here’s a few lessons for those of you who were wondering about the ins and outs of infringeing on peoples brands, copyrights and patents.

1. Cory Doctorow’s seminal* piece on why corporations aren’t actually obliged to engage in the endless trademark enforcement hysteria that is their trademark. Messr. Doctorow is armed with a powerful wit, and has enough legal sense to load it properly.

   www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2003/08/14/trademarks.html

2. A fabulous european site demonstrating just how many patents (20) an everyday commercial website is probably infringing on

   www.e-xamit.ie/swpat/video.htm

   (yes, that’s right “paying with a credit card over the internet” is a patented idea in Europe. Before you get all, “yeah, well there just a bunch of old-worlders”, keep in mind that there is patent dispute heating up in the States because someone patented the idea of “transmitting digital information over telephone lines”. Not a particular technique. Just the idea.)

3. And finally, an illustrative example. Crazy Apple Rumors finally got busted by Apple. What did it take in the end?:

   www.crazyapplerumors.com/2003_11_30_archive.htm#107064166898190914

   Jeez, it took long enough, didn’t it? I mean, we’ve been at this for almost two years and we’ve only finally found the line with Apple. For those of you playing at home, that line is the re-purposing of copyrighted images taken from Apple’s web site for use on our site in an attempt to portray Apple as identifying the porn aficionado as a target market.

* no really, I swear it’s seminal