[Note: I recognize that religious fundamentalists are not necessarily the best representatives of their religions. Unfortunately, they are the most vocal.]
In the US, Christian fundamentalism has a great track record for dismissing science that it disagrees with. It started with evolution in the 19th century, and has now progressed to other topics.
Evolution? "God sez the earth is less than 10,000 years old, so science is wrong!"
Biological basis of homosexuality? "God sez that homosexuality is a sinful choice!"
Global warming? "God sez he's coming soon, so we don't have to worry about that!"
Of course, when fundamentalists say "God sez..." they really mean "My personal interpretation is..." And don't even get me started on how un-literal "Biblical literalism" is.
This is one of the examples showing the broken aspects of the US patent system. Too few patent examiners that are deluged with too many applications. The applicants can conveniently gloss over prior art. One of the more elegant ways that has been proposed for dealing with this is to open patents up to general comments during the examination phase (although this too could be abused, it is a step in the right direction).
Then there's the whole "application" patent, where you can take something that is well-known in one field and get a patent using it in another field. This is something I have a love/hate relationship with. When dealing with physical inventions (especially chemicals, my field), it can still be pretty difficult to apply an existing invention into another field, so *maybe* an applications patent could be justified. But this Amazon patent seems like so much BS.
Wow -- I'll have to remember this debating tactic. "Sucking corporate dick" sure beats "QED" as punctuation for a logical argument.
To answer your question (which was a good one, despite the fact you asked it like a jackass): According to the patent, it looks like the difference between Warhammer and the WotC/WizKids games is that Warhammer isn't packaged randomly like CCGs. Go back and read the claims.
Not to mention that, unlike Warhammer, the WotC and WizKids games don't need a tape measure and a strong background in vector calculus to play. (FYI: That's a joke, son.)
Thanks! Good point about first-to-file vs first-to-invent. This is going to be an interesting case.
Interesting aside about TSR. I thought they went under because they stagnated -- not much of a rules update, and all the supplements and books were just rehashes. Kinda like Magic and all the expansions.:) I wonder how all this fits in with the Palladium vs. WotC lawsuit mentioned earlier? (Does Palladium even publish any non-Rifts books anymore?)
Remember that WotC originally was a small gaming company.
They developed the CCG, which isn't as simple as just running some card blanks through a printer. And the demand for this radically new kind of game -- based off WotC's idea -- was so great that there were tons of different CCGs. Magic, Pokemon, Battletech, Dr. Who, Monty Python, Babylon 5, Rifts, and Illuminati, to name only a few of scores.
Did the patent work? In theory, licensing the patent allowed WotC (at that time, a small company, remember) to recoup some of the expenses of putting Magic out there and make different games (I always liked "Guillotine"), not to mention the incessant onrush of Magic expansions.
Would WotC have put Magic out there without a patent? I don't know. If they didn't, that would have really reduced consumer choice until somewhere down the road someone thought of a similar idea...sometime. Baseball cards and playing cards had been out for a long time before CCGs came around.
Were some manufacturers unable to pay a licence fee and put their games out? Again, I don't know. We'd have to see what the licence involved. It could have cost millions, or it could have been pretty near free like for the D20 system. Still, there were so many types of CCGs available that I never heard anyone complaining of a lack of choice.
And thank you for thinking my idea was so great. We'll have to go drinking sometime and I'll give you plenty more. (But you pay for the drinks, mind.) What I was trying to say is that it isn't impossible to circumvent a patent. But you also have to realize that it isn't trivially easy, either. Kinda like how it isn't trivially easy to get a patent in the first place. That's how the system works. It is not perfect, and needs fixing, but what prompted my very first post on this topic was to try and educate the readers here that
* Software patents are not representative of the entire patent system. * The patent cases that come up in/. are not representative of the entire patent system. * While the patent system needs fixing in spots, it is not broken.
And I guess on that note, if you think the patent system is broken (in all or in part), be sure to do something in the public arena about it. I am -- part of my job is to comb the existing patent literature involving chemistry and look for bad patents.
Good question. But patents don't just have to have a new design; it is also allowable to patent an existing design for a new application.
I see it a lot in chemistry -- A chemical formulation has been used extensively in field A (lots of prior art). I spend time and money to determine that the same formulation is extremely useful in field B, but no one has ever thought of using it there before. I can then apply for a patent using the existing formulation in field B. There's still technical advancement in field B, even if a known chemical formulation was used.
This WotC/WizKids issue seems similar, just substitute games for chemistries.
