Today the European Court of Justice ruled that software is like a book. Once you buy it, you can lend it, you can resell it, you can light it on fire, you can lose it, you can laugh when it crashes your computer, and you can transfer it electronically. Although the Court was far too recondite to articulate the true implication of their ruling, the upshot really is that – at least in the EU – if you buy software, you “own” it.
Category: Technology
This category concerns itself primarily with high-tech innovation and how intellectual property law adapts — or fails to adapt to the changing demands of the modern world
Creative Copyrights
Many of us applauded the vision behind the Creative Commons project in the same way we applauded Open Source. When Larry Lessig came up with the idea for the Creative Commons, he intended to create an alternative licensing system that would solve the problems with copyright registration in the United States. While admirable, what he did in some respects served to enshrine the current copyright regime . . .
Live Nude Copyrights
For those of you who hate to subscribe to things but still have sufficient neurological juice left in your big big brains to remember short phrases, just open up your browser and type "Who Is Your Lawyer" in one of its myriad forms
Crazy Patents
All women should have 16 inch waists like Molly Bloom before she developed a taste for cream puffs. And men should, correspondingly . . . .
Bang! Bang! You’ve Been Upgraded
Genes. Not Lucky, not Levis, and certainly not your old childhood Wranglers. I'm referring to the scientific code, what the head of the Human Genome Project called The Language of God.
5 Equations That Changed The World
This is my shortlist of knowledge that cracked open the doors of discovery and let man step forward into the future. These also may be Booker Prize shortlist titles next year, with any luck.
Universally UNIX
Today, of course, UNIX is part of the infrastructure of the world; without UNIX the Internet would not function, telephone calls could not be made, and e-commerce would come to a screeching halt.