I am always amazed at what one encounters by accident on the internet. Knowing the general views of my colleagues on this blog and their opposition to DRM as bad public policy, it strikes me that our readers will find this an interesting free software download, designed to remove DRM from legally acquired material. I haven't tried it because I haven't been bugged by DRM except as an idea limiting my rights, but the reference is offered for those who want to experiment. The download is here link here and the instructions are here here or here.

The House passed the bill amending patent law on Friday, but the Senate has not yet acted on similar legislation introduced simultaneously with the House version, OMB has expressed opposition, and the President may well veto it link here and here. Some of the House rhetoric for and against the law bordered on the extreme, while behind the scene were beneficiaries like Microsoft, Cisco, and Intel and opponents like Caterpillar, Eli Lilley, and Proctor and Gamble. Its not clear which will prevail.

The bill would make several sensible changes: switching from first-to-invent to first-to-file patent grants like other countries; allow post-grant patent challenges for up to a year; allow third parties to introduce evidence against a patent grant; limit where a patent suit can be filed to cut down on jurisdiction-shopping; limit damages to reflect how much the patent violation contributes; and allow immediate appeals of court rulings while a case proceeds. Similar past bills have been introduced only to fail, and no one knowledgeable seems to be predicting the outcome this time either way.

We have a new contender in the dispute over who originated the idea behind the website, Facebook. John Markoff reports in the NYTimes link here that Aaron Greenspan, while a student at Harvard, had the idea first, created a web service called houseSystem, and labeled a new feature of it as "the Face Book".

While he may have got the idea and/or put it into practice first, he seems to have no real claim to owning any intellectual property that would be recognized by a court. All of those claiming the idea knew each other and apparently worked together part of the time, but just as William's post of 08/12/2007 suggested, the legal claims remain vanishingly weak. Still, who knows what a smart lawyer can dig up.

Dana Thomas goes after high-fashion counterfeit handbag producers and sellers link here. "As soon as a handbag hits big, counterfeiters around the globe churn out fake versions by the thousands. And they have no trouble selling them. Shoppers descend on Canal Street in New York, Santee Alley in Los Angeles and flea markets and purse parties around the country to pick up knockoffs for one-tenth the legitimate bag's retail cost, then pass them off as real."

He argues that most people think the counterfeit trade is harmless but it 1) is run by criminal syndicates also in drugs and child prostitution, 2) "may have helped finance the 1983 World Trade Center bombing," and 3) is made by child labor. All bad. His solution is greater enforcement and persuading people not the buy the knock-offs.

Thomas doesn't seem to think that most buyers are fooled by the counterfeit into thinking it is the real thing. The price difference and the seller's facilities attest to that. Enforcement doesn't seem to work and it is very expensive trying to catch all those little entrepreneurs. So we need to persuade the public not to buy.

In favor of the counterfeit trade is an argument that it actually helps the "legitimate" industry. David points out that the fashion industry would be greatly harmed by fashion patents (posted on 08/23/2007 07:49 AM at http://www.againstmonopoly.org/) Wouldn't a consumer boycott or over active enforcement of trade marks in handbags do the same thing by removing the stimulus of competition to improve designs and create new design trends?

Michelle Slatalla has a piece on saving money when buying college textbooks link here. She recognizes their high cost for college students ($700-1000 per year) and suggests going to the internet. She notes that there are lots of sites but up to now, there has been no single way to find the best deal. That has changed with the creation of Bookfind.com that checks most suppliers. She also suggests getting an early start as the market in used books has gotten more competitive.

All this is good advice so long as texts are so expensive, but small potatoes when the alternative is considered. Students and parents need to start putting pressure on schools to put the texts on the web, as David so strongly advocates. That is the solution that makes texts cheap and easy to update at the will of the author and in response to evolving definitions of generally accepted truth/wisdom.

The NYTimes reports today that America's 47th largest law firm, Nixon Peabody, is making a fool of itself (the Times didn't of course say that out loud) link here. N-P celebrated its banner year with a banquet and a show in which the in-house singers parodied a well known song, with lyrics patting the firm on the back. It got to YouTube and N-P got it taken down as a violation of its copyright. Ain't copyright wonderful.

