The Software patent Wars

I came across an excellent article in the Guardian newspaper which gives one of the most readable accounts of the current patent wars that I have seen.

You can access it from here

Google and news

Two interlinked stories this week about Google and its news service — news of a potential "news tax" in France, and Brazilian newspapers boycotting Google News because Google will not pay them...

From the BBC:

Google has threatened to exclude French media sites from search results if France goes ahead with plans to make search engines pay for content.

In a letter sent to several ministerial offices, Google said such a law "would threaten its very existence".

French newspaper publishers have been pushing for the law, saying it is unfair that Google receives advertising revenue from searches for news.

 From Journalism in the Americas:

Brazil’s main newspapers abandoned Google News after the world’s top search engine refused to compensate them for the rights to their headlines. The mass rush started last year when the National Association of Newspapers in Brazil, or ANJ, began recommending its members to opt out of the service.

What do you think? Revenue thief or revenue driver? To what extent should copyright cover this activity — should it be fair game, or a restricted act?

EU green-lights 'copyright land grab' law on orphan work

EU ministers backed new laws to allow libraries, museums and universities - among other organisations - to digitise works that have become "orphaned" from their creators.

Orphan works are copyrighted material, such as books, films and music, which have no identified owner. At the moment many orphan works lie in storage in libraries and other institutions and because of copyright law cannot be digitised or used without permission until the term of copyright expires.

full text here and also here.

Second hand sales

An interesting story on the BBC Web site concerning legal proceedings which are starting in the United States regarding the legitimacy of sites providing a market place for the resale of on-line media. With the seemingly inexorable growth in the numbers of legitimate audio visual web sites and that of e-books we are moving towards a situation where physical products constitute a minority of sales.

But what can purchasers do when they have viewed a film or read a book enough times . I should declare some sort of interest. We have recently (at my wife’s instigation, engaged in major  de-cluttering at home and large quantities of books have been sent to charity shops and DVDs offered for sale on eBay.

These second hand markets are to a considerable extent distinct from the original sales environment. A second handbook will not have the crisp, pristine feeling of a new copy whilst a well used DVD (especially when exposed to the hanks and nails of our children) is susceptible to minor blemishes.

As a family we are moving more to the digital environment. I cannot remember the last time I bought a book in a bookstore but my collection of e-books – all legitimately acquired -  is expanding steadily. What though, about resale? I suspect it has always been the case that 95% of the books I read I never return to but as has been said, ‘books do furnish a room’. I like the well filled bookcases in my office even if I seldom consult them. I don’t feel the same attachment to my e-books – or indeed the films   that I have downloaded on Apple TV.

But what can/may/should I do? Models that worked in the old analogue world do not apply to the digital one. If I resell my e-book or the file of a film or sound track, it will be as perfect as the day I purchased it. Why should it sell for less that the original price? But there is also the issue of the copyright owner’s legitimated need for protection. As we all know, a wide range of sites offer access to illegal copies of works. If I sell my second hand book, I more or less unequivocally lose possession of the work. I think the interesting aspect of the current US litigation is that the site which is planning to offer a second hand market place for digital works is planning to incorporate mechanisms to check that a seller has removed it from his/her computer.

There are, of course, a number of issue. We have around 10 computers, iPads, iPods and iPhones in our house. With the emergence of cloud computing, it seems to my technologically  challenged mind that it would be very difficult to establish that all copies had been removed. Perhaps we need more of a shift from models involving sale of works to rental for a specified period after which the work self – destructs?