EU President calls for intellectual property rights rethink
PRESIDENT OF THE European Parliament Prof. Dr. Hans-Gert Pottering, opened debate at CeBit this morning with the suggestion companies should rethink the concept of intellectual property rights.
Young people "demand" free access, he said, adding if they didn't get things like music and films for free, the hooligans would just steal it, something which would ultimately hurt content makers.
Pottering told an audience at the Conference Centre here in Hannover that companies should allocate serious thought to the development of new business models to face the changing economic cirumstances.
Microsoft COO, Kevin Turner, later agreed this was the "most dramatic macroeconomic situation" of the decade.
Turner called the crisis a "once in a lifetime opportunity" to change business models and revamp.
Playing to the techie crowd, Turner declared IT innovation were "key" in rebuilding things after what the Vole seems to think is an "economic reset".
The COO admitted it was impossible to say how long the "reset" would take, saying only the "remainder of 2009 will be challenging".
"A crisis," he said, "is a terrible thing to waste."
"When opportunity doesn't knock, you have to build your own door," said Turner. Or at least another version of Windows.
Turner then did his cheesy best to convince people that Microsoft's layoffs were actually not layoffs at all, simply a sophisticated "re-alignment" which would create 2000-3000 new jobs in the very near future.
Eerily, Saal 2 here then emptied as SAP's CEO took the stage and delivered a stinging 30-minute monologue about how "now was not the time to stop innovating".
His declaration that SAP would reduce every employee's carbon footprint 60 per cent by 2020 was met with a stifled yawn and a big ball of tumbleweed drifting across the stage.
Intel Chairman Craig Barrett wrapped things up by giving his usual speech on the importance of education, teaching teachers, giving free laptops to kids as long as they're classmate PCs and not OLPC, the benefits of remote diagnostic health care for rural villagers and sailors (don't ask, it involved a tedious demo) and a plug for micro-loan facilitator Kiva. µ
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Ignore the Vole and SAP: they just want more junk patents to add to their "intellectual property" stockpile so that they can threaten the competition.
The best kind of rethink would involve the complete abolition of software patents so that people can get on with real innovation, not the kind of "innovation" which involves the European Patent Office and their lawyer chums thinking up a plan to squeeze more money out of everyone else every year.
As my title suggests, the three major sectors [commerce, religion, government] of our global societies are stuck with this ongoing experiment.
The Labyrinth: The ever changing laws [patents], to curtail liberties.
The Cheese: Money, In limited amount, consolation prise for your efforts or see what happens when too much is given.
The Mouse: You, or any body else around.
The experiment is about to be over, ready your conclusion papers, sharpen your pencils, draw us the picture of reality then.
I fully agree with "Horse" there. I also think he should go to develop SW for free to the greater benefit of mankind.
Hey, if people appreciate his work I'm pretty sure they will willingly mail him some cash for expenses.
On a mroe serious note, patents are needed but also need a reweork and quite probably a far harsher time limit.
Also, in general concepts should not be constituted as a patent.