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Overture To A Patent War?
Shackleford writes "CNET has an article discussing Yahoo's proposed $1.63 billion buyout of commercial search specialist Overture Services on Monday. Yahoo would acquire 60-plus patents related to technology and processes for indexing the Web, as well as for pay-per-click and bidding systems to grant sites higher placement in search results. The search market is expected to be reap $4 billion in revenue by 2005, according to researchers. As the industry matures, the competition for a piece of that large pie could lead companies to bulk up their IP legal teams, much like in other industries such as online advertising sales during the dot-com bust. And Overture sued FindWhat.com in February 2002 after FindWhat filed a summary judgment request in a New York federal court in an attempt to fend off any potential infringement charge from Overture. Two months later Overture filed a second lawsuit, charging Google with patent infringement in its pay-for-performance ad system. So is this the way the search engine competition will be won? Through patents and lawsuits?"
Guess what? That's the way for companies to survive dude, like SCO VS Linux. There's just too many people on the world.
As consumers become more informed, the pay-for-ranking search engines will fall by the wayside. Just about everybody I know uses Google exclusively specifically because the results are objective and almost always bang-on. Yes, you do get ads with Google results as well, but they're always either directly on top in the sponsored links area or relegated to the paid boxes on the right side.
And, often times, I do click on those paid listings when it's something I really need. The signal to noise ratio is extremely poor when you go to a site in which the top entry pays $0.01 more than the next highest one up. Who's to say which is really the better one? When it's a matter of shelling out the most money, the relevancy goes completely out the window.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
"Two months later Overture filed a second lawsuit, charging Google with patent infringement in its pay-for-performance ad system."
No, god forbid some other company decides to make you pay for services. It's obvious that Overture was the first to come up with that idea, dag nabbit!
In other news, I make 3 cents in royalties for every fork ever produced for the next 3000 years. =)
TLoM: Nerds + DDR + Rednecks for the win!
Gifs are "free" now, right?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
So wait... Pay-per-rankings, paying huge sums of money for existing ideas rather than innovating, seemingly random earnings expectations, and plans to be able to litigate against semi-competitors rather than cooperate/compete and grow...
So.. they're buying their way into obscolescence? Great idea guys.
Ryan Fenton
So is this the way the search engine competition will be won? Through patents and lawsuits?"
I would say yes since the technological battle was won by Google a while back.
The new motto of business: If you can't compete: Litigate!
It is kill the competition by any means necessary. Now even reverse engineering in danger thanks DMCA. All you really have to do is add some kind of "security" encryption mechanism (Lexmark anyone) in your product and anyone can be sued under the DMCA. Congress should be ashamed of itself.
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One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
Software patents disgust me...
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recompile.org
So is this the way the search engine competition will be won? Through patents and lawsuits?
Isn't that how most other commercial competitions are won?
So what's to become of Google? Could this force them to shut down overnight?
Life is not for the lazy.
Ads are okay when they don't jump in the way and Google understands this, thus their advertising business model is not only sound but attractive both to the consumer and supplier.
Yahoo!, on the other hand, is trying to reap way too much of a profit. I'm confronted very ofter with large ads or a page of an ad before moving on to the main content. I used to like Yahoo! but now its such a hassle.
Lawbooks are the new Market Cornering Tool. We can't find new business models to innovate with, so we'd rather sit around the country and sue each other into oblivion..
This country is in for some major comeuppance in the next couple decades.. Its gonna get NASTY.. Just you watch..
The EU is in the process of modifying patent laws and practices, partly after US/corporate pressure. Hopefully we can avoid the worst of the US patent excesses along with it's accompanying lawsuits.
And I've just patented it! Please remove your post good sir.
In the post .com era, with soaring spam (with half the sites they advertise not working, and random crap in the messages to avoid filters), huge flash adverts in the middles of pages, and sites going under every day, don't be suprised to see companies scraping by every way possible. Afterall, lawsuits and patent infringements, are practically the only source of real revenue. How many banner ad clicks does it take to get $1,000,000 ?
