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Richard Stallman Calls for Amazon Boycott
Ian Lance Taylor writes "Linux Today is reporting that Richard Stallman is calling for a boycott of Amazon because they are suing based on a software patent." RMS also says, "Amazon is not alone at fault in what is happening. The US Patent Office is to blame for having very low
standards, and US courts are to blame for endorsing them."
I have but one word to say good. Its about damn time people start doing something about the stupid patents that are going around.
I applaud Stallman for trying to start a boycott, and for not investing in VA. Although I have no problems with ESR become a millionaire, I think it is also important to have someone like Stallman who will spend every waking minute insuring that software is free and reliable.
"I don't like this deep shit about crazy crap"
Sounds good to me. The best thing that could come out of this though is some serious patent standards reform. You can only blame Amazon, Yahoo, or IBM so much for taking advantage of a system that is just asking for it.
okay, i'll admit, the basic premise of the boycott is somewhat understandable. they are suing over a software patent that should and will be a staple of ecommerce.
but amazon.com also helps many smaller linux and open source sites generate some revenue with their affiliate program. the program may not be the best in the world, but it gives a little back to these often-overlooked and underpaid contributers.
I hate software patents as much as the next person, but isn't RMS kinda on a rampage here? It's like anyone who makes money incurs the wrath of RMS these days.
This isn't to mention the squashing of software innovation that comes from RMS' activity. If I have an idea for some small software program that might make enough money to support me and a few other programs, if it's any good RMS will swoop in an destroy my company. Thanks, RMS.
I think some sort of organized lobby, not protest, to the patent office; i dunno, something with political power should be created against them. It's an interesting legal question....
I just can't bear to part with my beloved amazon =) it did my xmas shopping!
RMS calls for boycott against Amazon -- Slashdot
ESR calls Fatwah against Mindcraft -- Suck Parody of Slashdot
I, for one, am amused!
--Nick
because they are suing based on a software patent. RMS also says, "Amazon is not alone at fault in what is happening. The US Patent Office is to blame for having very low standards, and US courts are to blame for endorsing them."
so, i think we should ban the us patent office and the us courts too. let us not use anything patented! let us not show up for court! we will bring america, inc. to its knees!
down with the man!
note that the copyrighted undistributable open source natalie portman and open source drew barrymore are not patented... just copyrighted and undistributable, so i don't count.
thank you.
Why would you ever want to boycott? Amazon sells a good product, that I like to buy. I don't care if they have 5 year old slaves working in the background, they always get me the goods I want, hassel free, and on time. Isn't that what business is all about? Doing business?
"Normal people
I think that RMS is really just making this official, more or less. I e-mailed Amazon about this one-click nonsense shortly after I heard it, and received, as I'd expected, nothing more than a form letter regarding my stated boycott.
I have not, of course, purchased anything from them since, and I actively encourage others to do the same. I know many of my fellow geeks are also boycotting Amazon.com, but I don't think that Amazon.com is really aware of how many people really are frustrated over this. Perhaps an 'official' boycott is what it will take.
Hi!
// Jens M Andreasen
I am european, and I have often been amazed by the claims of american patents. There is no way that any of these claims will ever hold up in court! All you guys are doing is making a laugh of your selves in front of the global community.
Please put an end to this abuse of the US patent system
mvh
send + more == money?
I immediately started buying any books from places like Barnes & Noble, and making sure any DVD's I buy are from 800.com or anybody else. More importantly, I emailed them to voice my complaint, and immediately got a personalized response (so yes, they are worried!).
I applaud the effort, but will it make any sort of difference whatsoever? Realistically, only geeks would participate in a boycott called by RMS. Sure, our books are, in general, more expensive than the regular crop. It would have to hurt Amazon pretty badly to get them to even consider changing their policy, as the patent has to do with their 'one click' buying, and they must be making money hand over fist from impulse buyers. The patent office is to blame, as someone pointed out earlier, and they won't feel a thing. How far reaching is the 'one click' patent, does anyone know, does it cover more than just books. (especially as Amazon itself is not so limited)
Software and business process patents, in their current form, are damaging to the industry.
I started boycotting Amazon the moment the preliminary injunction went into effect, even though my close personal friend works there. I do use their site to find books, read reviews, and help pick out gifts for friends, but when its time to buy, its over to B&N or FatBrain for the purchase.
The PTO must be reformed. We really need to start a real campaign for this. (Maybe starting with some sort of petition.)
-Jay
I agree with most people here that patents are becoming overly silly. But, I don't think a boycott is going to be effective at all, except as a PR tool.
Even if the subject matter sought to be patented is not exactly shown by the prior art, and involves one or more differences over the most nearly similar thing already known, a patent may still be refused if the differences would be obvious. The subject matter sought to be patented must be sufficiently different from what has been used or described before that it may be said to be nonobvious to a person having ordinary skill in the area of technology related to the invention. - US PTO
All it's going to take is one decent lawsuit to get this patent revoked. Not only would this be considered 'obvious', I'm certain if we all tried we could find a mountain of prior art. (If it can be proven that this was done before, their patent is no good)
I really see nothing in their patent that's even remotely unique or novel. Take a look yourself here
Calling for a boycott isn't going to affect Amazon's bottom line a bit. However, it may get some attention to how silly they're acting. This isn't going to change a single thing until a business or some kind of Web-Business-Association or someone actually tries to get this patent revoked.
Thoughts?
"One Click Technology"? Give me a break. The Patent Office has let an idea that was basically good get so far out of control that it no longer serves its purpose. Somebody, anybody, needs to make some waves.
This just minutes after I spend a couple hundred dollars at Amazon. Whoops.
I encourage everyone to vote with their dollar for the business that offends the least. It isn't difficult.
With Amazon, if you buy from them and select "Do not spam me", they will anyway. I boycotted them when they started sending me 'important information'.
So then I use Barnes&Noble, where I again clicked "Do not spam me". They recently sent me a 'holiday gift' for $5. So now I don't use BN. Merry Christmas.
I'm using FatBrain now, hopefully they won't screw up either.
Your dollar holds real power in the eyes of the suits. Use it, and if you convince a few people to join you, you lend your messages (email comments usually) real power.
And it's a no-brain and no-effort task with today's competition.
-tpr
There are other better affiliate programs out there. As I recall, A1Books.com had
a pretty good deal. And the computer books were often a better price then AMZN.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
Why doesnt redhat do something for the community and buy the LZW patent from unisys and save us all from crap.
No, Sue's to blame! Doesn't anyone read the credits?!
-Chris
Etoys is apparently taking a beating over their browbeating of etoy.com. Hopefully likewise, Amazon.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I have to admit, there's some practices that Amazon engage in which I entirely support. They actively encourage deep linking (unlike a few companies we've been debating) and they've really embraced the idea of getting people to help them sell books in return for a share in the cash. And they give out some groovy free gifts (my post-it notes are even now proudly displayed on my desk :)
On the other hand, they spam, and they sue over damn stupid patents. What a schizophrenic company.
Come on Slashdotters, boycott them!
When I first saw the article on /. that Amazon was suing B&N, I decided I would not purchase anything from them, and since then, I have visited B&N several times. I had never visited B&N prior to the lawsuit.
Now, I agree that this is patent abuse wholeheartedly. However, it does bring up a problem that we are likely to see more of - corporations grabbing commonly used techniques and "patenting" them. Would a way to prevent this be to defeat them at their own game?
What if something like the FSF existed that patented all software innovations and then released them under some sort of Public Patent License (PPL)? Could we beat the corporations at their own game?
Think about it. John Q. Programmer, Extrordanaire, makes a program called "ComputerWidgets" which, for purposes of this discussion, is GPLed. He then sends off to the PPL and informs them that he would like to patent this idea and release it to the public.
The same could be done with web-site setups and whatnot. After all, what is to stop another company from patenting dynamically served pages created in Perl? As ludicrous as this sounds, it's basically what Amazon has done with cookies.
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
that use one-click shopping, i don't get what's up amazon.com's butt....oh well... -motardo
Now if this isn't a story that begs for that jihad-penguin icon I don't know what is...
I can picture RMS, sitting on his "Throne of Righteous Indignation" thinking..."Hmm...haven't done something wild and radical recently...let's boycott something for not being open source or using a proprietary idea!"
This article was written today. The amazon patent story ran about a month ago. It just seems like RMS is going from "GNU-Linux! GNU-Linux!" to "Ban all GIFs!" to "Boycott Amazon". Is this really an effective argument, or is he just an extreme platform junkie?
Mycroft-X
Fortunetely, on the 'net, it's ultra easy to shop elsewhere. For now I'll stick with dvdexpress.com or buy.com (or even reel.com if I'm desperate). If Amazon can't compete they'll go under. I guess the shareholders are finally starting to demand that Amazon start earning profit (for the first time ever). Way to lose customers! Click. Click. Bye bye Amazon!
Could you post that reply from Amazon (if you still have it). I'm interested in reading it. Thanks!
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
Also, BN.com has a better delivery service in NYC. They deliver it within 24hrs via bike messenger! At no additional charge. (But I have to use two clicks to check out!!!)
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
let's not forget etoys.com!
hmmm, maybe someone out there should be keeping a list? amazon, etoys... kuma
A handy list of alternatives to Amazon can be found here . There is an article on technocrat.net discussing this, but it's down right now.
I do not have a credit card, so I wouldn't purchase from them anyway, but I do use them to decide if it's time to pile in a bus and visit my bookstore. I suppose taking page impressions away is part of the deal, so I'll try elsewhere for now at least, been meaning to check out the others anyway.
I think the patent is quite silly, but I still wonder if a boycott action is useful here. How may other silly patents are being muscled right now, and should we boycott all products from any such company? Is Amazon the most evil company deserving our attention? If we take multinational corporate ties into account, that could get to be a *long* list of products.
Most telling, I wonder if Amazon would or could drop their suit as a result. If the result is a suit by the shareholders for negligence w.r. to their intellectual property they haven't gained much.
Perhaps our lobbying and action should directed be towards those making patent law, and overseeing the patent office instead. If a corporation has a legal means to expand its marketshare or create licensing profit it is almost required by current law to exploit it. Just reducing the length of software patents from decades to years would greatly improve the situation and it's mildly realistic to hope it could be done.
I think most geeks already know about what Amazon is doing and are already avoiding their site. However, I think for this boycott to have any success, you will need the support of the common consumer. But I guarantee you, if you walked up to a random person and explained this to them, they would answer: "I'll buy wherever its cheap." Therefore, let us all send emails to Amazon stating that we will only purchase our books from www.barnesandnoble.com, to which they will respond with "Oh."
Stallman Schmallman. ESR is our leader now. He has $41 million dollars. Isn't that the litmus test for leadership? ;)
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Instead of wasting time and effort on a boycott that will draw only a little publicity (just think of the headlines: People who are used to Free stuff boycott a company!) why don't we do something productive?
/. crowd wouldn't mind contributing either a little money or prior art research. It doesn't need to be too huge. And a group that's getting dozens of dumb patents revoked would draw a LOT of media buzz. Might even draw enough attention to warrant Patent reform.
Here's my plan.. The idea of a FSF or similar group starting a fund to help free software developers fight (generally dumb) lawsuits has been thrown around. Why don't we take this a step further? Maybe a group of lawyers, hired by funds from the FSF and other organizations, going out and presenting cases to have these patents thrown out.
I'm sure the
Comments/Suggestions?
Maybe the cause is already lost in the new country, but for Europe there is still hope. :)
There are no software patents as such in EU (see freepatents.org). However, the European Commission is apparently pushing for more software patents. You may want to tell your opinion to your MEP or to the people in charge, now while there is still time.
I don't think it's necessary at all to affect their bottom line to justifify taking on a boycott. If the PR generated is sufficient to achieve the goal of having amazon drop this ridiculous lawsuit (and possibly draw a little more attention to this ridiculous patent situation), then fine. PR Tool it is. jeb.
So, what you are essentially saying is you don't care if your product is manufactured in a third world country by poor 5 years old living off maggot-infested rice. Sure, a few kids got their fingers cut off, but I'd still be able to get my brand name sneakers for 5 bux less, right?
We as a consumer are a powerful voice. I am sorry that you feel that way about businesses, but very business should have a moral obligation to conduct their businesses ethncially. There's a difference between being a sucessful business, and being a monopony. Recently there was just a lot of legal ruckus about a software company over that...
What if one day, as a result of Amazon.com's lawsuits and whatnot, they dominate the online book business, and decided that, A) The industry doesn't really need innovations and B) prices can go up because no one else can compete with them?
I don't know about you, but I think the "One-click shopping patent" is stupid, and in return for amazon.com's stupidity, I'm taking my business elsewhere.
-=- SiKnight
Could someone explain *WHY* everyone so worked up about this?
I've read the patent in question. It is more than a simple database credit-card lookup. Read it for yourself without spoutting out the usual mantra.
Secondly, Amazon is actually sueing someone here. This is DISTINCTLY different than playing bully demanding money for the patent rights (eg, LZW/GIF debate). If the courts determine that Amazon's patent is prior art or vague - then they lost the patent.
Thirdly, patents *DO* have a place. People need to make money off their inventions. You can't make a living by spending years perfecting some hardware or software, then have your next door neighbor look at it and say, "Dang, thats obvious - i guess i'll rip off that idea and make millions without worrying about recouping the development expense. Thanks neighbor!"
Now, if you disagree with the *LAW* of patents (duration of coverage, scope, etc) Then don't complain/boycott Amazon. Write your congressperson and explain, in a calm manner, the problems you perceive with patents in a rapidly advancing industry!
Tom
What if your site is not in the US? I'm pretty sure there exists a place in the world where this stupit trick isn't patented. Can you simply put the web site there and be free to do what you like without being sued? BTW, AFAIK, IANAL.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
I can't blame Amazon for filing obvious patents in order to protect their own interests(if they don't somebody else will, then Amazon would be sued by a competitor). But what they are doing with the patent is clearly a sign that they are seeking a monopoly. They should be boycotted. And the U.S. Patent office needs more reform than campaign financing. But what is leading Amazon to these predatory tactics? Could the fact that it overvalued company that has no projected revenue in the near future? If Amazon doesn't can't protect its obvious patents there is nothing special about Amazon. That said, there is nothing special about Amazon. I don't buy anything from Amazon anyway, so all I have to do to boycott them is nothing
Coooool ! I just have some shipping from Amazon I don't want anymore. I think I gonna add a nice "Boycott patent law suit" comment on the return form.
But if you visit amazon and browse through books with his name on them, it seems that he hasn't done this himself. I'd respect his wishes here a bit more if he'd at least follow through on his own requests.
one click buying is _stupid_ anyhow
i personallhy don't care if its patented or if everybody can do it, because i wouldn't use it
it doesn't matter how they do what they do as long as it works, is on time, and is relatively inexpensive
i'm not buying stock in the company when i do business with them, i'm buying a book/cd/whatever
yes if they were abusing children by censoring stuff i would have a problem, but they're just doing what needs to be done in the curren state of the patent office
if they didn't patent it, the next person would, and the patent office would have granted a patent and then amazon would be getting sued off their ass
Need a Catering Connection
Unfortunately for Amazon, RMS is right too. Shopping there leaves a bad taste in my mouth now. so I'll be looking for a more astheticly pleasing place for my business. It's a shame though since it really is the fault of a screwed up patent system that encourages the behavior.
Davo -- Free speech, free software, AND free beer.
To borrow from a speech by Hitler:
"I know it must have been hard, when we seized glory, and you had no reward, but you MUST GIVE IN TO THIS OVERWHELMING NEED TO OBEY!"
This seems very vitriolic. Making inaccurate comparisons to try to back your argument is not a good idea generally.
I think too many people (not RMS alone) get caught up in spewing forth invective on the subject of intellectual property. "Information wants to be free" - said who? The information? (sorry, couldn't resist that one)
Sorry, but I refuse to boycott a company (or anyone) defending their investment, be it this or something else (assuming it's "valid"), by any means possible.
Read no further if you dislike flamebait: the same people who scream bloody murder (bad pun) about attempts to infringe upon their freedoms when someone is attacking their property (the supposed right to blow them into their next life) also seem to be ones screaming about companies retaliating against attacks against their property.
note: this isn't to say I agree with the patent Amazon has. It's dicy. If it's dicy, it'll hopefully lose. Valid patents and IP should be defended. Who appointed us judge and jury?
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
If this patent truly is not novel, and not going to stand up in court, why are they suing Barnes & Noble over it?
I agree that they look like they are bound to lose, but lawyers aren't stupid (well...) so there must be some advantage they are getting out of it.
For all you legal people: What adavantage do Amazon get out of this case if they lose?
You make a number of good points, but I guess I disagree with you in principle. You're right, we probably won't have a significant effect on Amazon's bottom line. Large as we joke about the /. effect being, Amazon's client base dwarfs us. I don't think we should ignore the potential PR effect this could have, but I'm not counting on that, either.
I am proud, however, to say that I do things not because I think I will be in the majority, or because I think I will always win, but because I think they are right. I have personally been boycotting Amazon from the moment I heard about this. I'm just one man, and I'm sure Amazon doesn't even miss me, but none of that will make me change my mind. I believe what they are doing is wrong, and I am doing my part to make sure they know that.
Ben Franklin said "They that can give up liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." The words may not fit exactly, but I think the sentiment is right.
--
Ian Peters
itp at gnu dot org
Reel.com may be next, I just ordered some DVDs and I only had to push one button.
