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Intellectual Ventures' Patent Protection Racket
David Gerard writes "Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures doesn't sue people over patents, because that would be patent trolling! No, instead they just threaten to sell the patent to a known litigious patent troll. So that's all right then. Timothy Lee details how using patents to crush profitable innovation works in practice, and concludes: 'In thinking about how to reform the patent system, a good yardstick would be to look for policy changes that would tend to put Myhrvold and his firm out of business.'"
that agreement is null and void, as far as I'm concerned:
Copyright terms must extend to 50 years after the death of the author, although films and photographs are only required to have fixed 50 and to be at least 25 year terms, respectively.(Art. 7(2),(4))
I don't follow unethical laws. this is one of them.
fuck this law. don't obey it. (I know, you already are a few pages ahead of me on this).
give me one GOOD reason why copyright should extend BEYOND the author's death. one good reason is all I'd like to hear. and no, 'children of the author' don't enter into this. let them write their own bloody prose if they want to earn a living off words.
you wonder why 'imaginary property' is given the name it has? THIS is one reason. unfair laws that got passed by the aristocracy.
DO NOT FOLLOW BAD LAWS. its ok to ignore them. lots of precedent. follow your own notion of right and wrong and don't buy into the 'rich white men' ideas that continue to keep the ruling class in power (and push everyone else down).
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Never, because all the "discussion" is being done in a gigantic echo chamber that makes it get louder and louder, with no dissenting voices (this posting being a prime example as I am sure it will not be modded up due to my contrarian attitude on patents). Once the discussion does escape the "tech echo chamber" people realize how ludicrous the idea that patents are bad for society is. Patents are proven to be beneficial to society. Its in the Constitution for a reason. Read about it.