Fact: Patents do not drive innovation, they ban innovation. A patent is, by its very definition, something that bans the entire world except the patent holder from building and improving on a particular innovative step. If patents are driving innovation, which is claimed, then this outright ban must be shown to have side effects that somehow drive innovation to a larger extent than the extent to which the direct ban destroys it. No such side effects have turned out to exist.
To the contrary, patents are being used by incumbent industries to shut down disruptive competition. Rather than competing with better products and services, the current kings-of-the-hill are finding it more cost efficient competing with more expensive lawyers. This does neither drive innovation nor a healthy competitive market.
Other myths debunked are claims that investors won’t invest without patents, that patents are a useful measure of innovation, that the problem is just with patent trolls, that patents disclose innovation, and a few others as well. It’s really a fantastic read. It likely won’t change the minds of patent system supporters, but for anyone involved in these debates, it’s a very straightforward and clear debunking of many of the common myths about the importance of the patent system.
Warner Bros. Wins Key Legal Ruling Impacting All ‘Wizard of Oz’ Remakes (Exclusive)
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals hands down a potentially big decision on some iconic characters thought by many to be outside copyright protection.
11:40 AM 7/6/2011 by Eriq Gardner
In 1900, L. Frank Baum wrote the famous children’s novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It’s easy to assume that since the book was published more than 110 years ago, the characters of Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion and the rest are safely in the public domain.
Or so Hollywood hopes. Many movie studios are in the midst of re-adapting the classic. But the truth about what’s in the public domain and what’s not may be a little murky, thanks to a decision on Tuesday by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
. . . Happy Fourth to you all! Along with 90 (and still counting) other Internet law and IP law professors, I have signed a letter (drafted by Dave Levine, Mark Lemley, and me) in opposition to Sen. Leahy’s “PROTECT IP Act.” [The letter is posted below — the text of the bill, if you’re into that sort of thing, is posted here.]…
The bill, which will allow the government to obtain injunctions against domain names hosting allegedly copyright-infringing or trademark-infringing material, and to have those domain names deleted from the Internet’s databases, represents a serious assault on the fundamental principles that have built the Net — the design principles at the heart of its technical infrastructure, and the free speech principles it has done so much to foster and cultivate around the globe, all at the behest of your friends in the recording and motion picture industries. [If you want to see why it’s a dreadful piece of legislation purely from the technical side, take a look at this white paper prepared by some of the most respected members of the Internet technical community]. We’ve seen this before — in last term’s COICA legislation, which thankfully died in Committee (thanks to Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, who has continued his opposition to the Protect IP Act, and whom we should all thank for his efforts). It’s always hard to gauge how likely a bill is to become law, but I’m told there’s some momentum around the Protect IP Act, and hopefully those who actually care about the Net and its potential will rally in opposition.
From Gigaom, a post noting that patents may end up killing or seriously damaging the Android smartphone iphone competitor (like patents apparently killed SED TV):
The Android Express has taken Google and a number of manufacturers on dizzying ride to the top of the smartphone market. But with Android’s patent strength increasingly under fire and companies lining up for their share of licensing fees, is the platform headed off the tracks? Read More »
An anonymous reader writes “A NY based lawyer has submitted an application to the US Patent and Trademark Office claiming first use of the term bitcoin on June 22nd, 2011. The evidence of first use in the form of a letter detailing his wife’s offer to sell “bitcoin” for $17.50 on June 23rd. A pdf extolling the virtues of bitcoin has also been uploaded to his law firms webpage”
Filmmaker Paromita Vohra talks about her new film Partners in Crime, which explores issues around copyright, copyleft, culture and markets, and suggests that we might need a hybrid notion of copyright in which many forms coexist, just as we may need many markets based on many different ideas of exchange
From urban Indian streets where young men furtively sell porn to folk musicians who find their ideas stolen, from corporate boardrooms to students who seek new ways of sharing music… Paromita Vohra covers these and more in her latest film Partners in Crime.
She describes it as “a rollicking trip through the grey worlds of copyright, art, and the market in a story about love, money and crime”.
Mumbai-based Vohra has earned praise for her interesting documentaries and her innovative ways of distribution.
Some of the top ISPs, including Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable, have officially agreed to step up efforts to protect the rights of copyright owners, a move first reported last month by CNET.
“Leaders from the movie, television, music and Internet service provider communities today announced a landmark agreement on a common framework for ‘Copyright Alerts,'” the parties said today in a statement. Copyright Alerts “will educate and notify Internet subscribers when their Internet service accounts possibly are being misused for online content theft. This voluntary landmark collaboration will educate subscribers about content theft on their Internet accounts, benefiting consumers and copyright holders alike.”
Many file-sharing fans and proponents of free content are to sure mock the assertion that this is a benefit to them.
This agreement hands the music and film sectors a big new stick with which to fight online illegal downloading of copyrighted works. The deal doesn’t affect illegal streaming services. The film, music, and software sectors claim that online piracy costs the U.S. economy billions in lost revenue and jobs.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the respective trade groups for the four major record companies and six top Hollywood film studios, have labored for years to persuade ISPs to take a tougher antipiracy position.
Media companies and Internet providers have agreed on a system to put the brakes on the service of users of illegal file-sharing services. The ISPs have agreed to alert customers up to six times if they believe their account is being used to illegally download music and movie, Reuters reports. After repeated warnings via email or pop-up windows, offenders will have their Internet speed slowed down or could find themselves redirected to an educational page about copyright law. Consumers will be allowed to appeal and ISPs won’t be allowed to disclose their identities to the entertainment industry.
