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Category: Intellectual Property

Unblogged Bits (Tue. 4-May-10 1400)

Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….

  1. Maybe Aang Was the Second-to-Last Airbender – Holy … wow. I don’t know whether to be appalled, or ecstatic. A lot depends on who the underlying creative team is.
  2. Rest in Peas: The Unrecognized Death of Speech Recognition: Miss Cellania
  3. Conservatives Want To Deny U.S. Citizen Faisal Shahzad Miranda Rights, Ensuring He Won’t Be Convicted – Oh, Good Lord — I actually agree with something Glenn Beck had to say? Yeesh.
  4. LU Cancels Classes for Lynchburg City Council Election – Have to wonder what the Right would say if it were, say, a union calling a work stoppage to bus everyone to the local polls.
  5. Quote of the Day – I realize the “law & order” types have never been fond of the Miranda ruling (rubber hoses and the third degree, anyone?), but the current harping that nobody accused of terror — or at least nobody “foreign” (even if a US citizen) — should be Mirandized because it’s more important to just beat the truth out of ’em and then shove ’em before a firing squad, rather than shilly-shally about with “rights” and “trials” seems particularly despicable (and, may I say, anti-American).
  6. DORK TOWER, Monday, May 3, 2010 – Oh, Lord — how this describes so many games I have been in. (It’s not necessarily a bad thing, unless you’re looking to actually get gaming done ….)
  7. AFA’s Fischer: Any Muslim Unwilling to Renounce Islam Ought to be Denied Entry to the US – I think a look at crime statistics in the US, as well as a review of Western history, will indicate that Christians are guilty of most murders. I think we should force all Christians to renounce their religion or face deportation. (Just kidding, of course, but, yeesh.)
  8. The United and Continental Airline Mashup – What I note most about the (ugly) logo change is that it finally drops any of the “United [States]” red-white-and-blue imagery. Which may well make sense from a global standpoint, but is still sort of sad. As well as (as noted) ugly.
  9. Captcha Advertising – I’m appalled, but I have to applaud the guy who came up with the concept.
  10. Cuccinelli ditches censored lapel pins, blames the media for making them a ‘distraction.’: Amanda Terkel
  11. SBOE dare not say his name: “Obama” – Yeesh.
  12. Right on cue, McCain starts complaining – So is McCain’s standard now that folks who are likely to face capital crimes should not be Mirandized until they’ve been compelled to state everything they know. Is he actually listening to his own words? Jeez — what lessons did he really learn from the North Vietnamese?
  13. The GOP’s emergency-room argument lives – Money graf: “Sue Lowden’s campaign and its Republican brethren oppose health care reform, but they’ve endorsed the most inefficient system of socialized medicine ever devised.”
  14. Report: FBI Opens Criminal Probe Of Massey Energy | TPMMuckraker – Good. Nice to see some investigation into (if not, yet, accountability for) this sort of tragedy.
  15. Wash. Nuns Investigated By Vatican – Investigated for sexual abuse? Nah. Investigated for “feminism and activism.” Glad the Vatican has its priorities straight.
  16. US citizen from Pakistan nabbed on Dubai-bound plane in Times Square case, to appear in court – chicagotribune.com – Okay, now we’re in a relatively informed place to start talking about this case (on the presumption that the Feds have the right guy).
  17. The American Family’s Financial Turmoil | – Scary Infographic. And, yes, I’m doing better than “average,” but it worries me a lot, as a society and an economy, that this is what the “average” is.
  18. Is Walt Disney World feeling nervous about the arrival of Harry Potter? – I agree. While it may impact some folks going exclusively to WDW, if it draws additional visitors to Orlando it’s likely to add some attendees to WDW, too.
  19. AT&T asks government to create national censorwall and system for disconnecting accused infringers – Oh, that pesky “civil trial” stuff — I mean, if we can bypass it for terrorists, why not bypass it for important stuff, like people who download a song they don’t actually own?

Unblogged Bits for Fri, 2 Apr 2010, 8:00PM

Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….

