The Schwimmer Concept: Commercial Aggregation v. Non-commercial Aggregation
Martin Schwimmer, a tradmark lawyer, has ignited a controversy over “commercial” aggregation services (here and here).
It poses an interesting argument. The gut-reaction instinct is to marginalize his comments as fringe element of the blogosphere. But Russell Beattie’s comments point out that line between public and private, personal and commercial use become extremely blurred in a new medium.
Perhaps what Martin Schwimmer should do is leap from the Trademark bubble and help DEFINE how a service such as Bloglines can use his content in a way that he agrees with. The law profession is far to reactive and non-solution oriented.
Don’t quote old broken rules; be a leader and make new, effective ones. Leadership comes from bold new initiatives and the willingness to see what is, and make what should and can be.
I issue a challenge to Martin Schwimmer: lead, don’t follow.
Google is the poster child – and it has the deepest pockets. Enjoy those lawsuits Evil Twins. this is potentially somewhat like the SCO case, isn’t it? but google is in no position to indemnify anyone. will we see RIAA style cease and desist letters send to all aggregators? probably. we should probably just ignore them – the judge wont throw us into jail if recent RIAA failures are anything to go by
James Governor
January 17 2005 at 13:35
Google is the poster child – and it has the deepest pockets. Enjoy those lawsuits Evil Twins. this is potentially somewhat like the SCO case, isn’t it? but google is in no position to indemnify anyone. will we see RIAA style cease and desist letters send to all aggregators? probably. we should probably just ignore them – the judge wont throw us into jail if recent RIAA failures are anything to go by
James Governor
January 17 2005 at 13:35