Isn't just about everything obvious in hindsight? Sure, having pitched battles with punch-out toys has been done for a while. Sure, CCGs have been done for a while. But I'm not sure anyone ever came up with a feasible way to combine them until recently.
The interesting parts here (and probably the ones deemed sufficiently innovative for a patent) come in with having some codified rules, the inclusion of random chance, and the rarity of different accessories.
I'll be interested to see how this plays out in court. You may be right, and I'm not sure yet how KSR v. Teleflex is impacting the patent system.
And while I'm at it, I should also take you up on the "patents prevent innovation" rant. The way I see it, this patent could be circumvented by doing some of the following:
* Don't use robots or vehicles * Ditch the whole collectible aspect * Ditch the random aspect
For example, I am reading patent literature and come upon this one. I think, "A game from punch-out models! That's a good idea!" To avoid WotC's patent, my game:
* Is non-collectible. There are no rare or common pieces. You buy a base set, and if you want any accessories, you buy them in bubble packs that let you see everything you're getting. * Involves castles. You and your opponent build castles and try to knock the walls down. * There's no random factor. This is purely engineering. The best defense is by building the sturdiest castle out of the base set and accessories. The offense involves firing projectiles (I'll think of safety measures later; I can only brainstorm so much on a lunch break) at your opponent's castle. The offensive strategy is to find your opponent's weak points and hammer them.
There! I have a new game, and I wouldn't have thought of it today without running across this patent. Now this is the kind of idea propagation patents were designed for. While the current system has flaws, innovation isn't as stifled as you seem to think.
Another example -- WotC has a patent on collectible card games. That didn't stop everyone and his brother from making CCGs. Was innovation really stifled?
Please name for me some games that fit the claims in the patent. This game should fit the following:
* Competitive play -- your punch-out toy versus my punch-out toy * Punch-out toy is vehicle or robot * Punch-out toy can be customized with accessories that help it in its battles * There is/are some random element(s) -- dice, cards, flip a coin, pop-o-matic bubble, etc. * There are definite, codified rules -- not something where we build models on our own and decide to battle them * The model kits and/or accessories are distributed in packs randomly. Some pieces are easy to find, while other pieces are rare. * These toys existed before 2003.
I'm getting tired of seeing most of the posters on/. assume all patents are like software patents, and therefore an evil that must be eradicated. Because/. is tech-oriented, most of the patent disputes on here are over software patents, but non-software patents can be a totally different story.
Now slow down and look at the patent, which was linked to in the summary. Yes, there's some legalese, but that's because patents are both technical and legal documents. There are 15 claims, which are the heart of the matter. The claims cover a game using punched-out pieces that are assembled to make models for the game, weapon accessories, and a "random-value generator." The model that is assembled can be a vehicle or robot, and the models use the accessories to inflict damage to each other. Finally, the pieces are distributed in categories of common, uncommon, and rare. This is one of the better-written patents I've read, and it narrowly covers a definite physical invention.
Earlier posters have mentioned a couple more interesting facts: First, this patent was filed in 2003, while the pirate game was released in 2004. Second, Mike Selinker, the creator of WizKids' pirates game, worked for WotC when they were designing the game mentioned in WotC's US Patent 7,201,374, and later left to work for WizKids.
I'm not saying that Hasbro/WotC's patent can't be invalid. WizKids may be right. But this patent shouldn't be automatically dismissed.
Someone already has a patent out citing this one. US 7,167,440: "Optical information recording medium," assigned to TDK corp. They probably figured out a way to circumvent Target Tech's claims. It's not easy, but it can be fun.:)
This patent is not a submarine patent. This patent took 2 years to go from first application to being granted, which is pretty standard. There are a lot of steps and paperwork involved, especially if you have to edit your claims (and this patent had to be revised a couple of times when it was issued two non-final rejections -- again, this is pretty standard). Just search the USPTO legal status of this patent (7018696) to see.
Submarine patents usually hide for much longer than 2 years. Wikipedia has a good entry on them. One big reason submarine patents are less common now is that the term of a patent is reckoned 20 years from its filing date, instead of the previous method when it began with the date a patent is granted. If you take 5-10 years to go from filing to granted and the term of your patent is only 20 years, you're taking a big gamble.
Personally, I think patents should be "if you don't use it, you lose it" because what good does it do us if an idea is patented and the company just sits around waiting for a larger one to use it?
