There is a very interesting article available at iusmentis.com website about searching for the prior art in comic books. Why do I have this feeling that such situation could only happen in the U.S.?
Archive for: September, 2007
and the prior art
September 28th, 2007, Tomasz Rychlicki
Downloading from the Internets
September 24th, 2007, Tomasz RychlickiVery interesting “parody”.
Additionaly I would like to cite (sic!) funny clip.
flick
September 21st, 2007, Tomasz Rychlicki
I must admit that I was really lazy and I didn’t want to spend a few dozen of seconds to write about one second flick of McDonald’s trademark on Food Network’s channel. Such activity is well-known as subliminal marketing. So, I was really happy when I realized that my dear friend Marcin Sochacki wrote a very detailed post. I fully recommend you reading his findings.
We need more specialists!
September 20th, 2007, Tomasz RychlickiMs Marybeth Peters (US Register of Copyrights) is not an owner of a personal computer. It is not a problem for her to decide and discuss crucial aspects of copyright law and IT issues. More details are presented in the article available at www.news.com website. Meanwhile, as reagard to previous post there is also very interesting article available at www.torrentfreak.com website about Media Defender’s “anti-piracy tools” that have “leaked” to the Net.
Oh these leaks
September 18th, 2007, Tomasz RychlickiI have to write that Media Defender has no luck with good PR and the net. More details and comments supporting my opinion are available at arstechnica.com and in hundreds of post published around the Internet. However, I was thinking about the reaction of legal advisors who are representing MediaDefender. It is well-know fact that many lawyers correspondong with operators of the infamous thepiratebay.org website faced the ironic consequence of how improper is to write to European countries citizens with claims based in the US law. The bitter response to Media Defender’s lawers is available at meganova.org website. Other comments regarding mentioned leaks are available at torrentfreak.com website.
I think that if someone is really interested in industrial property law issues then such a person would admire this part of human creation as well, for instance typography art. I track news about this kinf of activities in the Internet all the time and I found a list of music videos that use typography effects lately. The whole playlist is available at yuxt.com website.
Now, maybe a little bit more about the law. Christoph Mueller, who is the author of Mom’s typewriter typeface which as you may have noticed I used in the topic of this post, can seek for protection of his creation based on industrial property law regulations within Poland and European Union. Unfortunately, unless such work is a digital one (popular term font) he won’t be able to get proper protection from the US copyright law (sic!). I recommend you to read the judgment in the case Adobe Sys. v. Southern Software, Inc., 45 U.S.P.Q.2D (BNA) 1827, 1998 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1941 (D. Cal. 1998) and 37 C.F.R. § 202.1(e) (1998). Additionally, it is always worth reading some paper. Check, J. L. Mezrich, “Extension of Copyright to Fonts—Can the Alphabet be Far Behind?“, The Computer Law Review and Technology Journal 1998. PDF file, 28 kB.
Microsoft v. Commission
September 17th, 2007, Tomasz RychlickiJudgment of the Court of First Instance (Grand Chamber) from September 17, 2007 in the case T-201/04, Microsoft v. Commission.
