Slidecast about trademarks, copyrights, patents, and trade secrets:
A short video about corporations and LLCs:
Boundless Learning is a new startup offering free “versions” of college textbooks. They’ve recently been sued by 3 of the top academic publishing companies for trademark and copyright infringement. Boundless describes its service as “a 100%-free textbook replacement . . . to prevent students from being forced to shell out hundreds of dollars on their assigned texts . . . [and enable] students to access relevant course content anywhere, take notes and highlights and focus on key terms and concepts.”
In their complaint, the plaintiffs claim that Boundless “is in the business of distributing online textbooks that it claims serve as ‘substitutes’ for Plaintiffs’ textbooks.” They allege that Boundless “steals the creative expression of others” by “copy[ing] the distinctive selection, arrangement, and presentation of Plaintiffs’ textbooks.”
In their blog, Boundless points out a number of troubling issues with the textbook market, such as the facts that 4 publishers control more than 80% of the market, that they maintain a 65% margin on textbooks, and that textbook prices have risen at 3 times the rate of inflation since the mid80s. They may well be right that the textbook market is in dire need of disruption, but in this lawsuit, the question will be whether they are in violation of US copyright and trademark law.
- How are Boundless’s “versions” of other textbooks different from Hollywood studios remaking older movies (such as You’ve Got Mail and The Shop Around the Corner)?
- How is presenting their texts as an “alternative” to another textbook different from Wal-Mart promoting their allergy medicine with the label “compare to the active ingredient in Benadryl”?
- Finally, don’t forget what we learned when we studied litigation. Notice how the complaint provides the required statement of jurisdiction, short, plain statement of the facts, and prayer for relief. (They also do a good job of setting the tone for the lawsuit by telling their side of the story before getting into the legal technicalities.)
As you know, your blog assignment is due this Friday, April 20, at 2pm (though you can turn it in earlier if you want). Make sure that you write your learning reflection post before you turn in your assignment.
To turn in your assignment, you’ll need to submit the URL of your blog. Open Canvas in one browser tab (or window) and your blog in another. To find the your blog’s URL, go to the main page of your blog (not the dashboard—in WordPress, click “Visit Site” if you’re in the dashboard to get to the main site). At the top of your browser window, you’ll see the address bar. Highlight and copy that address.
Next, switch to the tab or window that has Canvas open. In the upper right corner, there will be a “To Do” list with a link to “Turn in Blog Assignment.”
Click that link and Canvas will take you to the submission page. Paste the URL of your blog into the Website URL box and then click “Submit.”
Hi everyone–
Don’t forget that the deadline for finishing your blog assignment is this Friday, April 20, at 2pm.
Also fast approaching are final exams. The exam for this class is scheduled for Wednesday, May 2, at 3:30pm in room 2357 on the Martin Campus. I’ve prepared a study outline for you below:
This week we begin our discussion of business organizations, or forms of business ownership. Now at first glance, you might think that it doesn’t really matter what kind of ownership structure a business has, as long as it makes money. However, ownership forms can affect many important aspects of a business, such as personal liability, taxation, control/flexibility, startup or expansion capital, business lifespan, and transferability.
We’ll start with two forms of ownership that have much in common: the sole proprietorship and the partnership. Both forms share the advantages of being easy and inexpensive to set up and allowing the business owner(s) a great deal of control and flexibility in running the business. They also share similar disadvantages of making it difficult to raise startup capital and having unlimited personal liability for business debts. Watch the videos below for more details.
Next week we’ll look at two forms of ownership that provide limited personal liability for business owners: the corporation, and the new kid on the block, the Limited Liability Company.
Usually, municipal bankruptcies (filed by a city or county) are rare. Most bankruptcy cases involve individual debtors, though business bankruptcies also happen with some regularity. Until recently, the biggest municipal bankruptcy ever filed was Orange County’s in 1994. Then, last October, Harrisburg, Pa., filed for bankruptcy, followed in November by Jefferson County, Ala., whose debts dwarfed those of Orange County’s in the 1990s. Now it looks like Providence, RI, and Stockton, Calif., may be next.
Mary Cone Barrie Scholarship, sponsored by Destiny Solutions
Destiny Solutions created the Mary Cone Barrie Scholarship to applaud the efforts of two exceptional lifelong learners. The annual scholarship is available to any currently enrolled non-traditional learner residing in Canada or the United States who has changed their life and the lives of others through lifelong learning. Each award is valued at $2,500. Applications are due by June 29, 2012. For more information visit our website or contact:
Rachel Kuper
Marketing and Public Relations Manager
Destiny Solutions
416-480-0500 x. 214
rkuper@destinysolutions.com
Some of you may notice that I’ve been leaving comments in Canvas rather than on your original blog posts. WordPress recently changed the way their comments work, requiring WordPress and Gravatar users to log in before commenting. For some reason, this update prevents me from commenting at all. Even though I’m logged in to wordpress.com, every time I try to post a comment, it throws back an error telling me I must log in first (even though I’m already logged in):
Until I can get some help from WordPress to figure out what’s going wrong, I’ll be commenting on the Announcements page in Canvas where your blogs’ RSS feeds are syndicated.
As I mentioned in this week’s email, our text places a great deal of emphasis on UCITA, a proposed uniform law regarding computer transactions that has been adopted only in 2 states. There continues to be strong opposition to UCITA, including the attorneys general of 20 states, the Federal Trade Commission, and the ALI, which was involved in drafting the original proposal. Americans for Fair Electronic Commerce Transactions has a good summary of some of the major problems with UCITA.Finally, just for fun, here’s what UCITA might look like if it applied to other transactions.
