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DVDCCA Claims Patent on CSS
An anonymous reader writes "After dropping their suit against Andrew Bunner, DVDCCA has filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against 321 Studios. This is an interesting claim, because since patents are published, something can not be both patented and a trade secret."
Intellectual property is a myth. You CANNOT and SHOULD not be able to own an idea. I am beginning to think that this may be a real turning point in civilization as we know it. Imagination and the associated innovation based off that imagination is what makes us able to do so many amazing things. Now, you can imagine building something to change the world, you can even imagine how to build it, but if someone has previously thought of it, you are in for a losing legal battle. This may be an extreme statment with regard to software patents, but the premise is frightening in either scenario. This is a legal restriction on free thought and development. Software patents are just one piece of the larger takeover.
But of course you should be able have the right to call an idea your own and have it recognized as such. As a scientist I will jealously guard my research and results up to practical applications as my own property. I have patents and will defend those if necessary.
Completely restricting the use of an idea is a completely different thing, though. That's not what patents were invented for - it's only today that the big corporations have begun to see copyright and patents as tools for hoarding and hiding information.
The owls are not what they seem
But of course you should be able have the right to call an idea your own and have it recognized as such.
But if I should come up with the same idea through my own research whilst being completely unaware of yours, I shouldn't have the right to call my idea my own and have it recognised as such?
It should cut both ways or not at all.
But of course you should be able have the right to call an idea your own and have it recognized as such.
And why "should you"?
As a scientist I will jealously guard my research and results up to practical applications as my own property. I have patents and will defend those if necessary.
Yes, I have no doubt that you will be "jealous" and display all sorts of other annoying behaviors so common of academics.
However, what you are completely overlooking is that "your" research and "your" results are based on centuries of tradition and thought by others. Your work has only been possible because others shared their ideas freely.
Furthermore, your patents keep other people from using the idea even if they themselves came up with it independently. It is just an accident that you happened to have filed the patent on "your" idea first. Chances are, in fact, that others had the same idea before but didn't patent it or did publish it.
Let me repeat that: your patent keeps other people from using their ideas that they themselves came up with independently. How do you justify that?
Completely restricting the use of an idea is a completely different thing, though.
That's what patents do: for about 20 years, the patent holder gets nearly full control of the invention. Patents don't even have academic or research exemptions.
That's not what patents were invented for
That is exactly what patents were created for: to give inventors exclusive use of an idea for a limited amount of time. And, at least since the times of Edison and Watson, corporate patent portfolios have been a big thing. It's just that barriers to entry into many markets were so strong for other reasons that they didn't have to use their patent portfolios much until now.
I guess when the whole trade secret thing stops working, it's time to patent!
I use Gordian Knot to encode DVDs (uncopyrighted religious movies that just happen to be CSS 'protected' ;), and it takes more effort then I'd like. I have to make decisions, for crying out loud!
The only effective way to stymie the illegal copying of DVDs is to make the purchase price attractive enough that they'd rather just buy it. In my opinion, if you appeal to the lazy in people, you win.
First off, the Eolas patent is a terrible example of a patent. Mentioning it alone shows how broken the system is. The number of bad patents issued in recent years is more then a bit scary.
But, let us ignore the merits of the Eolas paten itself. Instead let us examine what Microsoft has done and can do. MS has enough lawyers to comfortably fight any patent is chooses. If they see a patent they don't like (and can't buy) the can challenge it. Can you afford to challenge a patent? What about 10? What about 1000? MS can.
They can also afford to ignore a patent. They can do whatever they want, ignoring what the patent holder wants now, and pay for it later. If I thought I would have to pay a multi-million dollar settlement for ignoring a patent I wouldn't do it - I can't afford it. MS can.
Money DOES equal power and pretending it doesn't in a civil arena is disingenuous. Nobody "Rules the world" but corporations of MS's size can afford to abuse the system - almost anywhere they want.
Many anti-corporation people are just "wacko" - they will make claims that make no sense. However with size comes privilege and if there is one thing Microsoft has it is Size.
What do you say to the man that has nothing? Cast it away!!
The laws as they stand today ignore this distinction and, as such, directly inhibit the creativity they are designed to protect. If the mouse trap were invented today, the inventor would not only be able to patent his design but the very idea of "catching mice". Than the world would have had to wait 20 years before someone could propse a better way.
We are in the very first dawn hours of modern technology and though our ideas may seem extremely special to us today they'll be nothing but the the wheel of tomorrow.
Don't be a dope. He didn't say that property should be free, he said that "intellectual property" isn't property. He's also quite correct. The term itself was concocted in the 19th century to make the ownership of ideas sound less absurd. Ideas can't be property, as their very nature fails the definitions of property. First and foremost, they cannot be scarce; i.e. if I you express your idea to me, we both have the idea-- sharing doesn't diminish it. What we have currently is a system of [patents/copyright/etc] that allows intangible things like ideas, music, and stories to be treated as if they were property. This is provably true: when one buys song from its writer, what you're transferring is the copyright-- you likely already have the song. Same thing with patents. This isn't about capitalism vs. communism. It's about free market vs. gov't granted monopolies. There has to be a balance and currently the USPTO isn't doing a good job.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
"For example, without patents, companies that develop new drugs would quickly disappear."
Heh. They already have. The remaining ones arent developing any new drugs, they're developing new proprietary versions of aspirins that arent better than the old ones except they're patented. Then they send the doctors on golfing trips so they'll prescribe new expensive versions of the same old shit instead of cheap generics.
Well, except the ones that are developing various organ enlargment pills.
I'd place a bet that we'd get more useful medical research done if we scrapped the patent system, kicked the pharmaceutical corps out and relied on public and charity funding for research.