/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ the politics of IP en-us wex@hovir.com 2013-05-13T10:50:30-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2013/05/13/software_patent_procon_in_the_wsj.php Sunday's Wall Street Journal carried a pro/con pair of opinions on software patenting. The 'yes' side was written by Martin Goetz, himself an inventor and entrepreneur. So far as anyone can tell, Goetz holds the first-ever software patent. The 'no' side was written by Brian J. Love, an IP law professor from Santa Clara University School of Law. So far as I can tell, Professor Love does not actually litigate or make patent applications, so this is sort of a mismatch of real-world practitioner versus theorist. I guess it won't surprise many readers that I consider the real-world practitioner to... 76413@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Counterpoint 2013-05-13T10:50:30-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2013/02/20/wired_3d_printing_and_patent_fud.php WIRED published a piece this week by Joseph Flaherty under the inflammatory headline, "How Big Business is Stymying Makers’ High-Res, Colorful Innovations". A more appropriate title would be "Patents appear to be working in the 3D printing field like they work in most other manufacturing fields." That, however, wouldn't sell more ad space. Flaherty's issue appears to be that there are patents covering aspects of 3D printing and therefore companies are not inventing things de novo without constraint. This is hardly a shock - every business of the last couple centuries has been born into a world where patents existed... 76224@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Counterpoint 2013-02-20T14:18:09-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2013/02/14/when_the_tip_jar_offends.php I recently blogged about NoiseTrade which, among other things, provides a PayPal-linked "tip jar" for artists who are willing to give away downloadable music in hopes fans will pay something for value received. In today's blog entry titled "Blogonomics, Maria Popova edition", Felix Salmon takes a hard look at the use of a virtual tip jar by blogger Maria Popova (of Brainpickings). Salmon notes that the tip jar and accompanying text give the impression that the blogger needs the tip revenue to support her hard work. However, a slightly deeper look reveals that not only does she have another "day... 76212@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Counterpoint 2013-02-14T10:43:18-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2013/01/08/how_the_media_misreports_stories.php If you go to The New York Times this week you can see a story trumpeting how well traditional media companies did in 2012. Supposedly, we are told, these media dinosaurs were going to be destroyed by new media companies in 2012 and that didn't happen, so everything is rosy and there's no danger. Hooray and break out the champagne! Or, maybe not. Let's dig into this a little bit. Forgive me if this gets a bit detailed. First of all, the measure of "did well" seems to be "had a large increase percentage-wise in stock price". In a year... 76124@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Counterpoint 2013-01-08T16:21:19-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2013/01/07/can_people_sponsor_many_authors_at_20year.php When I posted my piece last week about Andrew Sullivan's gentle freemium model I missed a response by John Scalzi. Scalzi, in his Whatever blog for Jan 3, noted that this is similar to what Sullivan has done in the past. He notes that Sullivan did something similar nearly 10 years ago and describes why Whatever is unlikely ever to use a subscription model. Most interestingly, though, he notes that many of Sullivan's readers "...pay $20 a day on coffee and lunch; it’s not a lot." That stopped me to think, as I don't spend that kind of money per... 76118@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Counterpoint 2013-01-07T11:06:11-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2012/12/11/dear_readwrite_grangercausality_is_not_causality.php I find myself head-thumpingly frustrated by the fact that all parties in the Copyright Wars continue to get their statistics wrong. This time, ReadWrite trumpets the idea that participation in social media by musicians drives music sales. I realize that's an appealing and perhaps even common-sense notion and they even quote a graph with the word "Causality" on it, but that is not in fact what is going on and it's not even what the original graph ought to be claiming. What happened, near as I can make out, is that an outfit called Next Big Media did some data... 76064@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Counterpoint 2012-12-11T16:31:59-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2012/12/06/in_answer_to_your_enquiry_no.php A couple weeks ago I (along with about 90% of the tech blogosphere) was asking the startling question, could the Republican party actually produce something innovative and different in the realm of copyright? Well, sure, they retracted the memo as soon as someone in the Cartel noticed it and picked up the phone to complain, but hey at least there are people inside the party thinking innovatively about... wait? What's that you say? They fired his ass? Oh. Well. Never mind. (Thanks to +Dan Gillmor for the original pointer.)... 