A cartoon about how we live & work in a digital world
Honestly, trademarking pi? What an alpha-sigma-sigma-hole.
By the way, π. π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π.
π
And you, Zazzle. Really? Yes, you eventually restored the merchandise you pulled. But this didn’t inspire confidence.
Originally published on ReadWriteWeb
You may have noticed the home pages of your favourite torrent-tracking sites look a little different today: fewer search fields and options than you’re used to, and maybe a few more U.S. Department of Homeland Security crests and seizure notices than before.
I for one had no idea that the same superagency charged with keeping American skies free from explosive devices was also responsible for keeping American hard drives free from bootleg copies of Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore. (To the movie and recording industries, I’m sure that seems entirely appropriate – their only misgiving being that DMCA violations aren’t punishable with extraordinary rendition.)
The whole idea behind the DHS was to break down siloing and integrate security efforts. Reviews of the agency’s success on that count have been mixed. But maybe we should be careful what we wish for…
If you own a big tech firm, aren’t Microsoft, and weren’t named in the patent lawsuit filed this week by Paul Allen’s Interval Licensing, well… you’re probably looking deep into your soul today and asking where it all went wrong.
If you aren’t a defendant – a category that includes AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google and Yahoo! – why not? After all, the technology in dispute is, according to Interval, “fundamental to the ways that leading e-commerce and search companies operate today.” Dammit, you say to yourself. Maybe you aren’t one of those leading e-commerce and search companies.
Wait: most of your work is with open-source software. Like Java! Maybe that’s why you aren’t being sued by anyone.
Ah, well. Maybe it’s for the best. Not everyone can be on the A-list or in land of corporate jets, gargantuan mergers and stratospheric lawsuits. Hell, if it weren’t for those of us on the B-list (or, in my case, somewhere way down in the YYs), there wouldn’t be an A-list.
So chin up. With a little more work, a few game-changing innovations and – yes – a bit of luck, someday you, too, could be on the receiving end of a lawsuit big enough to alter global currency markets. Good luck with that!
I whipped this off on my iPad in a cafe on my way home from Whistler. Someday I’ll work this guy into a cartoon… or if I ever do a strip, watch for him as a secondary character.