INFOWORLD GRIPE LINE BY ED FOSTER Bookmark this page

  
Replying To:
Patent abuse (none / 0) (#7)
by Anonymous User on Tue Apr 27, 2004 at 12:14:53 PM PDT

The path to correcting this absurd arrangement of patents and copyrights is to turn the thing on it head; instead of giving the registered owners the right to tell others they cannot use or publish a product, the law should be rewritten to encourage anyone who finds it useful to use and publish anything found in the copyright and patent archives with the proviso that some small portion of the sale price will be reserved for the owners, and that small portion will be the same regardless of how many owners may be included. Products merely given away for free would pay a small percentage of zero, which most of us can afford, and major publishing houses and manufacturers would be free to negotiate even smaller percentages with the owners if they wished. Small scale publishers and manufacturers could protect themselves from liability by simply setting up an account to hold the funds as they accumulate until the owners get around to collecting it.



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