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Kickstarter being sued for patent infringment.

pcworld.com

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Re: Kickstarter being sued for patent infringment.

#11

Post by phillmv »

rkalla wrote: post #8

I am going to take an unpopular stance here... I think. When patents are enforced by big legal entities, we all scream foul, "Patents are meant to protect the little guy, not make lawyers rich!" Now we have a musician (a "little guy") suing a much loved successful startup... and we are still screaming, but instead of "Stop the lawyers!" we are yelling "Stop the hipster artists!" (at least lhnn was). If this musician…

I think you may have misunderstood the average complaint.

The complaint isn't about little guy vs big companies, it's about bullshit patents. A big company using a bullshit patent to squeeze out a little guy is just the most egregious example of bullshit.

In this case, it's less so that it's a "hipster artist", but it's more that he's a "douchebag artist" with a bullshit patent. Bullshit patents cost all of us money by distracting people from doing awesome stuff.

Re: Kickstarter being sued for patent infringment.

#12

Post by Symmetry »

rkalla wrote: post #8

I am going to take an unpopular stance here... I think. When patents are enforced by big legal entities, we all scream foul, "Patents are meant to protect the little guy, not make lawyers rich!" Now we have a musician (a "little guy") suing a much loved successful startup... and we are still screaming, but instead of "Stop the lawyers!" we are yelling "Stop the hipster artists!" (at least lhnn was). If this musician…

Wait, you're accusing Hacker News of only caring about bad patents when the victim is an underdog, but you're using as your example a case where the person doing the suing is in fact much smaller than the entity being sued?

If you're going to accuse people being driven by unconsidered emotions, perhaps you could come up with an example that suits your case?

Re: Kickstarter being sued for patent infringment.

#13

Post by spolsky »

Kickstarter is lucky that the America Invents Act that Congress just rammed through includes a porkbarrel clause that Sen. Chuck Schumer stuck in for the banks, making it much much easier to challenge business method patents in the finance industry. (Source: http://www.jdsupra.com/post/documentViewer.aspx?fid=b967fda5...) "For purposes of this section, the term ‘‘covered business method patent’’ means a patent that claims a method or corresponding apparatus for performing data processing or other operations used in the practice, administration, or management of a financial product or service"

Re: Kickstarter being sued for patent infringment.

#14

Post by dynamichype »

sixtofour wrote: post #10
mcantelon wrote: post #6

Given that the legal system's unlikely to change, as long as IP lobbyists pay off politicians, I'd like to see Anonymous take on the project of compiling the personal details of these parasites.

Personal details lead to personal relationships, which then can lead to innocents being hurt. Not cool.

Innocents will only be hurt during the transitional period before they learn that they should avoid relationships with patent trolls for the same collateral risk reasons they avoid befriending gang members, child-molesters, and other anti-socials.

Re: Kickstarter being sued for patent infringment.

#15

Post by rkalla »

Symmetry wrote: post #12
rkalla wrote: post #8

I am going to take an unpopular stance here... I think. When patents are enforced by big legal entities, we all scream foul, "Patents are meant to protect the little guy, not make lawyers rich!" Now we have a musician (a "little guy") suing a much loved successful startup... and we are still screaming, but instead of "Stop the lawyers!" we are yelling "Stop the hipster artists!" (at least lhnn was). If this musician…

Wait, you're accusing Hacker News of only caring about bad patents when the victim is an underdog, but you're using as your example a case where the person doing the suing is in fact much smaller than the entity being sued? If you're going to accuse people being driven by unconsidered emotions, perhaps you could come up with an example that suits your case?

Underdog was probably the wrong choice for the code snippet, surely you understood my point was popular-vs-unpopular.

Re: Kickstarter being sued for patent infringment.