  1. 5 Ways The Google Book Settlement Will Change The Future of Reading [Publishing]: Annalee Newitz
  2. Preacher Compares Attacks on Pope to Anti – Semitism – NYTimes.com – The more the Vatican criticizes the attacks being made — painting itself as victim instead of the children who were abused — the more credibility and sympathy it loses. And, on another note, hiding behind what your aide did on your behalf is hardly a substantive defense. “The buck stops here,” as Truman put it.
  3. Michele Bachmann: Nancy Pelosi Tried To Incite Something By The Way She Crossed The Street – “And if she’d been raped it would have been her fault, too.”
  4. KFC’s Bacon Sandwich On Fried Chicken “Bread” Starts Killing People Nationwide April 12 – The O.R. one is the same calories and fat as a Big Mac (but twice the sodium). Maybe too much of a good thing.
  5. Star Trek Re-Watch: “What Men Dare Do” – One of the lengthiest and most nicely done April Fool bits I saw all day: part of Tor’s ST:TOS retrospective, in this case a fake TOS episode review. Brilliant.
  6. Obama admin: time to make radio pay for its music – I would rather eat broken glass than fill the coffers of the RIAA … unless, of course, if it were at the expense of ClearChannel. Hrm. While this will likely hurt small broadcast stations (and public radio) more than Big Broadcasting, it’s also clearly a case where something needs to be done to rationalize both the domestic and international markets.
  7. Wes Anderson Is the Hipstery Lord of the Rings – Amazing what a different sound track and some clever cuts will do to a trailer. Amusing.
  8. Topless Robot – The 8 Most Common Ways D&D Characters Die – That’s pretty much the gamut all right.
  9. Improved comment collapsing for Google Buzz posts – Nice. I’m still not settled in my use of Buzz, as it falls sort of between GReader and Twitter without really replacing either. But for what I do use it for, this will be helpful.
  10. Pineberry to Make Debut in U.K. Stores – Hmmmm … need to keep my eyes open for these here in the States. Though I’m generally not a big fan of fresh fruit.
  11. RNC’s Filings Reveal Creative Definitions Of ‘Office Supplies’ – Okay, okay, it’s probably (maybe) just expenses entered under the wrong account code (as someone who both does expense reports and tries to reconcile departmental expenses vs. budgets, I’ve seen this happen a zillion times). That said, it’s still damned funny.
  12. Palin’s 20 House Dem Targets Use Her As A Fundraising Ploy – I suspect her involvement will get more traction from Democrats than Republicans.
  13. Indiana Threatened By Giant Poop Bubbles, For Realsies
  14. Northeast Hit With Devastating Floods, As Federal Flood Insurance Expires Due To GOP Obstruction – Well played, GOP! Let’s all remember this next fall!
  15. Erickson: I’ll ‘pull out my wife’s shotgun’ if someone comes to my door for the American Community Survey. – To summarize: “I’m not advocating killing census workers. I’m advocating threatening to kill them with a shotgun if they come onto my property.” That’s a remarkably nuanced approach for a Erickson.
  16. Scott Roeder gets Hard 50 in murder of abortion provider George Tiller | Featured Story | Wichita Eagle
  17. Can Animals Be Gay? – NYTimes.com – An interesting (and long) article on same-sex mating and social behavior in a remarkably lengthy list of species. That complicates the “‘Tain’t Natural!” argument (though it can still be noted that it’s less usual than male-female activity), but, then, that’s never been the point, to me, of why we should (or shouldn’t) accept homosexual behavior in humans, which boils down to, “Why the heck shouldn’t we? Where’s the harm?” (Note: “I think it’s icky” is not an actual harm.)

Unblogged Bits for Fri, 5 Mar 2010, 7:00PM

Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….

