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IntellectualProperty posts

Filed under: Business, Internet

Craiglist demands fan blog's domain - joins 21st century

by Romeo Wahed Apr 4th 2008

Craigslist doing it's thingYesterday, we posted that Craigslist joined the 20th century with a 1990's-esque blog to let the world in on what's going on within the inner self of Craigslist. Today, Craigslist is already making fantastic progress through time. No, the blog still looks like it belongs in 1996, but it is demanding that the fan operated craigslistblog.org surrender it's domain.

Although Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster hasn't asked Tim White, the fan blogger, to stop blogging - he does claim that the domain name infringes on intellectual property and is confusing to the media and the public. That, and some of the content Tim White was using was exclusive to Craigslist and shouldn't be posted. In an effort to meet halfway, the blog now prominently displays that it is indeed an "unofficial" blog and has removed the content in question, but apparently that is not enough. Probably now that Buckmaster has his own blog he feels the need to defend it with a lawsuit.

If you are interested in what the exact correspondence was, Valleywag has it available for your viewing pleasure. It is however, sad to see a company like Craigslist resort to 21st century intellectual property chest-beating strongarm tactics instead of engaging the blogger in a civilized manner and at least attempting to come to a mutually agreeable resolution before issuing threats. This is neither going to make Craigslist look good nor will it make them any friends.

Tags: blog, buckmaster, craigslist, intellectual property, IntellectualProperty

Filed under: Business, News, Windows, Linux, Commercial, Open Source

Xandros joins Novell in licensing Microsoft IP FUD

WindowsLinuxby Grant Robertson Jun 5th 2007


Functionally irrelevant but newsworthy nonetheless, Xandros -- the Debian based Linux distribution formerly known as Corel Linux -- has joined Novell in alienating the FOSS community by licensing Microsoft intellectual property and creating an illusion of indemnification against potential MS vs. Linux user lawsuits.

Few details are available about the deal. Microsoft's SVP of Server and Business tools announced the deal at MS' TechEd2007 conference in Orlando, remarking that "[Xandros has] taken the position of helping customers to ensure that when they use open-source software, the IP the industry has created is a part of that."

Microsoft's quiet backroom deals over Linux IP are making some Linux users nervous, while still others have mused that Microsoft's entire strategy may be nothing more than a Fear and Loathing public relations campaign to scare deep-pocketed corporations away from choosing popular Linux flavours in their datacenters

Tags: intellectual property, IntellectualProperty, Linux, linux lawsuits, LinuxLawsuits, Microsoft, Novell, Xandros

Filed under: Internet, Video

Japan: go ahead and post TV shows online, just pay royalties

by Brad Linder May 28th 2007

Japanese game showHow do you get people to stop posting television clips and full episodes to the internet? You probably don't. But a government panel in Japan has an interesting take on that idea: don't try to stop internet pirates, just regulate them.

The Intellectual Property Rights Policy Work Group is expected to issue its recommendation this week. If adopted, anyone would be allowed to post television programs online without permission of the content owner. But anyone who uploads such video would be required by law to pay a royalty to the content owner.

Under Japanese law, television rights belong not just to a network or studio, but also to the actors, making it very difficult to get permission from every stakeholder to redistribute programming. The move isn't likely to be popular with content producers, since it limits their control over how their material is distributed, and takes away their ability to negotiate royalty fees.

But it makes a certain amount of sense. As the RIAA and MPAA in the U.S. are well aware, going after pirates is an expensive and time consuming process. Sure, it might be almost as difficult to get everyone who is uploading video to pay royalties as it is to sue them into oblivion. But such a law could be a start. It would allow YouTube, for example, to begin charging fees to users who upload copyrighted content, both reducing the amount of pirated material online and increasing revenues for content holders.

[via Ars Technica]

Tags: copyright, intellectual property, IntellectualProperty, japan

Filed under: Business, Developer, Video, News, Web services

RealNetworks awarded patent victory

by Victor Agreda, Jr. Apr 24th 2006

In a hard-fought battle, RealNetworks appears to have won a major patent victory to protect their technology. This is a patent that already faced a struggle with the Patent Office itself, just to get filed in 1999 (and it took 5 years to do that). But it now looks like the "streaming through a congested network" magic is owned by RealNetworks... Despite a previous patent by Apple for the same thing used in QuickTime. Personally, I always thought Real had better streaming, QuickTime had better downloadable quality. The billion-dollar question: who cares? Will this really affect Real's bottom line? Rob Glaser (CEO of Real) has essentially said he's not going to go after the "big hair porcupines" in the industry using the technology. Hm, that would probably be Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe. Who does that leave, YouTube? Developers aren't rolling their own codecs, for the most part, these days. During the go-go 90's I saw all sorts of wacky streaming implementations, but you don't hear a lot about this now that broadband keeps growing. You do hear about different protocols (like Bittorrent) for moving data, but streaming tech this old doesn't get headlines. Yet that appears to be what Glaser is hoping for, as in the New York Times he's quoted as saying, "We're hoping that people will say, 'Oh, I get it,' and that this will boost the identity of Helix." Well Rob, one can dream, eh? This sounds a little like those patent-to-profitability games dying tech companies play. They're bleeding money after innovating, so they sue everyone on old patents to make some cash. Sounds like Real doesn't want to play that game, but will they have to?

Tags: intellectual property, IntellectualProperty, legal, nyt, patent, real, realnetworks, rob glaser, RobGlaser, streaming

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The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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