 |
 |
A friend of mine predicted this a decade ago. He told me the tech industry was walking all over each other's patents and that as they consolidated there would be a patent war exactly like the one that resulted in RCA's monopoly of the late 1920s-early '50s. The problem is that better ideas (or better music) can't obtain the necessary investment to become fully realized and visible without patent and copyright protection. I think all intellectual property arguments come down to "I deserve protection for my intellectual property but you don't deserve protection for yours because needing to pay you will make my business less profitable." This is why I call arguments against copyright "selective socialism." And people's rationalizations for not paying are endless. As for Google, I can't imagine any cell phone that doesn't walk all over both Motorola and Nokia patents because Motorola invented the portable phone and Nokia invented the cell. This isn't rocket science and shouldn't be much of a surprise. Make no mistake about the fact that Google, Apple and Microsoft's "business model" all along has been a David Sarnoff style patent monopoly. I can assure you that ownership of "content" is also very much in their gun-sights as the mass-looting they've enabled devalues the existing media publishing industries to the point that they can be acquired for little or nothing. The only thing protecting individuals from these monopolies will be the copyright and patent laws. They really ought to be strengthened but the best government money can buy has been lobbied for weakening them by Silicon Valley investment bankers for over a decade using endless tales of "Evil Disney" and "copyright monopolies." Hopefully people will begin to wake up to the fact that these folks are really not our friends. Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined! 615.562.4346 http://www.bobolhsson.com http://audiomastery.com -----Original Message----- From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tom Fine Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2011 5:23 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [ARSCLIST] Morning reading: One take on patents, somewhat related to discussions we've had on copyrights, plus a take on copyrights http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/08/google-motorola-and-a -patent-war.html others would argue that the patent system is fine, it ain't broke, that the whole point is for closely-related ideas to fight it out in courts, with the patents being the guide for those deciding the cases. More directly related to what we discuss on this list: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/arts/music/springsteen-and-others-soon-eli gible-to-recover-song-rights.html -- Tom Fine