Last 50 comments.Comments RSS

1. Trey Jackson on Patent Trolls for the Little Guy
I think a good discussion is warranted, and I don't expect anyone to necessarily agree with me, nor do I think people care about what I care about. I was simply pointing out your analogy is horrible. Regardless what I think of patents, it is a horrible analogy. It does not make a "moderately accurate comparison." Nobody is doing anything illegal with patents, there's no abusive behavior that's been identified that needs to be curbed. Robbing banks and killing people are illegal regardless o ›››
May 15, 2013 4:41 PM

2. Alan Wexelblat on Patent Trolls for the Little Guy
@Trey: I get that you've got your mad on about software patents but try not to fool yourself into thinking your view is everyone's view. If you're upset about the cars analogy feel free to ignore it. It's a moderately accurate comparison, unburdened by the level of emotional energy associated with guns right now. However, feel free to make your own analogies to guns or butterflies or whatever it is that makes you happier. Picking apart the analogy both misses the point that analogies are never ›››
May 15, 2013 9:57 AM

3. Trey Jackson on Patent Trolls for the Little Guy
@Alan, so you admit you picked cars because they are not controversial and are generally deemed good, whereas patents are not. Yet we should think of them the same... How again is this analogy (cars/patents) at all useful? You just admitted they are nothing alike. You argue that cars can be used to commit crimes, cause deaths, etc. and that doesn't make us want to abolish cars. i.e. used in a "bad" way In the case of cars being used for bad things (crimes, deaths, pollution), there are alr ›››
May 14, 2013 12:01 PM

4. Alan Wexelblat on Patent Trolls for the Little Guy
@Trey: I picked cars rather than guns (though I think both analogies are apt) because I wanted an example of a thing that exists in society because of government grants but is not at the core of a heated debate. All analogies are necessarily imprecise, to some degree. Factually, Denis is correct in that the patents in question are considered valid until invalidated by a court or the PTO. That's not my value judgment - it's just the state of the world. You (or I) may not like any particular pate ›››
May 13, 2013 4:58 PM

5. Trey Jackson on Patent Trolls for the Little Guy
Denis wrote: "I love the way you got that whole acerbic, right-wing thing working for you, dude." Love the way you got that whole clueless, don't-know-what-I'm-talking-about thing working for you. Yes, I understand the [cars are bad, it's what you do with them that is bad] point. One cannot realistically ascribe morals to objects. Did I ever say otherwise? My point is that the analogy between cars and patents is a horrible analogy. Given that cars are an every day, physical item, and pate ›››
May 13, 2013 4:38 PM

6. Motivational Speaker on Anyone Have An Opinion on Createspace?
My friend used it for book publishing and loved the results so Im about to try it. Thanks for the helpful post. ›››
May 12, 2013 12:01 AM

7. jack sprat on Legal and Illegal International Copyright Regimes
Ludicrous decision. The only competitive advantage here is that of smuggling contraband. The fact that said contraband is a service is irrelevant. ›››
May 11, 2013 4:37 AM

8. Lilliana on Gaming, DRM, Piracy, and the Price of Working in PR
May I just say what a comfort to discover someone who really understands what they are talking about over the internet. You definitely know how to bring a problem to light and make it important. More people should check this out and understand this side of your story. I can't believe you are not more popular given that you most certainly have the gift. ›››
May 10, 2013 4:26 PM

9. Denis on Patent Trolls for the Little Guy
Way to flame 'em, Trey. I love the way you got that whole acerbic, right-wing thing working for you, dude. The point I took from Alan's analogy is that a patent, like a car, is not inherently bad. It's the way they are misused that is bad. I don't see your problem with this analogy. It's clean, clear, and concise. "My having a car doesn't prevent you from doing anything, whereas patents do exactly that." The only thing my having a patent prevents you from doing is infringing my patent, w ›››
May 10, 2013 3:01 PM