I may be totally misunderstanding you, but I disagree that Target Technology has just let this patent sit. It can easily take 2 years to go from filing an application to being granted a patent. You can check out all the different stages this patent went through by going to the USPTO Transaction History for this patent. (If the link doesn't take you right to the patent, run a search for patent 7018696 and then click on the "Transaction History" tab.) They had to go through some revisions in their claims (I spot 2 non-final rejections, which isn't unusual), as well as go through all the usual forms.
They can't sue someone for infringing their patent until they are granted one. And they might have taken a little more time to build their case before they tried to tackle a big company like Sony.
Note that I'm not saying this patent is valid. I don't have the background in this field to say if this is sufficiently innovative, especially after the Supreme Court's ruling about obviousness in KSR v. Teleflex.
Ok, so if I get a patent that says "silver alloys are best for reflective surfaces" and then I go on to list the possibility of using all elements in the periodic table (or those that make sense) and then I get that patent... basically no one else can use silver in an alloy to make reflective products.
I agree that broad claims can be annoying, but it doesn't mean they've locked everything down. Fortunately, it's still possible to circumvent broad claims. For example, let's say you patent a material made of A, B, C, and D, and your claims cover all combinations of 1-90% A, 1-90% B, 1-90% C, and 1-90% D to give some kind of innovative performance. But now I find that the combination of 25% A, 25% B, 25% C, and 25% D works 10x better than the performance listed in your patent.
Although your patent claims included 25% A, 25% B, 25% C, and 25% D, I could still get a patent for this mixture, because your patent didn't anticipate the improved performance of this particular blend. And if you wanted to use this blend, you'd have to license it from me.:)
For those who want to read the contested article, it's here (printable version). While I'm a little biased -- I have an iPod and I'd love to replace my PC with a Mac eventually -- most of the 10 reasons were pretty lame.
Number 1 I totally agree with, though. Apple going after the rumor websites was an abuse of power. And the point about limited selection of Apple models echoes some complaints I've heard around here. But the others? "Overuse of 'iThingie' names," no "Blu-Ray," and "iPod won't play WMA" are pretty nit-picky.
It would be good if they mined the old Terminator comics put out by Dark Horse. They were set in the future, following the rag-tag human resistance as they tried to survive and fight back, dealing with the creeping paranoia that some of their number are secretly Terminators out to destroy them from within. I'd appreciate bringing the series back to its creepier roots.
I'm still waiting for the Captain America Broadway show. I remember the ads from either the late 80s or early 90s. There was even a contest where the prize was a part in the show, although I seem to remember that they wanted a girl in the role.
My 62-year-old mother wanted to get a computer and be able to read emails and browse the internet. I found an IBM ThinkPad on the cheap and put Xubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake) on it, and she likes it. She has Firefox, Thunderbird, AbiWord, and can watch videos and listen to music.
It's stable, secure, and -- with Xfce -- pretty responsive.
From my own experience, I've been trying different Linux distributions for the past 10 years: mainly Slackware, RedHat, and Caldera. I used Caldera for a couple of years as my primary OS, then replaced it with Win2K when I bought a new computer. Now I've moved back to Kubuntu 6.06 as my primary OS. I don't have a lot of free time, so something that is simple and quick to set up is very important, and Ubuntu provides this.
I don't want a big, noisy computer next to my TV. I've priced out the components for making low noise small form factor rigs, but it seems that a Mac Mini is cheaper. Could it be used?
if it's in the public domain for a year or more, then infringement can't be claimed.
I believe what you're thinking of is "A person shall be entitled to a patent unless...the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the United States." -- Section 102 of the US patent act
Disclaimer: I am a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.
While making estimates based on the "current rate of consumption" may be easy, it's a fallacy. Consumption never stays constant, and will increase unless we do something.
One of the reasons the price of oil has shot up in the past few years has been the increased demand for oil in China and India. More demand for a finite supply. And the world's population grows exponentially. More consumers all the time.
The good news is we are still finding reservoirs, and we are developing better ways of getting hard-to-reach oil from existing reservoirs. But it's all just methadone for our addiction. We need to accellerate R&D of new sources storing and transporting energy. Let's not get complacent here just because we've gotten a reprieve.
You've hit on the point exactly. The RIAA is indirectly arguing (through its high damage calculations) that if you upload a file, then you are responsible for its exponential growth in sharing -- not just what you directly shared, but the shares made of the song by others in each succeding generation.
The argument made by the parent and great-grandparent is that you should only be responsible for only your local circle of sharing, and not the further sharing of the people you shared with in the first round. In other words, just the linear spread of the song.
