“Nothing is original, says Kirby Ferguson, creator of Everything is a Remix. From Bob Dylan to Steve Jobs, he says our most celebrated creators borrow, steal and transform. Kirby Ferguson explores creativity in a world where ‘everything is a remix’.” In 9 minutes and 42 seconds, Ferguson explains in plain English why patent and copyright law is fundamentally broken.
Bob Dylan is a lyricist genius, no one can match his lyrical genius, to accuse him of being just another copy cat is just ridiculous.
<<<< Huge Bob Dylan fan here, his latest album is a masterpiece.
You clearly didn’t listen to the talk AT ALL.
I just don’t get the point of this. Is the argument that because everything is connected to what came before that there is no such thing as intellectual property? Because if so it’s a pretty silly position to take.
If there is a such a thing as IP then the question becomes trickier – where to draw the line.
If we accept that everything is connected to what came before it that doesn’t really answer any useful question such as at what point is something not original, and therefore up for grabs and can be copied at will, and when is something original and therefore due legal protection from copying. And how do you tell the difference between the two.
I get a bit irritated with attempts to to try to simplify a difficult set of issues and problems. My feeling is that this can only be argued about on a case by case basis, that attempts to create general frameworks or sets of principals leads nowhere very useful and that unfortunately that probably means the only realistic way to resolve IP issues is through endless legal hearings.
Currently for those interested in computing technology there are a lot of high profile IP legal cases running but there is nothing unusual in this. All fields of commerce, industry and technology where a rapid period of technical changes determines the fate of large amounts of money see an intense spate of legal IP action. That is as it has always been and, as far as I can see, as it will always will be. The current spate of actions around the mobile device market will fade just as the spate of actions around the PC revolution faded and as did similar spates of legal actions in other fields of technology and industry faded.
We may root for different protagonists, and have different hopes as to who will win or lose but in the medium to long term it will all work itself out and fade away. In ten years this will all be relatively obscure stuff that only obsessives argue about just like now when issues like who invented the modern computer GUI and the relative roles of the Xerox Parc, Apple or Microsoft have all faded but for the flickering flames of passionate belief kept alive by a tiny group of the obsessed few .
It’s pathetic we have to draw lines to prevent patents like “Searching for Goods on the Internet” or Pinch to Zoom and slide to unlock.
Yes, Searching for goods on the internet is patented.
http://www.google.com/patents/US8214342?dq=Meirsonne+,+Michael%…
Read the overview on that link.
Now, that patent was granted this year.
I can only conceive of 2 logical explanations:
1) That patent office is filled with uninformed, people with little to zero knowledge in the field regarding the patent. ESPECIALLY so for Software. They also never seem to check for prior art.
2) Bribery
Another example would be: http://www.google.com/patents/US6339780
A patent clerk in 1996 might not even know what a web browser was. The name “Micrsoft” probably added some legitimacy to the patent application too.
Another thing I have found, is nobody can seem to agree on what should be classified as “obvious”.
Then again, software patents should not even be legitimate. Software in it’s primal form is really mathematics and logic. Neither of those are patent-able.
Software is written and writing is protected by copyright, not patents. Software only needs a copyright for protection.
See the thing I have found, is nobody can seem to agree on what should be classified as “obvious”.
Heh, I read that just for fun and …holy crap.
This is the first “claim”:
A method to identify a supplier of goods or services over the Internet comprising: accessing a home page stored on a server and accessible to a user via the Internet wherein the home page comprises at least one link to a directory Web site for a class of goods or services having a directory Web site address wherein a portion of the directory Web site address textually describes the class of goods or services for the directory Web site; selecting a class of goods or services having a link to a selected directory Web site corresponding to the selected class of goods or services; activating the link to a selected directory Web site corresponding to the selected class of goods or services, wherein a portion of the directory Web site address of the selected directory Web site defines the selected class of goods or services; and receiving a display of the selected directory Web site, wherein the selected directory Web site contains a plurality of supplier links individually corresponding to and linking to a supplier’s Web site wherein the corresponding supplier offers the goods or services of the selected class of goods or services and a rollover window that individually displays information corresponding to more than one of the suppliers corresponding to the plurality of supplier links in the same rollover window and wherein the rollover window does not obscure other content on the directory Web site; the rollover window is positioned proximate at least one of the plurality of supplier links; the rollover window displays information about a first pre-selected supplier when a user pre-selects a first supplier link; and the same rollover window displays information about a second pre-selected supplier when a user pre-selects a second supplier link.