Dominance in Web search may be determined by the scope of a company's patent portfolio, rather than its ability to shuttle people to Internet sites.
It's pretty sad that this kind of comment is commonplace these days. Have we all become numb to this idiocy?
When will this end?
When there were patent logjams in the past, the government stepped in (for instance with radio) and helped. That's not going to happen any more, I'm sure...
delphion.
GIFs are free in the US now, but there are still some outstanding international patents on LZW. The LZW issue isn't really about an obselete 256 color graphic format anyway, it's about a general purpose (textbook) compression algorithm being patented. Think "patented bubble sort".
TIFF and several other things can use LZW.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
In other words:
Steal
Patent
Sue
???
Profit!
Anybody up for a good old lynch mob? I think we've been under this IP lunacy for too long; it makes me sick. I fear we may very well have to resort to vigilante justice. I mean, what do you call P2P, the search for prior art, and the whole fsckin' OSS movement? It's an attempt to correct injustice, where government will never on a wide scale favor or condone such measures.
The sad thing is, if things don't turn around soon, it may be the only option.
Oh, and BTW, I at least hope all those modding this as Troll and Offtopic at least read this post; I am, in this case, NOT an anonymous coward.
Every time one of these lawsuits is filed, there's another chance for a judge to say, "this is stupid, goodbye patent".
Karma: Food Fight (Mostly affected by Date Plate).
Friday was my last day as IT Manager at a local company; Monday is my first day as a programmer for FindWhat. This makes me very uneasy because even though it's evident that the patent is crap I could be out of a job faster than I know it. Then again, Microsoft could decide to buy us out. If that happened I doubt that Yahoo/Overture would pursue things much further. As we all know it's hard to fight Microsoft and win. Of course, Microsoft could just screw BOTH of us over if they decided to come up with a pay-for-performance engine of their own. DOH!
"So is this the way the search engine competition will be won? Through patents and lawsuits?""
No, SCO has already patented that business model.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
But other legal experts said they are worried that advancements in search technology might be stifled due to patent conflicts.
Duh.
...this sort of thing (i.e. legal wrangling in place of real "innovation", to borrow Gates's term) is becoming The Way Business Is Done.
I don't like it any more than you do, but let's look at it this way: This sort of thing WILL continue until the public is not only MADE AWARE, but MADE TO CARE about these issues.
Which, of course, is unlikely at best, and impossible at worst.
In my humble opinion and experience, there is only ONE way to motivate the Wrath of the Public nowadays, and that is to convince them that their money is at risk. The public will generally not raise an upcry AT ALL any more (the '60s having brought to a close the era of widespread, effective social upheavals of any sort), but when they do, it inevitably surrounds a "they're trying to take away my money, and I don't want them to" sort of issue.
So, there are only so many ways to deal with the growing problem of corporate litigiousness:
1) Somehow convince the public, in such a way that they could not be swayed again back into the corporate fold by extensive "PR" campaigns like the SoundByte campaign from the RIAA, that this sort of thing threatens their money (highly unlikely, but as I noted it's the only way to mobilize The Masses)
2) Move to another country-- but if it's anywhere even remotely civilized (e.g. Europe, Australia, Japan, etc.), chances are that they are already working on DMCA-like and other pro-corporatocracy laws there... if they've not already passed them!
3) Become a criminal and go burn down corporate infrastructure (and/or murder the "luminaries" of the Corporatocracy world, e.g. Darl McBride, Hilary Rosen, and of course BillG)-- likely ineffective, and even more likely to land you in jail and/or Death Row for the rest of your life (though may I be the first to say that the day Microsoft awakens to find their Redmond campus burned to the ground, I will hold a HUGE party...)
4) Commit suicide in disgust. (A bit extreme, but I'd be lying if I said the thought hadn't crossed my mind. We are living in a global plutocracy, and it's frankly very depressing.)