10. Trey Jackson on Patent Trolls for the Little Guy
Your analogy to cars seems ... inane at best. My having a car doesn't prevent you from doing anything, whereas patents do exactly that. My having a patent doesn't actually enable me to do anything, whereas having a car provides very clear and tangible benefit. For me to take advantage of a patent, I must have the money/time/lawyers to (first obtain a patent, then) file a lawsuit to enforce the patent. And, if you're not actually protecting a product, but protecting your "idea" - how is that ›››
May 10, 2013 12:23 PM

11. Alan Wexelblat on At Least They're Asking the Right Question
The "working machine that demonstrates" requirement for patents went out a long time ago. Biopharma people don't submit molecules, they submit chemical descriptions of molecules and claims as to the molecules' effects. In order to make code the determinant of whether an idea has been reduced to practice and patentable you would have to submit not only your code, but everything else that is required to make that code run (hardware, OS, compiler/linker/assembler, makefiles, etc). The code itsel ›››
April 22, 2013 10:27 AM

12. Cory Doctorow on At Least They're Asking the Right Question
But code equivalence isn't the only reason to request source, right? It's also to prove that you can actually do the thing you claim you're patenting. It's the difference between claiming that you have code that proves P=NP and running the code that proves P=NP. If you can't implement it, why allow you to patent it? ›››
April 20, 2013 12:59 AM

13. Alan Wexelblat on At Least They're Asking the Right Question
Code equivalence is important because what the EFF is asking - where I think they get it right - is functional protection. If I take the typical C-language "Hello World" program and implement it in C++ or Java or Perl or whatever it's still the "same" program, in the sense that it performs the same function. If we imagine that I got a patent on Hello World and I submit my C-code example then someone else might submit a patent with their Perl-code version and unless we can say "these are the same ›››
April 18, 2013 2:59 PM

14. Cory Doctorow on At Least They're Asking the Right Question
Why is code equivalence important? Proving that two mechanical devices aren't equivalent is also often an impossible task, but the patent office still required working models for them. ›››
April 17, 2013 11:40 PM

15. worki gruzowe Sopot on Another Step in the IP/Lifesaving Debate
I don't drop a bunch of comments, however i did some searching and wound up here Another Step in the IP/Lifesaving Debate. Copyfight: the politics of IP. And I actually do have a couple of questions for you if you do not mind. Could it be only me or does it look like a few of the comments appear like they are written by brain dead visitors? :-P And, if you are posting on other sites, I'd like to keep up with everything fresh you have to post. Could you list of the complete urls of your social pa ›››
April 11, 2013 3:49 PM

16. Carlos on Why Do Creators Get So Little?
The core of your writing whislt appearing agreeable originally, did not really sit perfectly with me personally after some time. Someplace throughout the sentences you were able to make me a believer but only for a very short while. I however have a problem with your jumps in assumptions and one might do well to fill in all those breaks. When you actually can accomplish that, I would surely be impressed. ›››
April 9, 2013 10:35 PM

17. jcadams on WIRED, 3D Printing, and Patent FUD
I think the main point that Mr. Flaherty is making is that many of these patents are on subsystems of a 3D printer. If someone wanted to innovate and create a new process for a 3D printer, he would only do it if it would profit him in some way. So as an example, imagine someone has a brilliant new idea that will change the industry. He makes this brand new 3D printer that has a new feature. The problem is that in creating a full printer he used a subsystem unrelated to his new feature, and that ›››
March 26, 2013 3:12 PM

18. Alexis on More On Asking, Writing for Free
People in lower economic status are much more often non-white or single working parents -which is to say, women. In this otherwise excellent piece, this remark is unfortunate. It equates single parenthood with single motherhood, excluding single dads rather than simply stating the high percentage (around 80%) of female single parents. ›››
March 26, 2013 8:58 AM

19. Alan Wexelblat on More On Asking, Writing for Free
Sorry if I was unclear. The idea as I see it is that people like AFP who can engage socially at the highest level have no need for these new intermediaries. People who have less time or inclination for that sort of engagement have more need for them. Palmer may be suggesting that every artist needs to engage the way she does; if so, I'd disagree with her in the same way that I don't think every singer also needs to be a songwriter, nor every novelist be a good copyeditor. Those things help, but ›››
March 22, 2013 9:46 AM

