Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Fri, 25 Feb 2011 06:03:00 PST Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110223/01463713218/how-reasonable-andy-stopped-nprs-lawyers-threatening-fan-actually-connected-with-him.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110223/01463713218/how-reasonable-andy-stopped-nprs-lawyers-threatening-fan-actually-connected-with-him.shtml recent video by a social media person at NPR, about how the broadcaster got control over their Facebook fan page that had been set up by a fan: Basically, this guy -- Geoff Campbell -- noticed that NPR didn't have a Facebook fan page. He emailed NPR about it and offered to set it up, and all he got back was a random "thanks for emailing us" note, which he took to mean "sure, go for it." It took some time, but eventually, NPR noticed the fan page and the lawyers freaked out, thinking that they needed to send him a cease-and-desist letter. However, as the video notes "along came 'Reasonable Andy'," who isn't named in the video, but is Andy Carvin, NPR's longtime social media guru who knows his way around the digital world better than most folks. Andy, smartly, told NPR to hold back on the legal threats, and just reached out to Geoff in a friendly manner, and a transfer of the Facebook group in a reasonable manner was arranged (though, Geoff insists that he never received any promised coffee mug). Some will note that there's nothing "remarkable" about this story. However, we still live in an age where so many organizations reach for the legal threats first, rather than seeking a friendly discussion on matters -- especially in cases where it's obviously a "fan" who is trying to help. So, it seems worth posting stories like this to try to spread the idea of holding off on the legal threats as the immediate response.

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]]> nice-to-see... http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110223/01463713218 Tue, 5 Oct 2010 07:47:00 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101004/12314211280/apple-ordered-to-pay-over-600-million-for-patent-infringement-of-cover-flow.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101004/12314211280/apple-ordered-to-pay-over-600-million-for-patent-infringement-of-cover-flow.shtml "stolen" the technology behind three of its offerings: cover flow, spotlight and time machine, because a Yale spinoff company, Mirror Worlds, had sued Apple for patent infringement. The original lawsuit covered four patents:

• 6,006,227: Document stream operating system
• 6,638,313: Document stream operating system
• 6,725,427: Document stream operating system with document organizing and display facilities
• 6,768,999: Enterprise, stream-based, information management system

The Yale article only takes the side of Yale computer science professor David Gelernter, who whines about not getting "credit" for his brilliant invention. Either that, or perhaps (just perhaps) multiple people were able to come up with the same basic ideas. This is what's so frustrating about reporting on patent issues. Everyone likes to report on how ideas were "stolen," when the vast majority of cases involve independent invention (often of obvious ideas).

This case went quickly, and amazingly the court has ordered Apple to pay over $600 million, claiming that it infringed on three of the patents and that it has to pay over $200 million for each of the three products that infringed. Apple is appealing, noting that, at the very least, charging $200 million on each product is, in effect, "triple dipping."

What's left unsaid is the blatant insanity of having to pay anywhere near $200 million for the way in which you display CD covers in iTunes. How anyone can see such a verdict and not think the patent system is horribly, horribly broken is beyond me.

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