Smalltalk with James Robertson

I love the latest class action suit against Apple over the exclusivity deal with AT&T - claiming monopoly status (Android, anyone?) is dumb enough, but this?

The latest lawsuit, filed on July 8, argues that iPhone customers who signed a two-year agreement with AT&T were in effect locked into a five-year contract with AT&T, due to the exclusivity contract between the two companies.

Apparently, part of being a trial lawyer involves willful ignorance. Someone go find the lawyers involved and hand them an unlocked (possible after your 2 year contract is up) iPhone on T-Mobile. With any luck, their tiny little heads will explode....

Technorati Tags: stupidity, iPhone

Tort lawyers doing what they do best: subtracting value:

The lawsuit was filed by Ward & Ward, PLLC and Charles A. Gilman, LLC. on behalf of Kevin McCaffrey, Linda Wrinn and a number of other iPhone 4 users. It is not the same iPhone 4 class action lawsuit currently said to be in the works by the California law firm that sued Facebook and Zynga.

I can't say I've run across this problem myself. It's been reported too widely to not be real, but it doesn't seem all that serious to me.

Technorati Tags: stupidity, apple, iPhone

I really dislike this aspect of the legal system - trial lawyers who go fishing for cases:

Kershaw, Cutter & Ratinoff, LLP is looking for people who "recently purchased the new iPhone and have experienced poor reception quality, dropped calls and weak signals." That's the same firm that filed a federal class action suit over deceptive "offer" ads in games like Mafia Wars and Farmville.

The "beneficiaries" in these sorts of cases get little or nothing; the lawyers, on the other hand, pocket millions for "helping" the rest of us. The worst part is that their "help" usually results in higher prices. All firms like this do is subtract value - everywhere they go, things get worse.

Viacom loses their ridiculous suit against YouTube:

Today, the court granted our motion for summary judgment in Viacom’s lawsuit with YouTube. This means that the court has decided that YouTube is protected by the safe harbor of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) against claims of copyright infringement. The decision follows established judicial consensus that online services like YouTube are protected when they work cooperatively with copyright holders to help them manage their rights online.

I'm sure it didn't help when it came out that Viacom's marketing staff were uploading material as fast as their lawyers were issuing takedown notices...

Technorati Tags: copyright

I see that Microsoft is suing Salesforce - get a load out of two of the supposed infringements:

The patents cover a variety of back-end and user interface features, ranging from one covering a "system and method for providing and displaying a Web page having an embedded menu" to another that covers a "method and system for stacking toolbars in a computer display."

The real question in cases like this is simple: what complete idiot at the US PTO granted those patents? I think it's high time that the entire concept of software patents just went away. Their only use seems to be as weapons.

Technorati Tags: patents, stupidity

Apple may have gone too far with their development restrictions for the iPhone/iPad - there's a story in the NY Post claiming that the feds may be looking into those policies on anti-competitive grounds:

According to a person familiar with the matter, the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are locked in negotiations over which of the watchdogs will begin an antitrust inquiry into Apple's new policy of requiring software developers who devise applications for devices such as the iPhone and iPad to use only Apple's programming tools.

I thought the efforts against Microsoft were silly, and I think this is too - the market will (eventually) deal with Apple if they have gone too far. However, that's simply my opinion. Apple should be more worried about what the folks at Justice and the FTC think.

Technorati Tags: apple, iPhone, iPad

I haven't paid much attention to the H.264 patent issues, but perhaps I should have - according to CS News, the license for H.264 encoded video is insane:

As I explained above, the problem CAN NOT be fixed by simply exporting your footage using OGV Theora, because by the time you decided you want to charge for your video, or upload it on a free streaming site with ads, or you used a non-licensed *decoder* to edit it, you're already liable. In fact, you've already made your decision which route to take by the moment you pressed that "REC" button on your camera! Theora (and any other Free codec) only helps you in one small part of the licensing minefield that MPEG-LA has setup in the last 20 years. It doesn't protect you in the whole chain of creation-editing-exporting-sharing, which is how MPEG-LA has locked us in for good.

If their reasoning is right, most people who have shot video and uploaded it to YouTube (et. al.) are in violation - because the streaming ads push it off "non-commercial and personal". Maybe, I don't know. Certainly if you charge for video in any way you could have a problem.

On the other hand, I can't see how the patent owners would enforce this now. Doesn't mean they won't try though - witness the idiots at the RIAA and MPAA....

Technorati Tags: video, patents

Is it just me, or does it appear that California law enforcement has hopped all over the Gizmodo/iPhone thing in a way that the average homeowner who spots his stolen stuff at a flea market can only dream about?

Technorati Tags: apple, theft

I love this level of commentary on the court ruling against the FCC having the authority to create "net neutrality" laws - from PC World:

Some net neutrality advocates said the ruling raises broad questions about the FCC's authority to take any actions not spelled out in law.

Call me crazy, but I thought that's how regulatory agencies were supposed to operate - within the confines of the law. If not, why should we even bother having elections?

Technorati Tags: net neutrality, fcc

I agree with Alain Reynaud that seventeen years is way, way too long a time period for a software patent, but I think seven years (his proposed interval) is also too long:

The problem, you see, is their length. Seventeen years of monopoly is an eternity in Internet time. Instead, software patents should only be valid for seven years.

Seven Years ago we didn't have Twitter or Facebook - which means that a patent (like the newsfeed one Facebook wants) would still be around (if granted today) in 2016 - still an eternity in internet terms.

No, I have a more radical notion: no software patents, period. Let competition take care of the problem. Big companies won't "rull the roost" under such a system; as happens right now, they'll still mostly go the M&A route to innovate. What would disappear is patent trolls.

Technorati Tags: patents