I wish there was a better way, and I'll probably be modded down as a Troll for being so negativistic, but hey-- I'd like to think I'm somewhat insightful. When Dubya was elected, the first two things I said (after "Oh, shit!") were that (1) we would get into a war (or wars), and (2) that the MS v. DOJ matter would end in MS getting let off with a slap on the wrist. Both came true. So maybe my negativistic attitude here is right-on. I really don't see an end in sight to all of this. The only thing that could stop it is for the economy to collapse so much that even Upper Management would be begging for crap jobs like the rest of us... and I really don't see that happening. In ten years, everyone in the US could be reduced to eating rice and drinking tap water, but Bill Gates will still be worth dozens of billions of dollars, and Darl McBride, as likely as not, will be living on a private (and very posh) island somewhere...
One very important point that the Public doesn't realize is that in a recession, or even in a Depression, all that money that people used to have does not "disappear". The total number of dollars floating about in the US is ever-increasing (even as the value of the dollar fluctuates). What happens during recessions and depressions is that the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. Do you really think that when 99% of the people have fallen on hard economic times, that their money simply disappears into thin air? Nonsense. It means that the other 1% are getting fatter.
Oh yes, and one more thing to bear in mind. Many people's highest ambition in life is to become like these people. Most people entering the "IT" world (that sinister term for the fusion of inferior technology and businesslike ways) dream of being the next Bill Gates. And most people among The Public At Large not only respect corporations and corporate ty
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
As in trademarks, copyright, and patents? If not, then you'll be the one lynched as well. The compromisers and half-assers are just as bad.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Did you know that Overture owns Altavista?
Granted they're not where they used to be, but I bet there is quite a bit of expertise (aka. patents) in that portfolio.
This buyout is much more complex that looks at the surface.
Why wait? Software patents mainly exist in Japan and the US, for the rest of the world implementation can begin right now (some software patents have slipped through in Europe, too, although they shouldn't exist according to current laws, but they wouldn't stand any chance at court).
Declaratiuon of Independance
When was the last time you actually read it and understood how and why its the publics right and duty to correct such injustices?
Lexmark wasn't a DMCA case -- straightforward copyright infringement.
The biggest threat to R.E. these days, however, is the Federal Circuit opinion in Bowers v. Baystate.
They are the masters of leveraging patents. They come in with a big stack of fundamental patents and nicely say: "we've noticed that your company is enjoying our innovation... wouldn't you like to formalize the relationship?" Then two guys named Moose and Rocko help you with your pen.
Moreover, the only way to stop patent wars is to patent the business idea of making money on patent lawsuits.
And when I say "the only way" I mean it: it's really the only way. Well, unless someone will fix US patent laws, but *that* is absolutely unreal, at least in the country where the goverment is of corporations, for corporations.
Less is more !
I read the first line as "Overture To Patent War?".
And thought well that's about as reasonable as Amazon's one click shopping.
Besides they could get hefty licensing fees from any number of countries.
Alright I'll go back to my cave now.
No, the LZW issue *is* about an obsolete 256 colour graphic format -- people are still using it, and steadfastly refuse to switch to its successor. Look at slashdot! Every image on this page is a GIF!
LZW was not a textbook compression algorithm when it was *invented* in 1983. It was -- gosh darn! -- INNOVATIVE! It *deserved* a patent, in 1983. Let me put it this way. 1983. ZIP had not been invented. LHA had not been invented. RAR had not been invented. GZIP had not been invented. COMPRESS had not been invented. All the popular LZ-based algorithms you use today (deflate, LZX) had not been invented! The most popular compressor at the time was ARC, which only used HUFFMAN compression. LZ77 and LZ78 were only just starting to be used. Most people thought of Huffman and RLE when you said "compression".