20. David Weinberger on More On Asking, Writing for Free
Nice piece. I especially like Coates' point about privilege...although I've long thought that blogging bloomed when it did because a lot of people were light on work at the time and thus had time to blog. But from my point of view, your suggestion of intermediaries for introverts seems to contradict one of Palmer's lessons. Her extroversion allows her not only to ask for money but to have built the sense of personal involvement with her audience that brings them to give her money. They respond ›››
March 22, 2013 8:54 AM

21. Bill Wilson on For Your Convenience Your ISP is Now Spying On You
Indeed, where is the outrage? Where's the reasonable opportunity to challenge the ISP's findings? (The AAA is not it...) ›››
March 3, 2013 1:11 PM

22. Alan Wexelblat on PeerJ's Disruptive Pricing "Secret"
Thanks to you both for taking the time to correct me. I'll update the blog post to reflect this. ›››
February 26, 2013 10:35 PM

23. Jason Hoyt on PeerJ's Disruptive Pricing "Secret"
Thanks for the write-up. Just one correction, authors do not need to pay any fee to submit manuscripts for peer-review to PeerJ. Authors have the option to pay after acceptance, similar to PLoS journals. They can also have that $99 refunded if they pay before/when submitting and are subsequently rejected. Jason Co-founder & CEO, PeerJ ›››
February 26, 2013 3:55 PM

24. Peter Binfield on PeerJ's Disruptive Pricing "Secret"
(Disclosure: I am the Publisher of PeerJ). Actually, you misunderstand. The fee is indeed $99 if authors pay at the time of submission. However, they can submit for free, and only pay once accepted (at which point it is slightly more expensive $129). Info at: https://peerj.com/about/FAQ/#plans In addition, because we are peer reviewing only on methodological and scientific soundness (not on 'impact') we expect to end up accepting ~70% of all submissions. Info at: https://peerj.com/about/FAQ/ ›››
February 26, 2013 1:17 PM

25. Alan Wexelblat on Games Workshop Manages to Make A Whole Passel of New Enemies
BW: Part of the issue is that GW seem to be asserting a trademark (which it's debatable that they even have) against a book. As you say, a copyright issue would be handled differently but even if one allows for argument's sake that they do have this trademark then they're going about protecting it all wrong. DMCA takedowns against e-books are just not relevant if we're talking trademark. ›››
February 8, 2013 9:41 PM

26. BW on Games Workshop Manages to Make A Whole Passel of New Enemies
Allan, How rude of me, I forgot to list my source in a discussion about copyright issues. Here it is. Bryan Burk, Dan 2007, Privacy and Property in the Global Datasphere. In S. Hongladarom and C. Ess (eds). Information Technology Ethics: Cultural Perspectives, 94-107. Hershey, PA:IGA Global. ›››
February 8, 2013 3:30 PM

27. BW on Games Workshop Manages to Make A Whole Passel of New Enemies
Allan, I hope you are having a great day. I stumbled onto your blog during some research for a Communications Ethics class I am taking right now found it very interesting. I had no what you were talking about until I did a little research. I guess my bottom line question would be is the term Space Marines copyrighted by Games Workshop. I did some looking on the internet and saw Games Workshop logos that showed the term Space Marines as a trademark. There is actually a website called spacema ›››
February 8, 2013 3:24 PM

28. Justin Beach on A Non-Profit for 21st Century Musicians
Cashmusic is great. Really good people behind it who sincerely want to help musicians make a living. ›››
January 31, 2013 2:13 PM

29. Irish Hare on BBC: Nothing New in TV Show Piracy
The media companies should ride and manage the BitTorrent wave - not fight it. For example, from the Moscow News 29 Sept 2011 "While most anti-piracy methods focus on destroying illegal content, Klimenko’s revolutionary software, Pirate Pay, aims to protect artistic content as soon as it leaves the studio. It does this by attaching a pay-firewall to artistic files as soon as they are released onto the Internet, which sticks with them whenever they are downloaded as BitTorrents," Current distri ›››
December 26, 2012 10:26 AM

