"Farmer Bowman began purchasing Monsanto’s patented seeds in 1999 and, because of the licensing agreement, did not save any of the seed for future planting. But he also bought so-called “commodity” seed from a local grain elevator, which acts as a clearinghouse for farmers to buy and sell seed.
But given that more than 90 percent of the soybeans planted in the area were Roundup Ready crops, the elevator’s seed was contaminated with Monsanto’s patented seed.
Farmer Bowman planted that commodity seed, which was substantially cheaper to purchase, to produce a second, late-season crop, which is generally more risky and lower yielding. He then used seeds generated in one late-season harvest to help produce subsequent late-season crops.
Monsanto sued him for patent infringement, and he lost."
[more inside]
posted by sio42
on Oct 11, 2012 -
105 comments
On October 29, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in
Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., a conflict about
“first-sale doctrine”. The doctrine, which has been law in the U.S. since 1908, allows people to buy and then subsequently sell items (books, furniture, electronics, dvds, etc.) without needing additional permission from the copyright holder.
Supap Kirtsaeng came to the United States from Thailand to study mathematics and attempted to save money by having his family purchase textbooks in Thailand and ship them to him. After reading up on the first-sale doctrine, Kirtsaeng began to sell these textbooks to others on eBay. He made $37,000, before he was sued by John Wiley, a textbook publisher. A jury found his copyright infringement to be willful. He was ordered to pay $75,000 per work for a total penalty of $600,000. He appealed, and lost at the 2nd Circuit.
The Library Journal notes that if the Supreme Court rules against Kirtsaeng,
it could mean the end of public libraries. Marketwatch warns that it means the
end of resale as we know it. Hollywood Esq. does the most cogent job of putting this
IP fight in perspective of other IP fights before the Court.
posted by dejah420
on Oct 9, 2012 -
213 comments
iPhone Caused “Crisis of Design” at Samsung (Memo) “Influential figures outside the company come across the iPhone, and they point out that ‘Samsung is dozing off.’ All this time we’ve been paying all our attention to Nokia, and concentrated our efforts on things like Folder, Bar, Slide,” Shin wrote. “Yet when our UX is compared to the unexpected competitor Apple’s iPhone, the difference is truly that of Heaven and Earth. It’s a crisis of design.” Complete text of the internal memo submitted in the Apple vs Samsung case.
Those are the more ugly points of the memo, which seems to bolster Apple’s lawsuit stating that Samsung infringed upon a number of Apple’s patents. Apple asserts that Samsung has “slavishly copied” Apple’s iPad and iPhone devices, and is seeking $2.5 billion in damages. So any more ammunition that Apple can get to make it look like Samsung attempted to actively rip off Apple’s products is only a good thing for Apple’s case.
And the memo is rife with ammunition.
posted by infini
on Aug 7, 2012 -
403 comments
Twitter will not weaponize your work (without your permission). According to an agreement it now makes with its engineers and inventors, Twitter does not have the right to use the patents of its employees offensively without their consent, and this limitation will apply to future purchasers of the Twitter patent portfolio.
The patent wars
previously and
previouslier on the blue.
posted by gauche
on Apr 18, 2012 -
41 comments
Vote Pirate! Notes from a Pirate Party conference. "I grew up on the Internet. … I sort of consider myself a citizen of the Internet. I'm very attached to it. I'm almost more from the Internet than I am from Massachusetts."
[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns
on Apr 14, 2012 -
16 comments
Kirby Ferguson's fourth and final installment of
Everything is a Remix:
System Failure has been released. (Also on
YouTube.) It covers intellectual property rights, the derivative nature of creativity, patents and copyright.
Transcript.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Feb 17, 2012 -
5 comments
The U.S. House of Representatives has
drafted their version of Senator
Leahy's Protect IP Act,
renaming the bill the
E-Parasites Act. Among other changes discussed
previ
ously, the bill
now makes internet service providers and websites liable for activities of their users that infringe upon copyrights, effectively overturning parts of the 13-year-old Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
posted by jeffburdges
on Oct 27, 2011 -
120 comments
Senator Leahy's
Protect IP Act would require that U.S. ISPs impose an 'internet death penalty' upon domain after merely a preliminary injunction from a U.S. court that suspects the site of being 'dedicated to infringing activities', even if the domain's owner had never been notified and was not subject to U.S. jurisdiction. There is concern that the legislation would fragment the DNS system and
facilitate DNS spoofing by
obstructing DNSSEC (
pdf). There is also an
open letter opposing the bill signed by 108 Law Professors who study intellectual property law.
