Barely a day goes by when we don't hear of yet another story about some sort of intellectual property claim being asserted where it doesn't belong. It's a function of a current culture where people are being incorrectly taught that every idea, every concept, every word and every sound should be protected and "owned" despite the fact that these things, by their very nature, are infinite and can be freely shared at no cost to anyone. The latest such case involves a guy who apparently pitched the slogan "My Card. My Life" to American Express a while back. Soon afterwards, entirely independently, AmEx's own ad agency pitched the same slogan, which is now being used. After discovering that the other guy was trying to trademark (we assume, even though the article claims "patent") the phrase, AmEx sued to get a declaratory judgment that its use of the phrase did not infringe. Thankfully, a judge has agreed that no infringement occurred. Yet, in this age, where we're being incorrectly bombarded with the message that ideas can be owned and protected, it's no surprise that American Express would worry about such a thing.

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Channel 4 has a documentary series called Living Doll: My Fake Baby, about women who keep ultra-realistic dolls, known as reborns. They dress them up and take them out shopping and for walks in strollers.

In the comments section, Fee provided a very nice summary of the documentary:

There were a few women featured in the documentary. One was very sad, someone who had looked after her grandchild as a baby due to his mother's illness, and then had lost him because her daughter recovered and went off to New Zealand with the baby. I could understand why she wanted a grandson subsstitute, but it made me sad that there are so many families around who could do with an adopted granny with real children that she could hug, and instead of finding them she found a rubber baby.

One of the women was as mad as a box of fish, and had multiple fake babies because the real thing might make a noise or ruin its clothes. She made me very glad that she could have rubber babies and not the real thing. While most real parents hate that whole lugging around the pram and bottle and nappy bags thing, she loved all that - for a pretend baby. I think the truth is she is still a little girl at heart, and couldn't bear not to be the focus of everyone attention. If she takes her fantasy too much further she may find herself the centre of everyone attention - down at the local psychiatric ward.

Another woman who briefly appeared seemed to have a toy show in her house, hundreds of babies in cots crammed into a room. That seemed a bit obsessive compulsive really.

I think some of them are fantastics works of art in the realism, but I agree with others that the more real they are, the more creepy. In general, although I am a woman, I found the men's reactions to them most normal... nearly all regarded them as disturbing and macabre.

Link (Thanks, Phil!)

firefoxy writes "Mozilla has officially released Firefox 3 beta 3. This release includes new features, user interface enhancements, and theme improvements. Ars Technica has a review with screenshots. 'Firefox 3 is rapidly approaching completion and much of the work that remains to be done is primarily in the category of fit and finish. There will likely only be one more beta release after this one before Mozilla begins issuing final release candidates.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Snip from the latest essay on Kevin Kelly's Technium blog, which for me has become a must-read RSS feed:

I wrote a book, Out of Control, heralding the immense power of bottom up systems. You know: smart mobs, hive mind, web power, amateur hour, decentralized webs, network effects, and collaborative work. Twenty years ago Out of Control made a wide-ranging and exhaustive case for the remarkable things which decentralized, out-of-control systems can accomplish in biology, technology, and cultural realms. Two decades later I'm still keen on the untapped potential of emergent bottom-up systems.

But throughout my boosterism I have tried to temper my celebration of the bottom with my belief that the bottom is not enough for what we really want. To get to the best we need some top down intelligence, too. I have always claimed that nuanced view. And now that crowd-sourcing and social webs are all the rage, it's worth repeating: the bottom is not enough. You need a bit of top-down as well.

The reason every bottom-up crowd-source hive-mind needs some top-down control is because of time. The bottom runs on a different time scale than our instant culture.

Link.

Slashdot points us to the absolutely fascinating story of how Woody Guthrie's daughter was able to restore the only recording of her father's live performance, that had been bootlegged using an old obsolete recording device. It took quite a bit of effort to restore the recording on an old wire-based device, and the effort got the mathematician who handled the restoration nominated for a Grammy, which he won. However, what struck me most about the story is that these days, people would be focused on how that simple act of recording would have been copyright infringement back when it occurred. Shouldn't we be happy that exactly that kind of infringement is now what allows us to hear Guthrie perform live? I'm sure Guthrie himself would agree. After all, he famously had a rather similar view of copyrights to many of us around here: "This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do." Unfortunately, those who manage Guthrie's estate haven't always been so kind -- so it's nice to see they recognized this recording as a potential gem, rather than an unauthorized recording.