Where you shop and how you spend your money is in many ways more important then how you vote. I started shopping at Amazon because as a protest against BN and their M$ like tactics against small bookstores. Now I shop at Powells.
War is necrophilia.
Everyone who agrees with RMS (To some degree) should send a nice, well thought out, letter to Amazon explaining your problems with there recent actions. Lets face it, the slashdot affect is really powerful. A few people here and there complained to fox when the blocked non-windows people, but fox actually did something when all of us wrote letters all at once.
Keep in mind, these letters CAN NOT BE FLAMES! That would only make things worst. Instead they must be claim, polite and well thought out. If you could not tell, I strongly agree with RMS on this one. We can't let silly patents like this ruin everything people on the internet have enjoyed for so many years.
Sig free since 93'...
Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com)
LiveBid.com (http://amazon.livebid.com)
PlanetAll.com (http://www.planetall.com)
And also boycott other business they are involved in.
drugstore.com (http://www.drugstore.com)
Gear.com (http://www.gear.com)
HomeGrocer.com (http://www.homegrocer.com)
Pets.com (http://www.pets.com)
I don't know about you but some of these I can't live without. (I.e. Imdb)
Happy boycotting.
A boycott can make a difference for a company like Amazon. Amazon doesn't have anything special going for it over any other book selling site. You don't have to give anything up to not go there. You can even just look at the reviews on Amazon, and then pop somewhere else for the actual purchase.
As far as patents go, the courts are predisposed to trust the PTO. If you can show prior art, you can invalidate a patent. It's tough to invalidate based on obviousness. The courts presume that the PTO already considered obviousness. We know they didn't, but the court doesn't.
If you have prior art before September 1997, great. Send it to Barnes & Noble.
But think of the dough that companies have to spend to defend themselves from these bogus lawsuits! In this case, at least it's a company who can afford it. What if they crushed a few dozen smaller companies first? Companies who were just getting off the ground and couldn't afford to defend themselves in a lawsuit. What really disgusts me is the fact that you have to pay to get your way in court. Justice should have nothing to do with money..
Not ten minutes into the article's posting and I already see Stallman bashers calling the man crazy and/or outdated and/or stubborn for his Free Software crusade and actions.
Rather than rehash the old pro-Stallman arguments, which are basically naming his many accomplishments without justifying his beliefs, I'm going to pose his beliefs in the form of an ethical dilemma: Would you act differently than Stallman, given this dilemma?
Stallman acts on the belief that it is morally wrong to hold back information that was freely given to you. Namely, no idea is formed in a vacuum. Consciously, subconsciously, intentionally, unintentionally, the society around you bombards you with ideas to draw upon. Software engineers, for example, draw upon the ideas of friends, families, former educators, and in some cases mathematical concepts that have been in the idea pot since the Ancient Greeks.
It's patently (no pun intended) absurd to consider paying royalties to the Archimedes estate -- the idea just wouldn't hold water. (pun quite intended)
In other words, ideas aren't something which we have 100% control over. You can't will a good idea. Focus groups have proven this. You can will money and time into makeing a better environment for ideas to hit you, but the key here is that ideas come from the world around you.
If Microsoft were to acknowledge this, they would either have to pay The World a hefty royalty, or sue The World for patent infringement. And if we're all in jail, who will buy Microsoft products?
To all the Stallman bashers out there, consider this: do you consider your ideas to be truly, 100% yours? Every idea anyone has ever had has a basis either in another idea, or a social concept, or a form evident in nature. Now let's narrow the field down from the abstract of 'ideas' to 'software'. Most software performs a certain goal. The 'idea overlap' here is much greater in the world of software, because of common goals et al. It's not surprising that the originality of software comes not from the mind of the original but the sharing of information among many -- both because there are no truly original ideas and because the sharing is an extension of the above. That's why Open Source works. You hear something, you see something, and blend it in together with another random idea that hits you, and voila, instant 'idea'. Aren't you glad you don't have to pay royalties to everyone who helped you with the idea?
In economic terms, you can put it thusly: There is a scarcity of everything except desires. I guess you can consider an idea as a form of desire, namely a desire to make a thought tangible. That's great, thoughts are free and infinite, because ideas are born of ideas and interact with each other to make more ideas. Materials, however, are scarce. Here, then, is Stallman's consolation to the 'free idea' manifesto: ideas are free because they are infinite, and not sprung of one source; but implementations may be sold and owned by virtue of the fact that they are scarce.
In other words, you can't 'patent' selling CD's of Linux on it as original, because others do it or have the capability to do it. You can, however, charge money because not everyone can afford a CD press machine, or the time to burn all those CD's: that's scarcity in action.
But do the Stallman bashers feel ethically alright with charging money or defending ownership of something free and unlimited that comes not from one person, but from the interactions of an infinite number of outside and internal stimuli?
I'm rambling, so I better quit. Personally, I'm playing Devil's advocate; I feel you should be able to patent software *implementations* (i.e, actual binary form) because the TIME spent in R&D and the TIME spent coding is in itself scarce. But, the idea of software, i.e, specifications for software, or protocol types, or source, patenting compression algorithms etc, is free and the result of other ideas in an educational chain that spans the ages, and to sever the chain and claim it all came from your own mindspring is both hubris and ethically questionable.
Three Step Plan:
1. Take over the world.
2. Get a lot of cookies.
3. Eat the cookies.
I was already boycotting them for this reason, but now I at least know I'm not alone in this. Yes, RMS is known for being a little, and cometimes more than a little, extreme. But in this case I think he's justified. Mainly because I can't think of anything else constructive that'll even have a chance of solving this problem.
Anyone remember when it all started with RMS calling for a boycott against Apple Computer? The man is living in a perpetual jihad, fighting a holy war against the evil capitalist world. The victims change, the principle stays the same.
I'll get a patent for "a device to amplify either force or movement by use of a beam (lever) turning around a point (fulcrum)" and sue anyone who uses one anywhere.
You are not me, therefore you are not important
This is a global problem.
I did some digging and found this url:
http://www.trudelgroup.com/pwars.htm
Now normally I am a bit suspicious about people who advocate conspiracy theories and the like, but in this case the point of view advocated at the above site - namely that the patent office is under attack by legislation by congress - might be interesting to us geeks, specifically because if "they" are right, congress has actually passed a bill through the house which would get rid of some of our headaches over patents.
These guys don't want that, but we do, at least to some extent perhaps. Maybe this is worth looking into and supporting (instead of resisting, as the page at the URL suggests).
I'm not a journalist, but I play one on slashdot
Can I officially call a boycott of eToys as well? While I am totally against Amazon on their whole patent dispute, and have made my voice heard over there, I am even more outraged at eToys using their marketing muscle against etoy.com. As the owner of an independent design website, this could have been me (or anyone else). I think with ecommerce, its the first time in history that we can actually speak out against such corporate malpractice and finally DO something about it!
I just checked, and it looks like Slashdot will still put up links to Amazon.
Is Slashdot going to participate in the boycott by removing those links? Why or why not?
Not that I'm encouraging hasty action. Perhaps Amazon will back down on this, as they backed down (somewhat) on their hidden advertising.
Well, nobody was doing it, and their approach is novel. I have issues with software patents, but this one sounds legit. I mean, every other site had you fill out forms again each time, and their "one-click technology" was a real time-saver. Since then, everyone has copied it. I think that it was a new approach that they developed, and they are entitled to the patent royalties.
This isn't a patent on cookies. It is a patent on storing just enough information to find you in a database. While not technically novel, the combination of the database query and people's personal information is a new and novel approach.
I respect RMS for what he has done, but I don't share his views on intellectual property. People are free to give their work away. People are also free to profit from their ideas. The patent system rewards inventors. Amazon.com invented a way to bring convenience, and the patent is, in my opinion, legit.
Alex
In the same vein as long topic names like "It's funny, laugh." we need a patents topic called "The US Patent Office Sucks Ass."
Amazon recieved a preliminary injunction against Barnes & Noble (see previous article). What this means is that they can't use "one-click shopping" until Amazon loses the suit. Right now is the busiest shopping time of the year, so if Amazon can cut into B&N's profits, then Amazon wins, regardless of who wins the suit.
The question is, do we want our money paying the paychecks of people who feel this is the best way to do business? Vote with your dollars.
--
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
Amazon and EtoyS both SUCK!!!
Just a thaught.
I have already posted this in an other thread, but it's deeply netsted, Maybe it will go unoticed, so I dare to repost it.
Here is the trick just search for the books you want to buy in Amazon (I admit they they a damn nice service, and readers review) pick up the ISBN and then go buy search for the best deal in www.bestbookbuys.com with the ISBN. You will see that Amazon are far from beeing the best deal.
I agree -- people have a voice on the Internet and try to come up with marvelous things that will change the way we work. After all, isn't every individual given an e-mail address to hide behind? Yes, but like many other such boycott attempts, this isn't going to make a spit of difference. Remember the gasoline boycott for one day that some guy in Cali tried to start? Caught some media attention, but you're never going to achieve anything unless you strike directly at the wallets or the hearts of people. If Jeff Bezos was a child-porn fan or something, that would cause a stir. No one really cares about the suit against BN.
There are people who won't do busness with Amazon for diffrent reasons but it dosn't seem to phase Amazon.
A boycott dosn't effect a busness who isn't affrade of losing costummers.
the real problem isn't Amazons defending a software patent it is they were issued one in the first place.
Instead of protesting against Amazon the target should be the us patent office. Contact ellected officals and point out the patent office has been issuing a lot of strange patents lately including blantely patenting prior art and software patents.
Instead we should be asking congress to put a hold on all Internet patents and review the value of patenting things related to the Internet.
I don't actually exist.
This is a bit of a "me too" post... but I think it is important for everyone to get a sense of how important this issue is.
Like some other posters, I had already emailed Amazon letting them now that I would not do business with them until they stopped the patent nonsense. Prior to that I had done quite a bit of business... and I'm sure I was among the first 1% (or 0.01%) of their customers. Probably the note just got thrown away and ignored. But if they start seeing this message many times every day, it might start to sink in.
Buy Text Processing in Python
Instead, visit your local, independantly owned and operated stores. There are a number of issues with supporting global corporate stores, one of which is local economic drain, where the money in your locale is drained to a far away place into the pockets of corporate CEO's and majority shareholders. The minimum wage that workers recieve as payment doesn't count towards offsetting this, either.
This is one of the reasons I discourage anyone from buying on the Internet, especially common items like books (uncommon items are fine, though, since I understand not a lot of local stores are going to carry weird things like programmable LCD displays).
In conclusion: SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL ECONOMY!
Thank you, that is all
Michael Chisari
I'm pretty sure this is pertaining to the whole 1-Click fiasco, which, believe or not, was actually upheld by a judge as a legitimate patent. I shit you not. I guess Amazon could go ahead and patent the concept of ease-of-use while they're at it. That oughta net them a nice chunk of change. :)
Personally, I agree with Stallman here. Software patents are a joke, and this is one of the more horrendous ones ever granted. It really bothers me that Amazon's profts will again swell this holiday season while other etailers suffer from the 50+% attrition rate from shopping cart item to final purchase. I don't think anyone on Slashdot needs to be reminded of the volatility of the tech sector, and, let's face it, many startup sites won't be around next Christmas. Amazon's ridiculous patent on storing cookies for one-click sure doesn't help the situation. To cop a little Microsoft terminology, they've created a market barrier to entry - Amazon's One Click is damn easy and really, really popular. I could easily see many consumers flocking there instead of another bookstore just becuase they don't want to be hassled with shipping and billing info.
I would know because I've succumbed to the insidious "one-click" button many a time. I know own 20 or so ORA books, 10 of which I regretted One Clicking even before they arrived. And people wonder why their market cap is $6 billion
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
http://www.bookpool.com/
A friend told me about FatBrain quite awhile ago. I don't buy books online in general, because I don't buy many books. I've not bought from Amazon or B&N or any of those.
Now, I don't know how much FatBrain spams you if you're a customer, but I will point out that I got what is likely a generic usenet-ripped spam from FatBrain a few months ago. So I mentioned that to my friend (not a usenet poster) and swore FatBrain off forever, because I'm fairly sensitive to that kind of thing as well.
Seriously.
Call their service # and cancel your order. Then go to Find it now and get yourself some coupons for B&N. If you need, a 10$ coupon for B&N is to be had by typing COSHARE in the coupon field when you order.
AMAZON.COM CALLS FOR RICHARD STALLMAN BOYCOTT
gcc, emacs, Other Free Software "No Longer Allowed" At Online Bookseller
SHINOLA, PA (UPI) - In response to a plea by free-software pioneer Richard Stallman to boycott Amazon.com, the world's largest and most successful online retailer is calling for a general boycott of free software released under the GNU Public License (GPL). To demonstrate that it is serious about its boycott, Amazon.com is announcing that it will no longer use such free software to support its highly-successful electronic commerce site. The company is encouraging other Internet retailers to follow suit in protest of the boycott announced by Stallman.
"Such software is no longer allowed," stated Amazon spokeswoman Amanda Dickenson.
As part of Amazon's protest, the open-source Apache web servers that serve up millions of pages per day will be replaced with Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) running on that company's Windows 2000 operating system. In addition, Amazon's developers will no longer use the emacs text editor to write code. Instead, they will use a different editor targeted towards the Windows environment.
"We found a neat program called CuteWrite on www.winfiles.com," explained Dickenson. "It's really nifty. It has colored menus and everything." Dickenson demoed the program to a select group of reporters at the news conference. "We can use this program for thirty days, after which we must send in a $29.95 registration fee," said Dickenson. However, Dickenson reassured Amazon stockholders who might have an "if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it" attitude. "We also get a printed manual when we register," she explained. In addition, Amazon developers will get a short e-mail every time a new version of CuteWrite is released.
Reaction to the Amazon announcement was mixed. While Microsoft president Steve Ballmer hailed it as the "last nail in the coffin for the pinko commie free software movement", regular Amazon customers were unsure about the company's changes. "I've been trying to get into Amazon for the past three hours," explained dental hygenist Richard Abernathy. "To be quite honest, I'm getting a bit sick of this fucking 'Site Too Busy' error message. I just want to buy some books."
Amazon stock was off 39-1/2 points in midday trading.
Family PC Magazine contributed to this story.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
If you live in Canada then visit oabooks.com They are in Edmonton Alberta, you get 20% off cover price, and you don't pay Provincial sales tax.
They carry a lot of ORA, and specialise in tech books.
Most of the patents that we bitch about on /. are
too esoteric for nonprogrammers to understand, and hence no one outside of the geek community really gives a damn. This one however, is simple and obvious enough for even a novice net-user to understand the ridiculousness of.
I've been asking my family not to use Amazon.com for any of their holiday shopping this year- especially if they're shoppping for me. If every geek familiar with this patent suit asked their friends and family not to use Amazon, we might actually make a difference.
when they started the lawsuit i sent an email stating i would no longer buy from them...hopefully if enough do this it will hitthem where it hurts.
-- your knees hurt, don't they?
This always happens. I mean, I'm a fan of Stallman, he's brilliant, he's the original Guy Who Got It Done, I agree that software patents are generally not good. But a boycott such as this is sooooo petty, so naive, and he's always sounding off about soemthing.
Ya just gotta love somebody who's that sincere.
Yeah, I agree, RMS is quite right. He does get pretty annoying about the GNU/Linux thing, but I'm starting to understand where he's coming from. The whole mess with commercial companies taking the work programmers did for free and screwing the whole thing up must have been a pretty annoying thing to live through. Rant about the dotcom stocks: Seems somewhat akin to the "modern art" thing you see on TV shows. Some person splats paint on a board, and suddenly you got people paying mounds of $$$ for it. But, since people are always willing to pay that money, it will retain its "value" not in the actual painting, just because people are willing to pay the price for it. So if these investors have stuck it out for this long, and people are still willing to pay the price, it seems that these stocks will never drop. Unless there's a mass panic or something. So, you've got a strange socially created value over something that is worthless?
As much as I agree with richard on this one (amazon crossed the line), I am forced to ask the question: where does richard stallman buy groceries. It seems that if something isn't gnu he's boycotting it. I'd respect a boycott more if it came from someone like linus, cus I'm kind of sick of stallman's watchdog behavior.
Here's the e-mail I put together, use if it you like. Hey, I ripped part of it from RMS myself. :)
It has come to my attention that Amazon has obtained a US patent (5,960,411)
on an important and obvious idea for E-commerce: the idea that your command
in a web browser to buy a certain item can carry along information about your
identity. This alone would be simply an annoyance; the U.S. Patent office
is regularly misled into granting obvious patents. But Amazon has used the
patent aggressively, to damage a competitor's business. This is unacceptable.
I was planning to do some of my Christmas shopping on Amazon.com. I also run a
fairly high-traffic web site, and was hoping to make a little extra money for
band by joining the Associates Program.
Instead, as of today, I am boycotting amazon.com. My boycott will continue
until (A) the patent gets declared invalid in court, (B) Amazon drops the patent
itself (C) Amazon goes out of business. (B) is clearly the most honorable
course to take. If it takes the court system to show Amazon that its actions
are wrong, I will have serious reservations about shopping there in the future.
So it's not quite amazon, but Powell's has a decent site, free shipping, a ton of books, but what's more, they have a real store that takes up a *city block* in Portland, Oregon. And that's not counting the other half a block where they have all the technical books. I can't begin to describe how cool that tech book store is... I don't work for them or have any association, mind you, I'm just a (very) satisfied customer... So go have a look at http://www.powells.com
I've used bibliofind and abebooks, and both seem to work well.