  1. They still don’t know what Medicare is – Still more “keep the government’s hands off of Medicare!” silliness.
  2. McCain slips a little further from seriousness: Steve Benen
  3. Matthew Yglesias » Pentagon Shooting – A fine (and backhandedly positive) comment about how the nation doesn’t freak out when it’s a non-Muslim killer going on the rampage. “Wild overreactions and wholesale reconfigurations of the constitution, of US foreign policy, or of daily life are considered off the table by definition. And rightly so!” If only we were so relatively rational about the other cases.
  4. Sony wants to patent ‘feature erosion’ in game demos, illustrates the idea vividly – It seems to me that, rather than feeling an urge to pony up and buy the game, instead it would leave me feeling more and more frustrated against it, making me less likely to buy.
  5. What Would You Do For $5? – That’s actually really clever. I’ll be curious to see how it does.
  6. What Ten C-17 Cargo Planes the Military Doesn’t Want Would Buy Us : Mike the Mad Biologist – But … but … the JOBS …! Against terrorists! And … and … ACORN!
  7. ‘Lone wolf’ anti-government extremist opens fire at the Pentagon. But let’s not call it terrorism.: David Neiwert
  8. IHOP ad from 1969 will melt your brain – I’m sure some ad exec sold this to IHOP with the pitch, “In the future, ALL commercials will look like this!”
  9. What’s the Harm? Answer: Pentagon Gunman was a 9/11 Truther – The truth will prevail — but it won’t necessarily prevail without blood, toil, tears and sweat. Not everyone who believes something screwy is going to go homicidal — but certainly the sort of folks we see go on these homicidal rampages (organized or not) believe something screwy.
  10. The full-scale collapse: From Murrow to Blitzer – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com – So I guess one has to ask — “Does Wolf Blitzer still beat his wife? Let’s examine both sides of that allegation …”
  11. This Is What Happens When The Religious Right Takes Over Your State – Nice. “Not only are we not going to ensure we don’t discriminate against them, we’re going to make sure that nobody else protects them from discrimination, either.” Time to break out the “Virginia is for Haters” bumper stickers again, sadly.
  12. AFA’s Bryan Fischer Explains That’s He’s The Reasonable One: Kyle
  13. Boulder Catholic school denies preschooler with lesbian parents – The Denver Post – Because, you know, Jesus had the Apostles do background checks on all those children he suffered to come unto Him, right? Nice job, SHJ — what could have been a teachable moment … has become a teachable moment, only with a pretty obnoxious lesson.
  14. 6 Historic Acts of Revenge That Put ‘Kill Bill’ to Shame | Cracked.com – Boy, haven’t you ever just wanted to be able to do so something like these folks did?
  15. Tourist slammed over breaking into protected Maori site – The only positive thing I can say about this story of asshattery is thank God it wasn’t an American (this time).
  16. Pam’s House Blend:: Delusional Collusion – Roy Ashburn’s closet was protected by newspapers, local gays – I concur with George — people’s private lives are their private lives — but when they make a point of hypocritically delving into the private lives of others to condemn them for what they do themselves … they are fair game.
  17. Arizonans flush with anger over loss of rest stops – The Denver Post – Hey, Arizona voters — just remember that next time some pol tells you that “government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem.”
  18. Wisconsin bike Trek sues Marin wine Trek – And, for a brief moment, sanity prevails …
  19. Late Night Music Club – Happy Birthday Antonio Vivaldi – Happy Birthday, Antonio – a man for Four Seasons …
  20. Greg Lewis: Luntz inadvertently shows why Fox News prefers to call reconciliation the “nuclear option” – Words mean things. And notice which side usually seems to be the one to use violent, aggressive, “nuclear” words in politics.

Unblogged Bits for Wed, 3 Mar 2010, 7:00PM

Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….

  1. Amarillo’s Army of God: Kyle
  2. Bachmann To Vote For Resolution Promoting Census After Leading Campaign To Smear It: Guest Blogger
  3. Stars make search more personal – This sounds like a good, useful idea.
  4. The freest and most democratic nation? – I love this country. But driving a drumpbeat of exceptionalism only blinds us to the areas where we fall far short of our ideals.
  5. Judging Books by Their Covers: U.S. Vs. U.K. – I always love comparing book covers between editions, publishers, countries for the same book. Some interesting design choices here.
  6. Days Get Shorter Because of Chilean Earthquake [Science] – I plan on taking advantage of this to catch up on my sleep.
  7. Leverage DVD news: Press Release for Leverage – The 2nd Season | TVShowsOnDVD.com – Glee!
  8. 10 Modern Cartoons That Are Making Children Dumber – Man, it’s hard to argue much with this list. Thank heavens there’s nothing here that Kay insists on watching.
  9. Isildur’s Bane – I’m seriously disappointed by the Obama Adminstration’s actions regarding homeland security and this sort of thing. But it seems a sad truism that, once granted a power, governments never let go of it, and, in fact, use it to argue that they are justified in asking for more.
  10. Working the ref – And, once again, if you can’t win on the facts, try smears instead. (The side note about the GOP firing parliamentarians they felt weren’t being open enough to their own reconciliation efforts is just frosting on the cake.)
  11. The blockade is gone, but it’s not forgotten – Heh. “After all, if the rules let Jim Bunning hold up unemployment benefits for 200,000 Americans just because he feels like it, maybe voters won’t get so outraged when the GOP talks about how important the filibuster is.”
  12. D.C.’s Catholic Charities Dumps Family Insurance So They Don’t Have To Cover Same-Sex Partners – I can understand their logic, as much as I disagree with their reasoning. But I can also understand how that will make them that much less attractive of an employer, and rightfully so.
  13. Virgin America dumps Flash over lack of iPhone support – Good for them. Flash is grotesquely over-used and unfriendly for the web ecosystem.
  14. NC congressman wants Ronald Reagan put on $50 bill – Ronald Reagan – Salon.com – Grant is no jewel I can think of a dozen (or three) other presidents I’d rather see before Reagan.
  15. 17 More Images You Won’t Believe Aren’t Photoshopped | Cracked.com – Fun.
  16. Google Wave Gets a Smarter API – I think Wave needs better/clearer integration with other Google tools. It also needs some success stories in major companies to show how its power can be leveraged and to overcome the critical mass of users problem.
  17. Let’s Do It – That makes me feel much better.
  18. Why DRM doesn’t work… – The core problem with DRM is that it’s intended to keep people away from the product, with an exception to be reluctantly (and partially) made for folks who pay for the privilege. There is little to no incentive for companies to make DRM easier to navigate or less onerous (the idea that their business depends on it is counteracted by their intense fear that online access will destroy their business regardless).
  19. Media Matters staff: Breitbart now calls ACORN tapes “less about ‘criminality’ than facility with which employees all knew how to work system” – Sounds like a top-flight lobbying firm to me …
  20. Todd Gregory: No, right-wing bloggers, the Brooklyn DA is not a “member” of the Working Families Party – Because, of course, when you lose on the facts, the next thing to do is try for a win on the smear.

