By Alistair Kelman...

Once upon a time, there was a little red hen who scratched about the barnyard until she uncovered some willow bark. She chewed on this and found that it could reduce her arthritic pain. "Ah"she said "There is a compound in this willow bark which could be helpful in eliminating pain. Who will help me extract the compound and turn it into pain killing tablets?"

for the rest here and follow the link.

One of the things I get depressed by is the growing spread of IP protections around the world. Here is another one involving South Korea and Russia. "South Korea and Russia have agreed to launch a fast-track patent review process in November to speed up the process of securing intellectual property rights protection for companies and individuals, officials here said Tuesday." link here The story reports a similar fast track procedure for reviewing and granting patents that Korea has with Japan, with the US, Denmark, Britain, and prospectively with Canada and Germany, Ukraine, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

Fast-tracking sounds good, like greater efficiency in government, but the downside is that there is no fast track for reversing patents once granted. It provides patent holders with a long stream of monopoly profits and fees from licenses. Never underestimate the power of a big patent troll up against small entrepreneurs and inventors.

A report by Joe Mullin on the sad plight of Fotki and other photo-sharing sights being targeted by patent-wielder FotoMedia. When will IP supporters realize asserting patents is, in the words of the Fotki's Igor Shoifot, "evil."

[Cross-posted at StephanKinsella.com]

Dan Cohen had a frustrating time with his Kindle and iPhone relating to DRM. He tells about it here and here.

The "bottom line":

You are able to redownload your books an unlimited number of times to any specific device.

Any one time the books can be on a finite number of devices. In most cases that means you can have the same book on six different devices.

Unfortunately the publishers decide how many licenses, that is devices, a book can be on at any one time. While most of the time that will be five or six different devices there will be times when it's only one device.

At the present time there is no way to know how many devices can be licensed prior to buying the book. [Emphasis added.]

I guess we shouldn't be surprised.

Paul Krugman has an interesting post on his blog this morning about the monopoly positions that large health insurance companies like Blue Cross/Blue Shield enjoy in states with small populations. He hypothesizes that the reason Senators from those states tend to oppose the public option in the health care reform legislation is a direct response to the rent-seeking activities of the incumbent monopoly providers in these states.

Jim Lindgren has an interesting post over at Volokh.com concerning the legal battle over a book that may or may not be characterized by some as an unauthorized sequel to "Catcher in the Rye".

Be sure to read it here.

This case brings up a number of issues:

First, it exposes the lie that is perpetuated in the legal community that copyright laws don't protect "ideas", but rather only the "concrete expression" of ideas. In practicality, this statement is pure nonsense as evidenced by the fact that a copyrighted work seals in monopoly protections of "characters" and "derivative works" - even if such derivative works don't include any actual "copying" of cloned material from the underlying work.

For instance, if I feel that I have a far better script or storyline that utilizes the character of James Bond, but without utilizing any previous cloned image from a Bond film and without copying previously used dialogue beyond a minimal instance of "My name is Bond...James Bond." or "Shaken...not stirred.", I still would not be able to create it, because Ian Flemming's estate and/or Sony Pictures, etc. has a monopoly over the IDEA of James Bond.

I would argue that by protecting "derivative" works, copyright effectively asserts control over ideas - except for those envisioned at the most abstract levels.

Second, this case also illustrates just how slippery (and I would argue, unsustainable) current fair use concepts are that try to differentiate between "criticism", "parody" and academic explorations of previous literary works versus competing concepts such as "satire" and unauthorized "derivative works" that may contain some vestiges of the previously mentioned fair use categories.

How will "Coming Through The Rye" be classified if it functions as both a "derivative work" of "Catcher in the Rye" as well as literary criticism and history concerning the creation of the same?

Third, this case seems to be another instance of where the judiciary throws out their usual rules regarding prior restraints against free speech when it comes to mere (unproven) allegations of IP infringement. Courts will not allow prior restraints in libel cases. They didn't even allow it in the famed Pentagon Papers case which involved allegations of breaches of national security. But when it comes to protecting IP whenever somebody shouts "copyright" - judges too often seem to ignore free speech concerns.

Eugene Volokh wrote a great law paper on this issue. I'd advise checking it out here:

http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/copyinj.htm

I remember once being lucky enough to come across a copy of "The Wind Done Gone" during a time when a federal judge had enjoined its publication through a temporary restraining order - essentially declaring it unlawful to own and distribute due to copyright complaints from the Margaret Mitchell estate. I purchased it, and secretly horded it away as though I was living through some twisted version of "Fahrenheit 451". I thought it might remain on the list of "banned books" in the U.S. As it turned out however, the copyright case over it was settled, and the book was eventually "allowed" to published.

Perhaps the proper solution is the same one utilized in "Fahrenheit 451". When a rebellious populous was faced with a nation of "firemen" whose job it was to burn all books, each person was given the task of committing a book to memory in order to orally recite it later to others, thus circumventing the state by placing the books in the one area it could not reach - the human mind.

On second thought, that won't work. Current copyright laws prevent the unauthorized "performance" of copyrighted works - including recitals.

Beware the current crop of "firemen" looking to set the nation's Rye fields ablaze....

This is partially a bleg: does anyone know what the Google book settlement means? It is asserted that Google gets preferential treatment. So my questions:

1. Could I file a class action lawsuit against Yahoo claiming to represent copyright holders and settle with them for a nominal sum - promising them all existing copyrights in exchange for 0.0001% of their revenues? It seems as though it would be difficult for holders of orphan copyrights to opt out of the settlement?

2. Can the Author's Guild and the team of lawyers that ripped off Google on behalf of a bunch of copyright holders who will never see a penny of the settlement money legally offer a less generous arrangement to Yahoo?

3. Why on earth do we allow class action lawsuits anyway, given that the only beneficiaries are the lawyers that file them?

Popular music and DJ artist Moby has called for the disbanding of the RIAA in light of its legal victory over file sharer Jammie Thomas-Rasset - subjecting her to an outrageous (and possibly unconstitutional?) fine of $80,000 per song.

Read Moby's thoughts here.

If you are one of the few who are still unfamiliar with Moby's work, I'd encourage you to check it out. He does some sublime stuff - especially his tracks that showcase his ability to remix older (presumably public domain?) works into new dance beats.

The fascination with declaring intellectual efforts as property begins to captivate the developing world. This story comes from Vietnam where "Viet Nam has 2,790 traditional craft villages nationwide, according to the Viet Nam Association of Craft Villages link here. But the number of craft villages which have registered their industrial property rights, I can count on two hands," said association deputy chairman Luu Duy Dan. Fewer "than 100 out of the 800 specialties are protected by intellectual property rights laws like trademark protection, collective brand names and geographical indication protection."

Unfortunately, the Vietnamese government doesn't seem to have thought about how IP has come to be and whether it serves legitimate public interests. Thus, the monopolists continue to try to spread their tentacles.

I hate that I have to write about stuff like this - because it means something bad is happening. Via Alistair Kelman an article about the pending patent fight between Apple and Palm. The basic idea is that Apple claims to have patented the multi-touch interface - although as the article makes clear it hasn't done quite that. The key point is - this has nothing to do with innovation. Apple came up with an innovative interface - and it would have done so even if it couldn't have patented it. It earned a lot of money and an enormous first mover advantage from its innovation. This is about trying to retain monopoly power in a market it created, and does not serve to promote innovation - quite the opposite, Apple is clearly trying and to some extent succeeding in preventing innovation.