META: Intellectual Property Laws/Rights Gone Crazy

[Aristotle]

This is so out of control I do not even know where to start.

From the slow demise of public domain, to the DMCA, and on and on, the way the law treats IP has really gotten out of hand.

This is a META thread for examples of this.

In depth discussions of specific incidents can be split off into their own thread when necessary.

[Aristotle]

Unfuckingbelieveable.

IPod Maps Draw Legal Threats

Transit officials in New York and San Francisco have launched a copyright crackdown on a website offering free downloadable subway maps designed to be viewed on the iPod.

IPodSubwayMaps.com is the home of iPod-sized maps of nearly two dozen different transit systems around the world, from the Paris Metro to the London Underground.

The site is run by New Yorker William Bright, who said he fell into transit bureaucracy crosshairs after posting a digitized copy of the New York City subway system map on Aug. 9. "I got it on Gawker the day after it started, and the site exploded," he said.

More than 9,000 people downloaded the map, which was viewable on either an iPod or an iPod nano, before Bright received a Sept. 14 letter from Lester Freundlich, a senior associate counsel at New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority, saying that Bright had infringed the MTA's copyright and that he needed a license to post the map and to authorize others to download it.

"I removed it promptly," said Bright, a design director at Nerve.com. "I'm very aware that they are copyright violations, but I'm not trying to make money or do anything malicious. I'm not in this to piss people off."

Last week Bright received a similar cease-and-desist letter from officials with Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART, demanding that Bright remove a map of the San Francisco rail system.

Bright said he'd grabbed the New York and San Francisco BART maps from the official websites, cut them into smaller sections in Adobe Photoshop, and then put them back together at resolutions that are readable on iPods.

What the fuck?

The maps are freely available online already.

They are maps to PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION.

Making them useable on an iPOD simply helps visitors or residents of those cities who might want to use public transportation.

Is this kind of crap really necessary?

These governments have nothing better to spend taxpayer time and money on?

[Bael]

Well, Maps are actually one of the very first things covered by US copyright law. And yes the maps are available for free online, HOWEVER, they are available for free FROM the public transportation system themselves (who own the copyright of the maps). Maps aren't public domain, however, anyone can make a map of something, as long as this iPod maps company didn't make their maps based on the maps made available by the public transit company (it'd be hard for them not to, one would imagine), they'd be fine. But if the maps ARE based on the Maps owned by the Public Transit company (which it sounds like it is, since he "[posted] a digitized copy of the ... subway system map[s]"), it's an illegal derivitive work and a violation of copyright law. Basically, as shitty as this is, this case would likely have been handled the exact same way at any point in the past 200+ years. This guy will probably end up coming to some kind of agreement with them, and if they're smart, they'll put the ipod images on their sites, or link to his after they reach whatever agreement they eventually do.

But I do agree that some copyright stuff is just fucking stupid... especially the late supreme court ruling that like a software company is responsible for what it's users do with its software (whether it was intended for that purpose or not), unless it has some kind of anti-piracy disclaimer. In my opinion, that's fucking retarded. So basically, as long as Kazaa and Morpheus and BitTorrent put disclaimers that people can't use their software for pirating, they're completely safe and people are free to continue using the software to exchange movies and songs and cds and everything else under the sun. Wow, you guys accomplished a lot, except for opening up a big giant door for people to get sued. I'm waiting for someone to sue AOL for piracy over AIM. I have a feeling we'd end up seeing some changes to copyright law if something like that happened. Or at the very least, there'd be a lobbyist battle.

Things aren't looking any better either, O'Conner quit because of the above ruling and Renquist kicked the bucket, so now Bush is going to throw a bunch of Bible-Thumpers on the Supreme Court and everything's just going to get even more fucked up. Oh well.

[Aristotle]

I don't think anyone is disputing who owns the IP of the map.

That is not the point.

The point is, when the IP is owned by the government (and therefore the public), chasing down someone who is making them available for free in a more easily useable format is just an idiotic waste of time and money.

[Wrent]

What the guy should do/have done is patent/copyright the idea to create and provide Ipod maps and sell or offer the service he now owns to commerce and tourism depts. of major cities. Make them Pay him to do the simple work or buy the idea from him....

With the growing popularity of Ipods, I would not be surprised if these little Boo cries will make people say Hmmm... lets do this 'right' and make -alot- of money off of this.... And obviously, this guy did it first...

Now, on the down side, this Nay saying might backfire and people just do it themselves and everyone loses....


I think it is utterly moronic to forbid him use of a public piece of IP for non-profit purposes.... he had a really cool, useful idea.

The only possible arguement I can see is that less people would visit the city transportation Site for those maps... which is ridiculous anyways, because its not like they make money from their site opperations or # of hits there....

I hope to read about this guy charging millions to these cities to 'use his idea' which he was, until now, providing them free.

Morons

[Lokrian]

Human Genome Patents

That sort of thing both confuses and concerns me. I'm confused because I have almost no idea where the line is or should be, and concerns because, well, it just seems to me that patenting genes at all, or anything discovered in them, is patenting something discovered in nature, even though I understand that it took a lot of effort to discover it.

Soo.... Yeah.

[Aristotle]

Maybe you have heard of the "shrink wrap license."

Well, just when you thought it couldn't get any worse... it does.

Now we have the BOX-TOP LICENSE.

By Tearing Open That Cardboard Box, Are You Also Signing on the Dotted Line?

A recent decision in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reinforced the right of companies, in this case Lexmark International, the printer maker, to legally limit what customers can do with a patented product, given that the company spells out conditions and restrictions on a package label known as a box-top license.

...

Mr. von Lohmann gave several hypothetical examples of how box-top licenses could be used, including automobile manufacturers who might put a label on a new car stating that by opening the door for the first time, the new owner agreed to use only the manufacturer's replacement parts and to avoid modifying the car. "Owners of patents would love to be able to control what you can do with a product after you buy it," he said. "That's new. The rule for most of a century has been, 'You buy it, you own it.' "

And listen to this horseshit from Lexmark:

"This is about customer choice," said Mr. Fitzpatrick of Lexmark. "The court has ruled in favor of customer choice." A footnote in the court's written opinion stated that the decision would not preclude a consumer from raising challenges to the box-top contract.

It is amazing how corporate whores love to say they do things for the consumer's benefit, when anyone with half a brain knows they are just bending the consumer over a log.