Tag: intellectual property

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Recent Car Purchase (Twist Ending)

As some of you know, I have decided to ditch my old Honda Accord for a NEW 2013 Honda.

When I went to the dealership to buy a new vehicle, I was presented with lots of information.

No sharing for you!Not only should you use Honda products in conjunction with it, but the car will shut down if I use any motor oil or brake fluid other than Honda motor oil or brake fluid. Windshield washer fluid from another manufacturer is acceptable under certain circumstances, and as long as the other company has filed papers with Honda and been granted special status. I can buy cheaper coolant from other manufacturers, as long as I pay Honda a fee.

A Honda Accord.If I get maintenance from any facility other than a Honda facility, any future repairs on the vehicle will become inconsequential. If I ever decide to whip out my toolbox and perform ANY repairs by myself, I get a warning and one penalty point against my account. A total of three points, of course, permanently deactivates the transmission, engine, and ignition system.

Every three weeks or so, Honda agents come to my home without my knowledge or permission, and give my car a new paint color. If I ask them to leave or otherwise interrupt them, they set my car on bricks and take away my tires, until I let them finish.

When I confronted the sales rep with the fact that some of this information is disheartening to Honda customers and asked if there is any resolution to this, or if there is hope for change to this, the response is that I should just keep my pre-2013 Honda or acquire a pre-2013 Honda on the used market.

…Then I looked up at the wall and noticed that I was not at a Honda dealership, but I was actually ordering the Xbox One.

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Patent Lawsuits Clusterfrak

Came across a video recently. The content is not so important as this image I got from it. The author said, “The Last Four Years of Patent Lawsuits in the realm of smartphones. Is this promoting the ‘progress of useful arts’?”

Chart of smartphone patent lawsuits 2008-2011

This image is the of patent lawsuits for the years of 2008-2011 and this is just smartphones!

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The Submarine Patent-Waving Contest

against IP by Stephan Kinsella
Thought this might be a fun image to put in.
As one whose profession involves the production of content, here’s an article that grabbed my attention.
http://www.nytimes.com

Here’s one quote that stood out: “Thousands of executives and companies caught in a software patent system that federal judges, economists, policy makers and technology executives say is so flawed that it often stymies innovation.” To this I say, no no: It stymies innovation. “Stymie innovation” is not the exception- it’s the rule!

We, the human race, may one day be spending more on waving laws and threats around than on the production of new content.
This has to stop.

Freedom is progress. Nonviolence is progress. Freedom is the future. Intellectual Property is the past. It’s time to move on.

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Patent Fail

Being a person who spends a great deal of time producing content, I like hearing stories that involve intellectual property, and the harm that the idea does to the world.

This movie shows how patent law is used to extents previously unforeseeable, for the benefit of a few.

The movie sticks just to facts (no opinion/analysis), up until the end. I don’t like how it ends; the movie makes an example of a hypothetical application of IP law to make a point which I thought was ineffective. Really, they could have just used real-life examples- that’s really all you need to demonstrate the absurdity to which IP laws are used to justify certain actions.

The website is here:http://patentabsurdity.com/

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Obama and IP

Stolen from Digg: Obama’s Gift to British PM Ruined by DVD Zone Restrictions

It sure is something, when the most powerful person in the world gets screwed over by the outdated concept of intellectual property. Regional protection doesn’t protect anyone. It’s just a really good way to make your customers angry and an impediment to the free flow of information (the free flow of information is a cause that is very important to me).

I once tried to play a video game from Japan on my Gamecube console. Of course, it had regional protection, so my north american console wouldn’t read it. So, I inserted a disc in the console that tricks the Gamecube into shutting off its regional protection (or something like that), thus allowing me to play the video game. This just goes to show that if the media producers continue to stave off “piracy” like this, their customers will just innovate, they’ll just make the regional protection useless by getting around it. This anti-piracy measure is kind of like laws that restrict gun ownership: they only affect those who are willing to conform to the system.

I think folks in India could greatly benefit from being able to expose themselves to media from America. Perhaps people in South Africa could benefit from watching content from Colombia, or Maybe Iranians could benefit from exposure to Canadian media. Bring on the international exchange of information! Bring on media without borders!

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