Looks like I missed some excitement at CeBit this year: a large patent raid:

Dozens of exhibitors at Europe's largest gadget confab were in for a surprise this week: Suspecting patent violations, German authorities raided 51 booths, carting off cell phones, navigation devices, and other gear that allegedly infringe on patents.

So what kinds of things did they grab?

The police didn't name which people or companies were targeted, but they did say the alleged patent violations deal with devices that have MP3, MP4, or digital video broadcast functions; DVD players; and blank CDs and DVDs. They managed to fill 68 boxes with gadgets, documents, and advertising material and took down the identities of nine people, most of whom were reportedly cooperative.

What kind of patents are associated with these audio players and video players, I wonder - there are tons of such devices on the market. And blank CDs and DVDs?

Not to sound too much like a crank, but did the IFPI decide to take the same stupid pills that the RIAA has been on over the last decade?

Technorati Tags: copyright, patent

Yesterday I came across this post by Mathew Ingram and flagged it as something of interest - but I wasn't entirely sure what to riff on. Then I cam across this from Doc Searls, and the two things clicked with me. First, there's Mathew on copyright and intellectual property - which he says is causing us to approach content from the wrong direction:

Because there'€™s no such thing as intellectual property in the same sense as we think about physical property. You can steal my car, or my wallet, and that deprives me of those things in a very real way, which is why doing so is a crime. But you can'€™t steal my idea any more than you can steal my thoughts. And in some cases, taking my idea and adding to it will actually make it better, which is why we have principles like "€œfair use"€ and "fair dealing". There's no such concept as "€œfair driving,"€ where you get equal access to my car

That idea resonated with me when I read Doc this morning:

the value I create isn't just for me. I see what I do here as a positive contribution to the world: open prose that's like open code: simply useful. Or, in other terms, NEA: something Nobody owns, Everybody can use and Anybody can improve.

Which in turn reminded me of things Jonathan Coulton said on last week's TwIT podcast - about why he puts his music out DRM free - he wants to see other people remix and reuse, becase he recognizes that ultimately, his fans will buy from him without having a gun put to their heads. Incidentally, I just paid Coulton for "Code Monkey:, even though I could have just grabbed it for free. The song came to my attention initially via YouTube buzz, which happened because people put together interesting videos that weren't yanked by a stupid record label. In my case, no video, no sale - the value that someone else added to the song led directly to the sale.

This is tied together by an interesting interactive "what happens after I post" graphic Doc pointed to. Many people look at this with horror; the rest of us just see it as the way things really work. At some point, copyright law is going to have to start lining up with that reality.

Technorati Tags: social media, copyright

Looks like IBM has joined the "just how stupid can we look" party with the stupidest patent I've ever heard of:

A method and structure for reducing customer dissatisfaction for waiting includes a queue monitoring subsystem which detects an entry of a customer into a waiting queue. A reward computing subsystem calculates a reward for the customer for being in the waiting queue, and a communication subsystem communicates the reward to the customer. At least one of subsystems is automated.

Let's list the hall of shame entrants - the three complete bozos who put their names to this application: Parijat Dube, Giuseppe A. Paleologo, and Laura Wynter.

They must be so proud to have written a legalistic sounding patent application that draws on the wisdom of the average restaurant manager - like the nice fellow at Bob Evans last night who comped a group of us for a couple of dinners that we had to wait for.

Update: And get a load out of the application language - this is just priceless:

In view of the foregoing, and other, exemplary problems, drawbacks, and disadvantages of the conventional systems, it is an exemplary feature of the present invention to provide a structure (and method) in which customer satisfaction is increased among users of contact centers or any time-shared resource situation, such as recreational facilities, restaurants or lodging facilities or numerous other time-shared resources, while reducing the likelihood that such users will leave the system while waiting for service.

