I Am Trying To Break Your IP Stranglehold

Lawrence Lessig has put together a video combining audio and his slides from an event he did one year ago with Jeff Tweedy of the band Wilco, called "Who Owns Culture?" You can watch it at YouAre.TV or Google Video or download the torrent.

As change would have it Who Owns Culture is the title of a super-interesting book I'm currently reading by law prof Susan Scafidi, who maintains an equally interesting blog on IP and fashion, CounterfeitChic.

Comments

[Dave W.]

This is only semi-related, so hopefully no more tomatoes thrown at me than usual. On another thread, we were exploring the gap between the discovery of penicillin, in 1928, and the time it became a practical widespread medicine in 1941. My question:

Does anybody know what the rule on patenting new drugs in the UK was in the 1928-1940 timeframe?

Does anybody know whether penicillin was patented, or applied for patent, back in the 1930s?

[Madog]

The gap between discovery an use is there because it took them that long to figure out how to mass produce it. Penicillin wasn't patented, but the mass production method was, in 1948.

[Box Full Of Letters (Patent)]

The gap between discovery an use is there because it took them that long to figure out how to mass produce it.

Yeah, I am trying to figure out why it took that long. I think it was too long. I think it would have been longer without the war. I think it would have been better to have it sooner. Hence my questions about the UK patent laws.