The problem was that in 1987 Compuserve thought GIF WASN'T patented. Unisys only put them right about that in *1994*. And GIF would be DEAD now if the Mosaic and Netscape authors hadn't chosen the format they KNEW was patented to be the lossless image format of choice in their fabulously successful web browser.
Does my bum look big in this?
Your search found nothing for such relatively common topics as "K6-III+" and "biodiesel".
Maybe you should try to get a job with a company that doesn't suck ?
And what sucks most about the patent arms race is that the average company can't afford to fight patent lawsuits. The typical total cost to do discovery of prior art, write a brief, and submit it for summary judgement on even the most absurd patent is near $500k!
... since most searches are full of irrelevant crap now.
Makes me wonder if DMOZ should even permit these type of companies from using their system.
AC comments get piped to
"So is this the way the search engine competition will be won? Through patents and lawsuits?"
I was searching for a better way, but when I tried Yahoo all I got was advertising.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
I am not installing anything from Yahoo anymore..
Eat at Joe's.
This is getting absurd. Anything that challenges Google is now immoral? Look, the US has a patent system. OVerture did not create it. They are just using it. If they didn't you can be sure someone else would have. The bottom line is that they submitted the patent and it was approved. Write the US patent office if you have issue with it.
When ideas exist outside of time? Nobody authors or create any idea. They only discover it.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
n/t
Begun, this patent war has
So is this the way the search engine competition will be won? Through patents and lawsuits?
Yes, because sadly, that is the American way.
Crap projections like that are worthless. What are last year's actuals?
Search engine revenue may be going down, not up.
I was just trying to head over to www.kuro5hin.org after visiting slashdot and mistankenly typed www.kuri5hin.org.
Guess what? It takes me to this overture search page. Makes me wonder if they've patented the use of commonly misspelled domains. The odd thing is that the whois database says that kuri5hin.org is not registered. The IE status bar briefly showed contact with auto.search.msn.com before turning up the overture page, which is also bothersome. The most logical explanation is that overture is the default search engine for my IE install. But how did it get that way? Do they just hijack unsuspecting user's browsers?
Overture sued FindWhat.com in February 2002 after FindWhat filed a summary judgment request in a New York federal court in an attempt to fend off any potential infringement charge from Overture.
Yeah, it's declaratory judgment, not summary. Summary judgment is a motion filed in an action, whereas declaratory judgments are used to define legal rights. However, since it doesnt really make a difference in the substance of the story, carry on...... I'm such a tool.
Unfortunately, another translation of "make people aware" is brainwashing. Replace the crap they are currently viewing with someone else's crap. It doesn't go anywhere. Can't tell you how many political movements were based upon "re-educating the populace". Most of them died in obscurity (check out the history of European anarchist movement if you're interested. In essence, the same intents.). From my cult. Anthropology class, there were 7 factors in place for any type of revolution (four needed to sustain it). I forget them all (they were like mass starvation, massive devaluation of the monetary system, catastrophic events where the leadership seemed enervate, etc.). The US always seems to teeter on two or three. Anyway, re-educating the populace reeks of holier-than-thou. Better think of another way. And I forgot about the bar-bet I made with my friend concerning Bush and the likelihood of war. Thanks for reminding me.
So is this the way the search engine competition will be won? Through patents and lawsuits?"
No, but it is the way the advertizement wars will be faught. If yahoo keeps up the lawsuits, they'll probably with happy getting some royalties from google.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
There's no law that says patents should only be used in defense. These fuckers who sit on patents, or buy them only to prevent progress (kinda like SCO, I think a company that does this is named 'softbank', not sure though) are kind of defeating the purpose, but still patents are not even intended to be used in defense only.
And patents have nothing to do with the DMCA anyway
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Why should this be won through something irrelevant, like, I don't know, technical merit? Nah. Search engines don't need to be technically superior or deliver good results. The important thing is that someone's bogus patent is protected.