Something tells me the law is probably unclear on where the cutoff on responsibility lies, since the exponential spread of perfect copies is a relatively new issue. And since the RIAA cannot or will not determine what generation in the exponential spread you are, everybody is treated as if they were the primary introducer for sharing the song and hit with the high damages. That's a great example of trying to have your cake and eat it too!
Slashdot Mirror
[Note: I recognize that religious fundamentalists are not necessarily the best representatives of their religions. Unfortunately, they are the most vocal.]
In the US, Christian fundamentalism has a great track record for dismissing science that it disagrees with. It started with evolution in the 19th century, and has now progressed to other topics.
Evolution?
"God sez the earth is less than 10,000 years old, so science is wrong!"
Biological basis of homosexuality?
"God sez that homosexuality is a sinful choice!"
Global warming?
"God sez he's coming soon, so we don't have to worry about that!"
Of course, when fundamentalists say "God sez..." they really mean "My personal interpretation is..." And don't even get me started on how un-literal "Biblical literalism" is.
This is one of the examples showing the broken aspects of the US patent system. Too few patent examiners that are deluged with too many applications. The applicants can conveniently gloss over prior art. One of the more elegant ways that has been proposed for dealing with this is to open patents up to general comments during the examination phase (although this too could be abused, it is a step in the right direction).
Then there's the whole "application" patent, where you can take something that is well-known in one field and get a patent using it in another field. This is something I have a love/hate relationship with. When dealing with physical inventions (especially chemicals, my field), it can still be pretty difficult to apply an existing invention into another field, so *maybe* an applications patent could be justified. But this Amazon patent seems like so much BS.
Wow -- I'll have to remember this debating tactic. "Sucking corporate dick" sure beats "QED" as punctuation for a logical argument.
To answer your question (which was a good one, despite the fact you asked it like a jackass): According to the patent, it looks like the difference between Warhammer and the WotC/WizKids games is that Warhammer isn't packaged randomly like CCGs. Go back and read the claims.
Not to mention that, unlike Warhammer, the WotC and WizKids games don't need a tape measure and a strong background in vector calculus to play. (FYI: That's a joke, son.)
Thanks! Good point about first-to-file vs first-to-invent. This is going to be an interesting case.
:) I wonder how all this fits in with the Palladium vs. WotC lawsuit mentioned earlier? (Does Palladium even publish any non-Rifts books anymore?)
Interesting aside about TSR. I thought they went under because they stagnated -- not much of a rules update, and all the supplements and books were just rehashes. Kinda like Magic and all the expansions.
Remember that WotC originally was a small gaming company.
/. are not representative of the entire patent system.
They developed the CCG, which isn't as simple as just running some card blanks through a printer. And the demand for this radically new kind of game -- based off WotC's idea -- was so great that there were tons of different CCGs. Magic, Pokemon, Battletech, Dr. Who, Monty Python, Babylon 5, Rifts, and Illuminati, to name only a few of scores.
Did the patent work? In theory, licensing the patent allowed WotC (at that time, a small company, remember) to recoup some of the expenses of putting Magic out there and make different games (I always liked "Guillotine"), not to mention the incessant onrush of Magic expansions.
Would WotC have put Magic out there without a patent? I don't know. If they didn't, that would have really reduced consumer choice until somewhere down the road someone thought of a similar idea...sometime. Baseball cards and playing cards had been out for a long time before CCGs came around.
Were some manufacturers unable to pay a licence fee and put their games out? Again, I don't know. We'd have to see what the licence involved. It could have cost millions, or it could have been pretty near free like for the D20 system. Still, there were so many types of CCGs available that I never heard anyone complaining of a lack of choice.
And thank you for thinking my idea was so great. We'll have to go drinking sometime and I'll give you plenty more. (But you pay for the drinks, mind.) What I was trying to say is that it isn't impossible to circumvent a patent. But you also have to realize that it isn't trivially easy, either. Kinda like how it isn't trivially easy to get a patent in the first place. That's how the system works. It is not perfect, and needs fixing, but what prompted my very first post on this topic was to try and educate the readers here that
* Software patents are not representative of the entire patent system.
* The patent cases that come up in
* While the patent system needs fixing in spots, it is not broken.
And I guess on that note, if you think the patent system is broken (in all or in part), be sure to do something in the public arena about it. I am -- part of my job is to comb the existing patent literature involving chemistry and look for bad patents.
