Filet Mignon is Cancelled. Eat These Rice Cakes

Grok Headline matches for Filet Mignon is Cancelled. Eat These Rice Cakes

I like rice. Rice is great if you're
hungry and want 2000 of something.

I like rice. Rice is great if you're
hungry and want 2000 of something. 08/10/2004 12:23 PM
"One time a guy handed me a picture of himself and he said. "Here's a picture of me when I was younger." Every picture of you is of when you were younger. Say, here's a picture of me when I'm older. How'd you pull that off? Let me see that camera."

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Comedy Stylings of Mitch Hedberg.

eBay Today: Droids Cakes

eBay Today: Droids Cakes 09/10/2004 12:28 PM
If you like Droids, you'll want this pair at your next party!

Copyright cops crack down on cooks over
cakes

Copyright cops crack down on cooks over
cakes 06/17/2005 03:34 PM
Xeni Jardin: Clay Shirky says:

Here's the sign I saw yesterday morning when getting the daily bread at College Bakery, our beloved local purveyor of pre-Atkins goodies.

Now the decor and ambience of College Bakery are echt Old Brooklyn, so it's an unlikely front in the copyfight, but the staff said they had to bust out the magic markers because they'd been roped in as the front line of defense against non-licit images of Dora the Explorer® and Thomas the Tank Engine®. I was struck enough by the sign to Flickr it immediately, and it's stuck with me since then, for several reasons.

First of all, disappointing children is a lousy tactic for a media company. If a child loves Nemo so much she wants a clownfish birthday cake, it's hard to see the upside in preventing her from advertising that affection to her friends. Second, and more worryingly, this is the very sort of chilling effect that has always been recognized as a significant risk in First Amendment protections. How cool would it be to do a drawing with your kid and have it show up as a cake the next day? Well forget it.

What College Bakery is saying with that sign is "The risk of being sued is so high that we'll give up on helping paying customers create their own cakes." This is Trusted Computing for frosting.

Creativity, in this world, is for Trained Professionals, whose work is owned by BigCos. Loss of amateur creativity is a small price to pay for protecting commercial IP holders. Finally, and perhaps most revealingly, the industries fighting for encumbrance of digital IP have often raised the 'restoring analog balance' argument, which is, roughly: "The natural difficulty and generational loss in analog copying made cassette tapes and VCRs bearable. We just want to bring those checks to digital copying." And yet this case -- printing a digital image on a cake -- has exactly those checks, since the image is designed to be eaten by children within hours of its creation. No risk of unlimited copies. No longevity issues. No easy transition to other media. And what happens? The same grab for total control, and the same weak regard for side-effects on non-commercial creativity. The 'analog balance' argument is, of course, a lie. Those industries have fought for total control wherever they have been able to, questioning the very existence of core public rights such as fair use or limited copyright terms, and the magic-markered sign at College Bakery is yet another example.

As Cory said "There are days when the gormlessness of the other side of the copyfight generates a great deal of unintentional hilarity." Now this is more sad than hilarious, but when the control grab extends to the enlisting of neighborhood bakeries in disappointing children for the making of one-off and short-lived copies, the gormlessness quotient is running high.

Link

Counterpoint: Comments from Boing Boing reader Tshaka, who is a law clerk:

I am no fan of the RIAA, and some of the stances big companies take on copyright. With that said, I find a lot of the posts on copyyright issues to be myopic. Companies don't run around trying to enforce their copyright because it brings them joy, they do it because they have to. Once a company allows people to use an image or trademark without their permission, it can quickly slip into the public domain. If they allow this to happen, they lose all control over that image forever.

Companies spend a lot of money not only developing characters like nemo, dora the explorer and thomas the tank engine, they also spend a lot of money so that kids will want to put those characters on their birthday cakes.

I'm fairly sure that College Bakery wasn't giving away their cakes for free. They weren't just providing a nifty service to tykes, they were profiting on the efforts of others. I have serious problems with the Recording and Movie industry making it difficult for people to use their product fairly, but what you have here is one company (even though it is a small one) stealing from another company (even though it is a large one). Telling College Bakery to stop using their images without their permission isn't just an industry fighting for total control wherever they have been able to, questioning the very existence of core public rights such as fair use or limited copyright terms...,

College Bakery's use wasn't fair use. Conflating it with fair use doesn't help the argument. This isn't a creativity issue. I am sure College Bakery would be allowed to negotiate with each of the companies involved to pay for the right to SELL the image those companies created. Its called licensing, and companies love to do it, not just for the money involved, but for the extra goodwill it can create for their product.

(To put into context there are probably companies that paid a lot of money for the right to put those images on cakes, and by not paying for the right not only was College Bakery infringing on the copyright holder, it was unfairly competing with companies that obeyed the law.)

