RIAA, Intertainer Playing Dirty

Two stories came out today that demonstrate just how easily it is to use the law and ignorance of others to gain wealth.

The first story is from the RIAA who having a high old time suing old ladies, the dead, and children in an effort to "protect" the musicians they supposedly represent. Of course when those musicians are suing them for various tactics, all it proves is the consumers and the creators have nothing to do with it. Its the record labels that are driving everything. We all know this but doesn't hurt to see it confirmed.

Any case, in UMG vs Lindor, someone realized that RIAA has been using some pretty wacky numbers in compiling its various reports about how much piracy is costing the music industry. Keep in mind that in saying X billions lost a year, that the numbers are based on higher then normal price for music, say $20-25 per CD, assumes sales number that probably wouldn't exist (say 1000000 copies would have sold instead of the 200000 that did of X title) and assumes that everything that was pirated would have been bought if the option wasn't available (you would bought the CD if couldn't have downloaded it). Thanks to an enterprising lawyer realizing this, the defendants lawyers is asking the RIAA to disclose they wholesale price they get for each downloaded song which likely be less then a dollar. The RIAA is refusing as afraid the value would be provided to others in their litigation campaign.

The logic behind the request and the refusal is that the RIAA is suing basically claiming that the pirated music from defendant Y is costing the music industry Z number of dollars. This value of course is highly inflated so they tend to ask for thousands and thousands of dollars. But if the wholesale cost (amount they get from say iTunes for each song) is $.75, then isn't that the real cost the RIAA is experiencing for each song? So instead of owing $10,000 for 2000 pirated songs, isn't the real damage more like $1500? Not only would such a ruling be a blow to the RIAA's efforts to threaten through litigation but it would show how the RIAA uses deceptive values to compile their data. In a society where many people trust whatever statistics they are presented with, this could be a big blow to what the RIAA is trying to accomplish with their PR campaigns.

The other story is the good ole US Patent Office which rubricate anything sent through it real or imagined. If you can make it incomprehensible enough on paper, you can pretty much patent anything under the sun. It wouldn't surprise me if someone already holds a patent for a time machine. The problem with this "beats me what it is, so I will approve it" mentality is it opens things up to abuse.

In this case a failed dot com company Intertainer, which was granted a patent on downloading digital content that was filed on March 2001. Considering that anything on the internet is digital content that you download as text, pictures, sound and movies they essential got a patent for writing down a convoluted description on what the internet does. Considering that the internet has been around for now 15 years, its pretty clear this company had nothing to do with "inventing" digital downloads.

So you have now been given a patent for something that already existed and you didn't invent it, what now? Simple, you sue others for using your non-invention. SCO did it to great benefit by claiming people where using violating the UNIX patent, which it didn't create. This company is doing the same against Google, Apple, Napster with others sure to follow.

Go read the patent, anywhere you see "the system of" think "server". Anywhere see "interface" think Netscape, Internet Explorer or any other web browser. Anywhere see "processor" or "manage information" think "database". All these things that have been around long before 2001. I give credit for Intertainer for trying to get a patent on the internet. Can't hurt to try, but its inexcusable for them to sue over it and even worse offense that the patent office approved it rather then seeking clarification on what the patent was for. It all comes down to ego, not money, not power. Those two just feed the ego and not admitting "I don't know" is a fine example of the ego in action.

Sadly most companies don't fight these things as the patent office tends to protect the stupidity of its own as most people are loath to admit their own ignorance. Afterall, it doesn't look good if you get the approving patent manager to appear in court and he can't explain the patent he had approved. So sadly the patent licensing companies that are being created by abusing the system will more then likely get a nice feather in their cap and encourage others.