Anne Broache, Staff Writer for CNET News.com, (link here) writes that the House Judiciary subcommittee that originates intellectual property laws is cranking up to introduce a patent reform bill. Ideas broached in the piece include enough funding to hire an ample number of examiners and staff; meaningful, low-cost alternatives to litigation, requiring pending patent applications to be made public a certain number of months after being filed so that the public would have a chance to submit prior art; and restrictions on business method patents, a controversial class that grants protection to processes. Based on past experience, the prospects are not great because disagreements among interest groups have prevented real reform.

Those of us committed to intellectual property reform will need to follow this and weigh in with their own representatives and senators the only ones who will listen to individual constituents.

Techdirt earlier reported that Seth Godin, author of "Everyone's an Expert (About Something)," was unhappy because his book was published and for sale after it had been on line for free (link here). The story has now been resolved by the New York Times (link here.)

Originally licensed and published under a Creative Commons license that allows anyone to republish and sell it, Godin objected that it was dishonestly sold as a new edition. The publishers then put it out with a note that it was the same edition as the free one available on line. The author accepted that.

Nevertheless, the fact that the book was for sale produced some criticism of Godin as he could have put it out under a different Creative Commons license that allows anyone to make use of a published work but only on a not-for-profit basis.

It seems to me that the critics have got that wrong. Many people are willing to pay for the convenience of having a hard copy version and producing that has costs. If there is a profit involved, as some critics objected, that motive got the book printed. If the price were too high, others were free to print it as well, likely bringing the price down.

The consumer was well served here, better than if it had been put out under the more restrictive Creative Commons license.

A translation of macrovision's letter to Steve Jobs. (Strictly speaking, I think this is called a "fisking".)

A beautiful podcast by Larry Lessig explaining how the Library of Congress's proposed solution to the problem of orphan works "diligent search" isn't. Something he mentions: the problem with institutions - a University, or a large corporation such as Kinkos/Fedex can't afford to violate copyright. Something implicit in this that he doesn't mention - the proposal is stupid and unenforceable, so people who can ignore it will. That means that everyone will ignore it except large institutions. So we'll buy our own xerox machines and scanners rather than go to Kinkos. And large educational institutions are going to be at a disadvantage in the teaching of things like music, writing, movie making and other creative enterprises - which will to be to the advantage of the small tutor. So the big institutions by supporting this "compromise" are cutting their own throats. So be it.

MICHAEL CRICHTON writes on "Patenting Life" (link here). A few quotes will make its tenor clear. "YOU, or someone you love, may die because of a gene patent that should never have been granted in the first place. Sound far-fetched? Unfortunately, it's only too real." "Gene patents are now used to halt research, prevent medical testing and keep vital information from you and your doctor." "Why? Because the holder of the gene patent can charge whatever he wants, and does."

Strong stuff, well stated.

Both Slashdot and Lessig have links to an Ars Technica article discussing an article by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf soon to appear in the Journal of Political Economy on the impact of file sharing on music sales.

From the abstract

A longstanding economic question is the appropriate level of protection for intellectual property. The Internet has drastically lowered the cost of copying information goods and provides a natural crucible to assess the implications of reduced protection. We consider the specific case of file sharing and its effect on the legal sales of music. A dataset containing 0.01% of the world's downloads is matched to U.S. sales data for a large number of albums. ... Downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero, despite rather precise estimates. Moreover, these estimates are of moderate economic significance and are inconsistent with claims that file sharing is the primary reason for the recent decline in music sales.

The key to their analysis is the use of instrumental variables such as network congestion, song length, and such things as school holidays that should drive downloads but change album sales only indirectly through the effect on downloads. This enables them to separate the impact of downloads from variables that might changes both downloads and album sales.

Also of interest is the issue of album popularity. Downloads have little effect on less popular albums - but a positive effect (one extra sale per 150 downloads) on more popular albums. So apparently if you have something good to sell, giving away free samples isn't a bad idea.

