Red Monkey 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (75) comment rss

  • On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive

    Red Monkey ( profile ), 12 Jul, 2010 @ 05:17am

    Re: Re: Re: no incentive to create

    Well, that may be true but it sure didn't happen in this case. People just kept copying the same old Korean tacos. Here, people didn't "stop copying and start actually thinking"...

  • On the post: Libraries Worried About Potential Supreme Court Ruling Concerning Legality Of Selling Imported Omega Watches

    Red Monkey ( profile ), 12 Jul, 2010 @ 05:14am

    Re:

    I don't get it. Why not? None of that stuff relates to section 109 anyway.

  • On the post: Libraries Worried About Potential Supreme Court Ruling Concerning Legality Of Selling Imported Omega Watches

    Red Monkey ( profile ), 12 Jul, 2010 @ 05:12am

    Re: Re:

    Wouldn't the plaintiff have the burden of establishing that the library's books were NOT purchased domestically?

  • On the post: Libraries Worried About Potential Supreme Court Ruling Concerning Legality Of Selling Imported Omega Watches

    Red Monkey ( profile ), 12 Jul, 2010 @ 03:46am

    liability for discarding a watch

    The first sale section of the copyright act, 109(a) says that if you own a copyrighted item "lawfully made under this title", then you don't need to ask the copyright owner's permission "to sell or otherwise dispose of possession" of that item.

    So read literally, if you own one of those Omega watches in dispute, and if you construe 109(a) to NOT apply to those watches because, having been made abroad, they were not "lawfully made under this title", then if the watch breaks, you would need Omega's permission to discard it.

  • On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive

    Red Monkey ( profile ), 12 Jul, 2010 @ 03:12am

    Re: Re: no incentive to create

    You're making up stuff up that isn't in the article. It doesn't say the trucks are doing anything new. They are just copying the same old thing.

    Besides, just because a copy is slightly different from the original doesn't mean there's innovation going on. A fake Gucci and a real one aren't identical to the last stitch, but there's no innovation in making a counterfeit.

  • On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive

    Red Monkey ( profile ), 12 Jul, 2010 @ 03:05am

    Re: Re: no incentive to create

    That's old hat. According to the article, some guy sells Korean tacos from his Kogi truck, and the next thing that happens, everyone is copying.

    By the way, you're assuming that Kogi guy actually invented this new taco. The article doesn't say that. How do you know he didn't copy it from someone else?

    Now if Kogi had some protection, those other guys would pay him a small royalty. And instead of wasting his time selling tacos, he could go back to inventing new foods.

  • On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive

    Red Monkey ( profile ), 12 Jul, 2010 @ 02:57am

    Re: Re: growing your business

    Will you get over this copyright thing? You can't even get a copyright on food. Go read the statute itself. Which part of section 102 would food fit into?

    And by the way, what is the specific law that punishes this thing you called fraud on these facts? The Lanham Act. Oh, isn't that the same Act that governs trademarks? Darn, I guess Congress conflated IP and fraud again.

    Go study some law or something.

  • On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive

    Red Monkey ( profile ), 12 Jul, 2010 @ 02:51am

    Re: Re: no incentive to create

    Nothing hinders the innovation, what gets hindered is business development. Whose going to feel safe giving you money to build a business when they know copying is a threat?

  • On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive

    Red Monkey ( profile ), 12 Jul, 2010 @ 02:51am

    Re:

    Nothing hinders the innovation, what gets hindered is business development. Whose going to feel safe giving you money to build a business when they know copying is a threat?

  • On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive

    Red Monkey ( profile ), 12 Jul, 2010 @ 02:45am

    Re: Re: no incentive to create

    What? Do you have a learning disability?...Where's the innovation? All I see is lots more of the same old Korean Taco?

  • On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive

    Red Monkey ( profile ), 11 Jul, 2010 @ 05:33pm

    Re: Re: no incentive to create

    Sure they'll copy. The only question is will they copy for free, or will they pay to copy.

    Exhibit B: Laws for dealing with reality

  • On the post: Andy Grove Suggests US Protectionism For Tech Jobs

    Red Monkey ( profile ), 11 Jul, 2010 @ 04:41pm

    Protectionism

    "Corporations need to keep in mind where they are based and quit behaving like vampires attached to some some sleeping peon"

    Give them a break. They have no choice. Directors in a corporation have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder profit by any legal means necessary. Even if had a conscience, a director cannot exercise it contrary to the interests of the shareholders. This is a fundamental organic problem to corporations. They are like juggernauts that exist only to fulfill their prime directive: increase shareholder wealth.

    When corporations were first invented many centuries ago, I don't think anybody foresaw this happening. But don't criticize the corporation: it is just a machine programmed to do a job, and it does it almost too well. I would view a corporation as the legal equivalent of a robot running amok, because it hasn't been built with Asimov's three laws of robotics.

