Posts tagged: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Various advertising blogs have been linking to the website of a firm called Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, whose splash page is nothing but a disclaimer (in Flash). It reads:

The materials on this website are copyrighted and are presented exclusively for viewing by clients, prospects, and employees. Before entering the site we ask that you agree not to copy, rebroadcast, or otherwise reproduce the work displayed here.

This is followed by two buttons labeled “ACCEPT” and “DENY”.

I can’t really believe this is happening, but the words are right there on the home page of the US Patent and Trademark Office:

The Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has created a partnership with the open source community to ensure that patent examiners have access to all available prior art relating to software code during the patent examination process.

Last month, USPTO representatives met with members of the open source software community, which provided an opportunity for members to discuss with the USPTO issues related to software patent quality. The meeting focused on getting the best prior art references to the examiner during the initial examination process.

There’s a blowup in progress in the Internet Archive forums over the removal of Grateful Dead concert recordings. The official announcement at the top of the thread reads, in part:

Based on discussions with many involved, the Internet Archive has been asked to change how the Grateful Dead concert recordings are being distributed on the Archive site for the time being… Audience recordings are available in streaming format (m3u). Soundboard recordings are not available.

Oh, this is good.

The state [of Texas] sued Sony BMG Music Entertainment on Monday under its new anti-spyware law, saying anti-piracy technology the company slipped into music CDs leaves computers vulnerable to hackers… The Texas spyware law allows the state to recover damages of up to $100,000 in damages for each violation. Abbott said there were thousands of violations…

Sure, it’s a Draconian money grab, but that’s the way these laws are designed. If you act like a spreader of sleazy spyware, you get hit like one.

BoingBoing.net has an excellent Sony rootkit roundup, part II that is really worth reviewing if you’re interested in this case. Here are the opening lines:

Cory Doctorow: It’s been three days since the first roundup post on Sony’s rootkit DRM and lots of new stuff has come to light since. Below is a timeline of posts since then, but first, here’s the Sony debacle news that came in while I slept: