Post 2 (Class Discussion Review): An Over-Copyrighted World

    We spoke in class about various types of copyrights, trademarks, patents and other forms of R&D protection. While I strongly believe that inventors should be able to protect their work and ideas against infringements, the laws have become restrictive to the point of detriment. Mark Twain said, "Only one thing is impossible for God: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Early in the semester, we saw that technology and ideas were heavily "borrowed" by major tech companies in order to push hardware and software into the next generation. Now companies hold extensive patent portfolios. Copyright lawyers are ready to jump at anything resembling their company's work. Because of this, I feel innovation that builds on established ideas has slowed. Apple and Windows operating systems don't change much anymore. Sun is suing Google over technology that has been in use for years. Companies are having to reinvent the wheel or pay out the nose in order to attempt any new innovations. I stated in a previous post that I feel the Free Software movement to be fundamentally unethical, but this seems to be extreme in the opposite direction. When a person can be denied the pursuit of an idea or invention because someone else thought about it first, the system is broken. What if Edison has put a patent on electricity which forbade Tesla from doing his own work? Tesla's work was better, but we could have been denied his results. Copyrights/patents need to be altered so they protect established ideas without squelching new ideas