Mike Masnick, TechDirt; Firebowls, Copyright And Crowdfunding (Oh My):
"Here's the summary of the situation:
Unger makes "firebowls" -- decorative metal bowls that you light a fire in (I had no idea such things existed).
He copyrighted the design of his firebowls.
He then discovered that Rick Wittrig was making firebowls that look remarkably similar, but are a bit cheaper.
Unger got angry and sent a cease-and-desist
Wittrig filed a lawsuit to claim that Unger's registered copyrights are not legitimate, as there shouldn't be any copyright on utilitarian objects.
Unger writes up his side of the story (small artist being ripped off!) and asks people to fund his legal defense using popular crowdfunding site Kickstarter"
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091030/0412566732.shtml
Issues and developments related to Intellectual Property (e.g. Copyright, Fair Use, Patents, Trademarks, Trade Secrets) and Open Movements (e.g. Open Access, Open Data, Open Educational Resources (OER)), examined in the "Intellectual Property and Open Movements" and "Ethics of Data, Information, and Emerging Technologies" graduate courses I teach at the University of Pittsburgh School of Computing and Information. -- Kip Currier, PhD, JD
Showing posts with label utilitarian objects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label utilitarian objects. Show all posts
Saturday, October 31, 2009
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