Why do I say this? (It's from this article (Mike Masnick, TechDirt).) Read on, dear readers.
I have previously written about patent troll company Intellectual Ventures and how they claim to invent new things when all they do (aside from not inventing a single thing) is buy other companies' patents for the sole purpose of suing people who infringe upon those patents. Well, that concept seems to have been extended to Righthaven, which is a copyright troll. All it does is buy newspaper articles' copyrights for the sole purpose of suing people who infringe upon these copyrights, and it, unlike Intellectual Ventures, seems totally honest about its motives — instead of couching its actions in language about how newspapers cannot afford to lose in the fight against copyright infringement and piracy, its CEO essentially says straight up that it's out to make the big bucks by filing as many lawsuits as possible. Furthermore, it's going after people who write content online who copy even small portions (e.g. sentences, small paragraphs) of published articles and give proper attribution (and who link back to the original articles); I think this is a violation of the ideas of fair use and attribution, all for the purpose of making money.
So what's the news here? Well, not only is Righthaven suing the pants off of some websites that republish small parts of articles and attribute and link to them properly, it's even demanding that these sites hand over their domain names. What?
The TechDirt article is probably right (or so I hope) that this is most likely a scare tactic, in that most websites would rather settle the lawsuit out-of-court than fight, lose, and actually give up the domain name, as almost all defendants have settled out of court, while none have actually ceded their domain names. That said, assume for a moment that Righthaven is serious about its demands.
What does this mean? Imagine for a moment that Jill stole a lamp from a store to decorate his house. The analog of what Righthaven is doing is if after Jill returned the lamp to the store (under the force of the law) and served his jail time, the store owner further demanded possession of Jill's entire house and its contents.
No, that isn't quite accurate either. Imagine again that instead of Jill stealing a lamp, Jill borrowed a screwdriver from Dave to fix Bonnie's bicycle, told Dave what she was going to use the screwdriver for and when she would return it, and told Bonnie who the owner of the screwdriver was and when she would return it. Righthaven's actions are like Dave accusing Jill of stealing the screwdriver, taking her to court for it, and demanding repossession of both Jill's house and Bonnie's bicycle.
Is that a good analogy? It's something I thought of at the spur of the moment, so let me know how I can improve on this in the comments. In any case, isn't the whole sage just ridiculous?
Showing posts with label troll. Show all posts
Showing posts with label troll. Show all posts
2010-06-20
Patenting Yoga is Patently Stupid
Or is it?
It comes from an article I read yesterday in the ([gasp] PRINT!) newspaper. It deals with the commercialization of yoga and the patenting of yogic asanas in the US.
The article says that many asanas are patented in the US, of course just to make a bigger buck. In India, these same asanas cannot be patented as they qualify as "traditional knowledge and methods" (which cannot be commercialized). The problem, of course, is that the US's patent laws preempt all other countries' patent laws, so this may (unfortunately) change in India as well. Thankfully, as it stands, yogic asanas cannot be patented. To ensure that this is so, many (both religious and secular) practitioners of yoga are compiling libraries of asanas and having them approved as "traditional knowledge" to ensure that they can never be patented in India.
I applaud this measure. Sure, companies need to make a buck somehow. But what about those people who practice yoga through traditional means instead of going to a company's yoga program? Would they be patent violators?
Of course, the same goes for the commercialization of ayurveda and basmati rice. As both are part of traditional Indian culture, they will undoubtedly be protected at least initially in India, but not in the US. In fact, ayurveda already goes under several different trademarked names in the US, while basmati rice has been patented by an agricultural company (oh, the gall!). The problem eventually becomes, in each case, the US's broader patent laws causing other countries legislating to achieve parity in the scope of patents. This means, then, that traditional practitioners of ayurveda would eventually be considered patent violators; something similar to the effort to stop the patenting of yogic asanas would need to be undertaken here. The case of basmati rice is more serious; farmers of basmati rice in India who already make pretty meager livelihoods (at best) would be completely put out of business.
It comes from an article I read yesterday in the ([gasp] PRINT!) newspaper. It deals with the commercialization of yoga and the patenting of yogic asanas in the US.
The article says that many asanas are patented in the US, of course just to make a bigger buck. In India, these same asanas cannot be patented as they qualify as "traditional knowledge and methods" (which cannot be commercialized). The problem, of course, is that the US's patent laws preempt all other countries' patent laws, so this may (unfortunately) change in India as well. Thankfully, as it stands, yogic asanas cannot be patented. To ensure that this is so, many (both religious and secular) practitioners of yoga are compiling libraries of asanas and having them approved as "traditional knowledge" to ensure that they can never be patented in India.
I applaud this measure. Sure, companies need to make a buck somehow. But what about those people who practice yoga through traditional means instead of going to a company's yoga program? Would they be patent violators?
Of course, the same goes for the commercialization of ayurveda and basmati rice. As both are part of traditional Indian culture, they will undoubtedly be protected at least initially in India, but not in the US. In fact, ayurveda already goes under several different trademarked names in the US, while basmati rice has been patented by an agricultural company (oh, the gall!). The problem eventually becomes, in each case, the US's broader patent laws causing other countries legislating to achieve parity in the scope of patents. This means, then, that traditional practitioners of ayurveda would eventually be considered patent violators; something similar to the effort to stop the patenting of yogic asanas would need to be undertaken here. The case of basmati rice is more serious; farmers of basmati rice in India who already make pretty meager livelihoods (at best) would be completely put out of business.
2010-03-22
They Call Them Heros, We Call Them Trolls
I get it from this (Glyn Moody, ComputerWorld UK) article.
Basically, an ex-Microsoft employee has founded a company that simply buys up all the patents it can and then licenses them at high fees. They don't actually do anything with the patents.
The saddest part (and this is to those who will come in defense of the inventiveness of the company) is that the companies spokespeople themselves have admitted just this.
At least they have the honor to admit that what they are doing might not be on the highest moral grounds. (Mr. Moody, I disagree with your assertion that this is a bad thing. At least they are being upfront about the ethics of their actions.)
Moody's title is "Beware of the King of the Trolls". I think this may merit a little more explanation: on the Internet, people who "yell" and "scream" (using all-caps, bad grammar, and poor spelling) unsubstantiated claims are called trolls. This is exactly what the company is doing - making unsubstantiated claims to would-be inventors about patents just to scare them off.
People on the Internet ostracize trolls and ban them from message boards and such. Would it be so hard to "scale it up"?
And for those people who think I am against patents, while I think that usually individual patents work for the individual and for society, these corporate patents are the things against which I rail.
Basically, an ex-Microsoft employee has founded a company that simply buys up all the patents it can and then licenses them at high fees. They don't actually do anything with the patents.
The saddest part (and this is to those who will come in defense of the inventiveness of the company) is that the companies spokespeople themselves have admitted just this.
At least they have the honor to admit that what they are doing might not be on the highest moral grounds. (Mr. Moody, I disagree with your assertion that this is a bad thing. At least they are being upfront about the ethics of their actions.)
Moody's title is "Beware of the King of the Trolls". I think this may merit a little more explanation: on the Internet, people who "yell" and "scream" (using all-caps, bad grammar, and poor spelling) unsubstantiated claims are called trolls. This is exactly what the company is doing - making unsubstantiated claims to would-be inventors about patents just to scare them off.
People on the Internet ostracize trolls and ban them from message boards and such. Would it be so hard to "scale it up"?
And for those people who think I am against patents, while I think that usually individual patents work for the individual and for society, these corporate patents are the things against which I rail.
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