EFF - The Art of the Prank

EFF creates the “Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents”
by Cory Doctorow
BoingBoing.net
December 20, 2012

Broadcast.com founder Mark Cuban and Minecraft creator Markus Persson have donated $500,000 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation to endow the “Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents,” which will be occupied by an attorney tasked with hunting down and destroying crappy patents that have been recklessly granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office to unscrupulous “inventors” who claim to have invented things that were obvious and/or already extant; and to pay for activists to fight for substantive patent reform:

Read more here.

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation, commentary by Hugh D’Andrade:

When Fair Use Is Fairly Difficult

For years, it’s been a notoriously popular internet meme to remix the “bunker scene” from the 2004 film “Downfall.” In the original scene, actor Bruno Ganz portrays Adolf Hitler’s ranting breakdown in the final days of the Third Reich. In the hands of internet remixers, the scene’s English-language subtitles have been modified to transform it into commentary on everything from the subprime mortage crisis to breakfast theft. There’ve even been meta-commentaries on the meme itself.

EFF Board Chairman Brad Templeton recently remixed his own version, with Hitler ranting about troubles with DRM and the failure of DMCA takedowns to prevent fair uses. Take a look, and then keep reading [here] to see what Brad’s experience making it tells us about fair use and the DMCA.

EFF chairman makes a Downfall remix

via BoingBoing.com

Another Damn Downfall Clip”¦ Real Estate

Tag: EFF

Mark Cuban and the EFF Declare War on Crappy Patents

EFF Chairman Makes a Downfall Remix