e-books: The End of Book Publishing?

http://gigaom.com/2009/08/31/book-publisher-e-books-will-be-our-downfall/

I like this article by Jordon Golson of gigaom.com as it succinctly points out why books are here to stay. Arnaud Nourry, head of French book publisher Hachette seems to believe that the e-book publishers, who by the way are selling e-books at a loss, will end up squeezing traditional book publishers out of the publishing model either by taking away their profits or by making the physical book irrelevant. Luckily Mr. Golson disagrees and I agree with Mr. Golson. People love holding and reading books. It is more than reading, to some it is an experience. Lastly if you get a chance check out the link to the article about authors whose works have been rejected by publishing houses. Pretty funny stuff.

Great Article about Craigslist

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/17-09/ff_craigslist?currentPage=1

Thought this was an interesting article about Craigslist by Gary Wolf on wired.com.

Check it out.

Getting it Right!

Congratulations to Jason Kincaid of TechCrunch.com for being one of the few writers to get this story right. The link below heads to Jason's article about FaceBook filing a patent application for a crowdsourced translation app.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/26/facebook-files-for-patent-on-crowdsourced-translations/

Pretty cool stuff as it helped FaceBook go from no foreign translations of its site to 60. However that is not the point of this blog entry. The point is that no one seems to know the difference between a copyright, a trademark and a patent. As an experiment, I read multiple articles on this story today in order to see how many writers messed it up. Jason got it right. One writer even stated that FaceBook is trying to copyright the application at the United States Patent and Trademark Office?? We all know only the Copyright Office can handle copyright applications. I do not know about you but this sort of misinformation drives me crazy. People who write in the Intellectual Property space should know the differences between copyrights, trademarks, and patents.

RIAA Goes to Trial for Only the Second Time.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/record_labels_b.html

Jonathan Saltzman of boston.com writes about a case local to him regarding only the second trial related to peer to peer sharing of music files. This is going to be a good one given who is representing the defendant and the fact that "Fair Use" has been knocked out as a possible defense. According to the article the last case that went to trial on this issue was lost by the defendant who got hit with very large damages equaling $80,000 per song for a total of $1.92 million. The article also stated that most of these cases settle for $3,000 to $5,000. Given that Fair Use is not a defense in this case what can the defendant hope for?

Could it be True??

http://www.linkedin.com/newsArticle?viewDiscussion=&articleID=50532599&gid=77094&trk=EML_anet_nws_title-cnhOon0JumNFomgJt7dBpSBA

Looks like ICANN is finally mulling over a way to assist Trademark Owners in their constant fight against cybersquatters. Seems to me that an IP Clearinghouse is a great idea and simple to implement. Trademark owners will need to input their Trademark Registration information, ICANN can verify it at the USPTO website and off we go. A way to provide a simple verification whether or not a potential cybersquatter should be allowed to register a particular domain name. What about common law marks? What about names of famous celebrities that do not act as trademarks? Check out this article by Team Digit.

Dr. No Trademark Decision in the EU

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/5696517/Firm-wins-Dr-No-trademark-despite-James-Bond-companys-opposition.html

After an eight year battle, Danjaq (must be an IP holding company for all James Bond related IP) lost the right to register Dr. No to a German Media Group named Mission Productions. According to a court decision Mission now has the right to register the Dr. No mark across the EU. I must admit that the article from the Telegraph.co.uk confuses me as I do not see the logic of the court's reasoning. Is the court basically saying that the title Dr. No connected to the film does not function as a trademark and therefore, the prior use in connection with the film does not count as prior use so Mission has the right to register the mark since they are using it in a trademark fashion?? Help me out here.

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/entertainment/good_day_extra/dpgo_Eddie_Van_Halen_Sues_Nike_sneakers_fc_20090622_2598156

I saw Van Halen in Madison Square Garden about a jillion years ago. That night Eddie Van Halen played his famous red guitar with the cool stripes all over it. Back then David Lee Roth was still in the band and they rocked the house. They were great back then. I wonder if Eddie is going to rock Nike? See the article above by Frank Carnevale of MyFoxChicago regarding Eddie's recently filed copyright infringement lawsuit against Nike. The minute I saw the picture of the sneaker I was reminded of Eddie's guitar and that night in Madison Square Garden. The design is quite close and obviously Eddie's deal with Vans is driving this suit forward. This is one to keep an eye on. By the way, think a lawyer wrote Nike's statement? It's got all the right buzzwords.