Slashdot Mirror
USPTO Publishes Suggestions For Intellectual Property Enforcement
First time accepted submitter rjkimble writes "In June, the USPTO solicited proposals for voluntary best practices supporting intellectual property enforcement, especially against infringement that occurs online. It received 23 responses from individuals and organizations, including Google, the EFF, and the MPAA and RIAA. [On Wednesday] they were posted to the USPTO web site."
I would post my comments on it. But I'm not a powerful lobbyist with a shitload of campaign donation money or political influence (aka one of the "Member Organizations and Associations"). So I guess my opinion doesn't matter to them.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
google: I guess just...takedown notices, or DMCA takeouts, or whatever it is you want in response to twerk team videos and spiderman endings.
EFF: %s/intellectual property/imaginary property
MPAA: whats the name of that jellyfish with a sting that causes weeks of agony? that one. thats our suggestion.
RIAA: In the eyes.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Patent enforcement should be a civil matter.
I'm sure the USPTO has already received a DMCA takedown request from an automated bot, claiming the copyright enforcement suggestions as copyrighted material.
You simply missed the comment period. The problem is, they get posted in the Federal Register, which the general public never reads.
If *that* had been posted to Slashdot, it might've been more useful. As it was, there were 6 people who submitted something as individuals who potentially will have some influence ... out of hundreds who might've otherwise taken some time to make sure that decision makers knew the voters cared enough to take a bit of time to write a letter.
Generally, I hear about these things way too late to be useful. ... for that one,I tried to find out what the process would be for a professional society that I was a member of to submit an response ... and it turns out they already knew about it, and submitted something the exact opposite of what I thought was important, and only served to piss me off.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
PDFs. Amazing that in 2013 these guys still don't know how to put up web pages.
I read a couple but eventually tired of the annoyance. Someone who is more patient, tell me this: did any of the PDF ideas, happen to suggest that one way to smack down piracy, is to .. oh, I don't know .. SELL working copies of the potentially infringed work? You know, as in, if I can buy an authorized copy of Movie.mkv instead of pirates being the sole source, that it might reduce piracy?
If most of the PDFs don't include that idea in some form (and the ones I saw, didn't), then it's hard to believe that anyone was really taking the question seriously, and that USPTO mas making a legitimate and serious effort.
What i do is privacy, what i write, specially in private, is intellectual property. So first take out the biggest offenders in intellectual property violations (NSA and associated/contracted companies) and then we maybe could consider about enforcement in other areas.
Here are some suggestions on how to reduce piracy in Australia:
1.Reduce (if not eliminate) the delay between the release of a film in the USA and the general cinema release in Australia. Right now I could go onto any number of pirate sites and download a very much watchable copy of "White House Down" (probably a screener rip) even though it isn't in Australian cinemas yet.
2.Make more old films and TV available on DVD so people dont need to pirate them. I have a copy of Young Einstein (classic Aussie film) on DVD but I had to grey-market import a Region 1 copy to get it. Its ridiculous that so much content just isn't available in Australia even when its available on DVD in other countries.
3.Stop giving Foxtel (and other pay TV operators) exclusive rights to shows. If the only way to get a TV show is to buy Foxtel (and possibly a channel package on top of that) then to hope that Foxtel airs the show you want to see then people will pirate it. If its available on a digital download service like iTunes or Google soon after its US airing (and at a reasonable price), people will have an incentive to buy it rather than pirating it.
4.Stop delaying the local airing of TV shows and air them sooner. Under The Dome is the perfect example of how this should be done, its being aired on local free-to-air TV hours after the US airing AND if you miss it on TV, you can watch the episode on a "catch-up" TV website free and legal.
How does the general population think we should deal with all the issues surrounding Intelectual property, such as blatant violations of your privacy, your rights to free speach, the coercion of your own free choices, and other civil liberties?
It shouldn't be possible to violate a patent on the internet. Transmitting data should not be patent infringement. If so, then hosting patent documents on the net would be infringement. Software source code is the ultimate description of HOW to implement something, so it should be immune (IANAL) even for software patents. I suppose an executable would constitute infringement where software patents are allowed. But WTF does RIAA and MPAA have to say about patents anyway? They're all about copyright. Right?