[more inside]
posted by jeffburdges
on Jul 24, 2011 -
29 comments
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has published a
criticism of Burning Man, LLC's
Terms and Conditions, saying that the automatic rights assignment to BMOrg for photos & video taken during the event is "creative lawyering intended to allow the BMO to use the streamlined “notice and takedown” process enshrined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to quickly remove photos from the Internet" and that this is corrosive to our freedom of speech. Burning Man
responds.
posted by scalefree
on Aug 14, 2009 -
123 comments
The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO-IP) Act has added a whole other dimension to the term "copyright infringement." Sponsored by the US entertainment industry, it allows seizure of assets
before the accused is found guilty and the creation of a new executive branch led by an "Intellectual Property Czar" who would report directly to the President on IP crimes--similar to the Drug Czar of the War on Drugs. Financial penalties for copyright crimes have increased dramatically. More information
here, and a summary of critiques
here. Is this a useful addition to the War On Copyright Infringement or just more
bureaucratic red tape?
posted by schroedinger
on Oct 14, 2008 -
45 comments
Good Copy Bad Copy is "a documentary about the current state of copyright and culture," featuring Danger Mouse, Lawrence Lessig, Dan Glickman of the MPAA and others. The film's creators are releasing it free of charge, via Bittorrent.
posted by jbickers
on Aug 3, 2007 -
30 comments
Lawrence Lessig moves on Lessig has spent the last 10 years fighting for IP reform and open culture, He's decided to focus on fighting what he calls "corruption" (with quotes)... the pernicious effect that moneyed interests have in crafting and controlling public policy.
Finally, I am not (as one friend wrote) "leaving the movement." "The movement" has my loyalty as much today as ever. But I have come to believe that until a more fundamental problem is fixed, "the movement" can't succeed either. Compare: Imagine someone devoted to free culture coming to believe that until free software supports free culture, free culture can't succeed. So he devotes himself to building software. I am someone who believes that a free society -- free of the "corruption" that defines our current society -- is necessary for free culture, and much more. For that reason, I turn my energy elsewhere for now.
posted by delmoi
on Jun 22, 2007 -
61 comments
Ballmer: Linux Users Owe Microsoft. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stated at the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) conference in Seattle yesterday, that Linux infringes upon his company's intellectual property. Does this signal preparations for all out war against the
open source community? Microsoft's recent
acquisition of Novell was seen as an ominous sign. Or perhaps it's a sign that user friendly versions of linux such as
Ubuntu threaten sales of Microsoft's
problematic new VISTA OS, scheduled for release Nov. 30th for businesses and Jan. 30, 2007 for consumers?
posted by Skygazer
on Nov 17, 2006 -
79 comments
P!nk, aka Alecia Moore, aka the hip new face of
copyright infringement. P!nk’s latest video,
U + Ur Hand, [youtube] blatantly appropriates characters created by late New Zealand artist
Martin Emond [possibly NSFW]. No permission was sought or granted, but
Illicit Clothing, which manage’s Emond’s estate, do not feel they have sufficient resources to sue Sony BMG. Nevertheless, they and Emond’s fans are justifiably
livid. It is highly unlikely that Emond, who took his own life in 2004, and whose musical tastes went in a very
different direction, would have felt any different.
posted by Soulfather
on Aug 3, 2006 -
44 comments
Panic -- makers of "Shockingly Good Mac Software" and visually appealing marketing collateral (including their
website) -- have documented the various places their branding has been
honored flatteringly borrowed ripped-off on the internets. My favorite is the site selling one of their original icons for $199, promising "
exclusive ownership." Is imitation really the sincerest form of flattery?
posted by pmbuko
on May 5, 2006 -
27 comments
As a followup to this post about Sew Fast, Sew Easy's cease and desist orders for using the phrase "Stitch and Bitch" et.al. to a variety of merchants, Yahoo groups, and knitting groups, it seems that a
boycott movement is gaining momentum. They also have a
CafePress store to support the cause. Additionally, I think SFSE may have underestimated the enormous growth in
knitting blogs and how
quickly they band together when given a cause.
posted by like_neon
on Jan 24, 2006 -
22 comments