But then someone else put up a short version, arguing it is okay as protected by “Fair Use”. Now, however, it seems to have disappeared even as I write.

It is interesting that the firm initially decided to let the complete YouTube piece run–and then changed its mind. Speaks well for lawyerly judgment. Now I'm beginning to wonder about YouTube.

Last September, David wrote about Rambus and its conviction by the FTC for illegal actions Link here . He went on to describe the behavior of the patent troll focused on computer ram chip makers. "In the ultimate submarine patent manuever, they not only patented an obvious idea and kept it secret, but then joined a standard making body, and without revealing they held a patent on the idea encouraged the body to agree on a standard that infringed their patent." Note that the FTC case first charged Rambus in June 2002.

Rambus has frequently been controversial. Here is a list of stories cited on TechDirt starting in 2001 Link here . Following the FTC determination, it can now look for further trouble, this time from the European authorities. The FTC finding provided the Europeans with the basis for a further complaint, based on the fact that the FTC determination would not cover ram that originated outside of the US and did not pass through the US. The Europeans have come up with a new descriptor for Rambus' illegal behavior as a "patent ambush", a new type of patent abuse Link here and Here .

The long history of this case suggests how difficult it is to get to closure. In Rambus' case, the threat of legal action has never been enough to deter. Even now, Rambus asserts that the FTC case is old news and they are appealing in the courts. Justice delayed.

As I have increased my understanding of IP law and pondered the success of IP owners in expanding their monopoly interests, I have come increasingly to wonder if a more effective way of fighting back can be found. Advocacy is obviously important in increasing public understanding and I think that it has had some success, as for example, in getting the Patent Office to revise its procedures for vetting patent applications link here. Another track has now been suggested by a suit against the RIAA whose misbehavior has prompted a victim to seek to get her suit granted class-action status, potentially multiplying the cost for the offender link here. Still another avenue emerged when I encountered the story of a youngster who taped a few seconds of a feature film, was prosecuted, and got the movie chain boycotted link here.

Anybody else have more ideas of how to fight back?

As a neophyte in IP, I am repeatedly struck by the absurd level to which protection has been taken. Matt Yglesias has a short but striking example involving Senator Schumer's proposed copyright for fashion design and refers us to this website link here. Its authors point out, "To understand exactly how the Schumer bill would affect fashion innovation, it helps to review one basic point about copyright law: it does not simply prohibit "exact" copies. Rather, copyright law makes unlawful any use of a copyrighted work that results in a new work that is 'substantially similar' to the old."

Yglesias then goes on to compare the vitality of the cookbook industry based on the fact that recipes cannot be copyrighted, even while the cookbook can be link here. Without that, he suggests, "the bulk of the market would already be locked-down by older cookbooks, and to publish anything new you'd have to be prepared to lawyer up and fight off a thousand lawsuits alleging that your recipes are too derivative."

The New York Times has a really crazy op-ed article today on the high cost of textbooks link here. The author, Michael Granof, a professor of accounting at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas, a textbook author, and the chairman of the university's Co-op Bookstore, claims that it is the second hand book market which keeps prices on new books high that is the only way publishers can recoup their costs. He also claims that the second hand text market is highly organized, competitive, and cheap. If that were true and the old and new texts were even just roughly equivalent, publishers couldn't sell many new texts. Granof acknowledges that text prices are very high and has some ideas for improving matters, as he notes publishers "try to discourage students from buying used books by bundling the text with extra materials like workbooks and CDs that are not reusable and therefore cannot be passed from one student to another." He would have publishers sell site licenses to the university planning to use the text and charge students appropriate fees. The real solution is that proposed by David Levine put the text on line and ignore the question of what publishers charge for hard copies. If anyone wanted a hard copy, he could pay to print it himself. That way, the author can alter the text as often as he wants, as intellectual honesty requires, as pedagogical effectiveness suggests, and as current developments in the discipline would seem to require. Granof has some justified criticisms of the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance which was asked by Congress to suggest a cure for the problem of high text prices. His bottom line: "Unfortunately though, the committee has proposed a remedy that would only worsen the problem by doing nothing about the second hand book market."