76053@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Counterpoint 2012-12-06T14:37:52-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2012/11/15/geist_v_npd.php Michael Geist has noted that Cartel marketing shill NPD is full of hooey. You may recall that I had something of a rant on last year when NPD managed to buffalo Greg Sandoval. This time Geist calls them on it, directly. NPD continues to produce shill material for the Cartel, pushing its anti-sharing and anti-customer messaging. Last time I pointed to how they were drawing wrong conclusions from their data; this time Geist points out they can't even do basic math. And of course getting math wrong means you get your message wrong, in this case hilariously the opposite of... 76001@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Counterpoint 2012-11-15T12:44:32-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2012/10/22/megan_mcardle_takes_issue_with_the_knockoff_economy.php A couple weeks back I noted that authors Raustiala and Sprigman would be excerpting from The Knockoff Economy, their recent book, in the blog Volokh Conspiracy. I've read their posts with some interest but haven't had time to talk about it in depth. I do recommend the book for Copyfighters, as one view on how industries (particularly food and fashion) that have low or no IP protection thrive. Whether you read the book or the V.C. posts, I also recommend you read McArdle's response in The Daily Beast. In her column she takes issue with the core argument that experiences... 75950@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Counterpoint 2012-10-22T09:57:58-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2012/04/19/twitter_tries_to_break_patent_logjam.php Earlier this week, Adam Messinger, VP of Engineering at Twitter posted a notice on the Twitter blog, "Introducing the Innovator's Patent Agreement". If this works right - which is to say as intended - then it could potentially do a great deal to demilitarize the current worldwide patent war. Sadly, I think this is going to go the way of "Don't Be Evil" - a great idea that eroded to the perceived necessities of competitive business. Start by reading the agreement as posted to Github. There's a lot of discussion around it, and the specific language will likely change, but... 75581@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Counterpoint 2012-04-19T08:38:55-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2012/04/16/cartel_trumpet_crush_em_strategy_revise_history_still_miss_point.php Over a year ago, I pointed out that a potentially big story was being missed: people were migrating off file-sharing networks because of a change to always-on, high-speed, mobile Internet use that meant people would rather have their media streamed to them wherever they were, rather than held as bits on a single disk. Having media in the cloud was worth more than downloading, legal or illegal. Sure, there's still a ton of copyrighted files flowing on Bittorrent but there are also files on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and any other social media you care to name. More interestingly,... 75573@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Counterpoint 2012-04-16T06:42:47-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2012/04/06/copyright_official_fails_techdirt_foams.php Let's start with a couple things we agree on: Maria Pallante, the Register of Copyrights, is a copyright maximalist. As you can see from her public background, she's worked for organizations like the National Writer's Union and the Guggenheim Museum that consistently hold a maximalist, and author-centric view of copyright. It's also clear that she believes the purpose of copyright is to help people make money, and that exceptions to copyright monopolies should be narrowly drawn. Why this is surprising, or why it causes Techcrunch's Mike Masnick positively to foam at the mouth is beyond me. Masnick notes that in... 75561@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Counterpoint 2012-04-06T14:04:15-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2012/01/31/scalzi_vs_franzen_on_ebooks.php Jonathan Franzen is profiled in the UK Guardian, as an author unhappy with e-books and concerned about their effects, when compared to physical books. John Scalzi takes a moment to respond in his blog. Franzen is concerned for the physical book. He comes across as not precisely anti-technology/anti-Internet, but as someone who sees the creative writing environment and its output as physical books as somehow separate and better. Scalzi is, shall we say, skeptical. Both make good points and are worth reading. I am myself conflicted. I live my life online and am constantly connected. But I have also been... 75416@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Counterpoint 2012-01-31T10:20:53-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2011/10/04/are_mathematical_communities_unique.php Contrary to my off-hand assertion about the replicability of community models from mathematical sharing groups a couple of items came to my attention today that argue the opposite case: that these communities are not like others. The blog entry on m-phi is initially concerned with discussing how a possibly revolutionary proof in fundamental mathematical theory was published, subject to scrutiny, and rapid consensus formed that an error had been made. The consensus and supporting arguments were sufficient to convince the original author of the theory to retract his assertion. This is no small thing, particularly since he had a book... 75208@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Counterpoint 2011-10-04T09:18:52-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2011/06/15/only_amateurs_care_about_copyright_registration_in_hollywood.php Television writer Chad Gervich has some pretty strong opinions on people who are concerned about protecting their ideas in the world of television script-writing. In a piece for Scriptmag online earlier this month he responds to readers' questions about the need for registering their works with the Copyright Office or the Writer's Guild (WGA). He reminds would-be screenwriters that ideas can't be protected in the first place, only tangible forms in which the idea is fixed. In addition, he notes that: [T]here is no bigger sign of an amateur than someone who’s worried about their stuff being stolen In Hollywood,... 75046@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Counterpoint 2011-06-15T10:57:20-05:00