Good question. But patents don't just have to have a new design; it is also allowable to patent an existing design for a new application.
I see it a lot in chemistry -- A chemical formulation has been used extensively in field A (lots of prior art). I spend time and money to determine that the same formulation is extremely useful in field B, but no one has ever thought of using it there before. I can then apply for a patent using the existing formulation in field B. There's still technical advancement in field B, even if a known chemical formulation was used.
This WotC/WizKids issue seems similar, just substitute games for chemistries.
These look like fun. But they also look like boxed sets, and lack the collectible/expandable aspect.
Isn't just about everything obvious in hindsight? Sure, having pitched battles with punch-out toys has been done for a while. Sure, CCGs have been done for a while. But I'm not sure anyone ever came up with a feasible way to combine them until recently.
The interesting parts here (and probably the ones deemed sufficiently innovative for a patent) come in with having some codified rules, the inclusion of random chance, and the rarity of different accessories.
I'll be interested to see how this plays out in court. You may be right, and I'm not sure yet how KSR v. Teleflex is impacting the patent system.
And while I'm at it, I should also take you up on the "patents prevent innovation" rant. The way I see it, this patent could be circumvented by doing some of the following:
* Don't use robots or vehicles
* Ditch the whole collectible aspect
* Ditch the random aspect
For example, I am reading patent literature and come upon this one. I think, "A game from punch-out models! That's a good idea!" To avoid WotC's patent, my game:
* Is non-collectible. There are no rare or common pieces. You buy a base set, and if you want any accessories, you buy them in bubble packs that let you see everything you're getting.
* Involves castles. You and your opponent build castles and try to knock the walls down.
* There's no random factor. This is purely engineering. The best defense is by building the sturdiest castle out of the base set and accessories. The offense involves firing projectiles (I'll think of safety measures later; I can only brainstorm so much on a lunch break) at your opponent's castle. The offensive strategy is to find your opponent's weak points and hammer them.
There! I have a new game, and I wouldn't have thought of it today without running across this patent. Now this is the kind of idea propagation patents were designed for. While the current system has flaws, innovation isn't as stifled as you seem to think.
Another example -- WotC has a patent on collectible card games. That didn't stop everyone and his brother from making CCGs. Was innovation really stifled?
Please name for me some games that fit the claims in the patent. This game should fit the following:
* Competitive play -- your punch-out toy versus my punch-out toy
* Punch-out toy is vehicle or robot
* Punch-out toy can be customized with accessories that help it in its battles
* There is/are some random element(s) -- dice, cards, flip a coin, pop-o-matic bubble, etc.
* There are definite, codified rules -- not something where we build models on our own and decide to battle them
* The model kits and/or accessories are distributed in packs randomly. Some pieces are easy to find, while other pieces are rare.
* These toys existed before 2003.
Thanks!
Now slow down and look at the patent, which was linked to in the summary. Yes, there's some legalese, but that's because patents are both technical and legal documents. There are 15 claims, which are the heart of the matter. The claims cover a game using punched-out pieces that are assembled to make models for the game, weapon accessories, and a "random-value generator." The model that is assembled can be a vehicle or robot, and the models use the accessories to inflict damage to each other. Finally, the pieces are distributed in categories of common, uncommon, and rare. This is one of the better-written patents I've read, and it narrowly covers a definite physical invention.
Earlier posters have mentioned a couple more interesting facts: First, this patent was filed in 2003, while the pirate game was released in 2004. Second, Mike Selinker, the creator of WizKids' pirates game, worked for WotC when they were designing the game mentioned in WotC's US Patent 7,201,374, and later left to work for WizKids.
I'm not saying that Hasbro/WotC's patent can't be invalid. WizKids may be right. But this patent shouldn't be automatically dismissed.
Someone already has a patent out citing this one. US 7,167,440: "Optical information recording medium," assigned to TDK corp. They probably figured out a way to circumvent Target Tech's claims. It's not easy, but it can be fun. :)
Submarine patents usually hide for much longer than 2 years. Wikipedia has a good entry on them. One big reason submarine patents are less common now is that the term of a patent is reckoned 20 years from its filing date, instead of the previous method when it began with the date a patent is granted. If you take 5-10 years to go from filing to granted and the term of your patent is only 20 years, you're taking a big gamble.
