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[Zangi]

Regarding companies like Disney, wouldn't Mickey Mouse (at least, the character itself, in name and design) still fall under trademark law? I'm not sure how relevant that is here.

Yes.

Trademarks are... problematic in a few ways. They have to be defended in every case otherwise they are considered abandoned. If some kid violates your copyright you have the choice of ignoring them. If the same kid violates your trademark and you let them get away with it, anyone else who chooses to use that trademark later can use your leniency as evidence you abandoned the mark and they can legally use it all they like.

The line where a trademark is genericized (eg, becomes a generic term rather than protected mark) is pretty vague. That tends to mean that particularly popular trademarks need to be especially aggressively defended and re-enforced. And that leads to often insane stuff like the recent Bethesda lawsuit over the use of 'Scrolls' in a game title.

I'm entirely sympathetic to the idea of protected trademarks, and have no idea how you would reform the system to make more sense, but it is fun how absurd all forms of IP can get right now.

This is probably one of the more cruddy ways to handle trademark, the fact that this stuff has to be aggressively defended or its lost.  Yea, I agree.  Having people copy your work is the highest form of advertising... heck, even a form of distribution like Youtube can bring in many customers. 
Your customers/fanbase is advertising for you, probably more effective then what you can do with an advertising budget of 'moderate' size on its own.


And didn't you guys know...? Medicine is for profit.  That there is what drives and hinders our pharmaceutical advancements. Companies have the incentive and power to not release a cure... but instead, offer pills/stuff over a long period of time. 
Isn't that how capitalism works?

[Nadaka]

For the patents, what I'd most like to see is a patent (and copyright for that matter) that is not developed, sold, published, distributed or manufactured in, say, some 6 month period, immediately lapses. It sickens me the number of companies that will buy up patents simply so no one else can use the technology against them, and they hope that by the time the patent expires the advantage it offers to the consumer and the country will be irrelevant.

That, in a word, is bullshit.

That isn't at all practical. A lot of inventions will take far more than 6 months to even develop their manufacturing process, much less acquire funding for it, negotiate with  producers and construct the necessary facilities.

[GlyphGryph]

Which is why I included active development as one of the things that could extend it, duh. If you have a better idea of how to counteract the patent abuse that is "acquire technology, squash technology", I'm up for hearing it.

[Nadaka]

copyright infringement is now religious expression: http://idle.slashdot.org/story/12/01/04/1817255/filesharing-now-an-official-religion-in-sweden

[Luke_Prowler]

copyright infringement is now religious expression: http://idle.slashdot.org/story/12/01/04/1817255/filesharing-now-an-official-religion-in-sweden

Praise to the Omnissiah

[Virex]

For the patents, what I'd most like to see is a patent (and copyright for that matter) that is not developed, sold, published, distributed or manufactured in, say, some 6 month period, immediately lapses. It sickens me the number of companies that will buy up patents simply so no one else can use the technology against them, and they hope that by the time the patent expires the advantage it offers to the consumer and the country will be irrelevant.

That, in a word, is bullshit.

I don't know about that one, some inventions cannot be applied right after patenting just because the technology to utilize it in a market environment it isn't available (say a chemical process that requires a certain type of reactor that isn't available yet, but that reactor is already in active development so it can't be used as a further development of the patent). So I guess it depends on how broad you define development here.


Also, the opposite happens too. Philips used to publish quite a bit in some backwater magazine that was only available in one landskreis of Germany IIRC. The reason for this was that if they came up with something that they could not put to good use (lacking production facilities of the right type for example) but which may be used by the competition, then publishing it would prevent others from patenting the invention, essentially making further development of that idea very unattractive. This would lead to situations in which a competitor had invested millions in developing and patenting a new technology, only for Philips to point out that they had missed a publication...

Which is why I included active development as one of the things that could extend it, duh. If you have a better idea of how to counteract the patent abuse that is "acquire technology, squash technology", I'm up for hearing it.

Increase the renewal fees? Set up a mandatory lease system so that if a technology isn't currently being applied, then the patent holder has to offer it up for lease at a fair rate, with that rate set by the governing patent office based on the development cost of the technology?

[MonkeyHead]

Oh those crazy sweedes...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16424659

[ChairmanPoo]

I want to move to Sweden, and hopefully marry some statuesque blonde...

[Dutchling]

There is (or was?) a Smokers Church in the Netherlands. They worshiped the Trinity of Smoke, Ash and Fire.
But this is awesome as well :P

[Nadaka]

This is what I mean by copyright (and its continuous extension) is theft of the public domain: http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/01/06/1749239/canadian-govt-considers-plan-to-block-public-domain

[Neonivek]

Its the same family of theft.

Though I guess it depends on the connotation you are using.

I love terms that seem VERY clear at first but then become really vague when you contemplate them.

Not that it really matters because without reading a single arguement I'd bet money that this isn't even a discussion if "Copyright Infringement is theft"... that is just what I call the "Cover arguement".

I am considering testing it but honestly just making this post is probably annoying people... and I am not so malicious.

[Luke_Prowler]

Actually, copyright infringement is it's own family, piracy being a specific example. It's more like the same order as theft

[Neonivek]

Actually, copyright infringement is it's own family, piracy being a specific example. It's more like the same order as theft

Well we could perform a gene test.