Economic
and Game Theory
Hall of Shame
Sony-BMG: The Sony-BMG fiasco has demolished one argument for obtaining music legally rather than illegally over P2P networks. The RIAA advises against using file sharing networks because "file-sharers’ computers are vulnerable to
the viruses infecting other machines on the P2P networks." Leaving aside just how great this vulnerability is - F-Secure reports that there are no viruses to infect MP3 audio files - Sony-BMG has handily demolished this argument by planting its own malware on users computers.
[Posted at 11/29/2005 05:46 PM by David K. Levine 
]
via slashdot
Microsoft has patented the
idea that "a user may discover and navigate among hyperlinks through the use of a keyboard." Even if you thought the CIA and FBI are completely and utterly incompetent, you have to grant that U.S. Patent Office takes first prize. There is a rather significant missing reference to prior art in the application: the Lynx character based web browser. For obvious reasons (no mouse) this browser has always navigated among links using the keyboard - using in fact the same tab key cited in the Microsoft Patent. Two seconds research with Google (do you suppose the U.S. Patent Office owns a web browser and has heard of Google?) turns up the following history of Lynx: it was released in March 1993. Now the first web browser was released only in March 1991, while Internet Explorer was first released on August 23rd, 1995. So it seems mighty unlikely that Microsoft submitted this patent application prior to the introduction (and widespread usage of) Lynx. Shouldn't this intentional overlooking of widely available prior art be considered a form of patent fraud?
[Posted at 09/05/2004 09:51 AM by David K. Levine ]
via Slashdot
Now Microsoft has patented the
todolist. What next? Are they going to patent the handwritten note?
[Posted at 06/08/2004 05:49 PM by David K. Levine ]
courtesy of Microsoft
The natural successor to Amazon's "one-click" patent.
United States Patent 6,727,830, the "double-click" patent: "Still another function can be launched if the application button is pressed multiple times within a short period of time, e.g., double click."
[Posted at 06/05/2004 11:05 AM by David K. Levine ]
via Slashdot
Microsoft patents onscreen lists
[Posted at 06/04/2003 07:16 PM by David K. Levine ]
Halloween from www.youmaybenext.com
"Pangea Intellectual Properties (PANIP
LLC) is suing companies all across the country.
They claim that if you use graphical and
textural information on a video screen for
purposes of making a sale, then you are infringing
on their patent. US Patent No 5,576,951.
And if you accept information to conduct
automatic financial transactions via a telephone
line & video screen, you're infringing
on their patent. US Patent No. 6,289,319."
[Also see below May 13, 2002]
[Posted at 10/31/2002 07:17 PM by David K. Levine ]
from Yahoo!News
"Medals, Not Money, Recommended for
Organ Donors." Curious to learn the
ethical rationale why doctors, hospitals,
private corporations, etc. should profit
from organ donations, while the owners of
the organs should not, I looked on the web
for the original New England Journal of Medicine article. I did not, however, read it, discovering that the NEJM wants to charge $10 to read
this ethical masterpiece online. Update July
10, 2002: according to this article, it is worth every penny of it.
[Posted at 06/19/2002 07:18 PM by David K. Levine ]
The real pirates - Pangea Intellectual Properties
[Posted at 05/13/2002 07:23 PM by David K. Levine ]
from Paul Stack
"Dear Mr. Murphy. I represent Agfa Monotype
Corporation and International Typeface Corporation.
The program you are distributing on your
website which allows a person to change the
embedding restrictions on a font has been
brought to my attention. The distribution
of this program, whether for free or for
a fee, infringes my client's federal copyrights
in their TrueType programs." See Tom Murphy's page for the entire correspondence and see what
is wrong with (1) the DMCA, (2) the legal
system.
[Posted at 05/01/2002 07:24 PM by David K. Levine ]
From the Authors Guild:
"Dear Mr. Bezos:
We are writing ... to express our grave concern
that Amazon’s new method of marketing used
copies of recently published titles will
significantly harm sales of new copies of
those titles."
[Posted at 04/16/2002 07:29 PM by David K. Levine ]
