Arthur D. Hlavaty

1. Judge grants Happy Birthday lawyers $4.6M, citing “unusually positive results”

2. Photographer Sues Getty Images for $1 Billion for Claiming Copyright on Photos She Donated to the Public

Thanx to andrewducker

The TV networks are suing DISH Networks for making it too easy to skip the commercials. They are calling it "copyright infringement," which makes no more sense than calling it "metaphysical sodomy" or "mopery with intent to gawk" but gets fewer cruel snickers.

It appears to be impossible to sell intellectual property.* The only way is to fasten it to something you can sell, like a physical book or disk. Failing that, one attaches it to advertising, which can be sold, but the problem with that is that nobody wants to watch the commercials.

Maybe that's why the Facebook IPO was disappointing: Facebook hasn't figured out how to force us to look at the ads.

*"She still believes in classical economics, the allocation of resources under scarcity. Information doesn't work that way."--Charles Stross, Accelerando

Link thanx to Making Light, which makes other good points about it.

Culture is anti-rivalrous.

Thanx to andrewducker

Is Copyright Broken?

Thanx to wild_irises