit margin and how dare we try and cheat them out of that?
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Oliver Wendell Jones.
Sue Back?
In other words, Company A sues Company B for patent violation and wins - the patent is later declared invalid - has there ever been a Company B that has gone back sued Company A to get their losses back?
Maybe we should ask our politicians to reverse the situation
Yeah, that seems fair, doesn't it?
Re: Re: Has a use...
Has a use...
As long as they limit the bill to situations like that, I don't have a problem with it.
"Free" Spectrum?
The American people got free coupons good for $40 off of a $40 converter box - the broadcasters got a deadline - spend $X,000,000 on new digital transmission equipment or go off the air.
The public outcry over the transition was huge and it basically cost them nothing (financially) and for most people they gained access to more channels and better picture quality. The broadcasters got stuck with a huge bill for a new transmitter, had to eat the cost of hundreds of person-hours of work to get switched over, had to give up a lot of advertising inventory to run the mandatory "The Big Switch Is Coming!" spots over and over and we got nothing from the government.
You may not like the fact the government "gave" the digital spectrum to TV broadcasters, but you seem to overlook the fact that TV broadcasters have to turn around and "give" their broadcasts back to the community for free. The public gains access to free television broadcasts, that is the public's compensation for "giving away spectrum".
Other than radio, I don't know of any other privately owned businesses that are "given free spectrum" and then turn around and provide a free service in return.
If you want to gripe about companies "taking our spectrum" take it up with the cell phone companies who don't give it back to the public, but sell it back at grossly inflated rates.
3 Strikes The Other Way
Maybe if the rights holder take the extra 3 minutes to think "Hmmm... do I really want to risk a strike against me for issuing this incredibly weak and vague DMCA claim or should I wait and only complain when it's an actual issue and I'm 100% confident I can win?" we'd see a lot fewer filings.
Excuse me if I don't hold my breath waiting for that law to pass.
Copyright Owner?
Us vs. Them
The way they (the publishers) see it is that the price should be the same as (or close to) a just published hard cover and that the difference between that and the actual cost for the ebook is their huge, huge, huge, glorious profit margin and how dare we try and cheat them out of that?
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Oliver Wendell Jones.
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