Bringing infringing suits against consumers is a bad idea. This seems to be the message of Canadian music publisher Nettwerk. 15-year-old Elisa Greubel’s dad got sued by the RIAA for having 600 songs in their computer, alleging specifically infringement for 8 songs. Elisa contacted some artists, where she mentioned that Read more…
“By day a film maker… by night she fights for Fair Use!” This is ‘Bound By Law’, a new comic book by the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke University. It is drawn by Keith Aoki and written by James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins. In the Read more…
One of Britain’s most iconic copyright exports is back. The new Lara Croft game will be released soon by British gaming giant EIDOS. How much of Britain’s economy relies on Lara? Perhaps not much on Lara specifically, but the UK is increasingly relying on copyright exports. 5% of all of Read more…
It seems like the final break between open source and free software is about to take place. Linus Torvalds has declared that the Linux kernel will not be released using GPLv3, but that it will continue to use version 2. The dispute is the controversial prohibition on the use of Read more…
The USPTO continues to amaze me. I mean, one would hope that any silly patent that can be awarded has already been granted. How could it get any worse? Regard US Patent 6,751,348 for protecting an “Automated detection of pornographic images “. The abstract states that the patent covers: A Read more…
(Via IPKat) It seems like everywhere one looks these days the techie press and the blogosphere are all talking about Google. First Google and China, then the Google Search function. All interesting stories, particularly the strange fascination with “free porn” on the part of American lawmakers and Fox News (surprise, Read more…
I thought that I had read it all when it came to silly patents. Apparently not. The Register reports on U.S. patent application 20060015812 by mobile giants Cingular, attempting to patent the use of emoticons in wireless devices. The abstract reads: A method and system for generating a displayable icon Read more…
(via IPKat) A very unfortunate turn of events for innovation. The U.S. Supreme Court will not hear the case of Research in Motion Ltd (RIM), the inventors and makers of the famous (and perhaps infamous) Blackberry, versus patent trolls NTP Inc. RIM has been trying to attack an injunction against Read more…
I have become addicted to The Truth Laid Bear‘s rankings. Incredibly, I’ve been upgraded to Multicellular Organism (I was an Insignificant Microbe just last week). I have decided to place a link indicating what my status is. I have also noticed that I have now received more than 10,000 hits Read more…
(via Denis Magnusson). How much are your illegally downloaded copyright works worth? (well, they are not really yours, they belong to the copyright owners, but you know what I mean). Use the piracy calculator and find out! I was surprised of how little my stuff is worth, but I have Read more…