30. alan wexelblat on BBC: Nothing New in TV Show Piracy
I get that you're an angry person with an axe to grind, but slow down a minute. TorrentFreak is a remarkably useful and noise-free news site. Have you actually read the site or are you just knee-jerk reacting to their name? If you have any evidence that they're illegitimate feel free to point to it. I can't validate "Cisco"'s numbers on filesharing without some indicator of what they're measuring. It's possible that there are more torrents but still a comparable quantity of shared television s ›››
December 25, 2012 12:32 PM

31. ethicalfan on BBC: Nothing New in TV Show Piracy
The LESSON since Napster is that illegal "filesharing" is DEVASTATING to the everyday lives of artists and creative people. If an artist wants to give away their music, that is great. The current situation on the internet forces an artist to give away their music. Copyright is a human right. Article 27 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of ›››
December 24, 2012 4:49 PM

32. ethicalfan on BBC: Nothing New in TV Show Piracy
"Perhaps a slightly new lesson is that most of the top copied titles are behind paywalls." That is because HBO has investors who actually employ people to make content. Walmart has a "paywall" as does the Apple Store. HBO is in the business of selling content that they own and create on the terms that are most likely to give them a return on their investment, not meet the demands of the criminal for-profit pirate industry advocated by TorrentFreak. Again, why would the BBC give TorrentFreak ›››
December 24, 2012 3:18 PM

33. ethicalfan on BBC: Nothing New in TV Show Piracy
This is completely false. According to Cisco, P2P "filesharing" grew in the UK from 232 Petabytes per month in 2011 to 254 Petabytes per month in 2012. It grew 40% in the US from 690 Petabytes a month in 2011 to 818 Petabytes per month in 2012. Envisional found that 14% of all BitTorrent traffic was TV shows. So in the US, piracy of TV shows grew by 40% from 2011 to 2012. The real question is why would the BBC give legitimacy to a site like TorrentFreak? ›››
December 24, 2012 2:38 PM

34. Alan Wexelblat on Anyone Have An Opinion on Createspace?
@Orion thanks for dropping by and sharing your story. This is indeed an old blog post but it's one of our most popular ever. I keep an eye on things and people still have new data to add so I keep the comments open. ›››
December 17, 2012 11:25 AM

35. Orion on Anyone Have An Opinion on Createspace?
I know this is an old article, but it's still about the first thing to pop up, so I want to warn people. Do everything you can to avoid Create Space for putting your CD's up. It's a nightmare process. These morons can't keep track of what they're saying and just bounce me back and forth between different monkeys. They have no idea what their error messages mean (I upload a zip file of AIFF audio files and it says "need source files for the following tracks); they pass me back and forth between ›››
December 16, 2012 4:09 AM

36. Billy on Guess What, E-Books Still Suck
I hate DRM as much as the next guy, but there's an annoyingly common theme with these DRM outrage articles: 1) Read the summary about some outrageous DRM abuse. 2) Get outraged. 3) Read the referenced article. 4) Discover that the situation isn't as bad as it seemed. B & N wouldn't let someone RE-DOWNLOAD a book (they'd apparently deleted) because the CC used to purchase the book had expired. What is the analogous right for that paperback you bought, read, and threw away? It's nice that B & ›››
December 6, 2012 5:44 PM

37. Crosbie Fitch on What, Exactly, Is "The Patent Problem"
While I find many such as Mike and yourself who allow beliefs to preclude engaging in this argument, I haven't yet found anyone with a decent counter-argument, and so my search continues... I also look forward to the day your 'Remember Me?' function works. ›››
December 6, 2012 5:19 PM

38. Alan Wexelblat on What, Exactly, Is "The Patent Problem"
I've read it and I regret to inform you that I agree with Mike Masnick's response to you. (I should take a moment here to say that the delay in posting your comments is not unique to you. There's an ongoing server problem which often causes comments not to appear until I force a site rebuild.) ›››
December 6, 2012 1:49 PM

39. Crosbie Fitch on What, Exactly, Is "The Patent Problem"
Alan, you are right. The Constitution HAS to be read as it was written (per the language of the day) - not as we might like to prefer, any manner of things we'd argue the Framers 'wrote between the lines'. Thus the canard that the Constitution empowered Congress to grant copyright is a modern litany. The clause people cite specifies nothing of the sort. People simply like to imagine it does. I recommend you read my comments in this thread: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121025/18244920850/ ›››
December 5, 2012 3:26 PM