  • On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive

    Red Monkey ( profile ), 11 Jul, 2010 @ 04:32pm

    no incentive to create

    OK, I took your advice and re-read it and found this bizarro quote:

    "But what happened next is quite interesting. Throughout LA (and now around the country) there's been an explosion of Korean taco trucks. And, it's not just limited to trucks. As the article notes, the large chain Baja Fresh is now offering Korean tacos as well. Believers in strong copyright have trouble explaining why this happens. According to them, without copyright as an "incentive to create" people won't innovate because they can't be rewarded, but that's not what's happening at all:"

    Well duh, this is not people innovating, it's people copying! This is EXACTLY what absence of copyright would predict. Then the article goes on to say:

    ""In fact, if someone can copy you, you have incentives to keep innovating and adding extra value that the buyer can only get from you"

    Well, where is all this innovation? All we hear about is more Korean taco trucks all over the country doing the same old thing.The only thing different is that some people have taken to selling them in restaurants instead of trucks. Big deal.

  • On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive

    Red Monkey ( profile ), 11 Jul, 2010 @ 03:52pm

    Niall

    The thrust of the article seemed to be that food was boring before, and better now, and it was all because you couldn't copyright food. So I just went with that assumption. Actually I'm sure food was just fine 100 years ago. Anyway, if you're hungry, whether it's today or 100 years ago, most food seems pretty interesting. Maybe the whole premise of the article is wrong.

  • On the post: Andy Grove Suggests US Protectionism For Tech Jobs

    Red Monkey ( profile ), 11 Jul, 2010 @ 02:54pm

    ""The market" is often a fig leaf that politicians and business leaders use"

    Yes, and everybody else uses "the market" as a fig leaf to avoid having to think too much. So many posts degenerate into "the market says this" and "the market says that" as if it were some sort of higher power we were obliged to genuflect to.

    "Even whilst the leaders of politics and business were being dragged into more egalitarian and democratic structures in their own countries they were allowing (encouraging)oppressive and very unequal regimes to persist in the 3rd world countries."

    Yes! It's the law of karma being played out on a national level. We are just reaping what we have sown.

  • On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive

    Red Monkey ( profile ), 11 Jul, 2010 @ 02:02pm

    @124

    nameless

    Why are you talking about open source all of a sudden? @124 concerns a taco business not a software provider.

    And if shipping pre-processed food is so cheap and smaller store, like our taco guy can buy with the times, how do you explain cheap fast food? Why is the cheapest burger in town from macdonalds?

  • On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive

    Red Monkey ( profile ), 11 Jul, 2010 @ 01:59pm

    @111

    OK nameless, you can try that sales pitch to the banker. But you'd be a lot more likely to close the deal if you could say "by the way, in addition to all that, I can assure you that nobody can copy my products." You have to admit that by taking away this protection, you've made it a little bit harder for the guy to get his loan. Why do you want to make it any harder for small business than it already is?

    Like you say, small business drives the economy, investors and banks drive small business, and there's nothing like some kind of intellectual property protection to make those guys have a warm feeling about providing the capital you, the small business, needs to "drive the economy" like you say.

    Small business needs all the help it can get.

  • On the post: Andy Grove Suggests US Protectionism For Tech Jobs

    Red Monkey ( profile ), 11 Jul, 2010 @ 11:25am

    reaching equilibrium soone

    "The playing field will only be leveled if the tariffs go the workers of the third-world countries, so that they can have pensions, health-care and 27 different flavors of jelly bean in the cafetaria."

    Actually that would be great. I just didn't voice it out 'cause I thought it'd be too radical for this group. Seems to me all these nation states with their borders ought to be a thing of the past already. It's weird to allow goods to cross borders but not labor. One step at a time I guess...

  • On the post: Andy Grove Suggests US Protectionism For Tech Jobs

    Red Monkey ( profile ), 11 Jul, 2010 @ 10:50am

    on adding value

    SHEDLY

    Richard does not have to provide an opinion on the value of the various workers you list. If one believes in the free market (which everyone around here seems to worship unconditionally), then you can't argue with the fact that this precious free market has opted to pay those people considerable amounts for their value added. Thus the burden is on you to show why the omniscient free market of yours has made a mistake in this special case, but is somehow correct when it comes to importing goods made by labor that is as close to being slave labor as it is possible to get without crossing the line.

  • On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive

    Red Monkey ( profile ), 11 Jul, 2010 @ 10:15am

    growing your business

    OK, ley's leave the TM issue aside as it sounds like you believe in the status quo on TM law. and focus on food patents (I hope we can all agree that you can't get copyright on food because it doesn't fit in one of the 8 categories in section 102 of the copyright statute).

    It sounds like you are comfortable with the idea that Taco Bell could use J. Random's taco recipe and incorporate it into its own menu. In your view, this is a good thing because it would allow people nationwide to enjoy J. Random's tacos without having to wait around for J. Random to grow his own business. Is this the case?

    I don't see what's wrong with a simple straw-man. If your proposed system of running the economy can't even manage to deal with a simple straw-man in a satisfactory way, it sure wouldn't work too well in a complex problem.

    By the way, there is a body of law called unfair competition, mostly based on the Lanham Act.

Next >>