According to videogame patent lawyer Kirk Sigmon, the USPTO granting Nintendo these latest patents isn’t just a moment of questionable legal theory. It’s an indictment of American patent law.
“Broadly, I don’t disagree with the many online complaints about these Nintendo patents,” said Sigmon, whose opinions do not represent those of his firm and clients. “They have been an embarrassing failure of the US patent system.”
Copyright and patent laws need to die.
Anyone who doesn’t understand this is a useful idiot.
Current system is obviously broken, but you don’t believe that artists and creators should have a right to control their intellectual property at all?
And yes, intellectual property is real whether you want it to be or not. And it’s not necessarily about money, but about controlling what can be done with your work.
For example, Bruce Springsteen should 100% be allowed to tell Trump to fuck off and stop using his music at rallys.
What would be the mechanism to do that without IP?
I do believe that.
Intellectual property leads to all kind of unfairness. It should be normalized that artist would be paid for the work done, nor for property ownership.
This adds to some other believes about people shouldn’t be paid just for “property ownership”.
And once the art is done and released is part of human race, that does include terrible human beings, but it also includes absolutely everyone else.
Some other argument for this… For instance, being an artist is one of the jobs with biggest pay disparity, from the poorest of them all to some of the richest. That’s a normal output of basing income on property ownership, things snowball once you have enough property.
I don’t think there’s a way to make private property (physical or intelectual) work in a fair economy. And remember, private property is not the same as personal property, just in case.
I do think the world of art would get much better and more diverse if we got rid of property as a way to measure revenue and put work in the center as a way to measure how much we should pay each artist.
It’s imaginary property. It’s not real and only exists in our heads. Saying someone stole your “intellectual property” is akin to saying they “stole your idea.”
It is about the money, as well. Nobody should be able to own an idea.
Bruce Springsteen will just have to grow up and get over it.
So just no music business then?
No movies. No TV shows. No comics…
No art, no poetry, no video games. . .
IMO creators should have better protections - the current laws don’t seem to stop AI gobbling up their work. But at the same time this Nintendo thing is obviously bullshit. I’m surprised the court * allowed it. Probably a decision made by a very old Christian man who doesn’t understand what games are and can’t use a smartphone.
* Oops decision was made by patent office who really should know better
Yeah it’s clearly broken. But there is a complete lack of nuance in these “get rid of IP and copyright completely (and if you disagree you’re an idiot)” arguments. They’re just supremely unhelpful.
Yep I’m right there with you. Artists of all types should be entitled to the proceeds of their work. Also, if I were creative and something I’d created was plagiarised, I’d be unhappy about that too. Just because a big company abuses a system doesn’t mean it shouldn’t protect individuals.
They don’t seem to be protecting creators from getting their work subsumed by AI, so they’re clearly not fit for purpose. But I do think there needs to be some protection for artists and creators, it’s just that either the present laws are shit or the courts can be bought.