Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Spawn of the Devil?

Author:Jeremy Bowers
Posted:7/25/2000; 6:30:04 AM
Topic:Spawn of the Devil?
Msg #:19005 (In response to 19003)
Prev/Next:19004 / 19006

Instead of arguing that Jeff Bezos is the spawn of the Devil, maybe it would make sense to see whether he'd be willing to license the affiliate patent or one-click patent for a nominal charge?

They'd still have control to revoke the license if they decide they don't like what you're doing with it, or never grant it in the first place.

It's not about the money, it's about the control over a unutterably trivial idea. We shouldn't cede control just because our masters aren't hurting us any today; ever heard of the Unisys GIF patent? For years, they had a "harmless" patent on GIFs (licensing was unenforced, thus essentially free!), then all of a sudden, they exerted their control over the format to harm a lot of people, after it was an entrenched format that most people thought was 'free' (in both the monetary and liberty senses).

I don't want Amazon to be able to do that to whomever they feel like it for whatever reason they feel like doing it for the next 19 (or 16, whatever) years, just because they patented an obvious application of cookies (which were the true innovation here).

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