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The Intellectual Property Thread

ukyo_rulz

ukyo_rulz

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Hello there. I am ukyo_rulz, and I am fascinated by the concept of Intellectual Property. You may know this from that time I posted in the piracy thread:
http://skullgirls.com/forums/index.php?threads/pirates-i-am-disappoint.421/

I will be using this thread to dump links to interesting articles on IP. Maybe we can have a nice discussion on it. Or maybe it'll just be me posting links so I can easily access them again in the future. For now, I'll start with two recent goodies:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2014/feb/05/digital-rights-management
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/02/03/editorial-why-games-should-enter-the-public-domain/

Here are some sites I regularly read that have info on this topic:
http://slashdot.org/
http://www.popehat.com/
https://www.techdirt.com/
 
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keep 'em coming! not sure how useful i will be in the discussion department, but will defo read almost everything posted. as a filmmaker/cinephile i find this stuff pretty neat
 
@Mike_Z
<bad link>
I should report something like this, right?
 
Uhh, should I remove that link, or...?
 
Vadsamoht said:
Uhh, should I remove that link, or...?
Well it IS warez so I would assume yes as piracy is forbidden on most forums.
 
Yeah. Mike's response just caught me a little off-guard.
 
Removed it. No beneficial reason at all for a troubling link presented proudly within a public forum message.

Edit: the slurred "nah" implied sarcasm for yes was my initial perception.
 
Sorry, I thought it was bad for independent developers to have their game pirated. Hope you didn't miss my actual intention.
Edit: To report piracy, do I PM it to someone?
 
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I assume that the "link" was to a pirated copy of SG yeah? In any case, I created this thread primarily to discuss abstract concepts of IP and not so much specific examples of copyright infringement. Of course I am happy to discuss specific examples of infringement in relation to these concepts.

Now let's get back on topic:
http://reason.com/archives/2014/02/21/how-writers-coped-without-copy
 
(last offtopic)
I mean like...I know, it's been around forever, but people keep rediscovering it.
If I cared I could make it crash for not having the same game ID but...how much do I care?
It'd just get cracked some other way, and LZ doesn't make money from PC sales anyway. :^P At least they want to play the game, heh.
 
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Are people even aware of IP enough to recognize how masterfully this game trolls King?
http://tmville.com/
 
Too lazy to look it up myself right now - what exactly is the difference between a utility patent and a design patent?
 
Vadsamoht said:
Too lazy to look it up myself right now - what exactly is the difference between a utility patent and a design patent?

From the USPTO:
In general terms, a “utility patent” protects the way an article is used and works (35 U.S.C. 101), while a “design patent” protects the way an article looks (35 U.S.C. 171). The ornamental appearance for an article includes its shape/configuration or surface ornamentation applied to the article, or both. Both design and utility patents may be obtained on an article if invention resides both in its utility and ornamental appearance.
 
I love how Intellectual Ventures reacted to their loss:
"our patent portfolio is deep and we have another action pending against Capital One in Maryland."

Translation:
"We have so many thousands of patents covering so many vague and abstract ideas that sooner or later we'll find a judge willing to force actual innovators to hand us money or those innovators will just pay us to leave them alone."
 
Hmm. These are all very useful information. And if I may add...

With the recent color changes regarding about Valentine and some of the characters particulalrly the "crosses", I fear that one day ideas will become hard to come by in the future.

To think that a simple red colored cross can be subjected is rather.....

...shocking. Hn. Copyright and Trademark laws should be reviewed and renewed in this day and age.

Only people can change that.
 
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This is annoying, but sadly it's par for the course these days. What with how expansive copyright and other forms of intellectual property have become, it really limits how people can put out new stuff. It's not just in the arts too. I'm a software engineer and I'm pretty sure it's literally impossible to create any useful program without violating hundreds if not thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of patents.

No matter who you are, no matter what you do, you're a violator:
 
The red cross thing actually seems like the most reasonable uses of copyright I've ever seen. I mean that's saving lives right? Seems like something we shouldn't need a law to tell us though. Comparing that to the gravity of a company losing money, I wonder how they're even in the same arena?

I said it in the piracy thread and I'll say it here. Property is theft. If there's not enough of something to go around you are depriving someone by claiming it. This is violence in a world where we should all be treated equally. We don't think far enough outside the box to adjust to our constantly evolving world.
 