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An anonymous reader writes "CNet's Crave reports on a potentially revolutionary digital music service set to launch worldwide later this year. It's offering free, unlimited over-the-air downloads to cell phones, with music from all four major record labels, with no subscription. And the selections that users download get automatically downloaded to their PC or Mac. Rather obviously, the tracks are DRMed, but unlike the similar Nokia service unveiled last year to much disappointment, this MusicStation Max service will have exclusive handsets from LG and no additional fees to customers. This is a little similar to an idea talked about last year, but with all four majors on-board it seems to have greater potential."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Do you code in your sleep? Do you count in binary? (not an essential requirement). Do you also share a passion for photography? Do you want the dubious pleasure of working alongside the rest of the dpreview team on what is arguably the most exciting photography website in the world? We're looking for two web development engineers with a solid grounding in Visual Studio, ASP.NET 2.0, Javascript and SQL Server 2000 / 2005. These positions will be at our office in London (UK).

Think you've got what it takes to be a dpreview DSLR reviewer? Are you passionate about the techniques and technology surrounding digital photography? Do you want the dubious pleasure of working alongside the rest of the dpreview team on what is arguably the most exciting photography website in the world? We're looking for someone who has the experience, knowledge and familiarity with our reviews to come in and begin work straight away. We expect you to have a solid photographic knowledge as well as experience using our chosen authoring tools (see inside). This position will be at our office in London (UK).

Spotted in this Washington Post article about terror suspects interrogated "under duress at secret prisons":

The Bush administration announced yesterday that it intends to bring capital murder charges against half a dozen men allegedly linked to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, based partly on information the men disclosed to FBI and military questioners without the use of coercive interrogation tactics.

The admissions made by the men -- who were given food whenever they were hungry as well as Starbucks coffee at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- played a key role in the government's decision to proceed with the prosecutions, military and law enforcement officials said.

Emphasis added. The NYT's The Lede blog digs deeper, uncovers an In These Times article, and reminds us that there's also a "Starbucks, a McDonalds, a combined Subway-Pizza Hut, a Wal-Mart-like big box store called the Nex and a gift shop" on the Guantanamo base.

Photo: "Un Buen Cafe," by Victor Nuno, found on Flickr.

Spotted on Warren Ellis' blog.

Previously on BB:
* Boing Boing tv (Vlog) Xeni - Anonymous vs. Scientology

Yoko Ono, widow of former Beatles member John Lennon, is suing singer-songwriter (and Suicide Girl) Lennon Murphy for alleged "tarnishment" of John Lennon's name.

Ms. Murphy's band is called Lennon, and she is attempting to register that band name as a trademark.

Here's a PDF of the court papers, here's a snip from Lennon Murphy's response on her MySpace page.

Getting Sued by Yoko
Current mood: angry
Category: Music

Yesterday I received notice that Yoko Ono had filed a law suit against me, asking for a cancellation of the trademark that I own for the name "Lennon." This could very well mean the career that I have worked so hard at, the one you all have believed in, may come to an end. I wanted to address the situation to all my fans because without you I am nothing and it's not fair to everyone who has believed in my music not to be properly informed of this pure bullshit.

When I first started playing music at 14, I was known for the most part as "The Lennon Murphy Band". Not a name I was very fond of, no one could ever agree on anything so it made sense. A few months later some of the shows started being marketed using my full name as well as some that just using "Lennon." There was never really any consistancy but there was well enough to justify stating that "Lennon" had been used in fact since 1997. When I signed with Arista Records in 2000 at the age of 18, a marketing decision was made to continue being known just as Lennon. In all honesty, I didn't care. I was just happy to sign a record deal, make an album, and pay my bills.

Lennon is my first name by birth and I am regualarly asked if I was named after the Beatle, having always replied no. My mother named me after "John Lennon that wrote songs, painted, and baked bread with his son". She named me for the man, not the pop star.

