Happy June - I Think?

It's finally June and we finally have time again to write. Two interesting news stories this week.

1. Sweden Elects A "Pirate Party" Delegate to the European Parliament.1

Aside from the very cool fact that these guys decided to call themselves the Pirate Party and are all about reduced internet surveillance and more free content, there is something else interesting here. Part of their platform calls for the abolishment of intellectual property rights (i.e., a dismantling of the patent system, and deregulation of copyrights, etc.). This is all well and good, except there's a major flaw to that argument. If people can't get protection for their inventions, it's a simple fact that people will steal them. In fact, people get protection now and others STILL steal them (hence patent infringement suits). Now call me a bit "Ayn Randian" on this one, but if a guy spends his time working to create some new great gizmo that makes our lives faster/better/stronger, etc, shouldn't be there be a reward? Likewise, eliminating trademarks and copyrights lends itself to serious abuses. I think the idyllic "no-IP" world is a good thought, but best left to classroom and bar debates. In practicality, there are enough people willing to steal another's music or images, mislabel their product with someone else's label or simply rip off another's patented (or patentable) idea because they can and leave the creator high and dry. If this segment of humanity didn't exist, then fine. But since that segment does exist, we have to protect our artists, our inventors and our businesses (ultimately protecting the public from thieves and misappropriators).

2. American Family Discovers Their Photograph Used as a Czech Ad.2

This one just makes me laugh. A Czech company used an American family's Christmast picture to advertise. This is a classic case of copyrighted material being misappropriated. The picture definitely meets the Feist standard of creativity and doesn't need to be registered (although the family talking about watermarking the picture for future use provokes further interesting questions). I can only imagine their shock when they found out the news. They probably should have asked for a stock photo fee (those can be quite significant!).

But seriously, this just goes to show you how ubiquitous web searching has become and how people don't always realize they are taking someone else's property. Fortunately, it sounds like the Czech company is doing the right thing by taking down the pictures and offering to send some kind of apology gift (along with an e-mail). Be wary the next time you Google Image Search (TM).

1: Free web Pirate Party captures seat, Yahoo.com News, http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090608/od_nm/us_election_pirates (last visited June 11, 2009).
2: Mo. family Christmas photo turns up in Czech ad, Yahoo.com News, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090611/ap_on_fe_st/us_odd_card_photo_prague (last visited June 11, 2009).

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