Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   With all the later development of big companies getting more and more
> > control over intellectual property at the cost of individuals, it's really
> > refreshing to read something going to the opposite direction:

> Very cool. Contrary to the last sentence, I don't think Microsoft's or 
> Oracle's primary value is in its patent portfolio. :-) I may be wrong 
> there tho. I haven't seen much news about MS enforcing its patents on 
> people. (Threatening, perhaps.)

  Btw, on the subject of intellectual property, I recently read an
interesting article about why fair use is actually important for
consumers. (Sorry, I can't remember where the article was anymore.)

  Most people think that "fair use" is just a certain amount of liberties
people get to use parts of someone else's intellectual property, as long
as it's "fair" (ie. not stealing nor benefiting from it). In other words,
it's just a leeway. However, fair use is important for slightly different
reasons.

  For example, product reviews (such as for example book or video game
reviews) fall (in most countries) under fair use, even though most reviews
use copyrighted and trademarked material (such as for example screenshots,
quotes and trademarked terms). This is important from the consumer's point
of view because if they didn't fall under fair use, companies could sue
any reporter who made a negative review of their product for copyright and
trademark infringement. This would make impartial and objective product
reviews on popular media an impossibility. Basically reporters could only
make positive reviews, or not any at all. Thus people would have hard time
getting information from impartial sources before they decide if they will
buy the product or not.

  Likewise quoting copyrighted material or photographs and using trademarked
terms is usually considered fair use in historical textbooks and other media
of historical documentary type. Without this right, writing history books
and creating historical documentaries could be seriously hindered by greedy
companies, and this could end up hurting the entire humanity in the long run,
as significant events in history could perhaps be lost if they are not
properly recorded.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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