1. Annuls Article 7 of Commission Decision 2007/53/EC of 24 March 2004 relating to a proceeding pursuant to Article 82 [EC] and Article 54 of the EEA Agreement against Microsoft Corp. (Case COMP/C-3/37.792 – Microsoft), in so far as:
– it orders Microsoft to submit a proposal for the establishment of a mechanism which is to include a monitoring trustee with the power to have access, independently of the Commission, to Microsoft’s assistance, information, documents, premises and employees and to the source code of the relevant Microsoft products;
– it requires that the proposal for the establishment of that mechanism provide that all the costs associated with the appointment of the monitoring trustee, including his remuneration, be borne by Microsoft; and
– it reserves to the Commission the right to impose by way of decision a mechanism such as that referred to in the first and second indents above;
2. Dismisses the remainder of the application;
3. Orders Microsoft to bear 80% of its own costs and to pay 80% of the Commission’s costs, with the exception of the costs incurred by the Commission in connection with the intervention of The Computing Technology Industry Association, Inc., Association for Competitive Technology, Inc., TeamSystem SpA, Mamut ASA, DMDsecure.com BV, MPS Broadband AB, Pace Micro Technology plc, Quantel Ltd, Tandberg Television Ltd and Exor AB;
4. Orders Microsoft to bear its own costs and to pay the Commission’s costs relating to the interim measures proceedings in Case T‑201/04 R, with the exception of the costs incurred by the Commission in connection with the intervention of The Computing Technology Industry Association, Association for Competitive Technology, TeamSystem, Mamut, DMDsecure.com, MPS Broadband, Pace Micro Technology, Quantel, Tandberg Television and Exor;
5. Orders Microsoft to pay the costs of Software & Information Industry Association, Free Software Foundation Europe, Audiobanner.com and European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS), including those relating to the interim measures proceedings;
6. Orders the Commission to bear 20% of its own costs and to pay 20% of Microsoft’s costs, with the exception of the costs incurred by Microsoft in connection with the intervention of Software & Information Industry Association, Free Software Foundation Europe, Audiobanner.com and ECIS;
7. Orders The Computing Technology Industry Association, Association for Competitive Technology, TeamSystem, Mamut, DMDsecure.com, MPS Broadband, Pace Micro Technology, Quantel, Tandberg Television and Exor to bear their own costs, including those relating to the interim measures proceedings.
Tomorrow important judgment
September 16th, 2007, Tomasz RychlickiSeptember 17, 2007, The Court of First Instance will rule in the case Microsoft v. Commission, T-201/04, OJ C 294 of 02.12.2006, p.56 (PDF file).
Annul the Commission Decision of 24 March 2004 in proceedings regarding the application of Article 82 of the EC Treaty (Case COMP/C-3/37.792 Microsoft), concerning competition conditions in the markets of work group server operating systems and multimedia players or, in the alternative, annul or reduce the fine imposed on the applicant.
Meanwhile, if you are a Polish language speaker/reader there is also a very interesting post and discussion started by Piotr Waglowski on his website. It concerns “foggy” lobbing PR action which is dedicated to protecting companies consumers. In general, the goal is to raise the awarness that one comapny has almost 80% of the Internet ad market share within the European Union. We wonder who sponsors this so-called “social movement” with the help of PR company. As someone points such action is visible in London’s tube since two months.
Measurable value of fair use
September 16th, 2007, Tomasz RychlickiThe Computer and Communications Industry Association has published a report, PDF file, 2,28MB, that finds fair use exceptions add more than $4.5 trillion (1 000 000 000 000) in revenue to the U.S. economy and add more value to the U.S. economy than copyright industries contribute. Meanwhile there is also a provoking story available at slashdot.org about the Canadian Recording Industry Association admitting legality of P2P.
You can also check what others think about downloading music from the Internet. Here is a short movie clip from “Christian Rock Hard“. It was the episode 709 of Comedy Central’s South Park. It originally aired on October 29, 2003.
There is also a very interesting statement of Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails available at boingboing.net website.
As for the special situation in China, it does not seem to be easy to obtain Western music via legal channels, so I have the following suggestion for our fans: If you can find and buy our legal CDs, I express my thanks for your support. If you cannot find it, I think that downloading from the Internet is a more acceptable option than buying pirated CDs. Our music is easy to find on the Internet, and you might not need to spend much effort to find most of our songs. If you like our songs after you’ve heard them, please feel free to share it with your friends. As I have put all my effort and heart into my music, I sincerely hope that more and more people can share the enjoyment with us.
This is very funny ad and its story is described by Marcin Sochacki so I’ll just cite it. Big up.
Many people wrote about the new Vision Express commercial in Poland, but I haven’t seen it recorded anywhere yet. I asked Hubert “Depesz” Lubaczewski to share his TV recording and I’m posting it below.
The ad gained a lot of popularity among Polish Internet users because of a peculiar choice of letters used on optician’s Snellen chart. They used some acronyms, which are very popular in chat rooms and other situations: OMG, WTF, STFU, PWN3D, UR A NOOB, LMAO, ROTF, KTHXBYE, :P. Hats off to the media agency which invented that! The idea most likely comes from the giftedtwisted design available at cafepress.com.
Here is the mentioned advertising movie.