You saved our panties cause your damned forest was burning. Don't believe just any propaganda you hear (as if you was just another stupid "Ivan")
// Jens M Andreasen
mvh
send + more == money?
The main problem here is the fact that the USPTO has become a slaughterhouse of ideas. Anyone can patent simple processes or business models. The one-click shopping patent is a perfect example. Persons paying taxes in a "free" country should have access to simple ideas for "free". The power of the computer and information is the cheap ability to process and interact with other hosts and thus other people. Amazon's patent stands on the shoulders of giants without referencing any of the giants, or the midgets. They make the bold claim that they have invented this idea within their self. As an independent citizen of these United States of America, I realize that Amazon dot com has developed their technology on technologies paid for by us the citizens of these United States. (ARPANET, DoD, Internet) Any derivative technologies should be opened up to the people, even if they were developed by an individual standing on the granite mountains of technology funded by American Tax Payers. I am calling forth all Americans and Citizens of the Planet Earth to write their own view on this, and to spam it to everyone on their contact list. This is something we all have a stake in - Everyone, from the smallest child to a senior citizen, our children's future, our future, depends on proper intellectual rights being enforced and enacted by our governments. Simply, we have to get the word out. The main problem here is the fact that the USPTO has become a slaughterhouse of ideas. Anyone, can patent simple processes or business models. The one-click shopping patent is a perfect example. Persons paying taxes in a "free" country, should have access to simple ideas for "free". The power of the computer and information is the cheap ability to process and interact with other hosts and thus other people. Amazon's patent stands on the shoulders of giants without referencing any of the giants, or the midgets. They make the bold claim that they have invented this idea within their self. As an independent citizen of these United States of America I realize that Amazon dot com has developed their technology on technologies paid for by us the citizens of these United States. (ARPANET, DoD, Internet) Any derivative technologies should be opened up to the people, even if they were developed by an individual standing on the granite mountains of technology funded by American Tax Payers. I am calling forth all Americans and Citizens of the Planet Earth to write their own view on this, and to spam it to everyone on their contact list. This is something we all have a stake in. Everyone, from the smallest child to a senior citizen. Our children's future, our future, depends on proper intellectual rights being enforced and enacted by our governments. Simply, we have to get the word out. Not everyone reads slashdot.
Next thing you know he'll be asking us to boycott Linux because Linus writes software for a living.
:)
I respect the man, his work, and the enduring gift he and his brainchild the FSF have given us all, but sometimes I really wonder if he mightn't be picking his targets based more on PR splash than actual motivations of principle.
All Hail Emacs
Sure, you're right about the lack of any kind of legal validity to Amazon's position. This is like the old "look-and-feel" lawsuits, except on one tiny element (obviously an important one) of the look-and-feel. (Imagine if Apple had sued MS over using mouse-clicks in Windows. They would have been laughed out of court.)
The real damage Amazon is doing is threatening to slow down the growth of the industry whose growth they need more than anyone else.
Those of us who have supported the Internet from the beginning know that we have always been a core of Amazon's business. When they needed the business, we gave them all our business. Because we believed in the web. Not because we believed in Amazon, except to the extent that they seemed the best hope for the web.
Now, they are proving they can act against the best interests of the web. And we have to recognize that the same motivations which once led us to support them now demand that we shop elsewhere.
I'm betting everyone will be surprised how much this boycott hurts Amazon even without organization. People who support the Internet just will not have anything to do with any company who so blatantly puts their own interests before the 'Net.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
People will see the low tactics that amazon is using, and I think that they will lose some people out of pure disgust. Brian
Amazon is built on mindshare, not economics. So maybe a boycott can actually affect them, because it doesn't have to attack them economically, it only has to make them look bad. Amazon is the best and brightest son of the Internet in the minds of the stock brokers -- the first, the biggest, with the biggest eCommerce ambitions. It might be meaningful if the Next Big Thing on the Internet (Open Source) attacks it. Or it might not -- that's yet to be seen.
Anyway, I can't really boycott in any meaningful way -- I only bought from Amazon once, won't do it again. I like low-profile Internet businesses, ones that are honest and humble. Amazon is neither. They do what they do well -- they're very seductive -- but they also have a vision for the Internet that I don't share and can't support.
I did just about all my holiday shopping at Amazon, and encouraged all my friends/family to do the same. Why? Because they have the best selection and customer service of any e-business I've ever ordered from (including Barnes & Noble...don't even talk to me about that fiasco), and I don't have to go to the mall!
The patent garbage will get itself straightened out eventually; I have more important things to think about 12 days before Christmas (like making sure my nephew gets his Dragon Ball Z action figures on time!).
-- "God, Root, what is difference?" - Pitr, "User Friendly"
This is a very interesting viewpoint on this subject, and I must admit I've never heard it stated so clearly before. I must, however, disagree with your viewpoint. You are correct in that ideas cannot happen in a vacuum, however, I must also point out that ideas also cannot spontaneously appear even in the best of environments. Bringing an idea to fruition takes work and pondering, and it's not just anyone who can do it. Intellectual property protection exists to reward those who can use their environment to create a new idea, and who are willing to use their talents and education to further it, hopefully for the common good.
I know it's cliched, but remember what Thomas Edison said: "Invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration"
Comments welcome!
bp
woxy.com - Bam! The Future of Rock and Roll
I can't answer your question but I wanted to mention (for those that missed it before) that one of the items the WTO planned to discuss at the recent Seattle meeting was software patents. The corporatists want to expand patent protection worldwide. They also want to patent genetic code as well, and make sure that people in poorer countries have to pay up for the pharmaceutical research done in richer countries (much of it at public expense).
Hereis an informative article about the WTO from ZNet, which has a whole subsite dedicated to the (worldwide) WTO protests and the issues involved, covered from a populist point of view.
For what it's worth, I've also emailed Amazon announcing my boycott.
P.S. Anyone have a better word than corporatists?
Don't understimate our effect. If we can demonstrate the need for this boycott clearly and concisely we can have a very large effect. You have to understand who I mean by "we".
I don't just mean slashdot, I mean a huge, loose, globally connected network of people and groups. Slashdot is an important node in this network, a clearing house which reaches thousands of people. Many of those thousands of people hear about interesting things on Slashdot and turn around and tell their friends about it--with just one level of indirection the number of people involved becomes absolutely enormous.
This is how organizing social action on the Internet works. It's not some single website that co-ordinates action against some adversary; nor is it even a single person. Richard Stallman may start the ball rolling, but MANY people care about the abuse of the patent system.
Protest actions organized over the net have the potential to grow exponentially, and reach a huge number of people in a short amount of time. The effect of such an action has been described by the Rand Corporation as an "overwhelming pulse" or a "swarm attack" on the target. A huge number of loosely connected people, groups, organizations, politicians, mailing lists, individuals, etc., all descend on the target all at once, overwhelming it with a short, massive burst of action.
So Slashdot by itself may not be able to succeed in pressuring Amazon--but we can play an important role in generating a huge internet-style swarm all over these morons, overwhelming them before they really figure out what's going on.
Read it on slashdot, then tell your friends, families, co-workers, etc.
Hierarchies and business have not yet really figured out an effective way to respond to this kind of action.
I wrote a nifty program about three years ago, and I thought it would be a good idea to patent it. So, I asked the Canadian government for a patent kit. I got everything in the mail about a week later. At the top of one of the booklets was something that said very blatantly, "Computer software cannot be patented. It's like trying to patent Newton's Method for solving equations."
So, I guess one government has the right idea. You Canuck-bashing yanks have a thing or three to learn from us Canadians.
Most of them can't grasp the issue, but are willing to do what I ask as friends.
I hope it proves useful for a "mythic figure" like RMS to start something like this... I'm pessimistic but I still hope...
License: By reading this you are agreeing that you agree with me.
How will that patent affect AMZN and all the other sites that use it? Certainly some action needs to be taken against THAT company (I forget who they are and what they do) if they persist in enforcing it.
And BTW, I fully support the AMZN boycott. It's high time to do something about patents, and boycotting seems to be the most we can do. RMS is a genius!
What makes you think that Apache is licensed under the GPL?
:-)
Some more news: Amazon doesn't really have a spokeswoman named Amanda Dickenson, and Amazon isn't really announcing a free software embargo. Lighten up, dude, it's a joke.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
and plaster it all over the Internet. Other people can also tell when freedom is being taken away. They can be made to understand that the future of innovation (did I really just say that word?) and competition on the Internet is at stake.
So if B&N renames the "Order Button" to a "Buy Now" button wouldn't they be OK? ")
"Method and system for placing a purchase order via a communications network
Abstract
A method and system for placing an order to purchase an item via the Internet. The order is placed by a purchaser at a client system and received by a server system. The server system receives purchaser information including identification of the purchaser, payment information, and shipment information from the client system. The server system then assigns a client identifier to the client system and associates the assigned client identifier with the received purchaser information. The server system sends to the client system the assigned client identifier and an HTML document identifying the item and including an order button. The client system receives and stores the assigned client identifier and receives and displays the HTML document. In response to the selection of the order button, the client system sends to the server system a request to purchase the identified item. The server system receives the request and combines the purchaser information associated with the client identifier of the client system to generate an order to purchase the item in accordance with the billing and shipment information whereby the purchaser effects the ordering of the product by selection of the order button."
I live near Portland, and indeed, the Powells Technical Bookstore is INCREDIBLE! I could spend a day there! Unfortunately, they don't have discounts on much.
i will be attempting to gain a patent on an a relatively brand new idea: "selling books and music over the internet." i know a few companies are using the same concept, but as soon as i patent this idea... i plan on suing the competition into oblivion. i don't see anything wrong with my planned actions, and from the looks of the article above... a certain company named amazon would probably back me 100% in my endeavor!
I am curious about the subtle method they are using. It seems that you could just as well use two click shopping with little or no problems. One click to submit, one click to verify.
Its cheap and almost rediculous but seems like it should work.
off and out
After first reading about the lawsuit on /. a week or so back, I wrote the Amazon people telling them, basically, that I felt their patent was bs - from a developer's standpoint. They kindly wrote back saying that their patent 'encouraged innovation' and that they had 'thousands of man hours' invested in it. I've been spreading the word to family and friends to boycott Amazon *and* their related investment sites - drugstore, etc.. This is major cool!!! I hope, altho doubtful, that this useless, pathetic patent will be dropped.
... you nuked them!
send + more == money?
The whole smell of this reminds me of something I read that spoke of french landowners in the 16th or 17th centuries attemting to tax the WIND that blew over their land onto peasant provinces. recently saw something on PBS that referred to a 'window tax' that taxed the very light that flowed into one's abode. As a result, very few buildings in ?london? featured windows. (see the irony?)
We've slid back into those days, again, methinks. Charged a fee for our own thoughts and their fruits. This is obscene. We must arrest it's spread.
I advise all of you to (not a good idea, I know) to FLAME Jeff Bezos at every opportunity you can. If he's on a radio talk show, call up, get on and invite him to explain his lame patent, and why it's non-obvious. Then challenge him mercilessly. Blow off his politico shit, and then hit him again. And again. And again.
Remind him, and SHAME him (cool!) with the fact that the internet COULD NOT RUN without FREE software.
Ask him when he's going to contribute back to the community that made his fortune possible.
Be a gadfly. Never relent!
I know I never will!
I KNEW he was a weasel the very first time I saw his 'face'.
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
I couldn't agree with Stallman more. Something has got to be done about these tribes of female barbarians and their sexist man-hating ways. I heard they only let men into the village on one night each year, and nine months later send all of the male children back to their fathers. If we don't do something soon, Xena and her warriors will kill us and---Oh, wait, it's not that kind of Amazon boycott?
support Project Gutenberg--READ A BOOK!
I've always bought book form Amazon. Which are the alternative bookstores online?
Of course, I was already Boycotting them after they recently sent me email of the form:
``Hi. Since you bought this CD [which I bought about 1 YEAR ago!] we thought you might like this other CD that is coming out in December.''
Our school library is only allowed to keep on record the very last person who checked out a book (and that is stored in the record for the book, not the person), video rental places here (Las Vegas, NV) are not allowed to keep a record of which tapes you have rented, but Amazon.com keeps a list of everything I've bought from them and uses it to send spam. Oh just beg for a boycott why don't you.
To: feedback@amazon.com
Dear Sir,
Due to you US patent (5,960,411), I have decided to join the current boycott of
Amazon that Richard Stallman ( http://linuxtoday.com/stories/13652.html )
encoraged. Untill such time as this patent is revoked, I would not buy any product
from your site, neither would I encorage anyone to purchace anything from there.
Thank you.
--
/., please be polite in your mail to feedback.
--
Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.
72656B636148206C72655020726568746F6E41207473754A
Stallman is a relative latecomer to the Amazon-boycotting scene. Check out NoAmazon.Com.
From a commentary by Tim Phillips on the unconstitionality of the Sony Bono Copyright Extension Act. This commentary, and the entire site at http://www.public.asu.edu/~dkarjala/ are well worth reading.
Jefferson did not oppose patents and copyrights altogether, but viewed them as a means to provide incentive to invent such that society benefits. It seems that recent political rhetoric has leaned the other way, viewing intellectual property protection as the natural right of the corporate author rather than a temporary priviledge bestowed by society. This is particularily true in copyright law where at the current pace of copyright extension seems designed to prevent Mickey Mouse from ever entering the public domain.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
--cut here--
To: feedback@amazon.com
From: [email account registered with Amazon]
Subject: A notice related to the recent events involving your company.
Hello,
I will begin by saying that I have ordered plenty of merchandise, including books and toys. I love your web site, as it is very convenient. I have always received my orders quickly, and the service which finds used out-of-print books was a life saver. Currently, my wish list contains items for a total of over $200, and I was planning to purchase some of these items within the next 30 days, in time for the holiday season.
To say that I am satisfied with your site would be a great understatement.
It is with great sadness that I am writing to you to notify you that I will be taking my business elsewhere, as a result of your ignorant 1-Click patent and lawsuit. I also will be urging everyone I know to do the same. I think that enough arguments have been provided about your actions that I need not waste my time with any, as they will most likely be repeats. I am keeping my account active for now, in hope that you will change your mind about this matter.
Sincerely,
[My name]
--cut here--
--
I first heard about Powell's during a thread on news.admin.net-abuse.email regarding [Sp]amazon's business tactic of spamming its customers regardless of the customer's "don't fscking spam me ever" clickbox setting.
That was a good enough endorsement for me, so I placed my next order with 'em. Never got spammed. I've placed subsequent orders with 'em. I never did get a reply from Spamazon when I told 'em why I wasn't ordering from them anymore :)
I think you are wrong. Amazon is a promise. The market feel that it can profit in the near future, but if the Net refuse it, if we don't feel it's a Net creature, the market will not trust on it.
--
Escuse me for my bad english;)
This is a "me too" post and I'm not ashamed of it.
This is a stupid, obvious thing that Amazon has wrongly patented and is even more wrongly trying to enforce. We have to show them the "un-Slashdot effect", that is, the effect of thousands of geeks switching their business to Barns&Noble and Fatbrain.
Patents are not inherently wrong; software patents are not inherently wrong; this kind of patent that relies on technically-clueless patent examiners and an even more technically-clueless court system is wrong and must be stopped. Otherwise, you'll soon find that you can't program anything without paying licences.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Even if it doesn't hurt their bottom line.. watch their stock price take a hit.
People are going to say 'Stallman hates anyone who makes money.'.
However, I must agree with him here.
It's not about money.
The fact is, public companies are swayed by the bottom line. Period. No ifs, ands, or buts...
Heck. Private ones too, in general, though not as severely.
Do you like what amazon is doing, suing on a VERY silly patent on a simple use of web technology? Yes, the patent system itself is partly to blame. However... The *ONLY* thing you can do to send a message to amazon that they will actually listen to is to stop doing business with them. Period.
Sending them email voicing your displeasure will result in a 'So what? What does it matter to us what you think?' attitude.
Another example might be cable companies. We had a situation in Victoria, BC, where the cable company was doing some strange billing (you know, giving you extra channels and then billing everyone who didn't call to cancel.. etc...). People did NOT like this. Now, the CRTC (fcc equivalent, in these matters anyway) was taking too long. So, what did the people do? Massive cable revolt.
Thousands of poeple calling up and cancelling their cable service, giving the simple reason that 'I do not approve of your billing practices' SCARED THE SHIT out of the cable company. And they changed their tune in a matter of a couple weeks.
So. The moral of this ill-written tirade is....
The consumer should show his displeasure by choosing what to consume more carefully. Period.
Quick note - I've bought from Amazon, unchecked the box, and have never received any spam. I do think it's annoying that they default with check, not uncheck, though.
I think, one of the most effective methods for a consumer-based society like we have in north america to get what the people want from business is to a) state what you want and b) voice your opinion by where you spend your money.
Why do I not leave and go work in the US, where I can make twice the money, and half the taxes? Not because I dislike the US, but because I want to keep my money local.
Why do I not purchase certain items at the grocery store? Why do I not shop in certain stores in the mall? Because, I don't agree with their business practices, and they don't desrve to be kept in business with my hard earned money.
Sure, it's easy to say that little old me not shopping doesn't make a difference, but if more people acted as I do, the business sector would be an AWFUL lot more sensitive to what people really want.
The patent is invalid because it _is_ obvious. I don't understand how you can even know the context of the controversy if you are implying that amazon was the first to think of allowing a CC number to be stored in a cookie. Cookies had been used long before this patent, and the idiots in the patent office that let them slide this one accross need to be fired for incompetance.
