Journal of Post-Ralphaelite Thought

 Ever hear how Amazon managed to patent the idea of " One-Click Shopping? "  That's right -- they were granted a patent for the idea of pre-entering your credit card info so when you clicked on the "Buy Now" button, you didn't have to re-enter all your financial data.  When Barnes and Noble later offered a similar service, Amazon sued for (get this) patent infringement. Years later, large chunks of the original broad patent were thrown out, but not without a lot of money being flushed down the toilet that is occasionally our legal system. The European Patent Office refused to grant a patent. This sort of nonsense abounds. A couple of weeks ago, a new short documentary was released on-line entitled, " Patent Absurdity: how software patents broke the system. " In it, independent filmmaker Luca Lucarini looks at how our current patent system has managed to screw by issuing patents on the flimsiest of premises and the history of how this sorry st...

Warner Bros. has probably issued many a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice against people's web sites. This time they may have screwed up: they did it against Lawrence Lessig .

The Recording Institute Association of America (RIAA), primarily four media conglomerates that control or distribute thousands of private labels, was formed in 1952 to administer several technical standards used in manufacturing vinyl records. Nowadays they sue grandmothers and teenagers, threaten universities and internet service providers with lawsuits, and argue their right to profit overrules any and all privacy concerns. In other words, generally acting like a bunch of pompous overweening pricks. Unfortunately, these thugs have found numerous friends in the halls of Washington, including California Senator Dianne Feinstein. Vice President Joe Biden has had a long history of sucking up to both the RIAA and MPAA, sponsoring legislation that would restrict people's rights to record satellite performance, and urging the Justice Department to go after alleged file sharerers. Barack Obama, once endorsed by the likes of copyright reformer Lawrence Lessig and opponents of the RIAA...

Lawrence Lessig, one of my heroes, was on Colbert Report last night, pushing his new book, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy , about how current copyright law is hampering creativity and commercial opportunities, as well as criminalizing our youth. Lessig has written for years about copyright and intellectual property issues. His last 3 books are available for purchase as hard copy or free PDF download . The man walks the walk, not just talks the talk. Damn -- he gave as good as he got from Colbert, not an easy thing to do. Enjoy. The Colbert Report Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Lawrence Lessig Colbert at Christmas Colbert Christmas DVD Green Screen Bill O'Reilly Interview Here's a more extended presentation by Lessig (about an hour) from November 2008 at NYU.

Lawrence Lessig , one of my heroes, has an essay at Newsweek.com on why we should shut down the Federal Communications Commision. While this sounds a lot like something some of my loopy Libertarian friends would preach, I have a lot of respect for Lessig so I'm willing to reserve judgment -- for now. His main contention is that the FCC enables monopolies (bad) which stifle innovation. In its place, he proposes: Congress should create something we could call the Innovation Environment Protection Agency (iEPA), charged with a simple founding mission: "minimal intervention to maximize innovation." The iEPA's core purpose would be to protect innovation from its two historical enemies—excessive government favors, and excessive private monopoly power. Lessig has been mentioned as a possible head of the FCC ; he's known Obama since the two of them taught together at the University of Chicago. In the past Lessig has been a big proponent of net neutrality and has also w...