Unblogged Bits for Friday, 30 October 2009

Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….

More on Amazon’s Orwellian erasure of … Orwell

So much discussion and kerfuffle over Amazon deleting from Kindle accounts (with refund) some books which they’d sold to people (copies of 1984 and Animal Farm). People were rightly upset to discover that Amazon could just take away books that they “owned.”

Amazon’s explained itself a slight bit further, and is also changing how it handles such matters:

An Amazon spokesman, Drew Herdener, said in an e-mail message that the books were added to the Kindle store by a company that did not have rights to them, using a self-service function. “When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers’ devices, and refunded customers,” he said.

Amazon effectively acknowledged that the deletions were a bad idea. “We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers’ devices in these circumstances,” Mr. Herdener said.

This doesn’t look to be the first case this has happened. Harry Potter and Ayn Rand books have been similarly disappeared.

Interestingly, it’s not clear that Amazon was even allowed to do this, based on its own rules.

Amazon’s published terms of service agreement for the Kindle does not appear to give the company the right to delete purchases after they have been made. It says Amazon grants customers the right to keep a “permanent copy of the applicable digital content.”

And for those who take advantage of all those cool features the Kindle gives you?

Justin Gawronski, a 17-year-old from the Detroit area, was reading “1984” on his Kindle for a summer assignment and lost all his notes and annotations when the file vanished. “They didn’t just take a book back, they stole my work,” he said.

Yeah, still an issue.

Unblogged Bits for Friday, 29 May 2009

Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….

Unblogged Bits for Thursday, 21 May 2009

Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….

Unblogged Bits for Wednesday, 06 May 2009

Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….

Unblogged Bits for Friday, 10 April 2009

Links that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries …

Links, excerpts, and scrapes

Doyce shared* via Google reader a Kottke article about “Extreme borrowing in the blogosphere.”  Kottke compares the excerpting used by Dow Jones’ All Things Digital site (excerpting the first few paragraphs, followed by a link to the post) vs. BoingBoing (summarize the content, with perhaps a personal observation, then quote the jist of it).

Kottke’s conclusion is that, aside from not fully representing the (lack of) relationship between the original poster (OP) and ATD, the ATD site is pretty good (his metaphor is “showing the first 3 minutes of a movie and then prodding the viewer to go see the rest of it in a theater”), while BoingBoing (and most of the Blogosphere) make it less necessary to actually see the original because it’s so neatly summarized and extensively quoted (“like the movie trailer that gives so much of the story away (including the ending) that you don’t really need to watch the actual movie”).

I think Kottke makes some good points here, but misses on a few others.  Part of it is that his own blogging style tends to be personal impressions + a short excerpt + link to the original, more like ATD than BoingBoing.

To be fair, there are a lot of people who do something like what BoingBoing does.  I’ve done it myself sometimes, because the OP has said something so sweetly I don’t want to water it down by reformulating it.  I would agree, moreover, that simply quoting the entirety (or even most, or even just the pith) of a post is pushing Fair Use beyond its ethical shape.

But that can be substantially mitigated by personal commentary.  At least that’s what I tell myself.  Introducing a point, then, if quoting extensively, doing so to provide context for responding, mulling, countering, agreement, etc.  That makes a huge difference, as you’re then actually turning it into a dialog.

Kottke also touches on, but misses, a truism about attribution.  Certainly posting content without a link back is unethical (or, when I do it, a case of forgetfulness during the writing process).  The original authors of the piece Kottke discusses are clear that their objections were more the ATD site made it look like they worked for ATD (a fair enough concern).  Kottke’s assertion that the BoingBoing version of the article might be unclear that the excerpt isn’t BoingBoing/Doctorow’s is absurd, since even the reduced screen shot clearly shows the original author’s name, and the clear blockquote has a massive red quotation mark in it.