Barnes and Noble will win the lawsuit, but i think we can all let amazon know how we feel about it.
So Rob, are you going to get that Jihad'ing penguin from Suck or not? I think stories like this fit perfectly. You should come up with a seperate 'zealout' category.
a lot
(and to those who think using the word 'zealout' is a flame against RMS, well, you're probably right. But look at the following definition:
http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=ze
...and tell me, is it really inaccurate?)
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Sometimes inventions are like that, a final brick in a wall composed of bricks provided by others. That helps explain why some inventions are independently invented by multiple people during a short period of time.
I would argue that there are ideas and inventions that are so profound that the inventor deserves more than to be characterized as mental flypaper that reached critical mass. These are the ideas that require a special genius that can make a leap into new and undiscovered territory.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
The patent system determines whether programmers as a class are permitted to exist, which is even more important than whether we can start making progress through combining our work. IMHO proprietary software vendors ought to start pulling their weight on solving this problem; much as I'd otherwise enjoy watching them suffer, patents harm us all equally.
Novel... are you joking Its called a primary key query.... About as novel as a door knob
Are there any supreme court rulings on the legality of stupid patients like this? If not I would say not to boycott them so that this case could migrate to the supreme court and then put an end to patent madness once and for all. If the supreme court rules that stupid patents like this are legal then we have reason to really scared....
Especially the last two points mentioned by RMS regarding how the US Patent Office and the US courts behave are very well screened here in Europe. Since the US government as well as different lobby groups keep sending "ambassadors" over here all the time to convince the EC to accept US patent law also here in Europe, we're a little bit picky about patent laws.
In case we Europeans should not like those US laws, we're informed by our nice visitors that then a boycott or something else would be perfectly in reach.
This behaviour in conjunction with the many patent problems now facing surface in the US are surely good to make our EC politicians at least immitating something called "thinking". Currently, national patent offices as well as the EC patent office are more picky (more colloquial than "higher standards") about what can be patented at all. So far this has resulted in less crap which has been wrongly granted a patent, which later had to put down, so the EC just tugs along. But for how long...?
RMS' action is only consistent to his point of view about low-level software patents. So from a european standpoint he's surely on the right way... but now all conspiratists will surely flame RMS, because some of those "Euros" just agreed with him... (grin)
Even if Amazons patent would hold up in a US court, that means absolutely nothing outside the US.
That is why this patent strategy wont work. If US courts block the net-business, it will move elsewhere. Just like the anti-$cientology pages etc.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Heheh... since when have we been able to get all of /. to agree on anything? The day that happens is the day I stop reading! It's like Springer without transsexual midget hookers battling neo nazi housewives.
Would it be possible to copyright all information regarding an individual's own purchasing practices?
This would include name and address as well as anything else that could be collected for targetted marketing by companies such as amazon.
I'd like to send Amazon a letter suggesting that I support the boycott and that they are hereby ordered to remove all information about me including my user account and past history from their databases.
If enough people pursued this action, Amazon would be reeling. It would also protect us from certain other privacy considerations...RealAudio, etc.
Given your attitude toward business, I think it would be a great learning experience for you to have one of YOUR 5-year-olds (if you have'em) to work as a slave. Maybe you'd start watching your mouth.
Most people are interested in two things: themselves and their families. Under that is their friends, and then possibly society at large.
Stallman has been arguing about patents for years, without any noticeable effect on burgeoning software patents. Here's why:
Who controls whether a patent is awarded? The Patent Office.
Is it in the best interest of a particular manager or bureaucrat there not to award a patent? No. The more patents awarded, the bigger and more important becomes that office. It is in the long-term financial best-interest of any particular USPTO employee to try and make sure as many patents are awarded as possible. (In fact, those who don't believe in software patents probably aren't working there anyway).
So arguing or boycotting on slashdot won't affect USPTO decisions since it doesn't affect what really moves them - they are trying to feed their families and build a stable bureaucratic system.
Once it's agreed that the patent office will award patents as much as they can, then we see it's in any company's best interest to apply for them. Once applied for, it's in their best interest to defend them. Similarly, as with any government entity, it's always in the best interest of that entity to expand, not to contract, its scope. So the whole legal apparatus - judges, lawyers, legislators - for all of these people, it's in their best interest to expand patents as much as possible without actually killing the entire net. It's true that such patents are not in the best interest of individual programmers not employed by large patent-hungry corporations in which they have equity. But this is irrelevant to the process of creating and upholding patents.
In conclusion, the patent system, like any other government system that slashdot types like to rail against (drug control, gun control) will simply expand indefinitely. Occasional individual patents will get overturned, maybe the Amazon boycott will make a tiny difference, but there are thousands of such patents and in the long run it will make no difference.
In conclusion, the patent system is a self-sustaining feedback system. No amount of slashdot posturing can change this. The patent system will continue to expand, and there is nothing slashdot or Stallman can do about it. Boycotting Amazon is like boycotting the ocean because floods kill people sometimes. Patents at this point are a natural force that cannot be stopped.
Sorry, I have yet to see RMS address the issue that I laid out about people stealing other peoples work.
As far as Amazon's patent. Believe whatever you want to. Everything can be summed up into matter-energy reactions. Merely saying that just because some solution is *composed* of smaller obvious steps - doesn't mean the whole solution is therefore obvious! Saying that all information is inheriently obvious and therefore no patentable is just plain silly.
Now I ask you. I've been shopping on the net for a long time. I have yet to see ANYONE implement a one-click solution. If it was SO simple and obvious - how come no one did it? Amazon was just granted this patent. So its not like everyone was avoiding litigation.
Actually, if you listen to McCain tonight (not during the debates, afterwards during the press interviews). He specifically mention the issue of reforming patents and the latency between granting patents.
Tom
Yeah, Amazon's patent is stupid.
But protesting them bringing it court???
RMS should be GLAD!
This way, the courts will (hopefully) see that it's a BS patent and throw it out!
Doesn't anyone see that it's IDIOTIC to protest due process? I'm mystified. Utterly mystified. Shouldn't RMS be putting his efforts to better use, like informing people about how the patent should be invalid rather than this rediculous call for a boycott? What could a boycott POSSIBLY ACCOMPLISH?
I'm also saddened at how so many slashdotters will just agree with anything RMS says without thinking about it. Baaa baaa baaa baaa
But keep in mind that B&N lost the injunction battle. I'm sure B&N does have some decent lawyers, if this patent is as stupid as you say - how'd they lose?
There is a way of stopping companies acting up like A. or M$ or (you name them). Ideas, algorigthms and the like cannot be patented when they have been published in an (sci pub) article earlier. If I come and write about a new crypto algorithm, all the details and the 'fundamentally new' idea behind it automatically belong to the scientific community. When I can prove I published the cmdrtaco algorithm back in 1998, no company can come an claim to have invented it in 1999. So, dig out your old DrDobbs, Byte and SciAm issues and look for articles describing that cookie technique. If all fails, credit goes to the Grimm Bros. for Hansel and Gretel (hence the name 'cookie') or even Homer (the Greek (no! not Geek!), not the Simpsonian) for the Minotaur story (was it really Homer? Was it the Minotaur?, Nah, it was the ariadne thread. Ooh, my memory...)
Use The Source, Luke!
Someone mentioned Best Book Buys; for your information, DealPilot (formerly Acses) has a similar service. More interestingly, they also have an Express version, which hooks into your browser, searching other sites for whatever books (or movies) you select. It is a beta, and it doesn't let you add multiple books (yet).
Some people are wondering what all the fuss is about, others are wondering why Amazon keeps getting singled out when there are other e-businesses out there with shifty practices.
Amazon is generally considered THE model for doing business over the internet. (Whether Amazon actually deserves this reputation is irrelevant.) Other companies look at Amazon as the business leader. (This becomes obvious when you see market analysts using Amazon as a barometer for the Internet.) So when Amazon decides to abuse their privacy policy, sue over (internet) software patents, or other unethical behavior, it sends a message to other companies trying to figure out the e-commerce thing that "If Amazon can do it, so should we." Amazon is a corporate role-model, and elicits a sort of peer pressure on other companies. Yes, maybe stupid business policy, but it's an unfortunate fact that most web commerce sites are sheep trying to follow the herd.
And, make no mistake, you should be concerned (perhaps even "worked up") about the privileges being extended to these patent holders. What these people are doing is restricting the kinds of programs that you (yes, you) can write. They are saying that if you use "their" idea, then you (yes, you) have "stolen" that idea, even if you never saw or heard of their implementation when you wrote yours. They are claiming ownership not only over their own programs, but over broad classes of programs not yet written. In short, software patent holders collectively are doing their level best to ensure that nobody can write software except on their terms. When you think about it, these are powerful privileges indeed that we (that's right, us; ultimately the authority to grant patent privileges comes from none other) are granting patent holders, and in exchange we should expect some significant benefits. The truth is, that by and large we aren't benefiting from extending patents to software; in fact, it likely hurts the industry more than it helps it. It certainly favors established companies over new ones, as well as proprietary software over free (both of the "speech" and "beer" variety) software.
So, if software patents are pernicious, then what is to be done? Writing to lawmakers, as you suggest is one possibility, but the legislative wheels turn slowly under the best of circumstances. Relying on the courts is no answer; they are too time-consuming and too expensive. You shouldn't have to go to court just to write software anyhow. Fortunately, we have another resource available. When we see a company behaving unethically we can and should refuse to do business with them. We can and should inform them (always politely, of course) of the reasons for our refusal to do business with them. This is the course that RMS is advocating, and everyone who cares about ending the abuses of the system would be well advised to follow it, in addition to any political action they might be planning.
Of course, a boycott might not work. It may be that Amazon is to big, and we are too few. That is life; there are no guarantees. Nevertheless, pursuing the boycott costs us little: a few dollars more on our holiday shopping bills, if even that. It is a pittance, when you consider what is at stake. We cannot afford to let this pass unchallenged. We cannot afford not to stand up for ourselves.
-r
Guys, don't just boycott a company. They might lose a little buisness, but they won't necessarily realize why. If you tell them you're boycotting, you can actually get your message across. Hell, I suppose you could just tell them that you're boycotting, and then keep buying, but that seems sleezy.
I sent a message to info@amazon.com, feedback@amazon.com, and suggestions@amazon.com
Here's a copy. If you send a message (and I suggest that you should) PLEASE don't copy and paste my message. Paraphrase. Form-emails mean SO little. It's hard to get them to listen to email to begin with, without people copy-pasting.
I'm sure you guys have heard about Richard Stallman's call for a ban on Amazon.com. If
you haven't, I've taken the liberty of attaching the related web-page. Stallman is often
outrageous and extreme, but I believe he's got a very good point here. The idea of even
applying for that patent, much less having the nerve to try to enforce it, is absolutely absurd.
Last year, my online book purchases totaled a little over $700. (One of the many wonders
of ordering online is the ability to scan through my archives of old orders.) I think you guys run
a nice page, and provide a good service. However, I think this boycott represents a legitimate
cause, and there are too many alternatives for me to buy from a company I disagree with so
strongly.
I'm sorry to take my business to competitors, but your actions leave very little choice.
Sam Greenberg
http://linuxtoday.com/stories/13652.html
Someone here said everyone else had you filling out long forms and Amazon had "one click technology". This is basically Amazon's line as well.
First, there is nothing very difficult about what Amazon is doing. Second, it's pretty damn obvious. Third, I don't believe Amazon was the first or only site to do this--I think they were just the first to *patent* it.
The main reason why other sites don't do this, or didn't do this, was security concerns. Keeping that much information about you (all your financial data) in a cookie gives a lot of people the willies. If you were on some small web page and it was tracking your credit card, you might worry, and that might incline you not to supply the credit card.
Amazon is just big enough that people trust them to have figured it all out and handled the security issues sensibly. I don't think this is deserving of a patent.
Cookies were *designed* to track your identity between sessions. I don't see where Amazon should get a patent for something invented at Netscape.
Remember what Thomas Edison said: "Invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration"
Which is one of the best arguments I've heard for abandoning patents.
If it takes 99% of the effort to replicate somebody's work than it does in the first place, that's the situation we want to be in. Without competition, capitalism fails. It costs their competitors virtually as much to join the club, yet Amazon has the critical first-mover advantage.
Bryan
The site has many interesting interviews with people in diverse occupations.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
The current situation on trivial software patents is absurd. And I have great respect for Stallman and his work.
... but, really, a boycott!? Better to boycott the firms that can't make a working web site, or "lose" orders, or rip off credit cards.
:-)
However, I'm afraid I'm not going to boycott Amazon for this. They're just playing by the rules of the jungle - just like all the other hi-tech firms out there. Campaign to change the rules (please!) but Amazon aren't to blame here.
I'm a Brit living in Switzerland and this year I've done most of my Xmas shopping with Amazon and they've done a darn good job. And my family have been generous enough to buy me a lot of the DVD titles I put on my Wish List (no doubt petent pending) at Amazon US. It all worked beautifully. I'm only sorry their UK branch doesn't (yet) stock the range that they have in the US. By comparison with Amazon the UK web efforts (www.pcworld.co.uk, www.jungle.com, etc.) are shambolic.
I didn't mean this post to become an Amazon testimonial
As it happens, I have joined the eToys boycott - because I don't like how they handled eToy. (Compare and contrast the amicable settlement reached by Amazon with that bookshop). This has caused me some extra cost and inconvenience to me - even to the extent of me having to pick up a telephone and talk to someone.
Happy Holidays everyone. Stallman & Amazon included.
Regards, Ralph.
If people would just check out the proper search engines, Amazon would have no customers. If you use www.dealpilot.com or similar search engines you will often find that Amazon is 50% more expensive than the cheapest offer. At least this is true in Europe
I immediately started buying any books from places like Barnes & Noble
Erm. So let me get this straight: because you object to Amazon obtaining an admittedly completely bogus patent, you instead go over to a company that's if anything worse? (At least Amazon isn't making a habit of suing anyone who doesn't richly deserve it.)
Or have we all forgotten so soon how Barnes & Noble attempted to torpedo Amazon's IPO by suing them over their *slogan*, for Gopod's sake, the week they went public?
If you want to support good people and unsupport bad ones, all very well, but it seems to me you're out of the frying pan and into the fire here.
When Amazon does something truly evil it will be time enough to boycott them. Slapping a bully around doesn't exactly qualify, for me. Now if, for example, the genuinely evil doings of etoys.com were getting half as much attention here as Amazon's....
It seems to me in any case that the PTO policy (apparent) of ignoring prior art and obviousness on any patent related somehow to computers is a much worse problem deserving of more attention than any single patent, regardless how odious. This isn't going to change until the PTO gets its shit together. How about spending some energy on that?
To: info@amazon.com, feedback@amazon.com, suggestions@amazon.com,webmaster@amazon.com, webmaster@amazon.de
Subject: Joining the boycott against Amazon
Cc: amazon@gnu.org
Dear Madam or Sir,
As you probably know, Richard Stallman, the president of the Free Software Foundation, has called for a boycott against Amazon because of its patent claim on so-called "One-Click" technology and its lawsuits to enforce the claim.
http://linuxtoday.com/stories/13652.html
Although I have been a customer of Amazon in the past, I am joining the boycott. As a software engineer at an Internet service provider, I am fully aware of the lack of merit in Amazon's patent assertions -- and please don't insult me by claiming otherwise. The US Patent Office has done a dreadful disservice in granting almost every vacuous claim concerning software technology, but that does not excuse Amazon for this blatantly dishonest action.
If you drop the patent claims, I will respond supportively by buying books from Amazon. But until then, I will do no business with you.
Sincerely,
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
The threat of broad, enforceable patents makes the prospect of starting an 'Internet Startup' more and more ominous.
I will admit, in other markets ( more classic markets (ala, industry)), the current U.S. Patent laws / regulations seem to maintain some sense of control over the proliferation of 'mouse traps'. They have kept up market diveristy and innovation rates.
However, the recent surge of Internet 'patents' is rather disheartening for a man in my industry (Internet Startups). The big players seem to be creating absolute barriers to entry in their competitive niches. In some cases, (ala amazon.com), they seem to even be claiming ownership of the 'usage' of the concepts fundamental behind the design of the open protocol that their patent is based on.
It's about as ludicrous as having the plumbers try to charge you a water bill.
I will admit, that Patents have fostered innovation and originality in the past. However, I doubt that broad, loosely tied patents on such newly emerging technology will bolster the growth of the industry in any way what-so-ever. If public interfaces are restricted and 'licensed' to single players like amazon.com, the entire concept of the 'Internet' looses it's value in my eyes. It quickly becomes nothing but prioprietarily encoded point-to-point connections, not the open wealth of information that it is supposed to be.
I am personallity knowingly violating a number of 'data mining' and 'search' patents, without regard for the 'owners' of these methods. Had I been chicken enough to sit idly by and let these things go enforced without force, my ideas probably would not have gotten funded, and I would hardly have made my mark on the Internet, which I am working furiously to do right now.
Broad Internet patents are not appreciated. By me, and many other Tech. Entrepreneurs.
-Brockman
Boycotting chains is fine for those who have an option, but my town has only 3 bookstores:
a very small B. Daltons
a tiny Waldenbooks
a little used book store.
Now, I patronize that one when I can; but for many purposes, I have no choice but to order electronically. Until the purchasing circles, or whatever they're called, I preferred amazon.com over Barnes and Noble, but now I don't know whom to use.
What do you recommend for people like me? I'm curoius...