Suddenly, I realized that there actually was nothing of interest here at all.
5. careful with that geo-pricing schemes.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Piracy actually proves just how valuable the IP is.
It doesn't matter how much it costs you to produce. You also need to take into account opportunity costs of giving up other activities you could spend your time on.
And in the free market, opportunity costs count because they drive supply.
I'm not ok with piracy.
But I am ok with indies and open source software that give the proprietary media (both software and entertainment) a run for its money.
If all of this intellectual property stuff is so much like real property, then why don't we see law enforcement treat IP theft like the car thieves in my town? Steal my shitbox beater and the cops will risk their own lives, the lives of the criminals plus any innocent bystanders in pursuit of the crapmobile. They'll put down spike strips or ram it to get hold of the thieves.
So, when Microsoft, Apple, or Google steals my invention, who do I call to bring on the SWAT team?
Have gnu, will travel.
Right now I could go onto any number of pirate sites and download a very much watchable copy of "White House Down"
Yeah, I don't think any copy of that movie counts as watchable
(This has been the obligatory snarky comment about the quality of the movie you provided as an example. I actually think it looked kind of funny.)
A. Member Organizations and Associations
Independent Film & Television Alliance (2013JUL22) -- Our business exists on licensing agreements. We want to keep strict control over the scope of those agreements, but we are cool with third parties such as ISPs, advertising providers, and payment processors doing our enforcement for us. Thanks in advance (suckers).
Recording Industry Association of America (2013AUG17) -- Well said IFTA, but you forgot search engines and cloud storage providers. They should work for us too. We recommend the PTO think long and hard about this issue so we can continue lobbying around you in the background. PS -- trust these attached academic papers which may or may not provide multiple perspectives and may or may not be funded in part/whole by us or our interests.
International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (2013AUG21) -- We need to get all payment providers & monetary institutions signed up for our DMCA Takedown for Payments system. No false positives or your money back!
Center for Copyright Information (2013AUG21) -- The Copyright Alert System is probably working, but it would be impossible to prove that using empirical data. But we can't prove it's not working either so let's just keep marching.
Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies (2013AUG21) -- Counterfeit medication is dangerous. We should be diligent in our efforts to reduce this problem.
Public Knowledge (2013AUG21) -- Efforts to combat infringement must not themselves infringe on the rights of individuals. "Under the Dome" name drop. It will be hard to determine if any of these programs are actually working and publicly available data is an important part of that evaluation.
Center for Democracy & Technology (2013AUG21) -- We agree with PK about transparency. We also specifically call out CCI on this issue.
Motion Picture Association of America (2013AUG21) -- Hey, IFTA & RIAA, don't exclude anyone. We are all in this together. Let's include everyone in the enforcement gang (I'm looking at you, user generated content sites). Also, we can probably just guess some statistics if we need to.
The Internet Association (2013AUG21) -- We really need to reevaluate the entire copyright system. These initiatives may not be providing any long term benefit. Lets focus on productive solutions like increasing legal sources for content.
Association of American Publishers (2013AUG21) -- Small content creators cannot protect themselves from infringement so if we do not enlist third parties there will be no more quality content. Can we make DMCA Takedowns easier?? Here's an idea, lets make the third parties we are using to do our enforcement also keep track of how well it's working. Then they can just tell us.
Computer & Communications Industry Association (2013AUG21) --- Back off, government. You're disturbing the market. Let's not forget the purpose of copyright, the public good. These problems will solve themselves as industries evolve (and they already are).
Electronic Frontier Foundation (2013AUG21) -- Cooperative Voluntary Initiatives? Hah, voluntary. Public good, remember? Fair use, too. Don't fall into the trap of serving a special interest.
Copyright Alliance (2013AUG21) -- Expand enforcement! Empower small content creators!
Consumer Electronics Association (2013AUG21) -- Counterfeiting is bad, mmkay? We are for strict measures insofar as they benefit our interests. We are against strict measures insofar as they do not benefit our interests. That's fair, right?
B. Companies
I'm not ok with piracy.
I'm not ok with plagiarism or commercial piracy, but I'm fine with file sharing. And I say that as someone who just registered copyright on a book I'll be releasing as soon as I get an ISBN.