Yes, it’s all in ONE sentence and I have no idea what the hell it is trying to claim.
What, if you write long enough sentence that no-one understands they’ll just grant your patent out of exhaustion?
I kinda gave up when reaching claim 10, which is another marathon sentence, but from I can gather this patent is utterly retarded and should never have been granted.
Patent claims are written entirely by lawyers. These are the type of people who never pass up a chance to write two words where one would do.
The description section tends to be slightly better than the claims section, because the lawyer will usually start from the description supplied by the original inventor. Because the lawyer didn’t write the whole thing, you can occasionally see some English poke through.
Lawyers like to make the law seem difficult, so that people feel that they can’t tackle legal affairs without them. Just as an example, the legal documents in the Nolo books are much shorter and simpler than the typical document produced by American lawyer:
Nolo: “I, name, of City, State, declare that this is my will. I revoke all wills that I have previously made.”
Typical lawyer: “I, Name, of City, State, being of sound and disposing mind, do hereby make, publish, and declare the following to be my Last Will and Testament, revoking all previous wills and codicils made by me.”
Both are equally valid, and both have been tested in court. But one of them is loaded with useless language that has absolutely no legal effect.
(For example, declaring that you’re “of sound and disposing mind” doesn’t make you so — and it doesn’t help if someone challenges your will in court on the basis of insanity.)
Edited 2012-09-18 20:24 UTC
you forgot 3
aspecially the USPTO earns its money through granting a patent
so they are very motivated to do a bad job with their reviews
The reason why IP doesn’t exist is because copyright, patents and trademarks are completely different from each other and should not be lumped together under IP.
Intellectual Property is designed to be a vague concept, because it allows ideas themselves to come under the category. The ability to fence off ideas is ridiculous, but that is what the concept of IP is intended for and is doing.
Never heard of the “Infinite Monkey Theorem” i reckon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem
Edited 2012-09-17 21:33 UTC
WELL, he’s no Neil Young.
Your Trolly,
Fretinator
Yip, it’s totally subjective.
Leonard Cohen
Suzanne Vega
Tom van Zandt
Sixto Rodriques
………
………
………
I was just thinking… If speech obeyed the same laws as industrial products, could TED talks still exist ?
After all, what TED speakers do is to take good ideas that have been flowing around in the R&D world for a while, think about them a bit, and put them in a very well-designed package : a talk that’s concise, clean, and easy to understand for everyone. When they do so, they generally don’t owe people who’ve been working on these ideas a dime, yet they will take credit for that work : people will often mention their name when they pass the talk’s video around, they will have a higher chance to be hired on a job concerning the matter that was discussed, and so on.
Isn’t it exactly what current IP law has been designed to prevent ? If the legal system had some coherence, shouldn’t ownership of concepts also mean ownership of free speech about these concepts ? Or, on the other side of the fence, should we ditch the whole “intellectual property” thing altogether and work on another legal system that protects creation without being fundamentally based on the ownership of specific ideas and language constructs ?
Edited 2012-09-18 07:32 UTC
Neolander,
I’ve often mentioned that granting legal ownership of ideas in the software field is akin to granting ownership of ideas in arts & humanities. Most people can agree that patenting literary works is bad because they can understand what it is authors do. They’d want to be able to write about whatever they please regardless of who’s done it before. As long as the author does his own work and doesn’t copy anything outright, all ideas are fair game. The public cannot generally relate to software developers, be we really do feel the same way about our profession – I feel entitled to work on whatever I please regardless of who’s been there before me.
It’s a great observation that the people at TED do a good job of echoing ideas that have been put forward by others in their fields. Arguably you are right, they “stole” the ideas, and arguably the “owner” might be entitled to legal compensation for it. It’s pathetic, and though some extreme IP advocates (aka patent laywers) might love the concept of patenting presentations, I doubt it could actually happen because for most people this would hit too close to home. At the extreme – every school child could be liable for infringement when they copied the ideas of others in their reports, etc. We should instead recognise that copying is natural (*). It’s not copying for the sake of copying, but rather copying and then adding our own personal touches. Anyone who believes they have a truly original idea is probably living in a very small world.
How much do I owe you for that one Kirby Ferguson?