http://www.techdirt.com/ Easily digestible tech news.... http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091210/0526447287.shtml#c7 Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:50:00 PST http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091210/0526447287.shtml#c7 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091204/0027327200.shtml#c303 Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:42:38 PST http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091204/0027327200.shtml#c303 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091204/0027327200.shtml#c283 Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:38:17 PST http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091204/0027327200.shtml#c283 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091204/0027327200.shtml#c247 Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:36:31 PST http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091204/0027327200.shtml#c247 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091204/0027327200.shtml#c223 Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:31:47 PST http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091204/0027327200.shtml#c223 http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20091130/0601577121.shtml#c87 Fri, 11 Dec 2009 06:48:44 PST http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20091130/0601577121.shtml#c87 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091210/1242497293.shtml#c11 Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:52:56 PST http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091210/1242497293.shtml#c11 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091208/0152167242.shtml#c41 Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:41:59 PST http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091208/0152167242.shtml#c41 http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20091123/222534.shtml#c61 Mon, 7 Dec 2009 14:44:35 PST http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20091123/222534.shtml#c61 http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20091123/223951.shtml#c62 Mon, 7 Dec 2009 14:41:29 PST http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20091123/223951.shtml#c62 http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20091204/0108047203.shtml#c22 Mon, 7 Dec 2009 14:38:16 PST http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20091204/0108047203.shtml#c22 "We have patents on your XYZ technology, so you better agree to our terms or we'll get you."

The other company has to be able to say "well, we have patents on your YZW technology, so agree to meet us in the middle or we'll get you."

They meet in the middle, and everyone's happy. Without patent protection, the bigger of the two can clobber the other one on any sort of deals.]]> http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20091204/0027017199.shtml#c449 Mon, 7 Dec 2009 14:31:43 PST http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20091204/0027017199.shtml#c449
If you sign a work contract or are employed to produce creative works, you will have trouble asserting a separate copyright contract against your employer for works created while "on the clock" and with company resources. However, this doesn't mean that your copyright is not still there. I have signed these types of contracts in order to hand over copyright on certain very specific things, so that implies that without the contract, I could still lay claim to those things. (It almost certainly wouldn't be worth the legal costs unless millions of my money were at stake).

Copyright does not mean that someone can write "select *" (this is not a valid SQL query anyhow) as this would likely fall under the exemption made for titles. Just as you cannot copyright the title to a book, you probably cannot assert a copyright over a single, uncreative sentence. Yes, creativity is objective enough that in any legal case, some "crappy" poem will still hold up as "creative" while "select *" will not. The purpose of copyright is not to prevent anyone from using some phrase (that's a trademark) but foremost copyright is to protect published works that are generating lots of money from being ripped off and stolen from their creators, with no compensation to the creator for their work.

Copyright doesn't apply to creatively "transformed works", especially if attribution is already given and the transformations noted. So, if you take a massive SQL query and have to apply a creative new fix to it for something, your new version qualifies for its own copyright separate from the original copyright. That's right, now there are two copyrights: the one for the original author on the original work, and your new copyright on the "creatively transformed work". Creative transformation only applies in the case of a reasonable-sized transformation, meaning you can't just paraphrase someone, that's still plagiarism.

http://www.copyright.gov/]]> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091118/0916136988.shtml#c112 Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:14:23 PST http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091118/0916136988.shtml#c112 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091118/0916136988.shtml#c100 Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:12:10 PST http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091118/0916136988.shtml#c100
By the way, did Elvis write any of his songs? Would he have been turned down at open mic night because of some stupid attitude about singing original songs? What do these folks think of: American Idol, the "Rock Band" game, etc.?]]> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091106/0128326820.shtml#c210 Sat, 7 Nov 2009 04:09:32 PST http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091106/0128326820.shtml#c210 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091014/1508516536.shtml#c287 Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:48:09 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091014/1508516536.shtml#c287 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090920/2210116251.shtml#c84 Wed, 23 Sep 2009 05:16:09 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090920/2210116251.shtml#c84 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090914/1801436187.shtml#c17 Thu, 17 Sep 2009 07:26:50 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090914/1801436187.shtml#c17
Music video games are an issue because in the game, NOT creating music is the solution to the game's obstacles. This (NOT creating music) is behavior you don't want kids to emulate (i.e. you want kids TO create music or at least to value the creation of music).]]> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090827/0330346020.shtml#c53 Fri, 28 Aug 2009 04:43:19 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090827/0330346020.shtml#c53 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090807/0245345800.shtml#c48 Fri, 7 Aug 2009 07:22:24 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090807/0245345800.shtml#c48