Coverage links: TMZ, Fox, NME.

Julian Lennon, who is the son of John Lennon (and the former Beatle's first wife, Cynthia) also responded to the situation on his MySpace page. He's totally cool with the singer using her name, which also happens to be his father’s name, and says "She has My full support."

Last year when RIM's Blackberry service had a major outage, the company blamed a software upgrade, which made many folks question why RIM would be doing a major software upgrade in the middle of the week. Since most Blackberry users are corporate users, it would seem to make sense to do upgrades over the weekend -- or at least late at night. So, with this latest outage, it's a bit surprising to see RIM fall back on the old "software upgrade" excuse again. The company doesn't say that's definitely what happened, but suggests that's what caused it, failing to explain why the company would run an upgrade in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday.

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An anonymous reader writes "Canon has filed for a patent for using iris watermarking (as in the iris of your eye) to take photographer's copyright protection to the next level. You set up the camera to capture an image of your eye through the viewfinder. Once captured, this biological reference is embedded as metadata into every photo you take. Canon claims this will help with copyright infringement of photos online."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader suggest at article over at ScienceDaily about the achievement of the holy grail of nanoscience: "[R]esearchers at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have for the first time used DNA to guide the creation of three-dimensional, ordered, crystalline structures of nanoparticles. The ability to engineer such 3-D structures is essential to producing functional materials that take advantage of the unique properties that may exist at the nanoscale — for example, enhanced magnetism, improved catalytic activity, or new optical properties."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Senate has just approved controversial legislation reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, by a vote of 68–29. The bill, sponsored by Sens. Kit Bond (R-MO) and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), empowers the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General to authorize warrantless surveillance of foreign parties whose communications pass through U.S. switches, even when they are communicating with Americans. It also grants retroactive amnesty to telecom firms alleged to have illegally provided the government with access to their customers' data without a court order -- a provision some Democrats tried and failed to have stripped from the legislation earlier today.

Several other amendments that would have provided additional checks on surveillance also failed in the Senate, including language reasserting FISA's status as the "exclusive means" by which intelligence surveillance may be conducted, a provision barring indiscriminate "bulk collection" of telecom traffic, and a compromise measure that would have allowed civil suits against the telecoms to continue, but substituted the federal government as the defendant. The one victory for civil libertarians was the approval of an amendment offered by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) permitting the secret FISA court to review intelligence agencies' compliance with "minimization" rules meant to limit the retention of communications involving innocent Americans. Following a vote to invoke cloture, bringing debate on the bill to a halt and foreclosing any attempt to mount a filibuster, Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) delivered impassioned speeches condemning the legislation as an affront to both privacy and the rule of law.

The Senate bill must now be reconciled in conference with the House version, known as the RESTORE Act, which lacks the controversial immunity provision and provides for greater judicial oversight of surveillance. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is seeking to further extend the stopgap Protect America Act, which this reform bill is meant to supplant, in order to provide time to reach agreement between the two chambers.

Julian Sanchez is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Julian Sanchez and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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christian.einfeldt writes "Microsoft has responded via the industry trade group ECMA to some of the thousands of criticisms of its submission of Office Open XML as an ISO standard. Open standards advocate Russell Ossendryver takes a look at those responses to see if Microsoft has made significant changes in either the substance of OOXML or the manner in which the OOXML specification will be maintained going forward. Ossendryver concludes that Microsoft's position has not significantly changed, but only hardened in place in advance of the Ballot Resolution Meeting which is to occur from February 25 through 29 in Geneva. While no one can say for certain whether Microsoft will succeed in having OOXML win the nod from the international community, Ossendryer thinks that Microsoft's firm stance is likely to backfire."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CorinneI writes "At the Mobile World Congress show, four mobile processor vendors demoed pre-production devices running versions of Google's Android OS — a Linux-based, open operating system for mobile phones that will sport Google applications. The biggest surprise of the demos was how well Android runs on slow devices. 'TI showed Android on a Motorola Q-like QWERTY handheld with its 200 Mhz OMAP 850 platform, where the user interface felt smooth and fast, even with little Apple-like animated transitions between screens.' HTC, Motorola, LG, and Samsung all belong to Google's Open Handset Alliance"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.