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They’re at it again. On Feb. 27, 2008 the Ninth Circuit issued its opinion in Sybersound Records, Inc. v. UAV Corp., No. 06-55221 (9th Cir. 2008). The court considered:

whether the transfer of an interest in a divisible copyright interest from a copyright co-owner to Sybersound, unaccompanied by a like transfer from the other copyright co-owners, can be an assignment or exclusive license that gives the transferee a co-ownership interest in the copyright. We hold that it cannot.

Bzzzzzt. Try again. See William Patry’s blog post about this entitled, The Death of Divisibility, where he writes

This isn’t what Congress intended: it intended that co-owners be able to grant non-exclusive licenses without the others’ permission and that they be able to transfer their proportional share in the whole without the others’ permission, in which case the transferee would indeed stand in the shoes of the transferor. It is truly remarkable that such simple, but commercially important points have been destroyed.

Patry thinks Congress is our only hope. I’m placing my hope in rehearing or rehearing en banc.

Yesterday I received a generic replacement battery that I had ordered for my Sony VGN-FS840/W laptop. When placed in the laptop the battery indicator flashes rapidly. The laptop will not turn on with the battery inserted, even if the AC cord is also used. The battery shows no charge and does not charge. Reading online I learned that Sony apparently uses a hardware lock in certain of its laptop models to prevent the use of non-Sony replacement batteries. See, for example, these blog posts.

Some people, using Windows, are able to avoid this problem by using msconfig to delete the Sony program, ISBMgr.exe, that monitors for non-Sony batteries, but I am running GNU/Linux and not Windows. Some others using Windows also find that deleting the program doesn’t help because Sony has some hardware or BIOS method of disallowing any non-Sony battery. I think this must be the case for my model laptop.

I’m pondering who can be sued over this. Post your ideas on who the plaintiff(s) should be and what the claims should be in the comments. I’d also be happy with a technical fix, if anyone has one.

I’ve been working from Starbucks today on the T-Mobile wireless, and I’m now, in less than four hours, sitting next to the second pyramid scheme pitch. The first one was amusing because it was incomprehensible what the product or service even being sold was. The entire discussion was motivational and about how much money could be made building your “team”. The current one at least has an identifiable product, but it makes me wonder just how prevalent this sort of thing is.

Perhaps high school (or at least some college course) should have a segment explaining why pyramid schemes always fail, because it appears they are alive and well in Starbucks, which is providing virtual office space to these hucksters.