40. Alan Wexelblat on What, Exactly, Is "The Patent Problem"
I am not naive enough to believe that the privileged upper-class white men who wrote the Constitution were acting in a purely altruistic manner. However, I think it's a reasonably widely shared understanding that they were trying to form a more perfect union and building into it such principles as they saw leading to such a thing. That, however, sort of misses the point. Whatever you think of the mens' motives, the language is as written. If we're not enforcing the language as written that's a ›››
December 5, 2012 1:17 PM

41. Crosbie Fitch on What, Exactly, Is "The Patent Problem"
"because it was felt that having government-granted monopolies of this sort would lead to a better society." You've got to believe that haven't you? You couldn't possibly believe that it was simply because Madison had some pals who quite fancied some monopoly profits, eh? Presumably, lobbying never happened in the 18th century. All statesmen were pure as the driven snow, altruistic philanthropists through & through... Half the problem is, that even those who smell something rotten about them ›››
December 4, 2012 7:17 PM

42. Alan Wexelblat on When Conservatives Are Optimistic About IP It Looks Libertarian
@Crosbie good to have you back. I think you're in a significant minority on the lack of a Constitutional basis. @Stephen it's possible, but we have centuries of evidence that great works (all of Shakespeare, DaVinci's art, etc) were made without any copyright being around. I'm still a proponent of creators need to get paid, but copyright is only one mechanism for compensating creators. There are lots of other models, such as crowdfunding, patronage, and salaried work none of which depend on cop ›››
November 28, 2012 12:26 PM

43. Stephen C. Allison on When Conservatives Are Optimistic About IP It Looks Libertarian
Removing copyright and/or patent protection for the currently defined period would destroy the incentive for anyone to create- anything. Only very few will be willing to create or produce anything original only for the 'common good.' ›››
November 27, 2012 1:14 PM

44. Crosbie Fitch on When Conservatives Are Optimistic About IP It Looks Libertarian
Alan, people have got to question the mythological Constitutional basis for copyright, as well as Queen Anne's claim it was for the encouragement of learning. Pretext neither implies purpose nor product. I explain the lack of a Constitutional basis in a comment to: www.techdirt.com/copyright-new-mercantilism.shtml Copyright is a disaster. It is not just the current implementation, but the privilege itself. Copyright never served a public good. People have simply been indoctrinated to believe ›››
November 25, 2012 4:59 AM

45. Alan Wexelblat on Fictionwise Shuts Down, Moves Customers to B&N
Thanks for the clarification Bryan. ›››
November 20, 2012 12:24 PM

46. Bryan Price on Fictionwise Shuts Down, Moves Customers to B&N
SOME of fictionwise books did not have DRM. Having downloaded my wife's entire library and converted it to her preferred ereader (Palm TX) and getting rid of the DRM that part of the library had and filing everything in Calibre, it was a considerable amount. ›››
November 18, 2012 8:13 PM

47. Mike Gaudreau on The Patent "Bargain" (in Canada)
As a late middle aged Canadian male, I welcome this brave decision by our court. No more $10 Viagra pills. Should have been done sooner ›››
November 10, 2012 11:35 AM

48. Nicole Gustas on Amazon's Flub (Finally) Hits Mainstream Media
I would buy a Kindle if buying books worked like buying music off iTunes does, rather than, well, the way the Kindle works. ›››
October 24, 2012 11:02 PM

49. Alan Wexelblat on Myrvold Patents, Tech Review Flubs
You're right. I mashed up two examples and got the wrong bits into the published entry in my editing haste. Sorry about that. ›››
October 23, 2012 11:56 AM

50. findcorantetedious on Myrvold Patents, Tech Review Flubs
A “useful article” is an article having an intrinsic utilitarian function that is NOT MERELY to portray the appearance of the article or to convey information. --US Copyright Law Your book example is beyond idiotic. Copyright protects the information in a book, not the book as object or 'useful article' ›››
October 20, 2012 4:26 PM