Innovation and Trolling
This particular Kat is strongly of the opinion (although it has to be said with little in the way of solid empirical evidence with which to backup this assertion) that innovation is a good thing. Products evolve, technology pushes ever onwards, and things generally get better. It is therefore with some interest that he stumbled across an interview in Research Magazine with Andy Budd, managing director of a ‘user experience design agency’, in which Budd warns of a “cult of innovation” and the perils that the “innovation delusion” can bring to a company. He explains:“In large organisations I see the term innovation being bandied around very loosely. When companies are planning their next year’s business plan they’ll say, ‘We’ve got a strategy for innovation,’ but I think often they don’t quite appreciate what innovation is. If you want to be a truly innovative company, first off you have to realise that a lot of the money and time you’re spending might never result in a new product or service, which is often really hard for companies to bear, because they hope that by spending a lot of money in R&D within two or three years they’ll get this massive rich vein of content or products. Innovation doesn’t really work like that. It happens through people spending time looking at markets, looking at how people are using services, and there is a chance that from that something innovative might pop up – but also there is a very real chance that nothing will happen.”
[says the IPKat: there seems to be an assumption here that innovation and invention are the same thing, when it has long been understood that there is a significant distinction between the two...]
Budd continues: "If someone on the board says, ‘This year we’re going to have a strategy of innovation,’ no one’s going to disagree with that. You can’t say, ‘No, innovation’s bad.’ But people don’t understand what it really means, and innovation is not always a key to business success. It’s often a key to spending an awful lot of money and preparing the market for other more successful products. I think this race to be first to market is often a bad move, and a lot of products I’ve seen that are second or third or fourth to market are the ones that understand the market, that see where people have gone wrong and make those improvements."
Link to the full article here
Whilst on the topic of innovations, the IPKat has also stumbled across another story that has been slowly doing the rounds and which perhaps highlights that, contrary to his initial opinion, not all innovation is necessarily good.
The tale involves a small company from Las Vegas, Nevada, called Righthaven LLC that is being widely proclaimed as the first of a new species: the Copyright Troll. Adopting a similar modus operandi to its patent cousin, this particular species does not itself exercise any creativity (aside from that expended in penning its claim), but rather seeks to enforce the copyright of others: rummaging through the cluttered contents of the web in search of potential infringers to bring to justice. Needless to say, the At present the majority of claims brought by the company relate to the copyrights of the Las Vegas Review-Journal (Nevada’s largest newspaper and no doubt a veritable fountain of new works), but Wired reports that a second newspaper group has also signed up to the service.
So, "Copyright Troll", or legitimate business activity? Is this the way of the future, with publishing groups appointing enforcers to orchestrate the policing of their online works - and does it matter that (as Wired Reports) "Righthaven usually demands $75,000, but will settle for a few thousand dollars"?
Link to original story on OSnews.com: here.
And to Wired's coverage of Righthaven LLC: here
Troll: here
Trolling: here