(I sometimes have trouble on BoingBoing finding the link to the original, but that’s another matter.)

Kottke also argues:

To make matters worse, some readers will pass along BB’s post instead of Schachter’s post…it becomes, “hey, did you see what Boing Boing said about URL shortening services?”

That does happen (and I’ve sometimes done it), and it’s a fairly common phenominon around the blogosphere.  I usually try to drill down to original articles from BoingBoing, etc., just because that sometimes raises some interesting new info.  But even in Kottke’s case, I’m more likely (esp. in a Google Reader share) to just have the Kottke link which then points to the OP’s article.

And occassionally (but more often than you might think) someone will write a post about something interesting, it’ll get linked by a big blog that summarizes and excerpts extensively, and then the big blog’s post will appear on the front page of Digg and generally get linked around a lot while the original post and its author get screwed.

Again, altogether possible.  But I’ve been linked to (once) by BoingBoing and had a huge surge click-through traffic.  I suppose if BB just said (Kottke style) “Hey, great article here about something you should read about,” more people would go to the original.  Or maybe they wouldn’t, but would just stick with reading the next BB article (esp. if they’re browsing via feed reader on a mobile device, when clicking through to another article creates a whole world of mobile hurt).

 One thing I do not do enough of (and I’ve been pondering it of late) is cite the author name in my blog posts about what someone’s written.  “I found an interesting post here about X …” segues directly into an excerpt paragraph or two, whereas it would probably be polite, beyond the link, to say, “Fred Smith has an interesting post here about X …” (I note that BoingBoing is diligent about this sort of thing).

 So, to summarize:

  • Make sure you link to the source article. 
  • It’s better to link to the original than where you found it (but it’s also polite to hat-tip the place you found it).
  • It’s also polite to include the original author’s name; if you’re an aggregating site, don’t make it look, though, like the original author works for you.
  • If you are going to excerpt extensively, make sure you are contributing something to the discussion, not just repeating the original.  Breaking up excerpts with commentary is probably a good rule about this.

 

* sharing via GReader has its own moral conundra.  I tend to dislike RSS excerpts,  since they require clicking through to read, and, as noted, on a mobile device that can be a pain.  Google provides a nice scraper to create a shared post from a web page — is it ethical to scrape an entire article that does not have an RSS feed, or that you don’t suscribe to, or where the original author is just putting out (exceedingly short teaser) RSS blurbs?

Taxpayer-funded scientific research wants to be free

But some folks who want to make money off of it don’t want it to be free.

Congressional Representative John Conyers (D-MI) has re-introduced a bill (HR801) that essentially would negate the NIH policy concerning depositing research in OA repositories.

Last week, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee (Rep. John Conyers, D-MI) re-introduced a bill that would reverse the NIH Public Access Policy and make it impossible for other federal agencies to put similar policies into place. The legislation is H.R. 801: the “Fair Copyright in Research Works Act” (http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.uscongress/legislation.111hr801).

H.R. 801 is designed to amend current copyright law and create a new category of copyrighted works (Section 201, Title 17). In effect, it would:

1. Prohibit all U.S. federal agencies from conditioning funding agreements to require that works resulting from federal support be made publicly available if those works are either: a) funded in part by sources other than a U.S. agency, or b) the result of “meaningful added value” to the work from an entity that is not party to the agreement.

In other words, even if 99% of the funding for research comes from our tax dollars, the government cannot require that the research be made available to the public.

2. Prohibit U.S. agencies from obtaining a license to publicly distribute, perform, or display such work by, for example, placing it on the Internet.

Instead, companies could either choose to keep the research secret, or else charge for its distribution.

5. Repeal the longstanding “federal purpose” doctrine, under which all federal agencies that fund the creation of a copyrighted work reserve the “royalty-free, nonexclusive right to reproduce, publish, or otherwise use the work” for any federal purpose. This will severely limit the ability of U.S. federal agencies to use works that they have funded to support and fulfill agency missions and to communicate with and educate the public.

Because heaven forbid that stuff funded by our tax dollars should be available to taxpayers.

Because of the NIH Public Access Policy, millions of Americans now have access to vital health care information through the PubMed Central database. Under the current policy, nearly 3,000 new biomedical manuscripts are deposited for public accessibility each month. H.R.801 would prohibit the deposit of these manuscripts, seriously impeding the ability of researchers, physicians, health care professionals, and families to access and use this critical health-related information in a timely manner.