Via Marcia Sean Sean Marcia - and interesting site about collaboration. The blog documents some surprising efforts at collaboration. Did you know, for example, that when computer researcher James Gray disappeared at sea a collaborative distributed computing effort was made to search satelite photographs in an effort to find him?

Mike at Techdirt (link here) points us to Jonathan Lethem's piece in Harpers (link here) which is both an extended discussion of copyright and the abuses it is now suffering, and a poetic evocation of language and imaginative ideas which have come to us through the ages and still inspire literature, ultimately questioning the definition of plagiarism. To make his point, he pulls the reader's leg by making the whole piece up from bits and pieces from other writers and then puts the sources for all of them in an extended set of footnotes, making his point that all of us depend on the work of others and that the current practice of sharply limiting access is a crime against society and human progress.

Chief Executive Steve Jobs Tuesday issued a challenge to the music industry, saying Apple would support an open online music marketplace if the four-largest music companies would drop the use of digital-rights management software. That kind of software prevents the copying of music sold online. In an open letter posted on Apple's Website, Jobs said "DRMs haven't worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy," and said the music companies receive few benefits from selling 90% of their music on CDs, which don't have DRM software built in, and the remaining amount online with DRM technology. Apple's iTunes Music Store is currently listed as the world top-selling online music store with more than 2 billion songs sold. Details here.

One brick at a time, the wall that since 1999 has been obstructing technological progress from letting people enjoy more and better music at a lower price, is coming down. It had to come down: Tower Records is gone, and soon the music industry as a whole will realize that distributing music via CDs or similar devices is also gone for good. The movie industry is slowly learning the same lesson as Wal-Mart is entering a partnership with all of the six major Hollywood studios to sell digital movies and television shows on its Web site.

The bricks are being removed, one at a time, but the process is made slow and painful by the silly resistance of vested rent-seeking interests. Digital content can be sold efficiently and in very large quantities via the web. Copies of that same digital content can be made and distributed via the web withouth the obstruction that current "anti-piracy" regulations impose upon this economic activity. The cost reduction that digital-web distribution of music makes possible is so large, that a competitive market for music could leave plenty of room for charging the lawful purchaser of originals for the implicit value of the copies he/she will eventually donate or sell to other.

There is plenty of money - probably more money than there has ever been - in distributing and selling digital content via the web, without the obstacles created either by DRM or by any similar attempt to prevent people to do what they want with the files they lawfully purchased.

This is not "news", but the news here is the rising tide, not the drops of water that make it up.

Novartis is, according to its own spokesman, "testing" the 2005 Indian pharmaceutical patents legislation in court, to check if it is working properly, or not. How? The details are here. Briefly, in traditional big pharma's style Novartis is seeking an extension of its expired patent for a leukemia drug. Novartis has slightly modified the drug (it can be "absorbed more easily by the body") and it claims this is a new drug, hence a brand new patent is justified. Lower Indian courts have rejected the claim, but Novartis is appealing. The drug in question is not widely used, as the form of leukemia it cures is rare. Novartis claims it donates the medicine to about 90% of the 6,800 Indian patients affected by the disease. Novartis' drug costs about $ 2,600 while its generic Indian version costs less than a tenth of it.

So, what's the big deal? That Novartis is "testing" the new Indian patent system, that's the big deal. After it wins this one, it can go after more important generic drugs produced in India. Not just drugs for rare forms of cancer, but also AIDS drugs and drugs for more widespread diseases, as Doctors Without Borders is pointing out. Apparently, about 80% of the generic AIDS drugs used by this and other NGOs around the world come from India. Should the Indian producers of generic drugs be shut down by the new legal challenges mounted by Novartis and other pharmaceutical companies, the consequences would be obvious, and not pleasant.

So, thanks to copyright, Bill Gates is a powerful man: he can spare a Russian fellow five years in jail. But, thanks to patents, Novartis is even more powerful: it can sentence thousands of sick fellows to death, or spare their lifes instad. No idea yet if Intellectual Monopoly increases income inequality, but it does allocate the power of life and death rather unequally around the world.