WhiteFury said:
I said it in the piracy thread and I'll say it here. Property is theft. If there's not enough of something to go around you are depriving someone by claiming it. This is violence in a world where we should all be treated equally. We don't think far enough outside the box to adjust to our constantly evolving world.
Yes and no. In a broad sense your argument is philosophically OK, but on a more practical level it's a little shakier. For example, ownership of a house deprives others of the right to use it, yes, but it also allows you to prevent drug dealers from setting up shop in you daughter's bedroom.
 
WhiteFury said:
The red cross thing actually seems like the most reasonable uses of copyright I've ever seen. I mean that's saving lives right?

The incorporation of a red cross onto the design of a fictional character has no bearing on the ability of the Red Cross organization to save lives.

WhiteFury said:
Seems like something we shouldn't need a law to tell us though. Comparing that to the gravity of a company losing money, I wonder how they're even in the same arena?

They're in the same arena because one of the most popular strategies for pushing through bad policy is to conflate it with some serious issue. Some examples are:
* Counterfeiting and Copyright Infringement
* Theft and Copyright Infringement
* Child Pornography and Censorship

Believe me, it would be amazing if we could discuss copyright in terms of copyright alone.

WhiteFury said:
I said it in the piracy thread and I'll say it here. Property is theft.

If you have a hammer, and then I take your hammer, that is theft. You had it, and now I have it and you don't. If you have a hammer, and then I make my own hammer by copying yours, that is not theft. You had it, and now we both have one.

Copyright infringement is me making my own hammer by copying your hammer without your permission. Some people think I should be able to do that. Some people think I shouldn't be able to do that. Some people think I shouldn't have to ask for your permission, but I should have to pay you some nominal amount (ie. compulsory licenses). In all cases, it is impossible to discuss the issue accurately as long as you keep insisting that copying your hammer is the same thing as stealing your hammer. It's like trying to argue the merits of jaywalking laws with someone who insists that jaywalking is kidnapping.

WhiteFury said:
If there's not enough of something to go around you are depriving someone by claiming it.

This is not such a case. In fact, this is a case where there is an infinite amount of something to go around, but we are by law required to pretend that there isn't in order to protect the income of copyright holders (see: rivalrous vs non-rivalrous).

WhiteFury said:
This is violence in a world where we should all be treated equally. We don't think far enough outside the box to adjust to our constantly evolving world.

I really don't understand where you're going with this part of your response. AFAIK Copyright infringement has nothing at all to do with violence, equality, or adapting to a new world. In fact intellectual property is frequently used as a tool of protectionism to prevent incumbents from having to adapt to new things.
 
ukyo_rulz said:
The incorporation of a red cross onto the design of a fictional character has no bearing on the ability of the Red Cross organization to save lives.
I disagree with this. The ability of the Red Cross to be able to operate effectively within conflict zones is due to the fact that they use a universal symbol (the cross), but if they allow others to use it then it goes from "these are medical/humanitarian workers" to "these MIGHT be medical/humanitarian workers", and then it becomes permissible to shoot at them because of suspicion due to jus in bello bs justifications.

As for whether a fictional character affects the impression of real-world usage, probably not, but they might need to take action against the fictional representations in order to later be able to take action against real-world ones, if that makes sense.
 
Vadsamoht said:
I disagree with this. The ability of the Red Cross to be able to operate effectively within conflict zones is due to the fact that they use a universal symbol, but if they allow others to use it then it goes from "these are medical/humanitarian workers" to "these MIGHT be medical/humanitarian workers", and then it becomes permissible to shoot at them because of suspicion due to jus in bello bs justifications. (the cross)

This is an issue that is frequently discussed in relation to trademark law, where likelihood of confusion is kind of a big deal. In this case, it is exceedingly unlikely if not outright impossible for any kind of confusion to happen. This is because Valentine is a fictional character in a videogame, not a real person on a battlefield.

Consider this: if the appearance of the mark on anything other than an actual medical instance would actually dilute the efficacy of it, why would the Red Cross organization be "licensing the symbol to other companies for use on commercial items sold in stores as part of the organization’s fund-raising program"? By the logic you proposed, the Red Cross would be undermining their own mark by engaging in these activities.

Vadsamoht said:
they might need to take action against the fictional representations in order to later be able to take action against real-world ones, if that makes sense.

I dunno about you, but the idea that the red cross would be precluded from going after real life abusers of the mark because it neglected to police fictional representations makes zero sense to me. Luckily, this will never happen because the use of the emblem is governed by the Geneva conventions.
 