#16

Post by ralphsaunders »

iamdave wrote: post #5
lhnn wrote: post #2

What a damned foolish patent. "Methods and apparatuses for financing and marketing a creative work" http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=MNgFAQAAEBAJ Some hipster artist ("hipster" being an appropriate word here) sues a successful implementation of an offshoot of an idea he had 8 years ago, and then says, "As an artist myself, I feel that KickStarter may be hurting artist by focusing on 'donating money' rather than…

I'm sure this is going to be a very unpopular stance, because it's been unpopular almost every time I've asked it: Why do artists assume that every instance of something that doesn't involve the typical exchange of work for money is somehow harming their industry? The most vocal of these people are those 'No-Spec' who thinks sites like 99designs are invariably killing everything they stand for. It reeks of that same…

Design and art aren't really viewed by most designers and artists as a commodity, which is what sites similar to 99 designs try to put accross.

99 designs and similar are at the very low end of the market and the argument is that it becomes harder for skilled designers/artists to find high-paying work as more companies opt for the cheap route. There are more reasons to hate it from a designer's/artist's point of view, but that's the core of it.

That said, kickstarter certainly doesn't fit in that category, if anything it brings more paying work to designers/artists.

Re: Kickstarter being sued for patent infringment.

#17

Post by nickpinkston »

iamdave wrote: post #5
lhnn wrote: post #2

What a damned foolish patent. "Methods and apparatuses for financing and marketing a creative work" http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=MNgFAQAAEBAJ Some hipster artist ("hipster" being an appropriate word here) sues a successful implementation of an offshoot of an idea he had 8 years ago, and then says, "As an artist myself, I feel that KickStarter may be hurting artist by focusing on 'donating money' rather than…

I'm sure this is going to be a very unpopular stance, because it's been unpopular almost every time I've asked it: Why do artists assume that every instance of something that doesn't involve the typical exchange of work for money is somehow harming their industry? The most vocal of these people are those 'No-Spec' who thinks sites like 99designs are invariably killing everything they stand for. It reeks of that same…

Hear hear! It's funny how some artists are so conservative about their own industry...

Re: Kickstarter being sued for patent infringment.

#18

Post by rkalla »

phillmv wrote: post #11
rkalla wrote: post #8

I am going to take an unpopular stance here... I think. When patents are enforced by big legal entities, we all scream foul, "Patents are meant to protect the little guy, not make lawyers rich!" Now we have a musician (a "little guy") suing a much loved successful startup... and we are still screaming, but instead of "Stop the lawyers!" we are yelling "Stop the hipster artists!" (at least lhnn was). If this musician…

I think you may have misunderstood the average complaint. The complaint isn't about little guy vs big companies, it's about bullshit patents . A big company using a bullshit patent to squeeze out a little guy is just the most egregious example of bullshit. In this case, it's less so that it's a "hipster artist", but it's more that he's a "douchebag artist" with a bullshit patent. Bullshit patents cost all of us money…

  > In this case, it's less so that it's a "hipster artist", 
  but it's more that he's a "douchebag artist" with a 
  bullshit patent. Bullshit patents cost all of us money by 
  distracting people from doing awesome stuff.
All you did was validate my point (as annoyed is that is going to make you)... this sentence is dripping with preconceptions about both the person trying to assert their patent and the patent itself, neither of which I assume you are intimately familiar with.

If I took the identical scenario and replaced "douchebag artist" with Sergey Brin or Steve Jobs and left all other facts the same (the same patent, the same timeline, the same lawsuit) this discussion looks A LOT different.

Now you have people asserting the patent validity and how it overlaps with X and infringes on Y, but with some easily dismissable artist at the helm, most people have the same response you do -- shove him into a socially defined box and throw it all out the window as bullshit antics of some random douchebag wearing a hemp necklace.

All of these discussions are bullshit - they produce nothing except strife and accomplish nothing.

Re: Kickstarter being sued for patent infringment.

#20

Post by nickpinkston »

dynamichype wrote: post #14
sixtofour wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal details lead to personal relationships, which then can lead to innocents being hurt. Not cool.

Innocents will only be hurt during the transitional period before they learn that they should avoid relationships with patent trolls for the same collateral risk reasons they avoid befriending gang members, child-molesters, and other anti-socials.

This. We have a bubble in dubious relationships not being properly exposed: from patent trolls, to wealth financial scammers, etc. If you play with fire - be prepared to get burned. Let's hoping Anonymous and others can help burst this bubble.
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