Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 30th Jun 2012 19:34 UTC
Yesterday, we were treated to another preliminary injunction on a product due to patent trolling. Over the past few years, some companies have resorted to patent trolling instead of competing on merit, using frivolous and obvious software and design patents to block competitors - even though this obviously shouldn't be legal. The fact that this is, in fact, legal, is baffling, and up until a few months ago, a regular topic here on OSNews. At some point - I stopped reporting on the matter. The reason for this is simple: I realised that intellectual property law exists outside of regular democratic processes and is, in fact, wholly and utterly totalitarian. What's the point in reporting on something we can't change via legal means?
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RE[5]: copying is anti innovation
by Thom_Holwerda on Mon 2nd Jul 2012 07:46
in reply to "RE[4]: copying is anti innovation"
Member since:2005-06-29
How can a company have an exclusive trademark for a name that was invented by someone else probably centuries ago, (two times, no less,) when even the copyright for the Brothers Grimm's book has long since expired?
Because Disney is one of the most evil companies this world has ever seen. Virtually their entire business is built upon stealing European public domain works and charging money for their adaptations. Walt Disney's earliest work were adaptations of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, right after the 17-year copyright term on the original books had transpired.
Disney then proceeded to push through the insane copyright terms we have today. Disney is pure, concentrated evil. Stealing European public domain works because the company has virtually zero creativity of its own. It's despicable.
RE[6]: copying is anti innovation
by jefro on Mon 2nd Jul 2012 16:16
in reply to "RE[5]: copying is anti innovation"
Member since:2007-04-13
Again you miss the point. Disney made a movie. The movie is protected. You can use other European works and create your own movie or try to re-create Alice in Wonderland. Instead you point your wicked witch of a finger and the US and Disney when it is you who fails to create. It is you Thom who is jealous of or desirous of their fame and fortune. You need to look inside yourself and be a winner instead of a whiner. Disney isn't evil. It is you who can't create like you wanted.
RE[6]: copying is anti innovation
by zima on Sat 7th Jul 2012 23:14
in reply to "RE[5]: copying is anti innovation"
Member since:2005-07-06
Disney is one of the most evil companies this world has ever seen. Virtually their entire business is built upon stealing European public domain works and charging money for their adaptations. [...]
Disney then proceeded to push through the insane copyright terms we have today. Disney is pure, concentrated evil. Stealing European public domain works because the company has virtually zero creativity of its own. It's despicable.
Disney then proceeded to push through the insane copyright terms we have today. Disney is pure, concentrated evil. Stealing European public domain works because the company has virtually zero creativity of its own. It's despicable.
Not only European, and not even necessarily public domain...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_King#Controversies
http://www.kimbawlion.com/rant2.htm
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~tanaka/Tezuka_Disney/
I suppose Disney thinks that the rules they themselves push don't quite apply to them.
But it's worse, since of course no big multinational can live without...
http://www.somo.nl/monitoring/reports/hkcic01-02.htm (edit: ugh, OSNews comment formatting brakes it... somo.nl link should go through archive.org)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2001/06/18/sweatshops_010618.html
(and IIRC, lots of animation work is done in North Korea - not sure if that's Disney though)
Quite lengthy Wiki article, in all... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_The_Walt_Disney_Company
(though, in turn, some of that criticism is of course ridiculous in ~puritan ways)
Overall, what does Disney teach to children? "Pretty blue-eyed blondes always get what they want, and ugly people are evil"
Edited 2012-07-07 23:16 UTC
RE[5]: copying is anti innovation
by zima on Sat 7th Jul 2012 22:46
in reply to "RE[4]: copying is anti innovation"
Member since:2005-07-06
Copyright lasts way too long. After the author's death? Why? How come people who had nothing to do with the work in question are entitled to royalties? My great-grandchildren won't get a penny from my current employer, and that's how it should be. Imagine if all companies had an obligation to pay your salary to your grandchildren, 70 years after you are gone. Plus extensions. And also in that time, nobody would be allowed to fill your job (OK, this last one is not entirely accurate).
It's not so simple; this kind of argument can be easily struck down (or at least, it has a not bad counterargument).
Our descendants can (and usually do, yours most likely will) benefit from physical inherited property, or from virtual, really, financial assets (just some data entries in a database somewhere) - how come people who had nothing to do with the work (in broader sense) in question are entitled to benefits from its results?
So why not for continuing benefits of work which produced "intellectual property"?
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:33 UTC
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
Linked by Anonymous on 06/18/13 22:26 UTC
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:25 UTC
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:45 UTC
"I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:32 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)".
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:58 UTC
"The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:52 UTC
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 21:03 UTC
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 20:46 UTC
"And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 17:32 UTC
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.More News »
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Member since:
2006-09-02
While you are right with respect to the question you answered, in the big picture, the other two IP systems, copyright and trademark, are flawed too.
Copyright lasts way too long. After the author's death? Why? How come people who had nothing to do with the work in question are entitled to royalties? My great-grandchildren won't get a penny from my current employer, and that's how it should be. Imagine if all companies had an obligation to pay your salary to your grandchildren, 70 years after you are gone. Plus extensions. And also in that time, nobody would be allowed to fill your job (OK, this last one is not entirely accurate).
Trademark is no better. From the Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_white : "The Walt Disney Company currently has a trademark application pending with the US Patent and Trademark Office, filed November 19, 2008, for the name "Snow White" that would cover all live and recorded movie, television, radio, stage, computer, Internet, news, and photographic entertainment uses, except literature works of fiction and nonfiction."
So it's OK to write a story about Snow White, -- maybe not on the Internet, though, -- but creating a TV series or drama act is not? How can a company have an exclusive trademark for a name that was invented by someone else probably centuries ago, (two times, no less,) when even the copyright for the Brothers Grimm's book has long since expired?
(And sadly, judging from how they treat software patents, I have not a second's doubt that the UPSTO will grant the trademark.)
Edited 2012-07-02 07:33 UTC