Unless, of course, they chose to pony up to whomever decides to make a passel of money reselling taxpayer funded research.

All supporters of public access – researchers, libraries, campus administrators, patient advocates, publishers, and others – are asked to please contact your Representative no later than February 28, 2009 to express your support for public access to taxpayer-funded research and ask that he or she oppose H.R.801. Draft letter text is included below. As always, it’s important to let us know what action you’re able to take, via http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/action/log.html.

Sounds like a worthy cause to me.

(via Les and BoingBoing)

Picture imperfect

So as about everyone has heard by now (I’ve been a wee remiss in getting my blog updated), the AP is going after Shepard Fairey for his omnipresent Obama…

So as about everyone has heard by now (I’ve been a wee remiss in getting my blog updated), the AP is going after Shepard Fairey for his omnipresent Obama poster image, which was based on an AP photo shot by Manny Garcia in 2006.

The AP says it owns the copyright, and wants credit and compensation. Fairey disagrees.

“The Associated Press has determined that the photograph used in the poster is an AP photo and that its use required permission,” the AP’s director of media relations, Paul Colford, said in a statement.

“AP safeguards its assets and looks at these events on a case-by-case basis. We have reached out to Mr. Fairey’s attorney and are in discussions. We hope for an amicable solution.”

 

The use of photo images — especially ones taken as part of factual news gathering, as opposed to posed photos — as the basis for art has long been covered by Fair Use. The artwork has not economically harmed AP, it hasn’t made anyone think that AP was being represented by Fairey (or Obama) — and, in fact, the artwork is a derivative work, no more a copyright infringement than, say, Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup can.

Or so I (who am not an intellectual property lawyer) think.

What’s particularly irksome is that AP has known about this for several months — Fairey’s never hidden that he found the AP picture via Google and used it as the basis for his work — and now, after the election, AP’s come gunning for some “compensation.”

Some people are not so sanguine about Fairey and his story, but this strikes me simply as opportunistic and yet another case of “big media” wanting to flex its muscles for a few smackers (in this case with some unpleasant political overtones).

 

Patent goofiness (yet again)

More details (no use repeating myself) over at Blog of Heroes. Will this madness never end?…

More details (no use repeating myself) over at Blog of Heroes. Will this madness never end?

I’m sure someone will sue over this

One of the more insidious trends in home appliances is making food prep a proprietary, branded practice. This is most clear in the development of copyrighted coffee makers, which use…

One of the more insidious trends in home appliances is making food prep a proprietary, branded practice. This is most clear in the development of copyrighted coffee makers, which use special coffee satchels/pods (available only from the manufacturer or licensed vendors, and outrageously marked up) as a “convenience.” Using the model of Barbies, Razors, and Inkjet Printers, it’s not the initial purchase that costs you, its the accessories/supplies.

So this (spotted on BoingBoing) is pretty cool: a Make Your Own Pods kit.

With CoffeeGIANT’s new electric Gourmet Pod Maker you can now enjoy any of your favorite coffee flavors such as Starbucks rather than just the few choices that are available for your brand of pod coffee maker! Your choices will be unlimited and you can even blend flavors or vary the strength of your coffee or make tea pods as well! No more messy attempts at “do it yourself” pods either. This new machine heat seals your pod and allows you to make either one pod at a time or several to be ready for future brewing.
Makes pods for most brands, including Senseo, Melitta, Simple Human, Juan Valdez, Bunn Home Cafe, Bunn-o-matic, Mr. Coffee, Hamilton Beach, and more.

Of course, you have to buy paper kits for making the pods, not to mention your favorite coffee, but wanna bet the the net cost is way lower than what Braun is going to charge you?

And wanna bet that someone’s going to figure out a way (probably through the DMCA — chips on pods, anyone?) to sue this manufacturer before very long?

Super!

The LA Times is (rightly) annoyed by continuing efforts by Marvel and DC to lock down the term “super hero” with a trademark. Tickets to the California Science Center’s latest…

The LA Times is (rightly) annoyed by continuing efforts by Marvel and DC to lock down the term “super hero” with a trademark.

Tickets to the California Science Center’s latest exhibit, “Marvel Super Heroes Science Exhibition,” sell for $6.75 and up. But there’s one lesson the exhibition offers free of charge to anyone who wanders by the museum, and it’s not about science.

The lesson is in the giant sign looming over the center’s entrance archway: “Marvel ® Super Heroes(TM) Science Exhibition.” The “TM” stands for trademark, signifying that Marvel is claiming exclusive rights to use the term “super hero” as a marketing term for, well, superheroes. The company and its largest competitor, DC Comics, jointly obtained the trademark from the federal Patent and Trademark Office in 1981.