...I took immediate measures and carded 15 books :)
from spAmazon, not that I ever bought any
This page is really usefull, searches on lots of sites for the cheapest place to buy a book. Gives lots of alternatives to amazon:
http://www.snmputils.com/booksearch/
Well, Jon? We're waiting. What's it going to be?
Personally, I just put my stuff online and allow people to read it. However, I'm more pleased than ever that I'm ordering books from a local bookstore as gifts this Xmas season.
The guy who runs the bookstore (Mystery/Trek, in Brattleboro Vermont) is a good guy, smart, will talk your ear off for hours and knows his stuff and will order all sorts of things for you if he doesn't have them in. I've basically bought all the US pterrybooks from him.
In talking with him I've learned about how he likes some distributors better than others- because some of them fund the big corporate bookstores and any money he gives them tends to go directly to stamping him and his little bookstore out through economic action and the 'network effects' we're so familiar with in the computer industry. I can't help but sympathise with this point of view, so it gives me particular pleasure to publically jump up and cry out GO BUY STUFF AT MYSTERY/TREK! Go forth and journey to the charming Mystery/Trek! Browse mystery, trek, gothic, thriller, science fiction and fantasy books both old and new, make a pilgrimage to... well anyway :)
Seriously- if you have a local bookstore that doesn't totally suck, why not go there instead of to yet another random web site driven only by price? Go out and chat with a bookseller. A lot of them are book geeks and interesting people, and some are fascinating conversationalists like the guy at Mystery/Trek who can converse intelligently on lots of subjects. (Leave computers out of it- he knows little about them but instinctively mistrusts the usual thundering Windows hype, which is all he's really aware of. He does database searches through _microfilm_. Yes, it still exists :) )
Anyhow... I'm still curious what Jon Katz's response to this is. Any chance of a statement? Or, God forbid, an article?
What can we do about this. Patents were put in place to protect capital investment. Intellectual capital is pocket change when compared to gearing up a factory.
Can the patent system be restricted now, or is it too late?
Could individual patent examiners be named in a lawsuit as their actions in granting bad patents can and do have a monetary effect on individuals and businesses? This would have a very nice chilling effect on the reckless granting of patents, and also do something about the PTO farm system...where a fresh lawyer goes in for several years and emerges a high-priced patent attorney.
Would the industry put up with a restriction on software patents? A large number of 'tech' companies exist solely as a patent licensor. A few have a ton of cash and nothing but lawyers to keep the feed mill running.
My feeling is it is far too late. A economic engine has formed around the system of software patents. Too many hands...more and more money... A voice echos in the wilderness...
Much as I disapprove of patenting absurd things like this, I'm not going to boycott Amazon as such - they offer a good product and site, and I rely on them heavily to feed my huge hunger for books. The Patent Office should be the real target - it's their fault this has happened, not Amazon's. If it wasn't Amazon, some other company would've done exactly the same thing.
:-)
However, I have been waging a boycott against the patented technique for the last few months - I refuse to use their One-Click system, preferring the unpatented alternative method for buying the books. It takes a few extra clicks, but I'm happy in the knowledge that I am not supporting the patent
... I agree with a lot of the things he says ... but he somehow really annoys me with just about every pronouncement he makes.
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
Stallman says drink the kool-aid and you people run for the plastic cups.
The behavior of many of the people on this site to anything that this man says is frightening. It is so similar to the talkback people at ZDNet who think BillG is an innovator.
I find it quite amusing that the people here seem to embrace independent thought, but as soon as Stallman says jump, you say how high?
GNU is a cult, and now I am truly convinced of this. Check your mind at the door.
I for one agree that the patent is not fair, and actually impede progress.
A Boycott is likely to be seriously damaging to Amazon's future business, since chances are that any customer that switches to one of their competitors, will stay away even when the boycott is over.
Presumably it would be sensible for any Amazon shareholders reading this to sell their shares as quickly as possible, before the traders pick up that Amazon are going to be in trouble.
In fact I'm tempted to indulge in some bear trading (i.e. sell some shares I don't own)
You can check out their stock price to see if it continues to fall when trading opens today.
Debian: GNU/Linux done the Linux way
The consensus of the discussion is that most will boycott. But that is just the consensus of those that wish to or dare to explicitly express their opinion.
/.ers or not. Of course it would still only contain the results of those that can be bothered to vote...
I would like to see a poll:
Will you take part in a boycott of Amazon, as proposed by RMS?
Yes
No
Wouldn't have bought from Amazon anyway
sucks blah blah
It would be great to see just how big Stallman's geek army is, and whether it contains the majority of
It takes a split second flash of inspiration to conceive an "invention". It takes hours/years of hard work by a large number of people to implement it. The mere conception of an idea shouldn't be enough to pay your existance for a lifetime. People who are naturally inventive and enjoy development will not require money for their constructive daydreaming.
As for the complexity of the patent, it is no less than a credit-card lookup.
cookies : Server assigns a client identifier to client in order to store information about the client and retrieve such information on receipt of that identifier.
amazon : Server assigns a client identifier to client in order to store credit info about the client and retrieve such information on receipt of that identifier.
Seems all Stallman ever does is whinge because not everyone in the world worships him yet.
Stallman, get your head out of your ass and go and DO something productive for once instead of resting upon your crappy editor and a few poorly written GNU manuals.
Oh, and btw, next time you throw a paddy and demand a boycott, direct it at the RELEVANT party (namely the US Patent Office), NOT a random company who is merely following the law.
Wassup, Stallman? Did Amazon refuse to sell your book for you?
(Watch as this gets marked as flamebait purely because it doesn't bow down and worship one of the Linux Leet)
Amazon's real bottom line is their share price. If the boycott is picked up as important by investors , *then* it will affect them.
What would happen if:
a) People with shares in AMZN tell their brokers to sell, and mention the boycott/reasons
b) People with investment plans tell their fund managers that they don't want AMZN shares in their trust, and explain reasons.
Just imagine what the slashdot effect could have on a volatile internet share price?
--
Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
Linux companies like LinuxMall.com have affiliate programs as well -- and give things back to the Linux Community -- without engaging in ridiculous tactics like trying to hamstring other companies with patents. This isn't about a "right or wrong" issue with Amazon -- it's a business tactic similar to Microsoft, just using a lawsuit to slow Barnes and Nobles down.
The point here is not the quality of Amazons product, but the fact is that they are abbusing a system (that has plenty of room to be abused) for there own gain.
Does anyone who has the opportunity to ask RMS asked why he hasn't done what he suggests?
Can anyone tell me what their opinions are of a Europe boycott? Frankly, it was the American patent office that awarded this, and then, the patent only applies in America. Amazon have always provided me with good service, and they sell books really cheaply here. Someone persuade me why I should pay more elsewhere (and yes, I have also shopped at Bol, and the book cover was bent in half, not impressed).
I have a suggestion...
Perhaps, everybody who disagrees with Amazon's software patent and has commented to Slashdot might also try emailing their thoughts on the subject to Amazon (and any media organisations they feel might benefit from there viewpoint).
The issue is not whether or not the software is GPL, but whether or not it is Free Software, which is considerably broader. You need to do some reading on www.gnu.org, I think.
They've only been granted the patent by the US patent office. The patent has not yet been granted by any european patent offices, afaik.
tongue-in-cheek, like. It might generate a good reaction :-)
Anyway, as has been pointed out several times here, neither Amazon nor B&N have the best deals. Taking your business elsewhere is no loss to you financially. You will have to enter your credit card info every time you order, though, because other booksellers aren't as innovative as Amazon ;->
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
Suppose we all slashdot the Amazon site at a particular time, say 10:00 EST sharp, to show our dismay. Do you think that would work? Any comment?
What are good, cheap bookshops, that also ship cheap to Europe, or even have an European affiliate? Most bookshops seem te be quite expensive when it comes to shipping to Europe.
A boycott from a couple of hundred Slashdotters is really going to put a crimp in their sales???
Once again, the people here severely overestimate their clout in the real world, not the free software world, but the real world, where there are millions of others that just don't care.
Just imagine how many people boycott Nike because of their labor practices in the far east. Has it worked? Of course not! Why? Most people, except for a select few, don't care. I am sure on some Slashdot like Anti-Nike site, they are patting themselves on the back too, not realizing that the world goes on.
Please realize, most of the world does not even know Slashdot exists, so trust me, the impact would not be felt by Amazon.
Lastly, if you do feel the need to short the stock, don't be stupid and do it during the busiest, most revenue producing quarter. Wait until spring.
I'm sure many/most here would agree that patents are unethical because they stifle innovation and protect established commercial interests. INHO a truly creative business does not need protection, it simply innovates it's self above the competition, it does not need to 'protect' it's inventions.
However I don't believe a boycott of Amazon is the best course to challenge the patent system in this instance, I believe boycotting Amazon would probably be counter productive. A boycott, if successful would only result in Amazon dropping the action, it would not break the patent.
It's in our interests to use the system to benefit openness as much as possible, this patent should be broken in court on 'obviousness' and 'prior-art' grounds. If you want to take positive action aid the company challenging the patent, through research into prior art.
A boycott of a patent holder should be saved for a patent that is on solid ground in law, but needs to be challenged to benefit all.
Best Book Buys
BookFinder.com
BestBookDeal.com
BookBlvd.com
DealPilot
BESTeDEAL.c om
Some links (which are not normally supposed to be bookmarkable, I guess) may become broken. Pick your favorite, and try them out with books that you're looking for in the future. Now all we need is a meta-meta-book search and you'd be set for sure!
Due to Amazon's failure to renounce sending unsolicited bulk e-mail I refuse to do any business with them. www.powellsbooks.com is far more "geek friendly".
^
|
|
Someone please moderate this up!
The metadynamics of this patent case are enormous. Amazon is a bellweather of internet companies, and as such, should be accountable for its (unscrupulous) actions.
Boycott Amazon now!
Summary of useful links from above articles (not guaranteed to be complete, grepped 'www.*'):
Online Book sites
http://www.dealpilot.com
http://www.fatbrian.com
http://www.bn.com
ISBN Meta sites:
http://www.snmputils.com/booksearch
http://www.bestbookbuys.com
http://www.bookblvd.com
http://www.bestbookdeal.com
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
is that is hard to determine where is the boundary between the idea ( abundand and therefore, hopefully, free ) and the product ( scarce and therefore patentable ).
... not a cheap resource, I would say [ even though the Bazaar model tells us how distribute the effort to make it ligther ].
For instance, programming requires huge amount of man-power from skilled individuals
I DO agree, anyway, that the more free are ideas AND software, the more everybody in the field will benefit, including the idea originator/ software programmer.
I'm just not sure that the bussines world will ever see it in that way.
Ciao
----
FB
Fatbrain are spammers as well. Go look it up at dejanews.
Brand loyalty is tough to overcome, especially for the younger generation.
;-). This is what I got http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000J3R8/ 102-4633701-4903253. No, I didn't buy it there, as you can see it's out of stock ;-)
:-). And I have that PIP if I use a VCR as a tuner (which is what most people do anyway if using digital cable). In my opinion it's a steal at $699. The model is CZ32V51. No, I do not care if I could buy it for less elsewhere and pay for shipping ;-)
Case in point, I was in the market to shop for some electronics this month. Normally I am fiercely loyal to Sony, but this time it was different. As a result my DVD player is from Sampo and my TV is from Toshiba. Why? Because this DVD player doesn't have region restrictions, removes macrovision, plays MP3s, plays CD-Rs, has a Dolby Digital decoder built-in, plus it has component video and the 5.1ch outputs. The model number is Sampo 560E, if you are curious. I love Sony TVs, but I wanted component video on a 32" TV. Guess what, I was unable to find it on any Sony at Fry'z on display in reasonable price range! After some research, I found it on the ultraexpensive Wega series. My girlfriend didn't understand why I didn't pay any attention to the front of the set and why I didn't want to buy a higher priced model ($100 more for dual-tuner PIP or $300 more for "Cinema Series" with same tube
That's a good example of brand loyalty. It took me a good hour to explain that the picture tube is the most important component and all the extra price is for people who don't understand that they do not need those features. Features like enhanced audio (which is handled quite nicely by my audio setup), favorite channels, v-chip (LOL), fancy remotes and the like.
I am actually extremely pleased with what I got. A 700+ line resolution screen, with component video... Believe me, the DVD playback is stunning
Speaking of sneakers, I'd found Nikes to be completely out of line with my design tastes. I can buy from an obscure brand and be far more happy. It's my shoes, so give me real leather and durability and no marketing-induced inflated prices. If anything, Rockport is my choice until I find something better.
Parents need to teach their kids that the purpose of network TV is to lie about the product's superiority and to consider other alternatives which are often indeed better. Have anyone actually looked how ugly those new designs are lately?
I went through this once when I was in middle school.
Oh well, brands are sticky, and people need to learn to detach from them.
--
Leonid S. Knyshov
Network Administrator
Leonid S. Knyshov
Find me on Quora
'Search of the day: Monopoly'
Are they trying to tell us something? :)
That's the perfect email to send. Full of spelling, grammatical and flow errors.
/dev/null. Why? Because they don't care about you. They care about you as much as you care about the families and friends of your work competitors.
This entire 'boycott' is a joke.
It's time to wake up guys. Are you 'nerds', or are you the new wave rebels, looking for the Matrix?
I know some of you have real lives, so start being practical, instead of attempting to jump onto this utopian bandwagon where no one owns anything, and there is peace and love all around.
The folks at Amazon are going to read these emails you send, and they are going straight to
(NOTE: Does not apply to Mobsters©)
So, again, time to decide. Are you hot headed, drop of the hat activists, or are you computer and technology crazy human beings?
I call for a boycott of VA Linux, for changing their name to make a few billion dollars...
(Say goodbye to my karma...)
http://www.nciba.com/patholt/column100.html
Of course it won't affect their bottom line -- they have none. They don't make any money, and it doesn't really seem to matter how much money they lose.
Actually a boycott will save Amazon money, since they loose money on every sale. Fewer sales, smaller loss. ;-)
...richie - It is a good day to code.
they didn't really lose any money. they just came up 134 million short of the projected profit so the say the "lost" money.
RMS may be on a rampage, but it is not anyone who makes money. Amazon has not even turned over a profit yet, and dont expect to until 2002.
In France, you apply for a patent, nobody looks at it except to check that it fits the technical requirements. There is no check in advance. The only check happens in court.
You might wonder at this point: does that mean that I can patent anything? Yes. But that also means that the court will look at it more cautiously, since it won't have the seal of an official authority like the PAtent Office -- seal which does'nt prove anything anyway since we all know how the PTO cant't do his job!
There is no way that any of these claims will ever hold up in court! All you guys are doing is making a laugh of your selves in front of the global community.
Hey, despite the claims, they already have "held up in court." Barnes & Noble is presently subject to a Preliminary Injunction, an extraordinary step in a case of this kind. Significantly, counsel for Barnes & Noble, with virtually infinite assets at their disposal, were unable to produce any sufficient to avoid a preliminary injunction.
The standard for a defendant to avoid a preliminary injunction --showing the absence of a substantial likelihood that plaintiff will prevail-- is much, much, much less than will be necessary to invalidate the patent on summary judgment or trial: to prove invaidity by clear and convincing evidence. The inability to satisfy the court at this early stage suggests that no readily available prior art exists.
Perhaps something good will turn up in the months to come, but this isn't a good sign for those who "feel" that the patent is "obviously" invalid.
It is common to see claims of invalidity being made in this forum. It is much more difficult to prove them. B&N couldn't even show that there is a cloud on the substantial likelihood of Amazon's patent being valid, let alone meet the burden of proof it would need to overcome at trial.
If the claims are invalid, where is the prior art? When you see such claims, consider whether its based on the merits, ow whether its all just wishful thinking by a lockstep ideologue.
Further, as to the superiority of patents across the pond, only time will tell if the foreign counterparts are found to be enforceable.
I, for one, concur with the sense that the amazon claims "feel" too broad. But it is irresponsible to merely assert, without more, that the claims "will never stand up." Time will tell. So far, all evidence is to the contrary.
Don't understimate our effect. If we can demonstrate the need for this boycott clearly and concisely we can have a very large effect
Originally I beleived this but considering that this is the fourth time Slashdot has posted about Amazon and 1-click shopping in the past three months and nothing has happened, I don't see why this time should be any different, unless...(see bottom of post)
As an aside, it seems that the quality of posts this fourth time around is rather bad there were more insightful posts when we heard amazon got the patent, that they sued B&N, and when they won an injunction. It seems like now all the posts I've read even at a setting of 3 are at best rehashes of tired cliches that we've already seen three times (at least).
After so many posts at so many different times I was hoping to see at least one post where someone suggested an organized form of opposition to this... it seems Richard Stallman has to be this someone.
Personally I've been boycotting Amazon for the past 3 months but it is obvious this has had no effect so now I suggest that we should borrow a leaf from the Geocities homesteaders when they rebelled against Yahoo's TOS and won. Instead of just bitching about it or reading about people bitching about it...we should organize webpages (not one or two, there were dozens of anti-Geocities TOS webpages when Yahoo revised them), send emails out to the people you know that link to these webpages and ask them to forward your emails (I know that sounds suspiciously like spam/chain letters but it works), and finally boycott Amazon in all shape, form & fashion (if I remember correctly from earlier discussions of this topic don't even Amazon links to Slashdot when talking about a book, post a B&N link...that way we don't contribute to their eyeball count).
I know once I finish my finals I'll start work on constructing a website and creating letters to spread the word and start a grassroots resistance of this. Patenting using cookies to store credit card info harms all consumers who buy online, and we should make sure everyone realizes this.