Adapted from a talk and slide show I presented at the Open Knowledge Conference in Berlin on July 1, 2011. –NP
Why are the Freedoms guaranteed for Free Software not guaranteed for Free Culture?
Free software is a matter of the users’ freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it means that the program’s users have the four essential freedoms:
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
These are the Four Freedoms of Free Software. They are foundational principles, and they are exactly right. They have served and continue to serve the Free Software Movement very well. They place the user’s freedom ahead of all other concerns. Free Software is a principled movement, but Free Culture is not – at least not so far. Why?
Paley heroically calls to task the advocates of “free culture” for hypocrisy, e.g. in their use of -ND (no derivative works) and -NC (no commercial use) limitations on non-software, “cultural” works.
Eagle Harbor Holdings has named Ford in a lawsuit, contending that the automaker infringed on seven of its patents after talks between the two companies stalled out in 2008 – and the claimed infringements strike right at the heart of Ford’s recent tech expansion.
In addition to claiming that Ford cribbed its technology for Active Park Assist, Stability Control, Blind Spot Information with Cross Traffic Alert and MyKey, the small Bainbridge Island, WA tech firm claims that the technology behind Ford’s incredibly popular SYNC infotainment system. Specifically, the voice control and remote MP3 player connection technology.
Of course the patentee here probably just wants money, but its basis for any damages it requests is based on its implicit threat to seek an injunction to prevent Ford from using features–such as voice control–that can save lives. Yet another case of patents endangering human life (for another: the Fabrazyme situation).
Internet users who share pirated movies and music online may soon be getting an unpleasant surprise: Warnings from their cable and phone providers that detail alleged copyright infringement and threaten to slow their Web connections if they don’t stop.
The new so-called Copyright Alert System was created by a coalition of major film studios, record labels and Internet-service providers, who agreed to guidelines for identifying and notifying Web users who violate copyrights.
Among the ISPs that have pledged to implement the new policy are Comcast Corp., AT&T Inc., Time Warner Cable Inc., Cablevision Systems Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc.
Interesting articles on IP by law professor Chris Sprigman:
“Where IP Isn’t,” by Kal Raustiala and Christopher Jon Sprigman
Virginia Law Review, In Brief, January 22, 2007
UCLA School of Law Research Paper No. 07-05
Abstract:
The orthodox argument for IP proceeds in three steps. First, creative works are often difficult and expensive to create – think of the poet in pursuit of the right verse, or pizza-fueled late nights spent programming a new video game. Second, once the author or inventor produces the first version of a work, others will find it quick and cheap to copy the work. Third, unless the law equips the creator with enforceable exclusive rights, the copyist, having invested nothing in the creation of the work, will outcompete the originator and deny her a return on her investment. The practices of the fashion industry are hard to square with the traditional justification. The global fashion industry produces a huge variety of creative goods without strong IP protection in one of its biggest markets (the United States), and without apparent utilization of nominally strong IP rights in another large market (the countries of the European Union). Copying and derivative re-working of fashion designs are rampant in both the U.S. and E.U., as the traditional account would predict. Yet innovation and investment remain vibrant.
Why, when other major content industries have obtained increasingly powerful IP protections for their products, does fashion design remain mostly unprotected – and economically successful? We argue that the fashion industry counter-intuitively operates within a low-IP equilibrium in which copying does not deter innovation and may actually promote it. We call this the piracy paradox. Our article offers a model explaining how the fashion industry’s piracy paradox works, and how copying functions as an important element of, and perhaps even a necessary predicate to, the industry’s swift cycle of innovation. In so doing, we aim to shed light on the creative dynamics of the apparel industry. But we also hope to spark further exploration of a fundamental question of IP policy: to what degree are IP rights necessary to induce innovation in particular industries? Are stable low-IP equilibria imaginable outside of the fashion industry?
India’s amazing statement on IP and international development
POSTED BY CORY DOCTOROW, APRIL 15, 2005 7:52 AM | PERMALINK
Earlier this week at the UN World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), there was a meeting to talk about how to reform the org to make it into a humanitarian agency that promotes development, not monopoly rights for publishing and pharmaceutical companies.
India’s statement from the floor was so good it should be taught in universities. Check it out:
The real “development” imperative is ensuring that the interest of Intellectual Property owners is not secured at the expense of the users of IP, of consumers at large, and of public policy in general. The proposal therefore seeks to incorporate int international IP law and practice, what developing countries have been demanding since TRIPS was forced on them in 1994.The primary rationale for Intellectual Property protection is, first and foremost, to promote societal development by encouraging technological innovation. The legal monopoly granted to IP owners is an exceptional departure from the general principle of competitive markets as the best guarantee for securing the interest of society. The rationale for the exception is not that extraction of monopoly profits by the innovator is, of and in itself, good for society and so needs to be promoted. Rather, that properly controlled, such a monopoly, by providing an incentive for innovation, might produce sufficient benefits for society to compensate for the immediate loss to consumers as a result of the existence of a monopoly market instead of a competitive market. Monopoly rights, then, granted to IP holders is a special incentive that needs to be carefully calibrated by each country, in the light of its own circumstances, taking into account the overall costs and benefits of such protection.
The Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom (C4SIF) is dedicated to building public awareness of the manner in which so-called “intellectual property” (IP) laws and policies impede innovation, creativity, communication, learning, knowledge, emulation, and information sharing. We are for property rights, free markets, competition, commerce, cooperation, and the voluntary sharing of knowledge, and oppose IP laws, which systematically impede or hamper innovation. IP law should be completely and immediately abolished.
We provide news commentary and analysis and scholarly resources from our unique pro-property, pro-market, pro-innovation perspective.
Follow Us!