Intellectual Property and Privacy

[c9]

"The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying."

-- John Carmack, head of id software, home of Doom

Two interesting reads can be found here.

1. Richard Stallman was stopped by UN Security for his advocacy of tinfoil hats. Well, not really. He covered his RFID badge with foil, and encouraged others to do to. UN Security decided that made him a threat. In 2003 the UN promised to not use RFID this year because of complaints then. Instead, they simply hid it.

RFID is radio-frequency identification, and it means that someone can read your ID without you even taking it out of your pocket. It's used for electronic toll passes, among other things. Sounds convenient, but imagine if that person following you down the street late at night suddenly knew where you lived? What if you simply window-shopped in Old Navy, and the next week you started getting spam emails and flyers from them? There are many privacy dangers there.

2. Bruce Perens' speech on the dangers of software patents. Software patents let companies claim they invented things like opening a menu, or clicking a button to buy something on a website. Once they have a patent, current law says they can charge you for having a similar feature on your website, or force you to stop using it. This means that companies can take other companies to court if they don't like their competition, and simply spend enough on lawyers to win. This is already happening, right here in Canada too. Research in Motion is under attack by a tiny company called NTP. NTP has almost no assets other than a patent on something that RIM's Blackberries do.

Not everyone sees issues with this. Read Perens' speech about how Open Source (free) software is helping under-developed countries catch up technologically, and how software patents could utterly destroy the power of open source. Sorry sub-Saharan Africa, you have to pay $149 USD for Windows XP before you're allowed to have a computer. What, that's two years' salary? That's a shame.

Update: Check out this ecommerce site that infringes 20 patents.

Comments

[c9.livejournal.com]

Sounds like we need to continue it during Suspects Visit PEI 2006. :)

[cap-hill-latte.livejournal.com]

Speaking of PEI. I've decided that I'm going to try to schedule all of next year’s travel outside of school quarters. I probably won’t take anything in the summer quarter, but have a class in the spring, and may start up again in the fall. So scheduling PEI after June 2 and before September 27th would work best for me. :-).

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

Good idea! I have a DVD of "Who Owns Culture?" that we can watch; that'll spur some lively (friendly) debate :-)

Sigh. I wish we could do Suspects Visit PEI right now, except for the fact PEI is a hellish frozen wasteland.

[c9.livejournal.com]

You know that DVDs are illegal in PEI, right? They might let through a Betamax tape...

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

Weird! I just got the email notification about this post this morning.

[c9.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if you look at my friends list you'll see some system notification names. They posted that during the move from Seattle to San Francisco (or maybe vice versa) they had an IP address go missing off one machine, so now all the old notifications are being cleared out.

[primary-suspect.livejournal.com]

Things are looking more promising for SV-PEI 2006 edition for us every day. Jo originally wanted to visit friends in Switzerland this summer but now that there is a chance I might change my career and go in a different direction after I finish my masters, we might need to save the $$ for when I am not working or making a lot less.