The government’s action means that any company wishing to market a comic book, graphic novel or related item with any variation of “super hero” in the name or title must get permission from Marvel and DC. Dan Taylor, the Costa Mesa-based creator of the “Super Hero Happy Hour” comic, learned about this absurdity two years ago when he was contacted by lawyers for Marvel and DC, prompting him to rename his series to the more pedestrian “Hero Happy Hour.”

The notion of superheroes goes back at least to 1938, when Superman made his debut in Action Comics. The term’s first commercial use, the trademark holders say, was in 1966. Still, it’s hard to think of “super hero” as anything more than a description of the entire category of characters, not a particular brand. As a familiar DC series so aptly puts it, there is an entire legion of superheroes, and their ranks extend far beyond the rosters created by those two companies.

It’s a really stupid trademark claim, and I seriously doubt it would hold up to a serious (deep pockets) legal challenge (which may come about via Sega). But what makes it particularly idiotic is that it’s so unnecessary. People who think of Marvel and DC as the only purveyor of “super heroes” only think that because those are the leading publishers of same. Anyone who sees the term doesn’t think of Marvel and DC per se, but of the metahuman characters they know — for most of the public, that means Spider-Man and Captain America and Superman and Batman and maybe Wonder Woman. They de facto own the reference due to the success of their franchises, which is how it ought to be. But to de jure demand such kow-towing is not only unnecessary, but unseemly. Folks who are familiar with the super heroes from other publishers are going to continue to lump them into the same category, and Marvel and DC just making a legal stink about it will make them seem increasingly petty.

Which won’t make them (or their characters) appear all that heroic at all.

(via BoingBoing)

The Curse of Pooh!

First Paul Winchell, and now John Fiedler has passed away. Fiedler was most popularly known these days as the voice of Piglet — though Bob Newhart fans will remember his…

First Paul Winchell, and now John Fiedler has passed away. Fiedler was most popularly known these days as the voice of Piglet — though Bob Newhart fans will remember his as Mr. Peterson, and Trekkies will know him as the “Red Jack”-ridden Mr. Hengist.

(via Random Ruminations)

Supremes cases

Here’s my uninformed (i.e., I haven’t read much more beyond just the news stories) opinions on some of the recent end-of-session flurry of Supreme Court cases: Ten Commandments: Two split…

Here’s my uninformed (i.e., I haven’t read much more beyond just the news stories) opinions on some of the recent end-of-session flurry of Supreme Court cases:

  • Ten Commandments: Two split (and split) decisions on public display of the Ten Commandments. In decisions sure to displease both absolutist sides (and close enough at 5-4 each to make both sides of any upcoming Justice confirmation froth at the mouth even further), the Court neither outright banned nor outright allowed 10C displays in public buildings. Instead, it provided various factors to consider.In the case of a Texas granite monument at the state capitol, the historical nature of the monument (as well as its presence on the grounds of the capitol as opposed to inside of a courtroom) argued for its retention. It had been in place since 1961, and that seems to have been the deciding factor. While some might argue that the length of time an evil has persisted is no argument to allow it to continue to persist, the passage of time also alters the nature of the offense; clearly, what was seen as a permissible display of state/religious entanglement in 1961 (and over decades afterward) is not necessarily the same as what’s acceptable to do today.

    Which was what the Kentucky case seemed to revolve around. They were an attempt to put the 10C into courtrooms today, both the location and timing of which was seen as sending an unacceptable message of religious preference.

    Overall, the Court refused to offer an overall rule, but indicated that these things will need to be examined on a case-by-case basis, factoring in history, setting, and intent as to what message such an inscription sends. I’ll need to read more to get a better feel for it, but overall I’m at least not aghast.

     

  • Software and Piracy: The court agreed that software companies that produce technology which can be used for piracy and encourage (or do not somehow discourage) such use, can be sued for such piracy. Yeargh. On the one hand, yeah, despite all the legit uses of peer-to-peer, it’s clear that most folks see it as a way to (illegally) swap files, and “hear no evil, see no evil” is a dubious ethical code. On the other hand, not only do I have a visceral dislike for Big Media (even as I shovel dollars in their mouths), but find the idea that one is guilty for what someone else can do with your creation to be … worrisome.
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    I need to review this one more carefully. I fear, though, that most of the write-ups I read about it will consist of either Jack Valenti crowing or warnings of DOOOOM, and I suspect the reality will be somewhere in-between. On the bright side, the Court didn’t actually rule on the case at hand, only that the defense that “We aren’t committing the crime, therefore we can’t be sued for it” doesn’t apply. It seems that the lower court to which the Grokster case goes will still need to rule on whether Grokster intended that illegal file sharing would be allowed by its software.

