Patents Are A Big Part Of Why We Can't Own Nice Things (eff.org)

An anonymous reader shares an EFF article: Today, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could allow companies to keep a dead hand of control over their products, even after you buy them. The case, Impression Products v. Lexmark International, is on appeal from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, who last year affirmed its own precedent allowing patent holders to restrict how consumers can use the products they buy. That decision, and the precedent it relied on, departs from long established legal rules that safeguard consumers and enable innovation. When you buy something physical -- a toaster, a book, or a printer, for example -- you expect to be free to use it as you see fit: to adapt it to suit your needs, fix it when it breaks, re-use it, lend it, sell it, or give it away when you're done with it. Your freedom to do those things is a necessary aspect of your ownership of those objects. If you can't do them, because the seller or manufacturer has imposed restrictions or limitations on your use of the product, then you don't really own them. Traditionally, the law safeguards these freedoms by discouraging sellers from imposing certain conditions or restrictions on the sale of goods and property, and limiting the circumstances in which those restrictions may be imposed by contract. But some companies are relentless in their quest to circumvent and undermine these protections. They want to control what end users of their products can do with the stuff they ostensibly own, by attaching restrictions and conditions on purchasers, locking down their products, and locking you (along with competitors and researchers) out. If they can do that through patent law, rather than ordinary contract, it would mean they could evade legal limits on contracts, and that any one using a product in violation of those restrictions (whether a consumer or competitor) could face harsh penalties for patent infringement.

Comments

Problem is a matter of Fraud. Rent vs Sell

[gurps_npc]

Look, if I offered to sell you a home, but after putting down a downpayment you read the contract and it turned out to be a hundred year lease, you would be damn upset.

But that's what the software people do. They are actually renting licenses with all sorts of secret provisions while the salesmen are using the word 'buy' or 'sell'.

Every time you 'buy a license', it is you RENTING a license. It may be a 'lifetime' license, but that is what it is.

The only people that actually 'buy' software or music are the people that buy the copyrights.

We need a simple law that clarifies this point. Out law the use of the words 'buy' or 'sell' when dealing with a license - including physical products that include a necessary license, such as those evil John Deere Tractors.

Then when some shmuck tries to sell a John Deere tractor, arrest them for fraud, as they are actually renting it to you for an unspecified amount of time. If they want to use the words 'buy' or sell', they have to include free-as-in-speech software on it. Otherwise, it is fraud, punishable by a fine.

Re:Problem is a matter of Fraud. Rent vs Sell

[Vektuz]

This is pretty much what turned me off on IP law in general.
Copyright law and Patent Law are part of a bargain, a deal made where in the general public gives up some fundamantal rights, such as the right to copy things, (which you had the right to do before copyright law limited your rights to do so).
The theory is that in exchange for giving up these rights, on a temporary basis, the good that comes from it is that the public gets access to a much larger library of public domain over time. That is literally the bargain. You give up your pre-existing rights to do what you want with your media and recordings and whatever, in the hope that in the longer term, more such works exist since creators have protection.

This bargain was always supposed to be two sided. You give up your right to copy and a fair bit of tax money that goes into enforcement, and in exchange, after a brief period, the works become public domain.

Look how that worked out. As soon as the public was locked into this deal, powerful IP mills started immediately eating away at their side of the deal, extending copyright duration into infinity, consolodating power, making it incredibly one-sided. At this point I'm willing to say that the old IP deals need complete cancellation, that replacing it with literally nothing would be better for the public.