A rather disturbing development -

A man accused of posting nine previously unreleased songs by the rock band Guns N' Roses on a website where they could be accessed by the public was arrested at his home early today on suspicion of violating federal copyright laws, authorities said.

Kevin Cogill, 27, is accused of posting the songs, which were being prepared for commercial release, on the Internet blog Antiquiet in June, according to an arrest affidavit. The site received so much traffic after the songs were posted that it crashed, the affidavit states.

More info here.

The ephemeral line between civil and criminal penalties in copyright is yet another bothersome abuse of the intersection between business interests and state power. Why are some accused of copyright violations merely sued by businesses while others are arrested by the state? What truly distinguishes one case from the other, and how do authorities make such a determination? On the surface, it seems that the only difference is how much political clout a particular business has with authorities.

I am of the belief that IP violations should never be considered as a criminal offense unless there are other criminal activities associated with the use of the IP itself (i.e., selling 'pirated' goods or fake knock-offs of trademarked products to help fund terrorist groups, organized crime, etc.).

via Svetoslav Trochev

Here is prime example that shows how the patents are 'promoting' the progress.

I guess the new BMW will have new option. "Paper map for North America"! :))

The Harry Potter intellectual monopoly and its billionaires continue to try to extract more money from us consumers or its entertainment competitors, according to this story in the New York Times link here. An Indian film company has produced a film entitled "Hari Puttar: A Comedy of Terrors," about "a 10-year-old boy who moves to Britain and becomes involved in a series of adventures." It is now being sued by Warner Brothers for having a title "too similar to that of the Harry Potter series."

On the one hand, the movie title clearly capitalizes on the similarity to the Potter name, but taken as a whole, it is not likely to leave anybody in doubt about whether it is another in the Potter series. It should be laughed out of court.

My comment posted on this Patently-O blog post: Greg Aharonian Discussed the WSJ's "Idiotic Article on Patent Tr-lls"

Aharonian writes: "Worse, this paragraph completely betrays free markets (something the Journal is glad to do when it is in the interests of its big company buddies), because it forgets the fact that a patent is an asset created by the government in exchange for an inventor's public disclosure of a new and useful invention. When the asset is so created, there is absolutely nothing freakin wrong with people doing with patents what they do with all other financial assets - buying, selling and exploiting them. To attack this practice is to attack free market economics."

In a sense, I agree with Aharonian: IF patents are a legitimate property right, then there is nothing wrong with using them. And Aharonian is right that there is nothing any worse about "trolls" than any normal patent holder. I have noted as much elsewhere: Patent Trolls and Empirical Thinking ("patent law simply does not require inventors to make or produce their inventions. And to attack "patent trolls" as somehow worse than those who do is confused"); The Coming Software Patent Apocalypse ("given a patent system, there's nothing wrong with patent trolls. It's a natural outcome and use of the system. Those who favor the system should stop whining about its predictable results"); Patent Law: Baby Steps ("One of their concerns [of the "Coalition for Patent Fairness" members] is "patent trolls - companies that exist primarily to make money from patents through litigation instead of commercialization"--but as I've noted, the hostility against patent trolls is misplaced. They are no different than any other patentee who takes advantage of the corrrupt and unjust patent system.").

But in another sense, I disagree with Aharonian, because it is not true that patents are a legitimate property right. In fact, they are at odds with genuine property rightss. (See my Against Intellectual Property; and Intellectual Property and the Support of the State). To expect the welfare-warfare state--which taxes, regulates, murders, invades, bombs, hampers, lies, steals, and jails, which impoverishes us and hampers the economy, which penalizes innocent behavior and wastes trillions of dollars--to expect this agency to "create" legitimate property rights or to add "wealth" to the economy--and by setting up a government bureaucracy to grant monopolies to applicants, under the oversight of the federal courts--is naive and confused beyond belief.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the first Mickey Mouse cartoons have ambiguous copyright claims, listing two other potential claimants between "Disney" and the word "copyright". Under interpretation of the law at the time, this does not constitute a proper copyright claim.

Given that previous copyright rulings against Disney were unsuccessful on the basis of the existence of previous copyright claims, and these claims now appear not to be valid, this is significant news to one of the biggest beneficiaries of copyright laws.

As noted previously, both my and Boldrin & Levine's recent anti-IP books are selling well on Amazon--despite being offered for free online.

Jeff Tucker makes a similar observation on the Mises blog:

Kinsella Vindicated

You will note that Kinsella's book Against Intellectual Property is the #2 bestseller in the store. This is despite its having been online for six years and remains so, in two formats. What a way to demonstrate a thesis. If you have something that is valuable to others, people might be willing to pay for it.

Not only faster - but it might do away with the argument that file sharing networks need to be shut down because they use a disproportionate amount of the broadband network that slows the whole system down.

Details here.

Wired has a primer on Biden's views relating to IP.

Not good news. But then again, few Congressional leaders offer much in terms of better alternatives. (Sigh)