     

  • Cable Internet: The Court ruled that a lower court was wrong to force the FCC to tell cable companies they must lease their lines for third party cable modem service. Legally (which, of course, is what matters) they may be on solid ground (the Court basically seems to have said that it’s an FCC decision, not a judiciary one), but it means less competition and higher prices, most likely, for cable modem service.
  • Eminent Domain: The Court ruled last week that local governments can use eminent domain on behalf of private developers, not just for public development — i.e., jobs and tax revenue can represent a “public use” under the Fifth Amendment, if so desired by local communities. While on the one hand, I see eminent domain as something that should be a last resort (and hate to see neighborhoods and older buildings demolished on behalf of Big Development Companies who may or may not come through with promised tax revenues), it’s also a matter of (as Justice Stevens noted) recognizing that it is up to the local communities — the local government as elected by the voters, or even the state government — to make that decision, not the Feds. Federalism is funny in that way.
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    So, another one where I can see the legal justification, even if the Real World outcome is not what I’d like to see.

     

  • Medical Pot: Bottom line, if it’s something that can be sold, it can be sold across state lines, which means that it can be restricted by Federal law under the “interstate commerce” clause. Which means that the Feds can enforce anti-marijuana use laws, even if a state has approved pot’s use for medical purposes. I understand the rationale (which has been used and abused by the Feds almost as much as the “promote the general welfare” phrase), but I’m not thrilled (nor surprised) with the application of it.

And so it goes.

In a hole in the ground …

More rumor-mongering regarding Peter Jackson and The Hobbit. Jackson said New Line Cinema has the rights to make the movie, but MGM has the rights to distribute it. “I guess…

More rumor-mongering regarding Peter Jackson and The Hobbit.

Jackson said New Line Cinema has the rights to make the movie, but MGM has the rights to distribute it.
“I guess MGM’s lawyers and New Line’s lawyers are going to have a huge amount of fun over the next few years trying to work it all out,” he told reporters recently in Los Angeles, according to AP Radio. “I’m obviously busy for a couple of years on ‘King Kong’ so those lawyers can just go at it for a long time.”

Jackson said he’d want much the same feel for the flick as the (sequel) trilogy, including bringing back Ian McKellen as Gandalf.

But … is any of that new news?

(via Avocet)

Free Mickey!

I am a believer in free enterprise. I am a believer in Intellectual Property. I am a believer in the principle of copyright, as laid out in the Constitution. Individuals,…

I am a believer in free enterprise. I am a believer in Intellectual Property.

I am a believer in the principle of copyright, as laid out in the Constitution. Individuals, and corporations, that put time and effort into creating something, have a right to the fruits of that labor.

But in the current case of Eldred v. Ashcroft, being argued today before the US Supreme Court, it’s clear to me that Congress, even though they have the power to set the length of copyright, have, by continuing to extend and extend and extend that period, gone far beyond the Constitutional “limited” description.

Under current law, as last amended in 1998, works remain in copyright for 70 years after the death of the creator, or, for works owned by a corporation, for 95 years.

By Congress’ way of thinking — and Disney and AOL Time Warner — nearly a century is “limited.” And that’s assuming that Congress doesn’t extend it again. And again. And again.

Copyright was meant to ensure that someone didn’t create something, only to have others immediately exploit it without providing the creator any benefit. It was not meant to provide a perpetual cash cow to the creator and their heirs (and their heirs).

AOL Time Warner said if the extension were struck down, it would threaten copyrights for some of its movies, including “Casablanca,” “The Wizard of Oz” and “Gone With the Wind.”

Jeez. How unfair. After all, it’s not like AOL Time Warner has ever made any money off of those works. (Actually, given Hollywood accounting practices, they are all probably officially still in the red. But that’s another matter.)

Imagine if only one publisher could print copies of Shakespeare. Imagine if “The Star-Spangled Banner” were still copyrighted and required royalties to play it. Imagine if the Mona Lisa could only be reproduced by authorized distributors.

The idea of media corporations owning such works in perpetuity — effectively what is happening now — is unprecedented since the High Priests restricted reading and writing to themselves. The crocodile tears of Disney and AOLTW are not convincing to me. The “loss of revenue” they claim is countered by the wealth the public will gain as these works become available, and other works can be derived from them. If “Steamboat Willy” is an icon, a classic, it is part of society, and society ought to own it by now, not Disney.