According to videogame patent lawyer Kirk Sigmon, the USPTO granting Nintendo these latest patents isn’t just a moment of questionable legal theory. It’s an indictment of American patent law.

“Broadly, I don’t disagree with the many online complaints about these Nintendo patents,” said Sigmon, whose opinions do not represent those of his firm and clients. “They have been an embarrassing failure of the US patent system.”

  • zrst@lemmy.cif.su
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    5 hours ago

    Copyright and patent laws need to die.

    Anyone who doesn’t understand this is a useful idiot.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      3 hours ago

      Current system is obviously broken, but you don’t believe that artists and creators should have a right to control their intellectual property at all?

      And yes, intellectual property is real whether you want it to be or not. And it’s not necessarily about money, but about controlling what can be done with your work.

      For example, Bruce Springsteen should 100% be allowed to tell Trump to fuck off and stop using his music at rallys.

      What would be the mechanism to do that without IP?

      • SlothMama@lemmy.world
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        23 seconds ago

        I also believe all intellectual property laws shouldn’t exist, so patent, copyright, and trademark.

      • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        57 minutes ago

        I do believe that.

        Intellectual property leads to all kind of unfairness. It should be normalized that artist would be paid for the work done, nor for property ownership.

        This adds to some other believes about people shouldn’t be paid just for “property ownership”.

        And once the art is done and released is part of human race, that does include terrible human beings, but it also includes absolutely everyone else.

        Some other argument for this… For instance, being an artist is one of the jobs with biggest pay disparity, from the poorest of them all to some of the richest. That’s a normal output of basing income on property ownership, things snowball once you have enough property.

        I don’t think there’s a way to make private property (physical or intelectual) work in a fair economy. And remember, private property is not the same as personal property, just in case.

        I do think the world of art would get much better and more diverse if we got rid of property as a way to measure revenue and put work in the center as a way to measure how much we should pay each artist.

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          24 minutes ago

          You live in a dream world. Why would I release my music to the public when there are people who will make a living stealing it, putting their name on it, and selling 1000x more than I ever could because they already have name recognition? And those people WILL exist for every form of creative content.

          Artists need some sort of mechanism to protect them from exploitation that is inherent to capitalism

          • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            20 minutes ago

            Because you will be paid for it?

            In the current world I could torrent your music and you’ll be “losing money” and will end up investing more work in anti-piracy and advertisement than in making good music.

            If instead you would be paid for the making of the music regardless of how many copies of a digital file you sold by a better system that’s not based on private property and the means of capitalism, it would mean that you could 100% focus on making music and everyone could enjoy the things you made. You couldn’t care less if I torrent your music in this new world. Hell, music would probably be mainly distributed by torrenting.

            Everyone will be happy, except investors and people thriving of this inefficient and unfair system.

            Meanwhile, I’ll be seeding.

          • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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            15 minutes ago

            Yeah… victory belonging to the person with the widest reach and deepest pockets rather than the originator of the material/idea is one way to ensure that all creatives become paupers. This is one of those many on-paper ideas that, without the upheaval of pretty much every other established human social structure, would be awful in practice.

      • zrst@lemmy.cif.su
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        3 hours ago

        It’s imaginary property. It’s not real and only exists in our heads. Saying someone stole your “intellectual property” is akin to saying they “stole your idea.”

        It is about the money, as well. Nobody should be able to own an idea.

        Bruce Springsteen will just have to grow up and get over it.

          • Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            No art, no poetry, no video games. . .

            IMO creators should have better protections - the current laws don’t seem to stop AI gobbling up their work. But at the same time this Nintendo thing is obviously bullshit. I’m surprised the court * allowed it. Probably a decision made by a very old Christian man who doesn’t understand what games are and can’t use a smartphone.

            * Oops decision was made by patent office who really should know better

            • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              2 hours ago

              Yeah it’s clearly broken. But there is a complete lack of nuance in these “get rid of IP and copyright completely (and if you disagree you’re an idiot)” arguments. They’re just supremely unhelpful.

              • Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world
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                57 minutes ago

                Yep I’m right there with you. Artists of all types should be entitled to the proceeds of their work. Also, if I were creative and something I’d created was plagiarised, I’d be unhappy about that too. Just because a big company abuses a system doesn’t mean it shouldn’t protect individuals.

    • Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      They don’t seem to be protecting creators from getting their work subsumed by AI, so they’re clearly not fit for purpose. But I do think there needs to be some protection for artists and creators, it’s just that either the present laws are shit or the courts can be bought.

  • billwashere@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    The USPTO is notorious for granting insane patents knowing they are invalid or too vague and expect the court system to be the final arbiter. It’s almost as if they like stirring shit up for there own amusement.

    • zrst@lemmy.cif.su
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      4 hours ago

      I’d wager these video game illiterates look at 1 thing: do they recognize the name of the company?

      If the answer to that is ‘yes,’ then they will give that company whatever they want. If the answer is ‘no,’ then you’re fucked.

  • SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org
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    11 hours ago

    An embarrassing failure describes the US quite well actually. Also fuck Nintendo. Don’t give them your money.

  • CubitOom@infosec.pub
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    13 hours ago

    I can’t wait to play Elden Ring 2 when it’s made by Nintendo because Elden Ring used summoning and now only runs at 12 fps.

      • addie@feddit.uk
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        4 hours ago

        The time for “collaborate and listen” has passed. Now, the time for Nintendo to bring down hammer go hammer mc hammer yo hammer and the rest can go and play has arrived.