I may be totally misunderstanding you, but I disagree that Target Technology has just let this patent sit. It can easily take 2 years to go from filing an application to being granted a patent. You can check out all the different stages this patent went through by going to the USPTO Transaction History for this patent. (If the link doesn't take you right to the patent, run a search for patent 7018696 and then click on the "Transaction History" tab.) They had to go through some revisions in their claims (I spot 2 non-final rejections, which isn't unusual), as well as go through all the usual forms.
They can't sue someone for infringing their patent until they are granted one. And they might have taken a little more time to build their case before they tried to tackle a big company like Sony.
Note that I'm not saying this patent is valid. I don't have the background in this field to say if this is sufficiently innovative, especially after the Supreme Court's ruling about obviousness in KSR v. Teleflex.
Ok, so if I get a patent that says "silver alloys are best for reflective surfaces" and then I go on to list the possibility of using all elements in the periodic table (or those that make sense) and then I get that patentI agree that broad claims can be annoying, but it doesn't mean they've locked everything down. Fortunately, it's still possible to circumvent broad claims. For example, let's say you patent a material made of A, B, C, and D, and your claims cover all combinations of 1-90% A, 1-90% B, 1-90% C, and 1-90% D to give some kind of innovative performance. But now I find that the combination of 25% A, 25% B, 25% C, and 25% D works 10x better than the performance listed in your patent.
Although your patent claims included 25% A, 25% B, 25% C, and 25% D, I could still get a patent for this mixture, because your patent didn't anticipate the improved performance of this particular blend. And if you wanted to use this blend, you'd have to license it from me. :)
Number 1 I totally agree with, though. Apple going after the rumor websites was an abuse of power. And the point about limited selection of Apple models echoes some complaints I've heard around here. But the others? "Overuse of 'iThingie' names," no "Blu-Ray," and "iPod won't play WMA" are pretty nit-picky.
Nobody better tell Harlan Ellison, or he'll sue Battlestar Galactica for stealing his ideas!
It would be good if they mined the old Terminator comics put out by Dark Horse. They were set in the future, following the rag-tag human resistance as they tried to survive and fight back, dealing with the creeping paranoia that some of their number are secretly Terminators out to destroy them from within. I'd appreciate bringing the series back to its creepier roots.
I'm still waiting for the Captain America Broadway show. I remember the ads from either the late 80s or early 90s. There was even a contest where the prize was a part in the show, although I seem to remember that they wanted a girl in the role.
"The surest sign there's intelligent life in the galaxy is that they haven't tried to contact us."
It's stable, secure, and -- with Xfce -- pretty responsive.
From my own experience, I've been trying different Linux distributions for the past 10 years: mainly Slackware, RedHat, and Caldera. I used Caldera for a couple of years as my primary OS, then replaced it with Win2K when I bought a new computer. Now I've moved back to Kubuntu 6.06 as my primary OS. I don't have a lot of free time, so something that is simple and quick to set up is very important, and Ubuntu provides this.
I don't want a big, noisy computer next to my TV. I've priced out the components for making low noise small form factor rigs, but it seems that a Mac Mini is cheaper. Could it be used?
I believe what you're thinking of is "A person shall be entitled to a patent unless...the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the United States." -- Section 102 of the US patent act
Not quite the same.
While making estimates based on the "current rate of consumption" may be easy, it's a fallacy. Consumption never stays constant, and will increase unless we do something.
One of the reasons the price of oil has shot up in the past few years has been the increased demand for oil in China and India. More demand for a finite supply. And the world's population grows exponentially. More consumers all the time.
The good news is we are still finding reservoirs, and we are developing better ways of getting hard-to-reach oil from existing reservoirs. But it's all just methadone for our addiction. We need to accellerate R&D of new sources storing and transporting energy. Let's not get complacent here just because we've gotten a reprieve.
Thanks for the info! That seems to indicate that the law is on the side of the exponential model. And if $750 is the minimum, well, it could be worse.
You've hit on the point exactly. The RIAA is indirectly arguing (through its high damage calculations) that if you upload a file, then you are responsible for its exponential growth in sharing -- not just what you directly shared, but the shares made of the song by others in each succeding generation.
The argument made by the parent and great-grandparent is that you should only be responsible for only your local circle of sharing, and not the further sharing of the people you shared with in the first round. In other words, just the linear spread of the song.
Something tells me the law is probably unclear on where the cutoff on responsibility lies, since the exponential spread of perfect copies is a relatively new issue. And since the RIAA cannot or will not determine what generation in the exponential spread you are, everybody is treated as if they were the primary introducer for sharing the song and hit with the high damages. That's a great example of trying to have your cake and eat it too!