I'm not saying people will mistake Val for a Red Cross-endorsed character, or even that the Red Cross themselves even care about her at all. My point is simply that they might at some point feel obliged to take legal action in order to be seen as defending their IP in order to make other more important defenses possible in the future. I think we can agree that the problem is with the system, not with the Red Cross themselves.

As for the Geneva Conventions bit, the argument against that is a simple dilemma - The GC either prevents people from using the symbol or it doesn't. If it doesn't, then we're back to square 1 and the RC has to defend their symbol. If it does, then Lab Zero just broke one of the Geneva Conventions and RC has the right to pursue that. Either way, the RC could possibly come after L0 at some point.

Again, I agree that the system is stupid. The Red Cross should be able to only pursue the cases that IT feels are directly damaging to their efforts, but with things as they are I wouldn't be surprised if they (or other IP holders) feel the need to go after everything just to maintain the IP in the first place.
 
Ukyo you seem to think that i'm defending ip and copyright because I see some merit to the concerns from the Red Cross. I'm certainly not and I think they are harmful. However, when it comes to medics saving lives I can see where the preservation of brand can be important. Even if, in the instance of video games, they'd be taking it to it's theoretical extreme. The Red Cross is certainly undermining themselves by licensing the symbol. That doesn't mean the origin of the argument ins't legit, just that they're being hypocrites.

To the point I made about property. I wasn't saying that copying is stealing. Quite the opposite. I was saying that the idea of owning something is, in actuality, just as destructive to society as the general population sees stealing now. As you said the ideas aren't finite but the market based on those ideas is. So the problem is that people need to make money off of their ideas. What I'm talking about with adapting to a new world is needing to accept that we are getting past scarcity almost entirely in a technical sense.
 
Vadsamoht said:
My point is simply that they might at some point feel obliged to take legal action in order to be seen as defending their IP in order to make other more important defenses possible in the future.

You only need to do that for trademarks. It is the only form of IP that can be lost if it becomes generic, or in the case of "failure to actively use the mark in the lawful course of trade, or to enforce the registration in the event of infringement". In the case of the Red Cross they are always able to restrict usage of their mark per the GC, regardless of the trademark situation.

Vadsamoht said:
As for the Geneva Conventions bit, the argument against that is a simple dilemma - The GC either prevents people from using the symbol or it doesn't. If it doesn't, then we're back to square 1 and the RC has to defend their symbol.If it does, then Lab Zero just broke one of the Geneva Conventions and RC has the right to pursue that.

It's the second one. The Red Cross has the right to stop anyone else from using that mark. They don't need to actively police it, and for a long time they didn't. Recently they have started to do so. All I'm saying is that these kinds of exclusive rights have created an atmosphere that limits creative expression, even in cases where that creative expression does not harm the underlying thing that the rights were created to protect.

To recap my points are:
* Yes, the Red Cross organization has exclusive rights to the mark.
* Yes, the Red Cross organization might conceivably go after Lab Zero for this.
* No, the Red Cross organization is not obliged to police the usage of this mark in order to retain their rights.
* No, the ability of the Red Cross organization to save lives is not impacted by the incorporation of their mark into the design of fictional characters.

The IP space has become warped in a way that reminds me of zero tolerance policies in schools, where students are penalized for behavior that in no way would ever actually threaten others. It's gone way beyond the original intent.

That's kind of the all-encompassing point of this thread, in my mind. These rights exist for a reason. In this specific case, the Red Cross was given exclusive access to an emblem to help them perform life-saving activities. They need to have exclusive access to the emblem in a battlefield for protection, and they need to be able to stop people from using the mark in a way that would invite confusion with their actual activities. I just don't see why they should also be able to stop anyone from incorporating the mark in ways that would not conflict with their actual medical activities.

WhiteFury said:
However, when it comes to medics saving lives I can see where the preservation of brand can be important. Even if, in the instance of video games, they'd be taking it to it's theoretical extreme.

I just don't see the harm here. Fictional corrupt cops wearing police uniforms don't interfere with real life police officers. Fictional quack doctors wearing stethoscopes don't interfere with real doctors. Why would a red cross embellishment on a stylized nurse-inspired character impact the Red Cross?

WhiteFury said:
To the point I made about property. I wasn't saying that copying is stealing. Quite the opposite.

I guess I misunderstood your point. My bad.
 
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