Sometimes copyrights and patents go too far. I certainly appreciate rights to things you create, and I think clear, well-established property rights are a good thing. Nevertheless, intellectual property rights have a lot of pitfalls and no clear solutions. Apple is suing Samsung for patent infringement or something along those lines. This wouldn’t bother me if I thought Apple was concerned with protecting its intellectual property, but I think this is all about money, not clear property rights.
If a company brought a suit against someone else because they believed their rights were infringed upon and that, because of this, those rights were clearly in danger for everyone, I would say that suit is justified. If only the first applies, the suit is still justified. If neither applies, or the suit is only being brought to kill the competition, the suit is crap.
I get tired of big companies doing stuff like this. It seems so petty. What happened to all the anti-trust sentiment in the U.S.? No one else seems to be bothered by things like this. It reminds me of Monsanto, and their lovely, unfair attack on unsuspecting soy bean farmers. (If you’re wondering, look it up. Farmers, because of a natural process called pollination, ended up with Monsanto’s special patented gene in their seeds. Monsanto basically ran these farmers, who had no desire to use Monsanto seeds, out of business.)
amandatheatheist 