Just my $0.02...after reading about this for the 4th time on Slashdot.
Bad Command Or File Name
As we all know, RMS defends the freedom of information on a purely moral basis. He started the FSF because he did not feel it was right for a company to prevent him from giving his neighbor a copy of the software he created. The morality of "intellectual property" is a subtle isse. For example, right now BristolMeyersSquib (a giant pharmaceutical company) holds patents to drugs that can save the life of millions in third world countries. Right now there are drug manufacturing plants in Africa that could produce these drugs and sell them for a price which the local population can afford. Right now the executives at BMS do not allow them to do this because they have have the patents and want to preserve the fat profit margins they have on these drugs. In effect, right now executives at BMS are choosing to let millions die just so they can keep their fat profit margins. In their defense, the executives claim that without these fat profit margins the drug would have never been invented. Is that true? I don't know. All I know is that I would not want to be the one who has to make that kind of decision.
Waterstones
WHSmith Books online
I don't work for either of these companies. I was trying to think of alternatives to Amazon (there aren't that many in the UK) and these are the sites I thought of.
The morality of "intellectual property" is a subtle isse.
For example, right now BristolMeyersSquib (a giant pharmaceutical company) holds patents to drugs that can save the life of millions in third world countries. Right now there are drug manufacturing plants in Africa that could produce these drugs and sell them for a price which the local population can afford. Right now the executives at BMS do not allow them to do this because they have have the patents and want to preserve the fat profit margins they have on these drugs.
In effect, right now executives at BMS are choosing to let millions die just so they can keep their fat profit margins.
In their defense, the executives claim that without these fat profit margins the drug would have never been invented.
Is that true? I don't know. All I know is that I would not want to be the one who has to make that kind of decision.
Umm... if a company advertises that it has/is/does foo better than their competitors, and can't back up that claim, then it *IS* false advertising. No two ways about it. Maybe the timing was suspect, but if I was in business, and they made an unsubstantiated claim against my company, I'd be a bit upset, too.
IMNSHO, if they wanted to be safe, they could have claimed that they stocked more books than the leading "brick and mortar" bookstores. Then, noone could claim they were specifically targeting BN, Borders, Waldenbooks, B. Dalton's, etc.
My $1.47...
Eric
It's patently (no pun intended) absurd to consider paying royalties to the Archimedes estate -- the idea just wouldn't hold water. (pun quite intended)
And no patent advocate would assert that it makes sense either. No patent would be granted on Archimedes' work, per se (although patents on improvements and developments therefrom issue every Tuesday at noon).
The patent system grants patents for a limited term, after which the idea, memorialized in the patent specification, falls into the public domain.
Patents, by definition, cannot apply to something that has already been "freely given," so to speak. If an invention is published by an inventor more than one year prior to filing an application or prior to the invention, the patent will be barred. Outside the U.S., the standard is more strict, where the one-year grace period does not apply under an absolute novelty standard.
The justifications for this limited monopoly of the patent grant is clearly controversial in slashdot circles, but its legitimacy is widely acknowledged elsewhere. To say, without more, that the system is wrong based on straw men propositions not taken by advocates of the patent system, is to fail to join the issues.
No one should defend bad --read invalid-- patents. They are a blight upon the system and upon the society against whom it is enforced. Extraordinary steps are due to improve the system. But this more fundamental charge -- that patents are themselves unjustified, seems based, at least in part, on assumptions about the system that are not in evidence.
The fact that they have a form letter which addresses this topic is a good sign. It means that reaction to this is a big enough issue to warrant somebody writing a canned response.
What we need is a banner for the boycott, linked to a list of alternative online booksellers.
Amazon was the first in this game, and what keeps them going now is inertia -- people just think Amazon is the place to go for online books. Anything that attacks this mentality is going to hurt Amazon -- big time. So, a boycott campaign that directs people to Amazon's competitors would get their attention fast.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If they will design their site to REQUIRE a USER-AGENT string, I will look elsewhere for movie data.
www.eFax.com are spammers
For those that think that Amazon has the best prices, make sure to try www.isbn.nu/, it will search several book stores for the lowest price, based on ISBN number.
Rick
About time everyone stops using the biggest and most known e-commerce sites. Personally I never shopped their or any of the huge sites like cdnow.com. Just because they are big and powerful doesn't mean they are the cheapest....
damn the man, save the empire!
Why aren't we just boycotting *all* companies that have *any* software patents?
I applaud RMS's call for a mass action to call Amason's attention to how strongly this community, at least, feels about their bullying tactics. But you don't want to threaten a boycott unless you're prepared to follow through on it. And right now, Amazon offers a level and a quality of service that no one else comes close to.
I think that a more appropriate response from the hacker community might be to look for a way to educate the courts that will be ruling on Amazon's claim regarding the non-innovative, non-unique nature of the "1-click technology", in the hopes that the courts will reverse the Patent Office's foolishness. That strategy worked pretty well last year to counter the stupidity embodied in the Telecommunications Decency Act, and it might work again to counter the stupidity of the Patent Office.
Everything possible to be believ'd is an Image of Truth - Wm. Blake
Just posting to cast my vote.
Lots of places get obvious patents - but few ever sue over them. And this patent IS obvious. It's already implemented all over the place!
(Aside: I did a one-click purchase in my e-commerce class last year. Should I get sued? Or does that mean I invented it first?)
But don't stop there. We should boycott Sun for changing the name of "oak" to "java" just to get a few million customers by riding on Starbucks's coattails, too. :-)
Yes, I'm kidding. It's a joke. Yes, I meant to do that. Please stop sending me all of your silly "humor boycott" flameletters. :-(
An excellent and thought provoking statement.
However, it implies something which most people would intuitively disagree with: that there is no such thing as originality. Newton may have seen farther by standing on the shoulders of giants, but nonetheless he was a giant himself.
If there is any shortage in this world there is shortage of orginality. As a commodity, your idea may not be scarce once put in tangible form, but your originality itself is scarce. However, there is no way to reward your originality directly. To play devil's advocate here, patents exist specifically to artificially make an idea an excludable benefit, so that originality can be rewarded.
Getting back to Amazon, their assertion that it took them thousands of hours to implement one-click, even if we believe them, is irrelevant. They could take a million hours if they wish, or five seconds, and it would be totally irrelevant. The question is whether one-click is original or not.
If we examine the mechanism used to implement this (cookies), I think there is strong evidence that the idea has no technical originality. The cookie mechanism exists to create a means of maintaining information about a relationship of a user to a site, over a variety of timescales.
The next question would be whether as a business procedure, one-click is original. To be original, it must not be obvious. If we look at the metaphors used, particular the idea of a "shopping cart" and "check out", it is clear that web designers commonly try to create a "virtual" walk in store. I would argue that anything that fits within that metaphor is not original.
Back in the days of the corner bookstore, a regular customer could walk in and pick up a book, and walk out, telling the clerk to put it on his tab. On the other hand, he could pay for the book right there by presenting his credit card. What Amazon has done is kind of in between -- like the customer telling the clerk to put it on his credit card, and having the clerk remember the account.
On the face of it, it doesn't seem very original to me, but it does beg the question of why nobody did it exactly that way before.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Hell, I boycott those hosers anyway because of the way they treat their employees. More importantly, because they pulled their advertising from the Howard Stern Show because of pressure from the right-wing extremist group The American Family Association - which practices commercial extortion on advertisers.
Down wit Amazon!
I've been a long time customer of Amazon for books and media. Amazon has a history of providing first rate customer service and great products at reasonable prices. Sure, I might be able to save a dollar or two on a particular DVD or CD if I dig around for deals, but that dollar has bought me the assurance of service that I've always received from Amazon. If a product is in, it ships immediately. If it isn't, I'm notified, along with an accurate(!) ETA. I've been down the path with other "discount" on-line retailers, and the suffering and headache just isn't worth it.
I'm disturbed to find however that Amazon has chosen to file suit to protect what is ostensibly an obvious idea in e-commerce. Amazon has gone out of it's way to make it _harder_ for me to deal with other retailers, by not allowing them to use common sense features that I've encountered at Amazon. Innovation is important, and intellectual rights should be protectable. However I find it reprehensible that a company that is the first out of the gate to implement a common sense technology like "1 click shopping" deems it necessary to become litigious in the face of other on-line retailers updating their software with similar features.
Thus, it is with great regret that I feel I must join with Richard Stallman on a boycott of Amazon. It's with "regret", because I really haven't found anybody on-line who really does what Amazon does. I've always felt a sense of security in purchasing a product from Amazon. I know that when I order something, I'm going to get it and that any problems can be taken care of promptly and easily. This is still the case, but I also now feel that I have to take an ethical stance for something I believe in - namely, that obvious features aren't patentable just because somebody has spent the time necessary to write the software before anybody else.
Let Amazon stand on it's own merit. It's been a great company and a raging success in the marketplace. Frivolous lawsuits make the company appear petty and childish and do a great disservice to the company's image.
The "boycott" of Amazon has been detailed here: http://linuxtoday.com/stories/13652.html
Because they hold patents on things such as a "Method and apparatus for correcting errors in computer systems" (US5905855) which I'm sure includes SOME sort of "software" (even hardware components need instruction sets) which is now patented.
... well that's simple, they aren't a mega-corp like Amazon or Microsoft (yet) and that's what really cheeses off many in this anti-patent movement.
... how many of you would have a good job right now, or parents who could pay your tuition? I'd bet very few.
Why no boycott of Transmeta
Now I agree that the USPTO has issued some CRAZY patents due to lack of research (i.e. CSS to MS), but patents DO have their place, even software patents whether you guys like it or not.
Imagine a 20th century where a person or company's ideas were NOT able to be protected
While I can completely see why he would feel the way he does, this is completely the wrong way to go about it. Going after Amazon for defending their patent won't get you anywhere. They are just doing what anyone with a patent to defend and a potential lot of money to be made would do. If you want to change things, you have to go after the patent system itself, not go after the people who are trapped in the system. Amazon could have not gone after this patent, but then someone else would have, and they would have potentially lost millions of dollars, so they did what they had to do. Don't blame them for playing the game, instead try to change the rules of the game
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
Don't know what it means tho...
Therefore, we buy more books.
Well, I've read the patent too.
Sure, it's far more than credit-card lookup -- it basically describes an order entry system. Such a system may be exotic to the intern at the patent office who approved this one, but anybody who's been involved in transactions in any way other than as a retail customer won't find this original.
If you call LL bean on the phone and order a pair of "Beans Best Red Suspenders (TM)", it's a fair bet that the person on the other end taking your call knows all about you -- where to send your order, what your monogram is, your waist size and inseam, etc. The only difference is that the Amazon system is self-service -- as all web commerce sites are. They take combine of a few public domain mechamisms that were specifically meant to create relationships between the client and server of various durations and -- voila! -- a patent.
As far as the originality of the specific idea of storing credit card information to speed the transaction along, I can personally attest that the idea is definitely not original, having persoally been involved in numerous arguments over the years about whether this feature should be implemented. The marketing guys all have this idea and think it's wonderfully original because it isn't (or wasn't) all that commonly done. The accounting guys hate it because it makes them vulnerable to employee fraud -- which is why it wasn't all that commonly done back in the days when we still cared about protecting our customers from fraud.
I can understand Amazon's complaint that it took thousands of hours to do there system -- good order entry systems are always hard to implement. However just because it is hard doesn't make it patentable.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Dr. Stallman is someone every computer user and engineer should respect with the utmost sincerety. where would you be without him? PoInT'n'ClIcK'ing your way around in an operating system that doesn't work? Or would you pay $10k to install some big UNIX that doesn't have anything to offer (like a lot of software) other than stability. It's a shame people don't respect him so much. I'm exactly like him. Money corrupts. Money is most of the time the reason people kill, steal, etc. It's a bad thing to let be the focus of your life. It's not mine. Neither is "freedom software," but he's standing up for what is right. He's helping us to not ruin our world faster.
If we do this then we have to boycott ever company that has a stupid patent, which is just about all of them.
Many others of you have expressed your own incredulity as to the obviousness of the technology. This suggests another and probably a better way to combat Amazon: get the patent struck down as invalid. Software professionals are in the best position to provide evidence that this idea is obvious to someone in the field, and that it is hardly a new idea due to prior art.
I've no idea whom you would send such supporting technical data, but if you can help provide tangible evidence of why the patent is invalid, this would appear to hold the potential for a more effective strategy than a passive boycott or mass-mailed letter-writing campaign could.
Doctor Stallman? Doctor Stallman? Oh my! Does this mean he gets to write himself his own medications now? :-)
sdfgdsfgsdfgdsfgsdfgsdfg
I order all my online books from fatbrain.com
and I've never had any trouble finding anything I needed. Their interface is similar to Amazon's
interface, although their database may not be as extensive as Amazon's.
Disclaimer: I do not work at fatbrain.com, nor do I know anyone who works at fatbrain.com.
The Information Revolution will be fought on the command line.
Moderators, please take a look at the parent to this post and consider moderating it up.
No, "we" do not steal things. "We" do not pirate others' music or movies. "We" do not steal software. Perhaps criminals do that, but a software professional does not.
Are you telling us that you have illegally acquired IP materials on your computer? What all have you stolen? How much is it worth? Are you willing to go to prison for your beliefs? What have you actually contributed? How are you any different than a shoplifter or burglar?
What is it about consumer systems that encourages such rampant and blatant piracy? I've never seen Unix people passing around illegal software, but the Prisoners of Bill do it as though it were expected. Who wants to lay odds that this is an MS-DOS user, not a Unix user?
Between Amazon and RMS, Amazon is the lesser evil. Personally, I'm boycotting the FSF and the GPL. I donate code *only* to public domain and MPL'd projects.
Why don't you use your Bully Pulpit to demand congressional hearings on software patents?
This is the only approach that I see having the potential to achieve any meaningful progress toward our ultimate goal.
I would love to see the leaders of the OpenSource movement before Congress making the case for a more rational approach to software patents. I would love to be able to see the different factions within this community present their views on C-SPAN. We don't all agree about the specifics, but we can agree that the patents granted in the past couple of years are the product of a process which does not comprehend the current and future state of the Internet.
I wonder who would sit at the other table and oppose us? And, what would Congress do if they were confronted with thousands of constiuent calls and e-mails demanding a review of the process?
--
Dave Aiello
-- Dave Aiello
Remoderate - this was 'funny', not a 'troll'.
Actually, it's my fault for not prefacing the post with "THIS IS A JOKE" surrounded by color and blink tags. Such steps are increasingly necessary in order to convey information to some of Slashdot's more dim-witted moderators.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
What if had a section devoted to public comment about companies that Slashdotters do buisiness with? Something along the lines of Angie's List but for online buisinesses. If such sites exist, post their URLs here. At the minimum, perhaps Slashdot could make some clearly seen links to such sites if they choose not to host such a forum themselves.
I admit, when I first read the article, I dismissed it as the standard RMS holy crusade against the "evil" money making industry. :)
But consider this. Yes, the courts will more than likely shoot this down. But, AMZN has already succeeded in what they set out to accomplish. They KNOW the courts are going to send this patent down in flames. However, they succeeded in getting a court injunction to prevent Barnes and Noble from using this (what do they call it, one-click or something like that?). So, while this silly case is tied up in court, AMZN is gaining market share (in their grand scheme of things). And, just in time for the holidays too
To me, that's just plain wrong. And while I am just an insignificant random person that means null to AMZN, I think I'll be finding a different online site to buy from going forward. It's simply a matter of principle and whether you are going to stand for your beliefs.
Yes, you are absolutely right that software patents might (but hopefully not) arrive in Europe as well.
// Jens M Andreasen
I'll have a look at those sites
(www.openpatent.org && lpf.ai.mit.edu)
mvh
send + more == money?
So you agree that seventeen years is a bit extreme?
Things move just a few orders of magnitude faster in the age of information than back then when it took weeks for a letter to get from one coast to another.
Patents may have helped innovation in the 19th century, but it is doing nothing now but providing a cash cow for patent lawyers arbitrating patent porfolio agreements between large corporations.
So why do corporations typically spend billions gererating patents?
The typical patent is not registered by John Q. Inventor from his little garage labratory. The typical pattent is applied for by the DOZENS by large corporations who wish to have a large portfolio of patents to use as leverage in case they get sued by another large corporation over one of ITS several hundred patents.
Seems to me we are helpless to cause change by writing our congressmen, seeing as the population at large still thinks of patents in terms of lightbulbs and the little inventor in his lab. They only way to make a REAL difference is to hit corporations where it counts: their bottom line. At the same time, this may somehow help educate a hopelessly ignorant public, most of which truly believe patents foster innovation.
Programmers need IP to be able to eat.
Not really. If anything, there is a worldwide shortage of programmers, and most(90%) of the time I spent programming for money (five years) it was not developing something for the open market, but specific applications that no-one else but my employers would want. It wasn't Free Software, but then again, it was too custom for that. Intellectual property in that case is mostly irrelevant(nobody else would have an use for the system), that is the most common case(I believe) and it's OK for me. If your desire is not just eating, but being the Richest Man in America, then yes, you'll need IP. And you have it, so go for it before someone patents writing programs...
