Melancholy Elephants

[richardf8]

Today, I was reading in the paper about a local band calling itself "The Olympic Hopefuls" which, receiving a C & D from the USOC, changed its name, quite simply, to the hopefuls. It seems that "Olympic" was trademarked in a 1950 Congressional act.

I see stuff like this happening all the time. Copyright owners (more often companies than artists) cracking down on fan web sites and fan fiction. Trivial suits over whether one can use the word "Spam" or "Windows" or the time Coors Brewing company sued R.J. Corr's natural sodas. Here in Saint Paul, there was once a local Pizza shop, owned by a man named John, called "Papa John's." When the national chain by the same name moved into the area, his business had to bcome "John's Pizza Cafe."

Seems to me that we've got a lot more trivial lawsuits in the arena of Intellectual Property than in Liability. But since IP Lawsuits tend to entail corporations winning against ordinary people and small business owners, rather than ordinary people and small business owners winning against corporations, I don't for see any calls for IP Law reform forthcoming.

Indeed, I think it can be safely argued, that with companies needing to do expensive and exhaustive "prior-art" searches before investing in invention, and given that the Garage inventor does not have the resources to do this, that our IP law has crossed the line from fostering innovation to inhibiting it.

Here is a link to the Spider Robinson story "Melancholy Elephants" which I think is an essential read for our times, dealing as it does, with the ultimate consequences of IP law: http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200011/0671319744___1.htm

Comments

[kevinjdog.livejournal.com]

There are eighty-eight notes. One hundred and seventy-six, if your ear is good enough to pick out quarter tones. Add in rests and so forth, different time signatures. Pick a figure for maximum number of notes a melody can contain. I do not know the figure for the maximum possible number of melodies—too many variables—but I am sure it is quite high.

"I am certain that it is not infinity.

Hear, hear. I have always wondered this. The old saw, "There's nothing new under the sun," is so true in so many cases. People will always be reinventing the wheel in the arts, but no matter what, every time they do it will be slightly different. There will be a new perspective, borne from a myriad of individual experiences coming together to form a unique viewpoint. So unless it's blatant and deliberate, I do think people ought to ease up on similarities and instead highlight the differences.

But they won't, as there's such an obsessive nature to protect one's creation, to the point of wanting utter control.

[richardf8]

אין כל חדש תחת השמש -- There is nothing new under the sun. It doesn't mean we should stop trying. I guess my biggest problem with IP Law is that so much contested IP is not even owned by the people who created it, but rather by corporations.

And I will always maintained that the notion of corporate personhood is the single most dangerous concept in our society.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

Hear, hear... http://www.thecorporation.tv/

[athelind.livejournal.com]

THANK you. I read that story YEARS ago, and it's popped into my head on pretty much a weekly basis, with all the IPdiocy of recent years, but I couldn't remember who wrote it, or the title.

[richardf8]

Glad to Help.