I never heard of this before, an EU tax on blank media to compensate copyright owners that are robbed of the royalties they would otherwise have received from sales lost to illegal copies (techdirt link here). This seems nutty to me. Though the amount cannot be much, say for each CD, what basis is there for deciding who gets how much? It has to be arbitrary, another gravy train and the totals must be large. I buy blank CDs for backups of my computer files and to distribute family photos and surmise many Europeans do as well, so I conclude that much of the tax is a straight handout to people who have not been offended. The story goes on that the Europeans were going to abolish the tax but recipients of this largess appear to have fought it successfully. The more I am exposed to stories like this, the surer I am that the IP system as we know it has to go.

Eweek has a post opposing software patents (link here) but in the end comes up with small ideas for change. No one likes them except lawyers and patent trolls, but what to do? Suggestions included making them easier to challenge, buying them up when they are new and cheap, then offering them freely under a general public license, and getting the public to oppose them with demonstrations, in the fashion of the Europeans.

Here again, it seems to me that secrecy should be the only protection provided a software inventor. In short, get rid of them.

I missed this piece when I first posted (11/30) on the Supreme Court's oral hearing on “obviousness” in the granting of a patent (link here). The court seems to be very upset at the idea that many thousands of patents already granted would be nullified, creating chaos in the intellectual property industry.

There is a (too) simple solution: abolish all patents and depend on trade secrets to create a monopoly and provide sufficient incentive to develop new technology. If an invention cannot be protected by secrecy, it is obvious and fails to meet the constitutional standard. In the interest of making trade secrets a more attractive incentive to invention, one could really prosecute thefts of trade secrets.

A contrary argument is that granting a patent requires that the invention be made public so that further invention can be based on it. From my reading of the record, that simply hasn't happened, so the argument is invalid.

Of course, patents aren't going to be abolished. Too many vested interests in the present system have developed enormous political power.

Any ideas for alternative, less extreme measures that will improve the system and have some chance of acceptance?

The Economist reports on the British Treasury's "Gowers Review of Intellectual Property" (link here). The report itself and other documents are available at (link here).

The Economist says

* its aim was to take a rational, evidence-based view of intellectual property and ways to safeguard it;

* it calls for a balance between the interests of creators and the public;

* it urges reform of the patent system when going to court to uphold a patent costs a company a minimum $1.5 million, often obliging innocent firms to pay to settle and prevents infringed parties from seeking redress. "A system to protect intellectual property is meaningless if only the rich can use (or abuse) it";

* it rejects extension of copyright from 50 to 95 years but supports tougher enforcement and making copying for private use easier;

* it is likely to have international repercussions.

“Should a novel end with a bibliography?” asks an editorial in the NYTimes today (link here). Norman Mailer has apparently included one in a forthcoming book. Is he trying to protect himself from charges of plagiarism or is he saying something specific and suggestive about the roots of fiction and the origin of inspiration? Or maybe both. We have to wait to see. T. S. Eliot did it first and as the editorial points out, it can lead to further reading and enlightenment.

Charles Isherwood writes a funny but serious piece on the P word which makes the point that judging whether something is plagiarism is not so simple (NY Times link here). Unlike the comments on my post of 11/26 where I deliberately conflated plagiarism and copyright violation, I would agree with Isherwood that what matters is what the writer or artist or thinker does with the material he appropriates, whether legally mis- or not. Does it provide interesting, amusing, instructive, or useful material for the reader? A work has to be judged whole, not for some piece that might have roots (or even branches) elsewhere.

In the end, it comes down to the reaction of the observer. Like pornography, another p-word, one knows plagiarism when one sees it. Is it art? Does it offend? But then, not everyone can agree on that. Legal definitions don't meet the needs of the case. Otherwise we are forever condemned to be in the hands of lawyers.

Linda Greenhouse writes a complex account of the Supreme Court's initial argument on a case involving the meaning of "obvious" as an essential element in the granting of a patent (NY Times link here but see also my previous post of 11/15). The court's likely decision is by no means clear from the account of the back and forth, but the fact that it took the case suggests we may get a clarification of the term's meaning. Read the article and stay tuned.

Slate writer Paul Collins has an entertaining piece on Google's book search being used to identify plagiarism in major literary works (link here). The technology is the same as that now being used by schools to identify student plagiarism in homework class papers. But it raises a more serious question--when is copyright violated? One sentence? One paragraph? One page? A chapter?

Maybe the whole concept of copyright as a legal issue with damages assessed is impossible to determine and should be abandoned.

I fantasize about this. Would anyone publish? Of course, newspapers delivered to my door or sold at a stand on the way to work is a service and I would willingly pay for it. Everything else would soon be available on the internet, supported by advertising. You want it in hard copy? Fire up your printer and you get it instantly.

There is a downside. Not everyone has a computer or access to the internet--but that is changing. The real downside for me is the wasting away of newspapers, starving for revenue and increasingly abandoning content. The New York Times has the right idea--make people pay for online access to what is a truly superior product. It is still cheaper than the hard copy.

Music and films are different--maybe. Companies are already selling downloads but are having a hard time preventing free file sharing. Still, they are making potloads of money. When we see performers gross earnings decline, it may to be time to worry. But they always have the lucrative alternative of live performances.

The Korean Supreme Court ruled against Microsoft last Friday when it ruled local patents valid on technologies used in its Office suite that automatically switch the input mode between Korean and English (link here).

MS may have to suspend sales of its software there or modify the software or pay royalties to the Korean professor who developed the technology and the Korean software firm to which he sold an interest.

MS claims it has found prior art that would invalidate the Korean patents. It also argues that the plaintiff still has to show that its patent was infringed and establish the value of the damage incurred.

Nationalist Korea has been fairly hostile to foreign companies in the past and this is not MS's first dispute there.

The Library of Congress which oversees copyrights has issued six new guidelines (yahoo link here). One allows cell phone owners to break the software lock so that they can use the phone with a different service. Others let film professors copy parts of DVD's for educational purposes; allow blind people to use software to listen to copy-protected electronic books; let researchers test CD copy-protection technologies for security flaws or vulnerabilities; and permit breaking computer software and video games that require machines no longer available or computer attachments that don't function and can't be replaced.

These all seem modest but reasonable and harmless, though an occasional ox appears to feel gored.