Patent law has always been about cornering the market. That's what it's for. that's the whole point
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
They are getting the numbers out of a database anyway. You think they really just sit there and pull numbers out of a phonebook? All they have to do is remove all the numbers from their DB that are in the NDCL.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Ok, here's another case of company A sueing company B, the one with the most biggest lawers wins. ......or maybe not
Think about this, if Google were to move operations offshore to a little island that thumbs it's nose at the US patent system, from a business standpoint that would be a good thing.
The next person sees what google did to avoid litigious assholes, they set their company up offshore as well, the IRS looses money, more draconian laws for citizens are created......and people just leave permanently.
If these trends continue the US will lose all of it's best and brightest due to lawyers, then the US will be nothing but people on the dole.... and lawyers, oh and the rest of us basking in the sun on a pacific island and no lawyers.
I think the future could go much worse as the top people make the US what it is, a superpower, but with no people left to fill those roles it will be just as relevant as Canada.
(no really....... just kidding, Canada exports fat people in speedos to Florida, I get to make a jab once in a while for that)
Oh man, look at that hottie.....abort abort...Canuk at 5 o'clock.....ahh oh no... retinas singed.....fat hairy dude in speedos, with a whale of a wife...control top, please lady...they shouldn't drag on the ground.
Oh, yeah back on topic here, the only way this problem will be solved is with the lawyers assistance, a law will not work unless it is written by lawyers for lawyers.
Yo, Google and Overture, there never will be a top dog, cooperate and both of ya will make bags of money.
You have IE setup to automaticaly redirect you to MSN based searches. kuri5hin.org brings up the standard IE 'DNS error' for me. Try putting the http:// in front of the URL, at least
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I'm imagining that maybe an even-worse scenario for the web than some quality web sites becoming unavailable due to there companies being litigated out of existence, is a universal presence of web sites whose functionality is twisted in bizarre ways by the demands of avoiding IP lawsuit threats.
Nothing is going to be quite as frustrating to me as having the web sites I visit being generally well-executed and useful, except for pockmarks of infuriating work-arounds to avoid the mandates of common-sense IP restrictions. Think of workarounds for bugs in an application, but the bugs can never be fixed.
I think, ultimately, all the dot.com companies will suffer from this patent infighting. All consumer desires have alternate means of satisfaction in a market economy; unfortunately, people might find going back to the phone to conduct business the necessary next step in the web's "evolution".
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
and they expire pretty quickly, actualy...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Ok, so what's in it for the user? Their search engine is crap compared to google. Maybe some of this money is allocated to pay people to use it?
Don't drop the soap, Tommy!
Last year I passed the Series 3 exam (commodities) and became a commodities broker for a short period of time (they were a bunch of crooks so I didn't last long). We were handed sheets of paper that were faxed to them containing names and numbers.
Now, yes, I could imagine that the broker would trust that the company they get them from ran it through the database. However, given that the cost per violation is something like $10,000, I would bet money that the broker would instruct every salesperson to verify the numbers prior to calling.
Or, the manager who receives the faxes would run each number through the database. My point is that there are costs to comply with this law, and those costs come directly out of the consumer's wallet (in the increased costs to the company of providing goods and services).
Thanks again for your sig. ;-)
If the government was smart about it, they could add "improved services" to the Do Not Call List, so that for $20 a year you could be added to a Do Not Call List for Political calls as well. And an additional $30/yr to not receive non-profit calls. And an extra $100/yr to not receive the survey calls.
Another free porn site is ninenine.com, also advertised here. Again, thanks!
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
If Google is getting sued for patent infringement, would it be legal for google the company to use google the search engine to find prior art?
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
Well, I think most phone monkies simply call the next number on the computer. A lot of places now call people automaticaly and then forward the phone call to an operator only if someone picks up. I guess on low-volume places might not use such tech, but if they are so low volume a 60 second check wouldn't kill anyone.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
So is this the way the search engine competition will be won?