This is as silly as when Amazon threatened to sue a local bookseller here in Minneapolis (who were unlucky enough to choose the name Amazon Bookstore and is a small, feminist bookstore that has been in existence since 1970). Even though this sounds more like the etoy/etoys fiasco (with the difference that this didn't involve a domain name, but did involve some trademark haggling of sorts), it seems to show that Amazon is particularly trigger happy with its lawsuits, since this small bookstore with a website (http://www.amazonfembks.com/) proved no threat to the giant amazon.com (yes, it operates a small online store with "one click shopping", heh, but it is a cooperative bookstore, not a corporation). I have to wonder why corporations seem to be really interested in cutting down the grassroots -- what is the motivation in this? A kind of corporate terrorism?
Also, what is with Information Systems based companies claiming "innovations" from industry standards (Microsoft)? The only conclusion I can come to here is that these companies understand, and are taking advantage of, the ignorance of the justice system. I would think this would necessitate lawyers who specialize in "Computer law" (understanding how -everything- works), but who knows how far down the line that is (this thought also scares me to a point, because it could be used to censor our Internet liberties). But undoubtedly we have been shown, with this case and the number of Microsoft cases that have come up, that the legal system (and patent system) must be more educated in these matters.
Those annoying damn singing dickhead commercials.
I am not talking about elections. I am talking about the influence of a small number of very idealistic, almost cultlike freaks on a consumer product. Comparing the two just shows how sheltered you are, and the fact that you have no concept of context.
The fact remains, that most consumers do not care. The Stallman workship that takes place here is quite scary actually.
No, just talking off the top of head without looking up the actual figures, they fell 134 million short of SALES projections, not profits, and thus actually lost *only* 14 million.
Amazon has never made dime one in the black and like most large internet businesses makes its "profits" entirely from the gulibility of the investor market.
Amazon has a bottom line? -- Phenym
I like low-profile Internet businesses, ones that are honest and humble. Amazon is neither. They do what they do well -- they're very seductive -- but they also have a vision for the Internet that I don't share and can't support.
Oddly enough, this was the same position held by millions upon millions of people earlier in this century when shopping centers, convenience stores, and malls began to replace the traditional mom & pop general store. Everyone railed against the impersonal feel of the larger stores, but shopped there for most of their things because of the lower prices and convenience of being able to get everything in one place. People would complain about every aspect of the larger store while at the same time picking up their groceries from it. Eventually the Mom & Pop Shops couldn't keep their heads above water because they were being undercut so badly in price.
Now we come to the internet and 'e-commerce' we have a similar situation. The mega-giant-buy-everything-here store Amazon has us all bitching about it. The difference here is that Amazon can't undercut the smaller stores on the 'net because it costs next to nothing to run a business on the net out of your home. Add to that the fact that Amazon orders a ton of its books from smaller stores and most of the other things that they sell are easily available elsewhere for less. Convenience is no longer an issue when you are 4 clicks from the next store instead of 40 miles, or even 4 miles. Amazon may be able to expand exponentially for the next few years, but they won't be able to subvert so much of the market that they starve out the smaller competition. And even now people are starting to realize that the larger company isn't giving them the best prices. Amazon has now angered a large section of the online population and it's going to hurt them, a lot. I'm willing to bet we see a serious, nay DRASTIC change in Amazons policies over the next few months.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
It's your easiest and best move to opt out of consumerist, media-driven mind control--not to mention the beatification of the mediocre.
For general merchandise, I usually use Buy.com; I've been happy with them, though a friend of mine ran afoul of their returns policy a couple of times.
I believe this is the worst time of year to be boycotting an online business such as amazon.com. Why? Right before christmas is when normal, non computer types are all over amazon.com buying their DVD players, their patty potty doll, their Backstreet Boys CD's, and their children's books. Amazon.com is getting so many orders right now that they'd NEVER notice a dent in sales, and even if they did hear about the boycott, they're too busy to care.
What should have been done is wait a month so christmas is no longer an issue. THAT is the time when they rely on geeks who will shop online year round, and THAT's when they might actually do something about it. Alternatley, the boycott could have been started before christmas buying season got into swing, right about when Amazon decided to sue, and then there would have been time to get the word out to more people before christmas, but it's too late for that now.
While you are counting coup on who did what during the war, please don't ignore the Canadian contribution. We were in the war 2 years before you folks joined in, had some great Campaign successes and had the 4th largest navy in the world by the end of the war. We are a small country but we fought our ass off in WWII. Americans tend to forget that the Commonwealth had something to do during those years too. The US, historically, was slow to commit itself to the global conflicts - late into both WWI and WWII.
Not that I am ignoring the central point here. Without Russia, we might all be learning German as a second language right now. I stood at a monument in St Petersburg to those who died during the siege, it was surrounded by hundreds of large mounds of eartch - each of which contained thousands of bodies of those who had died. I was told (IIRC) that there were 900,000 people buried there.
Western casualties, while nothing less than tragic, are dwarfed by those of the Soviet Union during the war. Mind you, we gave them a lot of aid and equipment to keep them going, but nothing compared to what they produced themselves.
Its too bad that this is ignored almost universally in High School teaching of the war.
Just my $.006 cents worth (allowing for the Cdn exchange rate to the US dollar). :)
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
I'd already given up on Amazon after they buried the books under a heap of stuff that's not books.
It's like anyone who makes money incurs the wrath of RMS these days.
Maybe that's true, but it doesn't explain this case. Unless they've started within the past two or three months, Amazon.com has never turned a profit since their virtual doors have been open.
Next theory, please.
I've seen and heard very many comments to the effect of "I dont care if they have slave labor, if amazon is cheaper, I'll buy from them". I wonder how many of these people who arent concerned with Amazon's business practices are the same people who throw up their arms, pout, and cry about Microsoft's business practices.
I haven't seen the bookpool.com name mentioned in this thread, but I feel it is the best internet bookstore to buy techie books. They are the cheapest, lowest shipping (no handling), good selection, fast service and no spam. I have been buying books from them for last 3 years and fully satisfied.
I wonder if this is Amazon's way of getting back at B&N for taking over the Ingram Books distributor, which no doubt supplies most of Amazon's inventory?
I don't know if the patent is a wonderful idea, but it certainly isn't bad enough to drive me to B&N! And dammit, programmers SHOULD make money for good new ideas.
Do a search for Edison and Tesla, or Edison and Swan, etc. Edison's real talent was as a salesman more than as an inventor. (Tesla in particular has some interesting quotes about him that relates to this famous quote - Tesla worked with Edison for a while, and grew frustrated by his lack of creativity: too much perspiration and not enough inspriration, so to speak)
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
...is to tell them about various books that I find on their site and buy somewhere else. Maybe I'll even post comments on their site to that effect. "Five stars, great book, I bought it from Bigbrain because of Amazon's patent policy. By the way it was cheaper there..."
Straight teeth or a fair patent system, do we have to choose ?
Maby this will bring Amazon to their senses, but probally not. The net isn't for one person to own or controll in a manner like that.
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
Isn't it ironic that the quote of the day, listed right under this RMS article on the front page, was "Welcome to the Zoo!"?
Do you have relatives that always send you annoying chain letters? How about sending them one of your own. Explain to them in simple terms the reason to boycott amazon and encourage them to send it to all of their friends. Here's part of what I used to explain this to my parents.
Essentially, this is what Pizza Hut does when you give them your phone number and they look up your address in the computer. Only in this case, it's your web browser that gives them the "phone number".
If someone makes a boycott amazon page with resources you could point them to this as well.
Amazon.com spent thousands of hours to develop the 1-Click process. As our founder, Jeff Bezos, has said, "The reason we have a patent system in this country is to encourage people to take these kinds of risks and make these kinds of investments for customers."
One nice thing about the Internet has been our ability to create new services and ideas based on the work of others before us. Sadly, by patenting a simple idea, the time one could be using to to come up with new ideas and build the Next Elite E-Commerce Site (tm) is spent trying to figure out how to avoid infringement.
Hopefully BN has good lawyers, and smart people feeding them. If the patent office would hire knowledgeable people to research this stuff, the courts wouldn't have to determine the validity of the patent every time an issue like this came up. Silly, IMHO (and in the opinions of 90% of the rest of the knowledgeable community, probably)...
- Rob
The Internet is a proper name, and therefore spelled with a capital I -- unless you're typing in all lower case, in which case, the rules of proper spelling, grammer and punctuation do not apply.
Easy for RMS with his connections and way of living to boycott Amazon but any of you out there who are also self-employed and run websites know damn well that Amazon pays their associates up to 15% of the sale price on books while bn.com and borders.com only pay up to 7%.
/.ers???
/. postings will be collated and monitored to create the perfect sitcom appealing to you all.
Money to pay for my site expenses is more important to me than some guy who self-appointedly speaks for me and insists that I boycott a company because he believes they should be boycotted.
Well, stick it in your ear, RMS, I think for myself and I'm not going to boycott Amazon whose only crime is to seek enforcement for a legally applied-for and received patent by the US Patent Office.
Your beef is with the Patent Office who most assuredly HAS been issuing ridiculous patents.
But the real protests will come when the patent office starts handing out patents for gene-modifications, especially human one.
And what's with all you other
Can't you think for yourself? You better watch out or next thing you know
Wake up, Neo!
--------------------
When the people have no tyrant, their own public opinion becomes one.
- Lord Lytton
---------------------
So, uh, now what do I do with this $25 amazon.com gift certificate my friend just emailed me?
you tell me about this after I do all my christmas shopping there.. well I should have used fatbrain.com anyways. there just better service.
I already started boycotting Amazon, and getting my friends to do so. I find their patent on '1-click shopping' to be utterly ridiculous, and I told them so in e-mail.
I also search for books on Amazon and buy them elsewhere. If they weren't pursuing eforcement of this silly patent, I wouldn't bother, and, in fact, would buy from them because I like the way things work on their site.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Bookpool is an online vendor that specializes in technical books. They have the entire O'Reilly catalog available at an approx. 35% discount. They are fast, and they're a tightly focused tech. bookseller.
We share everyone's concern over the completely bogus Amazon patent.
One of the problems in switching from Amazon is that everyone is so used to simply typing Amazom.com.
To help with this weaning-off process, we've setup up an alternate website that links to other retail sites that don't use patents as a cowardly business strategy.
Instead of "amazon.com", now just use "noamazon.com".
We have listed alternatives to Amazon for all of the types of products that Amazon currently sells. We intend to keep it up to date for whatever products you normally buy from Amazon.
Note that we gain nothing from the NOamazon.com website - we just do it as a service to help everyone get off Amazon.
Jeff Roberts
Casey Muratori
Check out Red Hat's Geek Toys section. Seems we will need to add Red Hat to the boycott list.
This might be a rather good target to aim at. Given Red Hat's high Wall St. visibility it's severing a relationship with Amazon over this issue could lead to very interesting news in the major media. Software patents are not in Red Hat's interests. So we should get out th lever and use it where it will could be noticed.
I will be sending an email to Red Hat letting them know I will not be purchasing anything from them until and unless they sever their relationship with Amazon, and that I will recommend my employer do the same.
I would have to agree that a boycott of this type is almost meaningless. The point is that even if Amazon were not guilty of stupid software patents, Intel, Microsoft, Transmeta and dozens of others would be.
What you said about a "rational approach to software patents" is also right on the money. I disagree with the shortsighted Slashdot mentality that usually says 'no' to all forms of software patent given that 'software should be free' (which I also disagree with). If I want to produce free software, that's great. If I don't, that's also my perrogative.
What needs doing is a proper peer-review of all high technology patents so that other companies and lobbies (like the FSF) can say "nope, we've done that before, see?" before the patent goes through. This already exists, yes, but in a passive form. An active body would be more appropriate. This would also, inevitably, raise the cost of applying for a patent, but that might not be a bad thing either.
I'm not talking just software patents either. I'm talking about the high-tech patents that are absolutely stupid that companies keep suing each other back and forth for (I love Intel 'trading' patent information with companies that sue them).
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
woo hooo 508th post aww yeah... this never happens to me...
I live in Brazil. Fortunately we don't have that kind of nonsense here, though we are labeled as a 'developing country'.
Really, I don't understand the US. It is a contradictory country. It's the most moralist country of all, but it also makes the most violent creations (from the movies and games to the highly weird crimes - children killing fathers, students making carnages) and the most wicked pornographic pieces (almost all the bizarre sex magazines I know are from the US).
And they even call themselves "the Americans", like if there wasn't other countries on the continent. Bah. Hey mom! Brazil is in America and I am not an American? How could it be?
I do think that such contradictions are made possible by the exxagerated rhetoric of the US culture. Everything seems reasonable when you hear it from a typically trained US executive.
Richard Stallman wants to show us that. That kind of culture, that kind of psicological force that makes us lose the sense of obviousness, that makes greedy and immoral things looks like nothing.
Of course, sometimes the obvious is also wrong, but there is a balance, and it is far from what the U.S. Patents office and U.S. Legal system tries to show us.
Just my two cents. I don't want to offend any nationality, just uncover some differences.
Patola
Patola (Claudio Sampaio)
Unix System Administrator
US Patent 05960411
Here I reproduce the Abstract and the claims. Judge for yourself. I agree this is a BOGUS patent - to think that using cookies like this in September of 1997 was innovative....
Boycott Amazon. Check out the pages of the League for Programming Freedom
IBM Intellectual Property Network
US5960411: Method and system for placing a purchase order via a communications network
Applicant(s): Amazon.com, Inc., Seattle, WA
Issued/Filed Dates: Sept. 28, 1999 / Sept. 12, 1997
Abstract:
A method and system for placing an order to purchase an item via the Internet. The order is placed by a purchaser at a client system and received by a server system. The server system receives purchaser information including identification of the purchaser, payment information, and shipment information from the client system. The server system then assigns a client identifier to the client system and associates the assigned client identifier with the received purchaser information. The server system sends to the client system the assigned client identifier and an HTML document identifying the item and including an order button. The client system receives and stores the assigned client identifier and receives and displays the HTML document. In response to the selection of the order button, the client system sends to the server system a request to purchase the identified item. The server system receives the request and combines the purchaser information associated with the client identifier of the client system to generate an order to purchase the item in accordance with the billing and shipment information whereby the purchaser effects the ordering of the product by selection of the order button.
CLAIMS:
We claim:
1. A method of placing an order for an item comprising:
- under control of a client system,
- displaying information identifying the item; and
- in response to only a single action being performed, sending a request to order the item along with an identifier of a purchaser of the item to a server system;
- under control of a single-action ordering component of the server system,
- receiving the request;
- retrieving additional information previously stored for the purchaser identified by the identifier in the received request; and
- generating an order to purchase the requested item for the purchaser identified by the identifier in the received request using the retrieved additional information; and
- fulfilling the generated order to complete purchase of the item
- whereby the item is ordered without using a shopping cart ordering model.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein the displaying of information includes displaying information indicating the single action.3. The method of claim 1 wherein the single action is clicking a button.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein the single action is speaking of a sound.
5. The method of claim 1 wherein a user of the client system does not need to explicitly identify themselves when placing an order.
6. A client system for ordering an item comprising:
- an identifier that identifies a customer;
- a display component for displaying information identifying the item;
- a single-action ordering component that in response to performance of only a single action, sends a request to a server system to order the identified item, the request including the identifier so that the server system can locate additional information needed to complete the order and so that the server system can fulfill the generated order to complete purchase of the item; and
- a shopping cart ordering component that in response to performance of an add-to-shopping-cart action, sends a request to the server system to add the item to a shopping cart.
7. The client system of claim 6 wherein the display component is a browser.8. The client system of claim 6 wherein the predefined action is the clicking of a mouse button.
9. A server system for generating an order comprising:
- a shopping cart ordering component; and
- a single-action ordering component including:
- a data storage medium storing information for a plurality of users;
- a receiving component for receiving requests to order an item, a request including an indication of one of the plurality of users, the request being sent in response to only a single action being performed; and
- an order placement component that retrieves from the data storage medium information for the indicated user and that uses the retrieved information to place an order for the indicated user for the item; and
- an order fulfillment component that completes a purchase of the item in accordance with the order placed by the single-action ordering component.
10. The server system of claim 9 wherein the request is sent by a client system in response to a single action being performed.11. A method for ordering an item using a client system, the method comprising:
- displaying information identifying the item and displaying an indication of a single action that is to be performed to order the identified item; and
- in response to only the indicated single action being performed, sending to a server system a request to order the identified item
- whereby the item is ordered independently of a shopping cart model and the order is fulfilled to complete a purchase of the item.
12. The method of claim 11 wherein the server system uses an identifier sent along with the request to identify additional information needed to generate an order for the item.13. The method of claim 12 wherein the identifier identifies the client system and the server system provides the identifier to the client system.
14. The method of claim 11 wherein the client system and server system communicate via the Internet.
15. The method of claim 11 wherein the displaying includes displaying an HTML document provided by the server system.
16. The method of claim 11 including sending from the server system to the client system a confirmation that the order was generated.
17. The method of claim 11 wherein the single action is clicking a mouse button when a cursor is positioned over a predefined area of the displayed information.
18. The method of claim 11 wherein the single action is a sound generated by a user.
19. The method of claim 11 wherein the single action is selection using a television remote control.
20. The method of claim 11 wherein the single action is depressing of a key on a key pad.
21. The method of claim 11 wherein the single action is selecting using a pointing device.
22. The method of claim 11 wherein the single action is selection of a displayed indication.
23. The method of claim 11 wherein the displaying includes displaying partial information supplied by the server system as to the identity of a user of the client system.
24. The method of claim 11 wherein the displaying includes displaying partial shipping information supplied by the server system.
25. The method of claim 11 wherein the displaying includes displaying partial payment information supplied by the server system.
26. The method of claim 11 wherein the displaying includes displaying a moniker identifying a shipping address for the customer.