Technorati Tags: patent, ibm, stupidity

All the Lisp guys who think of Paul Graham as some kind of hero should have a look at this 1997 (awarded in 2001) patent filing - he's apparently as unfamiliar with the concept of prior art as many of the folks over at Microsoft. From the claim:

A method for communicating between a client and a server through a limited communication interface, the method comprising: providing continuation functions associated with each of a plurality of links, wherein a continuation function includes a reference to a continuation argument representing a remaining sequence of instructions for subsequent execution; sending the plurality of links through the limited communication interface from the server to the client; sending a selected one of the plurality of links from the client to the server; and executing the continuation function associated with the selected link in the server including executing the remaining sequence of instructions.

Using the old Google thing, I found this Wikipedia page:

Almost all programming languages have means for manipulating the continuation of a computation step. Early imperative languages provided the so-called "goto" feature (in different guises, e.g. setjmp in C), which would force the computation to continue at some designated label. In the 1970s, people supplemented "goto" with additional control construct that encapsulated frequently repeated control patterns. Simple examples are function returns, loop exits, and loop iteration breaks. Complex examples include Simula 67's coroutines, Icon's generators, Prolog's backtracking mechanism, and threads.

Only a few programming languages provide full, unrestrained access to the continuation of a computation step. Scheme was the first full production system, providing first "catch" and then via Daniel P. Friedman call-with-current-continuation. Bruce Duba, an Indiana University trained Schemer who post-doced at Bell Labs, introduced them into SML of New Jersey. Some Smalltalk and Python implementations provide similar access to continuations, though nothing as systematic as Scheme.

So in 1997, Paul apparently jumped back in time and invented setjmp and goto. Awesome.

Technorati Tags: patents, continuations

Ars Technica demonstrates just how stupid the RIAA is: they think it would be reasonable to fine up to $1.5M for copying a 10 song CD (bearing in mind that, in their heart of hearts, they believe that ripping your own CD is illegal):

Not content with the current (and already massive) statutory damages allowed under copyright law, the RIAA is pushing to expand the provision. The issue is compilations, which now are treated as a single work. In the RIAA's perfect world, each copied track would count as a separate act of infringement, meaning that a copying a ten-song CD even one time could end up costing a defendant $1.5 million if done willfully. Sound fair? Proportional? Necessary? Not really, but that doesn't mean it won't become law.

Remembering that individual tracks go for $1, all I can come up with is that the record labels have gone completely around the bend. If there's a spot beyond denial, they've found it.

Technorati Tags: music, riaa, copyright, stupidity

I like this result: Tanya Anderson not only won attorney's fees as compensation for the RIAA's wrongful suit against her, but she's getting a countersuit dropped so that she can continue with a wider ranging suit against the RIAA:

Judge Redden also upheld the magistrate's decision to dismiss her counterclaims without prejudice so that they could be heard as part of a malicious prosecution lawsuit filed by Andersen last June after the RIAA's case was dismissed, citing the "interests of judicial economy and comprehensive litigation."

Andersen's malicious prosecution lawsuit accuses the RIAA of invasion of privacy, deceptive business practices, libel, slander, and a host of other misdeeds, saying that the RIAA has "engaged in a coordinated enterprise to pursue a scheme of threatening and intimidating litigation in an attempt to maintain its music distribution monopoly." Her complaint contains some very disturbing allegations, including one that labels attempted to contact her then eight-year-old daughter under false pretenses without Andersen's permission.

If there's anyone who deserves to be sued into oblivion, it's the RIAA. The music labels could have adapted to the new digital system and remained profitable. Less so than with physical media, sure - but instead, they started to act like the mob. Let 'em die.

Technorati Tags: RIAA, music, copyright

I love the outright hypocrisy of the MPAA:

You can’t make this stuff up. The MPAA’s “University Toolkit” has been taken down due to copyright violations. Now that is ironic and funny all at the same time.

Apparently, rules really are for other people.

Technorati Tags: MPAA, DRM

Who knew you could own a color?