No, because a) Developing workarounds is much cheaper than licensing. & b) Performance is all people want from a search engine. Unless a lawsuit can severely and permanently damage the utility and overall performance of a search engine, even a substantial one time monetary loss shouldn't be expected to doom an established site.
Seemingly all you would have to do is encrypt everything you do or create your own source code and just tell them you are not using their business practice then when they hack your code or encryption then you slam them with a DMCA violation. It's time to bend the laws back at them and create things that cause them to break the laws themselves if they want to find out if anyone is doing something wrong. PISS'EM OFF! ENCRYPT EVERYTHING!!!
In my first year at the university, I had a long talk with a philosophy professor that somehow cared for me (gave me a small copyjob). He wanted to propose me for a special program ("Deutsche Studienstiftung") where you get money for books in exchange for seminars taken with other selected few students. The main purpose of this program is simple: create a place for the eleet to meet. I refused to participate, for more than one reason (I was in my second semester, I was frightened and lazy), but the main one was that I did not want to become one of the students participating in such a program.
He could not understand it, well, many of you will probably not. Why not go for a ride when you have the opportunity?
I refused because I did not want to loose touch with the less protected students. Because I knew that once you're in such a elitist framework, you loose contact with others.
My prof said that "in order to protect or help the less fortunate, you've got to be one of the strong", but I doubt that. If you're striving for the top, the only thing you get is less insight in the real world problems of the bottom. I think this is also true in the economic realm.
just my 2cents
Litigation is inherently a negative sum game. The players litigate, one takes a portion of money from the other (or not), and a percentage (usually 30% or more) is pocketed by the attorney.
Even in the most just and reasonable situations, in which one person is truly injured by another and deserves compensation, the litigation involved decreases the overall pie available to the two principles (remember, that ambulance chaser is getting a third of the money).
When it comes to vastly more insidious things like patent and copyright law, wealth is destroyed for millions simply to line the pockets of a few, with the overall pie shrunk by orders of magnitude just so a few can reap a little more money than the free market would entitle them to.
This is simply the logical extention: get a patent on a business method and eradicate all competition by enforcing the patent. Increase your own wealth modestly (or immodestly) by destroying vastly greater sums of wealth that others might, through their innovation, enjoy.
Patents (and to some degree copyright) are antithetical to free markets and the competition required for capitalism to function in any real sense, and business / software patents are certainly the most offensive of the lot.
Make no mistake about it. The United States, through its litigiousness, is playing a negative sum game with itself, and the only end result of this nonsense is that the entire American pie shrinks and shrinks and shrinks, until there is little or nothing left and the entire nation, intellectual property attorneys excepted, is impoverished. And once the entire economic system collapses, as it surely will if competition is eradicated in such a manner, even they will be joining the rest of the starving masses in the street.
It is an ugly future, one which our attorney dominated policy makers and judiciary have created for us, and one which almost all of us are certain to live to see reach its logical conclusion.
You are right. It is going to get very, very nasty. Indeed, if patents aren't severely curtailed or banned outright (business model and software patents in particular), and copyright rolled back and restrained to its historical role, American capitalism is likely to experience much the same catastrophic failure that communism did, growing ever more ineffecient as ever more monopolies take over ever more once-competative markets. Opportunity is already decreasing, and the curve will accelerate, until there is little left for any but a few priveleged.
We have lawyers, litigiousness, but most of all, patent law made by, of, and for patent attorneys to thank for this appalling mess. Don't expect it to get any better anytime soon, if ever.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
http://news.com.com/2100-1024-986204.html They also are getting into the patent game. Google wasn't making much money before it started infringing on overture's patents, so who is right here? Clearly in no way can you make the case that google is the good guy. They seem like complete hypocrites right now.
Look, I know that /. users love Google beyond the point of rationality, but if you look at the facts, you'll see that Overture is getting unreasonably slammed in this post.