--Neal
Go IETF!
the 513th post master has struck again... ohh yeah...
Everyone always complains that the patent system is broken, but has anyone ever tried to actually show this?
What I mean is try pattenting something very basic like linked lists, hash tables, maybe even assembly! Keep trying until they take a patent for something that is a really basic programming practice.. Then when they do, bring media attention to it!
This sort of patent stupidity will just drive jobs and investment out. Amazon appears somewhat lacking in the clue department.
---
---
Book(n): Utensil used to pass time while waiting for the TV repairman
Many people have posted that Amazon was in a sue, or be sued situation. Not quite. Just because you own a patent, doesn't mean you HAVE to exercise your rights to it.
Although I used to respect Amazon as a company, my respect was lost after they made some stupid decisions, and there stock became unstable. This is just another stupid decision they've made, and like the other ones, most likely won't fix.
I used to buy from Amazon. Not anymore!
I'm headed over to Barnes and Noble.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I disagree. If your working definition of oringinality is such that it requires something oringinal in the sense of 'not derivative of', then it is clear that your assertion is indeed correct. However, I believe that the concept boils down to this: Every idea, no matter how apparently revolutionary, is the product and derivative of a huge number of other thoughts/events. We can have new thoughts; it is just that these thoughts are the causal results of our interactions with the environment. Everything that appears to be new really is new, but only along the "edges". Individuals take a whole slew of unconscious and conscious building blocks supplied by the environment and add a few of their own. This is most comonly observed in the scientific community--Newton, cited earlier as throgoughly original, really was working from the stimulus provided by a huge number of other scientists, contemporarty and otherwise. His ideas were outgrowths of theirs. This is not to say that they were not original.
Thus, every 'new' idea is still original in the sense that the person who came up with it has thought new things, but the product of such thinking, when seen in a larger context, was created by such a huge number of people that it would be foolish to name the guy who put the finishing touches on the idea as its owner.
People do not seem to have such a difficult time accepting this idea; we only become wary when others wich to use ideas first fully articulated by us to their own exclusive benefit. Not to get political, but this cannot happent in different social/economic models...without capitalism, this kind of thing becomes mot, since ideas become common property like everything else (at least in the most widely accpeted ofhte alternatives). The scientific community, perhaps the largest isitiutional embodiment of the idea that information is commmunally owned for the betterment of all, has been running into a headlong collison woith the capitalist model of late, which says that is OK (desirable!) to hide new discoveries form the eyes of the rest of the world for awhile so that you can pursuse your own selfish ends more fully, regardless of the good that releasing the idea might do. [Deep breath].
sorry for the ramble. Man, finals screw everybody over. Just wanted to make it clear that originality (at least in the sense I use the word, that of new thoughts/parts of ideas) is compatible with a belief that ideas are the causal product of the interaction between a breain and its environment. Silly intellectual property laws wont be necessary as information becomes easier to disseminate-nobody is making a profit of an author if they copy his ideas digitally, say, and retain them for their own personal use (as opposed to a commercial one). This issue of concerning the exploitation of the creative members of a society certainly becomes more difficult if one abandons the dominant economic model. (just a side effect-I am not necessarily an advocate of such an action).
Good day to all.
The truth is out there - we'll let it back in after it sobers up a bit. -The Cube
Erm, I doubt he can pull his books of Amazon. First of all, I don't think bookstores buy books under any kind of contract, they just own them. Second, I doubt he could do it, as his publisher has the rights to them.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
It's very unlikely that Amazon will be harmed by the loss of money caused by boycotters taking their business elsewhere. It is possible, but still unlikely, that the negative PR impact of a boycott might hurt them, or cause them to change their ways.
What a boycott will do is make you feel better about yourself. And there's nothing wrong with that.
I don't shop at Fry's because their service sucks and I am offended by the body-cavity search they give you on the way out. I don't rent from Blockbuster because they won't rent NC-17 movies. And now I don't shop at Amazon because I don't like their predatory business practices.
It's completely rational to choose not to do business with companies that behave badly. Just as it is completely rational to choose not to do business with people who are rude, or stores that don't have the products you want.
The really sad thing about this is that Amazon doesn't need to resort to such underhanded tactics. Amazon really does have a good store, and I think they would be successful on that basis alone, without having to resort to such dirty tactics.
So I stopped shopping at Amazon the day I heard about their patent suit, despite the fact that one of my best friends is the guy who implemented ``one-click ordering.''
Here is the letter I sent them:
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 11:57:53 -0700
To: feedback@amazon.com
You have finally gone too far.
When you started spamming me, I was irritated, but didn't much care, since at least you gave me a way to unsubscribe. When you started selling your customers' private information down the river, I was irritated, but didn't much care, because I'm not overly concerned about my privacy. But now you've finally lost me as a customer.
Why? Because you asked for, and were awarded, a 17-year monopoly on the concept of "one-click shopping", because that idea is apparently such an innovation, such a breakthrough, that you never would have gone into business without the incentive of federally-mandated exclusive rights.
As if that wasn't bad enough, now you are sueing Barnes and Noble for adding a similar feature to their web site. So much for the bullshit apology one often hears of "we only have patents for defensive purposes, in case someone bigger and stronger sues us for patent infringement first."
Amazon.com is a great web site, far better than any other online store I've used. But I will not be using it again. I will either use other web sites, or make more trips to physical stores from now on.
Convenience is nice, but I don't feel good giving my money to anticompetitive parasites who succeed because of their lawyers rather than the quality of their products and services.
The real shame of it is that your services are *good*. You don't need to compete this way. It's sad, and sickening.
Software patents are far more of a threat to competition and innovation than anything Microsoft has ever done.
Goodbye.
I hope you will seriously reconsider your attempt to enforce your 1-click "technology". Patents of this sort damage the web. Damage to the web damages Amazon. Please think carefully.
mt
We should build a /. petition engine that would allow people to type in their comments and fire off a daily digest to the targeted organisation.
/. a political face that is not necessarely desired.
Not only would it be easier to get 'signatures' for various causes but it could also provide interesting stats.
It could be called... Your Voice Online or something.
Then again, this could give
K.
Because I buy everybody on my list some form of book or gift certificate.
:)
So, let's add up the damage, according to last year's numbers....
$150 GC for roommates.
$120 GC for friend.
$30 GC for each of the other six members of my family == $180.
$30 GC for two siblings' birthdays.
$65-85 in books for myself, while I was in a buying mood.
So, I'm looking at $540 (+/- $10) in gift certificates and books to be purchased that will now be purchased from another site until the patent is struck down. And that doesn't include the occasional movie/book/cd I purchase every once in a while.
And this assumes of course, that Amazon will have something close to the lowest price, which is sometimes not the case. And remember, always include shipping in the total price. It sometimes make a difference
How can I boycott someone I don't regularly buy from? I already don't buy from Amazon because I support my local bookstore (http://www.villagebooks.com).
I also stopped buying from barnesandnoble.com because bertelsmann (who is in favor of the internet rating system), has a stake.
Text written here by me is placed in the public domain.
That said it is virtually impossible to come up with every grouping of ideas that someone might patent. While you can't patent dynamically served pages in perl, I can see the patent office issuing a patent for a dynamic calendar writen with perl, or some other equally obvious extension of existing ideas (such as using cookies to log in users to a online shop.)
GO TO HELL
There are a few vocal Anonymous dick heads who don't even know a person but insist on denouncing them every chance they get. I would be anonymous too because even they must know that what they are saying DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE.
Instead of having anything tangible to say they go off shouting thier mouths by putting him down personally. They don't care about RMS's message about ethics, freedom, and software because that would REQUIRE THEM TO THINK and that is TOO HARD FOR THEM.
If you disagree with him for any VALID reason, then please go ahead and offer us your opinion. I may disagree with you but that is that and the same can be said vice-versa. But putting down someone and thinking that has anything to do with their beliefs is ONE OF THE MOST IMMATURE THINGS YOU CAN DO.
So, please, go along now. RMS has contributed much of his life to me, you, and millions of others. And all you can do is insult him.
(After sitting there for the last 4 hours clicking refresh you may find my comment suddenly pop up. You first reaction may be to say something imflamotory to me in reply or say I am self-rightious, but with a moment's thought you would find that is not true. But unfortunately you don't have that much thought so hurry up and click that REPLY button so you can go back to clicking refresh)
After all, they're losing money with every sale
and attempting to make up for it with volume...
American system has made lawyers become 'a need'. Isn't that scary!?
yes, it's scary! Lawyers love the concept of "intellectual property" as it vastly expands their market. The world looks to America as the shining example of prosperity, and is likely to adapt the litigation way of life. This means highly paid "protection" rackets lock out the un-rich from access to this system. But maybe it'll cause a backlash. Consider:
Within 10 years, computers will be 64 times more affordable.. Bandwidth will be 20,000 times more affordable.. It means less rich people will have far more access.. The Chinese are already leapfrogging into wireless.. The more dynamic and accessible information becomes, the less likely territorial jurisdictions will apply. Things are gonna change...
Maybe it will prove far more valuable to focus on "intellectual propogation" ethics (or even laws for global ecommerce), so the untapped potential of all kinds of currently underpriviledged people can participate.
What we need are principle-centered people like RMS to hire lawyers to make documents that protect rather than violate our freedom to learn and trade. (Lawyers aren't at all useless.. it's how business people use them that give them such a bad name:)
consider, after all, the impact of the legal document known as the GPL..
from the q4hr customer service update:
[is edited content]
Linux Lovers & 1-Click Lawsuits: A recent
online article in Linux lands called for a
boycott of Amazon.com due to the recent
lawsuit in defense of our 1-Click patent; if
you have any examples of customers writing in
declaring they're boycotting due to the
article, please fyi [specific manager] so [s/he]
can start crafting a blurb specific to this
situation (if necessary), then tag yourself with
the message until such blurb is announced. Other
messages not specifically inspired by the
Linux article can be answered with
[generic b&n injunction blurb].
AC only because the amazon.com employee's job would be terminated
- Give a 15 second explanation of why software patents are bad. "How can you patent an idea?"
- Explain how you can use Amazon to search for a book, then go buy it somewhere else, for cheaper.
- Explain how the whole Linux community is dead set against this patent, and Amazon's use of it. (Of course, that should be the "Open Source Community", but we don't want to confuse the average person). Get Linus Trovaldas to make a videotaped statement of his disaproval; heck, get Linus to participate in the protest!
Just my $0.02Right now, investors seems to ascribe supernatural powers to Linux. Maybe we can get all of those Amazon stokeholders to call up Amazon and scream "What the hell are you doing, pissing off those Linux people! Do you have any idea how dangerous that is!"
Give a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day, but set him on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Even if Amazon drops its lawsuit, there's a chilling effect because they can file again and quite possibly screw up some poor ecommerce sites busy Christmas. Ideally, I would like to see this go all the way and have a court toss out the patent. The worst case would be for the suit to go all the way and the courts to affirm the patent. Unfortunately with those wacky judges and their limited grasp of technology, the latter is as likely as the former.
While I may not agree with Amazon.com patenting this product, I have worse problems with virtually every other online bookseller. As a University of Minnesota student who orders all of his books online, I can honestly say that Amazon.com is the ONLY online bookstore that can be trusted to get your books there ON TIME every time. For example, this semester, I tried to order from ecampus.com, varsitybooks.com, bigwords.com, barnesandnoble.com, and many others. Ecampus never shipped my order and I was forced to order from Amazon.com at the last minute. Since I needed to have these books the next day, Amazon promised to have the books to me by then or they would reimberse me for them. And I had to pay for the overnight shipping thanks to ecampus' bad customer service. Sure enough, they showed up from Amazon THE NEXT MORNING. All this after waiting for THREE weeks for ecampus. Then, my best friend decided to order from Barnes and Noble. First she was told that the CD she wanted was not in stock so they wouldn't ship. She called to cancel. Two weeks later they sent her not one, not two, but THREE copies of a CD she had cancelled and already received from Amazon. The Barnes and Noble people were kind enough to allow her to return the CD's(at her own postage cost, of course). The only other online bookstore that can even come close to Amazon customer service wise is Varsitybooks.com and even they frequently are out of stock or slow with shipping. So before any of you go jumping on the anti-corporate bandwagon and start screaming boycott, consider how much hassle it will cause you when you try to order from these other "cheap imitations". Take it from a guy who orders over $1000 dollars worth of books a year, NO other bookstore will get your order to you faster or more reliably than good ol' Amazon.com. Until next time, happy ordering... -Bay
It's a shame that supposedly intelligent people will dismiss RMS for his few eccentricities -- because its easier to write him off as a red commie bastard (or something) -- because his history of good ideas, starting with FSF/GNU, have had such high quality.
/. is only making themselves feel better, and not really helping anything. A few less dollars for Amazon might not cause the company to shut down tomorrow, but it's a rare company that says "we dont mind making less money".
Tech-intellecutals of today who wrap themselves in the trendy blanket of Libertarianism (the only value system where you can both help your fellow man and get filthy rich) scoff at the idea of boycotts, crying foul for the poor entrepreneurs whose imaginary right to make as much money as possible is being infringed upon by the radicals who aren't giving them money for whatever principle and meanwhile punishing the workers who are just caught in the crossfire.
Nowadays, it seems an intelligent and mature mind is defined as one which really doesnt care about anything (except, often, itself) and which refuses to even attempt to do anything which would have any sort of effect on its wider environment. Personally, I resist this notion.
If Slashdotters are going to grumble and complain about the nonsense that is floating in the water lately, from reverse domain hijacking to software patents, they ought to realize that grumbling and complaining on
As for me and Amazon, I was about to go there to look for a hard-to-find CD. After reading this, I won't bother. After all, me not having a CD I havent had for the past few years isnt something I really worry about. But a wave of stupid lawsuits over inappropriately awarded software patents is something I do worry about.
RMS is a brother that I think you oughtta listen to.
Romulus
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
And yes, they do send the occasional spam email, but to tell you the truth, I don't care, because they give me good service, and I like their search engine. On the other hand, Barnes & Noble's search engine is horid, and I'd have to spend all day searching for titles that would take me seconds to find searching on Amazon.
The bottom line is, I care about my convineince above a few silly spam emails. I like the fact that a book(s) I order from amazon shows up 2 days later for only $3 in shipping charges, and I spend at least $400 a month there. When I go to a book store they never have all of an author's titles, so I can order through them, but then I have to wait for weeks and it's a major fucking hassle, and I really don't have the time.
Call me selfish, but I could give two shits who amazon is sueing, as long as they continue to provide the same level of service to me and don't raise costs significantly.
Thank you for writing to Amazon.com.
The patent system is designed to encourage innovation, and we spent
thousands of hours developing our 1-Click® shopping feature. This
feature securely stores billing and shipping information so that
returning customers need only click their mouse once, without
re-entering or re-confirming that information, to purchase selected
items conveniently.
In recognition of the innovative and unique nature of the 1-Click®
technology, the U.S. Patent Office awarded Patent No. 5,960,411 to
Amazon.com on September 28, 1999.
We're pleased that the court recognized the innovation underlying our
1-Click® feature by granting a preliminary injunction barring
barnesandnoble.com from using it while our suit is pending.
I hope you'll understand that we are unable to discuss this case any
further as we are currently in litigation. Thank you for taking the
time to share your views with us.
This is what Amazon's reply was to my e-mail
> And they even call themselves "the Americans", like if there wasn't
:-)
>other countries on the continent. Bah. Hey mom! Brazil is in America
>and I am not an American? How could it be?
It could be because the country is actually named "America", as opposed to all the other countries on the continent. Brazil is named "Brazil" so the people from there are called "Brazilians". The naming of the country in 1776 hardly implied any sense of superiority at the time. It's really nothing to make a big fuss about.
And I hear that people from the US are called "americanos" or something similar by the vast majority of latin americans. Is that not true?
Anyway, that is my 2 cents on software patents
hehe .. it's only one click "bye-bye" with amazon!
Just tried www.waterstones.co.uk and the site was so slow it was useless.
"judge and jury" - to make one's opinions without hearing all sides of a case, usually hastily or in a 'kneejerk' fashion.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
How about these ideas for patent reform:
1. You submit an idea and if there's any doubt about its originality, the idea is forever placed into the Public Domain. You cannot rescind an application.
2. If prior art can be established and you've (stupidly) taken any legal action against so-called infringement, you must pay 1000x what you were awarded in damages.
Seems to me like these ideas would discourage flagrant "patent everything" behavior, and would make people think twice about suing over ideas that they -know- are not really original, just patented.
Here's the response I just got, received 2 days
after the one in the previous posting:
Dear Pace,
Thank you for taking the time to share your views with us. Not
surprisingly, we have received a variety of reactions from customers
about the preliminary injunction awarded to Amazon.com in its patent
infringement lawsuit against barnesandnoble.com.
Because the case is still pending, we are unable to discuss the
specifics of this litigation. As a general matter, however, we agree
with United States District Judge Marsha J. Pechman's ruling that
"granting Amazon.com's preliminary injunction will serve the public
interest" in part because "protection of intellectual property rights
in innovations will foster greater competition and innovation." To
that end, Amazon.com will certainly continue innovating on behalf of
its customers.
We appreciate feedback from customers about this lawsuit and other
important issues concerning Amazon.com, and we carefully consider all
viewpoints expressed. We hope you will continue to let us know how we
can improve our service to customers.
Best regards,
Misty Rodriguez
Happy Holidays from Amazon.com
Earth's Biggest Selection
http://www.amazon.com
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