Recently in Intellectual Property Category

It's sad to see the death of the "intent" of intellectual property law.  For example, patents [wikipedia.org] were intended to protect inventions for a period of time to allow the inventor to capitalize on a technology they had invested time, effort, and money into developing.  After that period of time, the technology would become free to everyone and the world would gain unfettered access to a new invention, having given the inventor time to earn a profit from it.  Today, patents are being used by one organization to bully another, or to blackmail it, or put it completely out of business, usually by patenting something blatantly obvious (like a method for opening and closing a door).  Copyright law [wikipedia.org] was intended to allow creative professionals the same kind of window from which to benefit from their creations, after which they would become part of the common body of literature available to the public.  Thanks to companies like Disney being deathly afraid of losing their famous rodent's image, copyright law was extended to wholly inappropriate lengths.  More recently, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) [wikipedia.org] was passed, further limiting the public's ability to use and access stored information and music.  The Recording Industry Artists' Association (RIAA) [wikipedia.org] is currently fighting to make copyright law even tougher, claiming that the ability of consumers to copy music from their CDs to their computers or iPods isn't granted under the "fair use" provisions of copyright law but instead is a "favor" they're doing their consumers.  They are, of course, mistaken.

The fair use [wikipedia.org] provisions of copyright law allow for things like school students to write papers quoting information from copyrighted books without violating the law.  The same provisions allow the student to make copies of information in those books for educational purposes, provided there is no intent to defraud or resell the copies.  The laws allow us to make backup copies of computer software, music, and other media in the event that our original copies are destroyed or damaged.  The freedoms permitted under "fair use" law are not "favors" that publishers give us.  They are requirements dictated to the publishers by our government.  Publishers like the RIAA want to take that freedom away from us.

We need to be diligent and make sure we do not let that happen.

For some time now, analysts have been predicting that Apple will release a video iPod.  As Think Secret recently reported:

"While a video-capable iPod is in development, without the agreements nor infrastructure in place to deliver movies to customers through a store-like interface, Apple sees little value in releasing such an iPod at this time. Apple insiders have also said executives see consumers needing the capability to easily import the DVD movies they own to a usable format (similar to the encoding functionality provided for audio CDs with iTunes) in order for a video iPod to be truly successful. The complexity to date of accomplishing such a feat has meant only a minority of computer users have dabbled with watching full-length movies on their computer, with most of the, having acquired the content through file sharing services."

While it's certainly true that Apple's inability to secure an "iTunes-like" agreement with video content producers has had a lot to do with their decision not to release a video version of the iPod, that second part (making it possible for customers to import a DVD into it like they can import audio CDs into iTunes and iPods) is where the real stickler comes in.  What does the DMCA have to do with that?  Plenty. Think about it.

The RIAA legal stormtroopers are still at it.

They recently attempted to sue a woman for illegal downloading. She responded that she didn't perform the acts she was accused of, and that the account name they referenced was that of her 14-year-old daughter.  In response, they sued her daughter instead.

NOTE:  I do not endorse, support, encourage, or engage in the illegal downloading of music through P2P networks or via other means.  This article should not be misconstrued as enticement to illegally acquire music or other content online.

In a move destined to further upset the music-consuming public, the Recording Industry Artists' Association (RIAA) has continued to file lawsuits against alleged Peer-to-Peer (P2P) music sharers and downloaders.  Armed only with its belief that a particular IP address was used to download or upload illegal music, and relying on ISP records to tell it which customer was probably using that address at the time, the RIAA is accusing people of illegally downloading music from P2P networks.  Never mind that these people don't have P2P software on their machines.  Never mind that they're even willing to have their PCs inspected to prove that.  Never mind that some of them don't know what a P2P network is or have any knowledge of the ID that the RIAA claims they were using at the time.  No, in the "court of the RIAA" you are guilty.  Not guilty until proven innocent, just flat out guilty.

Knowing that it has considerable economic muscle behind it, the RIAA is bullying people into settling lawsuits with it.  Even those who insist they've done nothing wrong are paying up, simply because it's cheaper to give in than it is to fight the suits in court.  Talk about "The Man" sticking it to "The Little Guy"...

Here's the latest example of the RIAA's bullying tactics from Wired magazine...

Fortunately, this woman isn't taking it lying down...

There is an excellent article on why we need better copyright legislation than currently exists, and by that I don't mean "more restrictive": http://www.darknet.com/2005/06/story_the_tech_.html

In the above-linked article, the CEO of Intel explains that someday soon we're going to have video recorders at home that we'll want to use to stream TV programs to our car, boat, or vacation spot.  We'll want to do all kinds of fun and interesting things with the content we have.  But if the current DMCA laws stay in place, or we get tougher than that, we're going to lose a lot of good creative outlets.

It's a great read.