(1) Overture invented the sponsored link industry over 5 years ago. When they started it, they were labelled as being both greedy and stupid (the former because they employed auctions for keywords, the latter because no one thought the idea would work).
(2) Overture filed for patent an the basic ideas, and invested years into making sponsored links work. Guess what? It does work, to the tune of $2B this year.
(3) Google blatently copied the entire business model AFTER Overture invested millions of $ and years of efforts. In fact, Google copied the whole thing AFTER Overture sought to partner with them.
(4) Overture distributes the sponsored links to partners with a revenue share. Google is cutting distribution deals that are non-economic (basically, they are using a monopoly in search to supplement their losing ad system).
(5) People, distribution affiliates, and advertisers all like the results. Make fun of them all you will, but Overture's ads consistantly score higher than Google's on relevance tests.
So, hate patents all you want, but let's be clear about a few things: paid search is keeping the internet alive today. Overture invented the industry and it is the reason why search is now a viable business. Google blatently copied it.
Now, which is the "evil" company?
"One very important point that the Public doesn't realize is that in a recession, or even in a Depression, all that money that people used to have does not "disappear". The total number of dollars floating about in the US is ever-increasing (even as the value of the dollar fluctuates). What happens during recessions and depressions is that the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. Do you really think that when 99% of the people have fallen on hard economic times, that their money simply disappears into thin air? Nonsense. It means that the other 1% are getting fatter."
I think you misunderstand how the economy functions. The total number of dollars in use at any one time is unimportant. The measure of economic strength is how fast those dollars flow around the economy. For example, salaries are measured not in dollars but in dollars per year.
During a recession, the flow of money slows down: investors get worried and so stop investing, companies cannot get the cash to pursue new business opportunities, salaries are reduced, people are laid off, people don't buy as many goods and services, companies make less profits, investors get worried and so stop investing... and so on and so forth in a vicious circle.
So during a recession, the rich don't get richer because they are not investing their money or expanding their businesses. However, the rich are better able to ride a recession out because they have larger reserves of money to spend on essentials than the poor.
No software deserves patent protection.
Copyright: Yes
Patent: No
And yes, I fully understand the implication of this.
That's why I'm voting against Bush.
That's the only saving grace of a republic.
if you really fully understand the implications of your suggestion, well, you have an interesting view of the way our economic system should work.
Has anyone gotten the Overture snail-mail?
My website has been crawled by Overture, and last week I received 26 mailings addressed to every name in my resume! Not only absurdly inefficient, but hideously wasteful.
They're still coming...
This mailing is a 3-fold card stock mailer offering (depending on the mailer) "Increased Sales Leads" or "Overture Helps Your Business Succeed" or "Success Stories". Inside the first is "Overture Helps John Deere Harvest Sales Leads", with an offer to advertise the recipients website, a screen shot of Yahoo!, and other pitches. The second has the same sales pitch, but talks about John Deere, Travelworm, and EverythingHome. The last drops Travelworm and includes Match.com.
The 26 mailers I received weighed over 1.5 lbs in total -- high-class mailers, but just to the names harvested from my site. For sure, I am not the home of NPR's Terry Gross ... but I got one to my address with her name. The names are references, those who have commissioned or interviewed me, composers, sculptors, performers, directors, etc. -- anyone whose name appeared in my resume.
That some really bad data mining and wretched results from Overture -- not to mention that I've got to recycle this mass of stuff that's starting to arrive!
DennisYour first post:
"3) Become a criminal and go burn down corporate infrastructure (and/or murder the "luminaries" of the Corporatocracy world, e.g. Darl McBride, Hilary Rosen, and of course BillG)-- likely ineffective, and even more likely to land you in jail and/or Death Row for the rest of your life (though may I be the first to say that the day Microsoft awakens to find their Redmond campus burned to the ground, I will hold a HUGE party...)"
Your latest post:
"The reason that I hate them is a MORAL issue and has NOTHING to do with their software. "
Interesting concept of morality.