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Company Demands 1% Share of Online Music Profit
Neuroprophet writes "It appears a company named SIGHTSOUND.COM is
claiming to have patents on the selling
of audio content over the internet as
downloadable files. This
letter was sent to MP3.com telling
them they need to pay a 1% royalty or stop selling downloadable music."
Look people- you can't patent selling a download
just because it's a new data type. The letter claims that they
have a patent on downloadable video as well. People have
been selling downloadable data
online for years.Just because its sound and not sight doesn't
make it different. It's all just 1's and 0's! I'll be ecstatic when
this joke is thrown out.
The solution is not to ignore laws and patents - the solution is to change the laws and patents. If you're a US citizen, you have rights - use them and stop whining. Call your Senators and your Congressperson. Tell them the PTO must be forced to change their review process and their evaluation system for patent examiners. Tell them we need patent examiners who are competent in the field of endeavour for which they are reviewing patents - which means paying competitive salaries. Tell them we need a law which clearly forbids patenting software and algorithms, or perhaps a new category of IP altogether: short-term software patents with a life of a few years at most. Oh wait - we're dotheads. I forgot we're too busy getting the first post and surfing the Web to make sure that creeping corporatism doesn't destroy our way of life...