Intellectual Poverty

Apple Loses Rights to Sell iPhone Brand in Mexico

"The court ruled against an injunction by Apple requesting that a Mexican company with the registered name iFone cease using their brand, in order to avoid possible confusion among customers. The Mexican company had registered its brand in 2003, four years before Apple’s registration for the iPhone brand name in the country. iFone, a telecommunications company, later countersued for damages, meaning the Mexican company could have rights to 40% of Apple’s iPhone sales revenue in the country." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingApple Loses Rights to Sell iPhone Brand in Mexico

Government Gives Samsung and Motorola Monopoly Patent Grants; then Probes them for “Patent Abuse”

"The state is schizophrenic. It grants monopolies aimed at limiting competition (patents and copyright), and then penalizes companies for using ('abusing') them, in contravention of state antitrust law–so that there is a 'tension' between these state laws. Then courts have to 'balance' these against each other. Each state law gives the state an excuse to ratchet up its power. Here’s an idea: get rid of both antitrust and patent law. (Likewise, there is also a 'tension' between copyright censorship, and the right to free speech.)" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingGovernment Gives Samsung and Motorola Monopoly Patent Grants; then Probes them for “Patent Abuse”

Microsoft DMCA Notice ‘Mistakenly’ Targets BBC, Techcrunch, Wikipedia and U.S. Govt

"Over the last year Microsoft asked Google to censor nearly 5 million webpages because they allegedly link to copyright infringing content. While these automated requests are often legitimate, mistakes happen more often than one might expect. In a recent DMCA notice Microsoft asked Google to censor BBC, CNN, HuffPo, TechCrunch, Wikipedia and many more sites. In another request the software giant seeks the removal of a URL on Spotify.com. In recent months the number of DMCA takedown requests sent out by copyright holders has increased dramatically, and it’s starting to turn the Internet into a big mess." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMicrosoft DMCA Notice ‘Mistakenly’ Targets BBC, Techcrunch, Wikipedia and U.S. Govt

Pirate Bay and Mega: Treating the State as Damage and Routing Around It

"Most recently, it’s come out that The Pirate Bay has moved to the cloud, thus rendering itself invulnerable to website takedowns. TPB has already taken considerable countermeasures against government raids, backing its site up on several servers and concealing the location of some of them. Meanwhile Kim Dotcom of MegaUpload is rolling out Mega, a new service duplicated on a network of servers in countries all around the world, and therefore far less vulnerable to takedowns by any national government." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPirate Bay and Mega: Treating the State as Damage and Routing Around It

Textbook Publisher Pearson Takes Down 1.5 Million Teacher And Student Blogs With A Single DMCA Notice

"From shuttering a legitimate ebook lending site to removing negative reviews to destroying a user's Flickr account to knocking a copyright attorney's site offline, the DMCA notice continues to be the go-to weapon for copyright defenders. Collateral damage is simply shrugged at and the notices continue to fly at an ever-increasing pace. And now because Pearson somehow feels that a 38-year-old questionnaire is worth $120, ServerBeach felt compelled to take down 1.5 million blogs over a single DMCA notice." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingTextbook Publisher Pearson Takes Down 1.5 Million Teacher And Student Blogs With A Single DMCA Notice

Google threatens to drop links to French media if pay-per-link law passes

"Internet giant Google has warned it would exclude French media sites from its search results if France adopts a law forcing search engines to pay for content, in the latest confrontation with European governments. A letter sent by Google to several French ministerial offices this month said it 'cannot accept' such a move and the company 'as a consequence would be required to no longer reference French sites,' according to a copy obtained by AFP. France’s new Socialist government, which is open to helping struggling media companies, warned Google that it should not threaten democratic governments." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingGoogle threatens to drop links to French media if pay-per-link law passes