Anti Piracy
Secrete accord on anti-piracy?
There is now discussions between countries like the US, EU, Japan and Canada to forge out a common agreement to arrest the issues of counterfeiting of computer games program. It is however a very hush hush meeting and not much is reported. They are trying to work out an agreement called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement or ACTA.
At issues are the copyright and intellectual property trade agreements and the main lobbyist for such an agreement is the people from the Recording Industries Association of America, Motion Picture Association of America, Entertainment Software Association, and International Intellectual Property Alliance. Among the issues that are of concern is the inclusion of portions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) which might curtail usage of software. There are also lobbyist from the Entertainment Consumer Association, Consumer Electronic Association, US Internet Industry Association, Intel and others who are concerned with the inclusion of clauses of the infamous DCMA and its regards to accepted US laws.
Let’s see whether ‘u’ also play fair, yah!
Right from the beginning of year 2001 up to end 2008, Chinese companies have been increasingly filing their intellectual properties in the US as part of their role of being the factory to the world. And why not, since most of the goods are bought by Americans. Moreover, most of these companies have US shareholders and it would be foolish not to register their patents and trademarks with USPTO (US Patent and Trademark Office). For some time now, Chinese companies have been aggressively scouring for ideas from the US patent office. They then twist those ideas around, adding more features to it, and finally turning out products that are good enough to have their patents filed at USPTO!
And finally, it is time to test whether the Americans will play fair in their courtyards as well. It must be pointed out that there have been many complaints of Chinese companies ripping off US patents in Mainland China by resorting to outright counterfeit of American goods there. In part, it is true, but because China being a country that has progressed rapidly but without a good grounding in the legal structures, a lot of confusion was created. Obviously, there are good products from China that deserves to have their creations protected not only in China itself, but also in the other market places. And to test the pudding, Chinese companies are now bringing infringement cases right in the US courts against such companies like Wal-mart and Best Buys! The contention it seems are similar looking items made by, who else, another Chinese competitor. Looks like it is still early time for pickings!
July 19, 2009.
Pirate in UK
With a convincing win in the recent European Parliament election, the Swedish Pirate Party is setting its eyes for the UK general elections which are scheduled to be held before June 2010. How are they convinced that the generally conservative British electorates will give them their votes? Well, since their conviction for music piracy in a Swedish court in the beginning of 2009, there has been an up swell of support for their cause with the setting up of branches in 25 countries, majority of them in the EU.
Still, what exactly are they fighting for that is getting them loads of followers? According to their UK spokesman, Eric Priezkalns, they mainly want to change the present system of copyright regime. And their main complaint is that users of downloaded music and video files for personal use should be allowed as long as it is not for commercial uses. He stressed that p2p file down loaders are mostly doing it just to hear whether that music is worth buying or not. It must be make known that most music Cds that can be bought at the stores contained only a few good compilations with the rest are filled by worthless songs. It is something like being able to taste it before buying.
The emphasis is on music files as video disk seems to be played down. In the Pirate Party’s slogan, copy right laws are heavily protecting the rights of copyright holders. There is nothing left for the fair user, as even downloading a single music file to be stored for a backup constitutes an infringement, even though the user may have bought a copy! Here, the frustrations of users are valid because most of the music that they legally obtained comes with protection programs enabled, thus making copying it unto their MP3 players for personal use impossible.
Perhaps, the music companies might have underestimated the frustrations of consumers in their route to making their fortunes? And it is payback time! It seems that the issue is not only on copyrighted music laws, but also the issue of pharmaceutical patents. Patents are supposed to help protect the holders from other’s copying the product. Unfortunately, the prices of drugs, especially those that can be used for treating cancers and AIDS, are becoming prohibitive. Poor countries are finding that they are unable to buy these life saving medicines and have to resort to buying the generics from low cost production countries like India and China. To make matters worst, some of these generics destined for the poor have been confiscated while on transit. So the Pirate Party has vowed to change all that. Will they succeed?
August 15, 2009.
Exposing magic tricks to the public is tantamount to infringing intellectual property?
In normal circumstances, performing magic tricks in the public will garner applause from the audience. Magic tricks take a lot of practice and perfection to master and is a form of trade secret. Magicians can of course file it as a form of trade secret so that others cannot copy. But what happened when your secret is exposed by your audience and you did not file it as a trade secret with the authorities? This dilemma was faced by popular Taiwanese magician Liu Qian, who in a Chinese New Year television show, performed an act of using his hand to get through a glass table to retrieve some coins. Unfortunately for Liu, someone exposed his act within a short time and even posted the exposure on YouTube. Obviously Liu was infuriated and said exposing him is an act of infringing his intellectual property. In hindsight, he should have filed his trade secret with the intellectual property office, if not for preventing others from exposing the secret, then at least informing all and sundry that violators will have to face the law! Take a look at these two videos, one showing the magic act and the other the exposure and explanation of the magic trick. You can be sure to learn something from it.
The magic show of Liu Qian
Explanation of Liu's magic trick