The MAFIAA knows piracy sells. The trouble is, it sells indie stuff as well as MAFIAA stuff, and when you buy two indie CDs that's an RIAA CD that lost a sale. The fight against "piracy" is a fight to stifle competition.
Nobody ever lost money on piracy, but many artists have gone hungry from obscurity, a prime example being Van Gogh.
Free Martian Whores!
I'm not ok with rewarding greed, even if it's by allowing beneficial piracy.
And if an author wants to "ratify" a piracy by proclaiming in advance he will not prosecute anyone for it, more power to him.
So crack down on piracy as much as the copyright onwers want. It's their foot to shoot off if they want to.
Also, the RIAA cannot prosecute someone for pirating indie work. And if they even try, they should be fined for wasting the court's time.
Amazing that in 2013, anyone could still see non-flow oriented precise layout as a feature, rather than as a bug.
You don't know the type of device I'm reading on, you don't know what size or shape its screen is, you don't know what size or shape the window within the screen is, you don't know my personal preference for fonts and their sizes. And you want to try to have the server lay out text?
I know what happened. We all pretend it's just innocent joking and no one is ever really harmed by it, but I think this is proof that sometimes real damage is done. It has gone on long enough, beyond what's necessary and beyond the limits of respecting human dignity. Enough. I'm going to end it.
Attention, people who think servers should be laying out text. You have been tricked by an unethical news media, and mocked by the cruel bastards of the tech world. Here's the deal: many years ago, you started hearing about the increasing popularity of "tablets." You made a common-sense and reasonable assumption about what that meant, and no one corrected you (the bastards!!!). Initially, you thought "this changes everything!" and came to the conclusion that pre-rendered text would be a reasonable lowest-common-denom that everyone could live with. But it was all based on an erroneous, if well-meaning, assumption.
The tablets are NOT made out of stone or clay or even plastic. They are NOT the output of those "3D printers" that you keep hearing about, where you assumed people download and "print" your stuff, so that they can read the tablet later on the subway, and you wanted to help with the rendering. The tablets are just touchscreen computers, and can run web browsers, pretty much just like desktop computers. There are some minor differences, but the overall quality of the HTML rendering engine,s on even the worst of them, is actually excellent and flowing text works great. That means your desktop users can go back to flowing text too. Hope this helps.
And to all of you heartless sadists that resent me letting the cat out of the bag, ending your prank: fuck you. It had gone on long enough, and the consequences were starting to get really irritating.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
IM not ok with absurd copyright lengths. Until such time as copyrighted works start flowing into the Public Domain as originally intended, the entire system is a sham.
Good-bye
It still will be. There was retroactive clawback that was approved by SCOTUS itself, don't forget.
I first want grandfather clauses in favor of already lapsed works so that they STAY public domain.
THEN we can bring sanity to the length of a copyright. Otherwise limits are meaningless becuase they can be retroactively extended at will.
Police here won't even come out in person take a report if that happens. They're sure as fuck not chasing anyone down with spike strips.
Now stop making yellow snow, IP.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
USPTO Publishes Suggestions For Intellectual Property Enforcement, RIAA and MPAA sue for copyright infringement.
I'm not ok with piracy.
I'm not ok with plagiarism or commercial piracy, but I'm fine with file sharing.
So you are ok with sharing, as long as the person sharing doesn't make any money off of it? I guess your argument is "if they didn't pay for it, then they wouldn't have given me any money for it, but if they paid someone else, I want that money." This is fine, except for the fact that many people would pay for it. But free is cheaper.
Also, the RIAA cannot prosecute someone for pirating indie work.
No, but they get their message across. The message is "downloading music is wrong and illegal". THAT is why they fight piracy, they have no need to prosecute indie fans. Any alleged downloader will do.
Free Martian Whores!
This is fine, except for the fact that many people would pay for it. But free is cheaper.
Free is advertising. Nobody's going to buy your album or book if they've never heard of it. If your premise "nobody will pay when they can get free" were true, libraries would have killed publishing centuries ago.
Free Martian Whores!
...or we could just eliminate all imaginary property laws.