(An example of the effect of not enforcing your copyright is what almost happened to Xerox. For years everyone called a photocopy a "xerox copy." Instead of being a brand name, their name was turning into a generic term. If Xerox had allowed that to continue, it would have lost the right to enforce their copyright on the name of their corporation! All the time, money and effort spent building up whatever goodwill they had associated with their name would have been lost because of their lack of diligence. Companies can lose control of images in the same way.)

Boing Boing reader RYaN says:

Tshaka is wrong that companies "have to" defend copyright, or risk losing it. That's only true for trademarks, as the Xerox example illustrates. Xerox couldn't have "lost the right to enforce their copyright on the name of their corporation" because it's not possible to copyright a company name at all! That's a trademark, which is governed by completely different rules.

Ben Giddings says:

Trademarks must be enforced or they risk becoming generic, and not protected. This isn't the case with copyrights. The issue with the cakes is really a trademark issue, not a copyright issue. The cake-makers aren't copying a particular "Dora" or "Thomas" image, they're making original creations using that character.

An example is the common sight of Calvin (from the Calvin and Hobbes comic) pissing on various logos, etc. Bill Watterson never made any cartoons with Calvin peeing on things, so this isn't violating his copyright. It is, however, using the character he created (and presumably trademarked) to sell stickers.

There's a big difference between selling these Calvin stickers and selling cakes. It's really about who is choosing the images. On one side there's someone creating Calvin look-alike images and trying to sell them to everybody. On the other side there's a bakery that makes cakes to order, and is now being forced to judge whether or not the person asking for the cake has the intellectual-property rights to make that request.

And Tshaka replies:

RYaN is absolutely right. I have crossused terms that do not mean the same thing and possibly added to some confusion. (In my defense, it often appears that discussion in this forum generally refers to all intellectual property issues as "copyright issues," in deference to the discussion I didn't make a sufficient effort to discuss the difference for an audience that is probably not as interested in the minutia of legal terms of art as I or others might be.) As right as RYaN is, however, about my misuse of the word he has also entirely ignored the point I attempted to make. Whether trademark or copyright, College Bakery was taking the intellectual property of other people and selling it to gain a profit (I am fairly comfortable in asserting this because I am pretty sure that College Bakery wasn't offering to put any image you bring in on any cake you bring in for free, THAT would have arguably been fair use, if this assumption is wrong I would love to be corrected). Now that RYaN has so carefully addressed my poor (and arguably lazy) semantics, I would be pleased for him to address my arguments.

Glenn Fleishman says:

See also this Brad Templeton essay on copyright myths -- Link. It's a classic in that it exposes fallacies so completely that I often won't begin to discuss copyright without reviewing it and often refer those who want to make what appears to be a broken point (such as this law clerk--obviously not a copyright law clerk) to the essay without further comment. In this case, point 5 is the right one to read. Brad should be well versed on copyright as the founder of ClariNet, which brought us early Dave Berry over Usenet, and other wonderful informational services and ideas.

Patrick Fitzgerald says:

One simple workaround is to buy a plain white frosted sheet cake, have the photo frosting shipped right to your door, then lay it on top of the cake yourself. I don't know if they perform a copyright check (like recent reports of WalMart photo processing), but Club Photo is one Internet store that offers this service.

And a final reader comment in this looooong thread, from the EFF's Jason Schultz:

As an actual copyright and trademark attorney, I feel this sort of discussion highlights exactly where our notions of "property" and "culture" cause confusion and tension between what the law is, what our intuition is, and what we wish the world was like. Most of us probably wish that we could easily go into our local bakery with our favorite comic or cartoon character and have it put on a birthday cake for our child or best friend. Sure, we wouldn't mind paying a bit more, if it were easy and relatively cheap. However, because the copyright maximalists have been able to frame copyright in terms of "property", this reality is increasingly difficult to achieve. Property rights are generally thought of as absolute and impenetrable, e.g. my favorite San Francisco anti-parking sign that says "Don't even *think* about parking here!"

Yet kids love culture, as we all do. And their love of copyrighted and trademarked characters helps make those characters valuable, just as the creators' inspiration and skill have. Consider if no child loved Dora the Explorer; how valuable would the copyrights and trademarks in the character actually be? Not very. Yet the love and obsession of fans do not garner any "property rights" in the character or any rights at all, according the maximalists. Even those willing to pay to use their favorite characters are often chilled from doing so because the maximalists argue they must come and beg permission from the copyright owner or face up to $150,000 in fines for their sins and indiscretions.

Does this mean the creators of the character should have no rights?

Certainly not. But it may mean that they shouldn't have absolute rights. In theory, that is what "fair use" is for, to balance out the rights of the creator with the rights of the public to enjoy that creation, especially in a private world that does not compete with the creators' business. In the case of Dora, that is the making of commercial cartoons and books, not cakes. The fact that Dora is popular on cakes comes from her popularity among her fans, not the skill of the hand that draws her or the voice that speaks her words.

Finally, all too often, we see a perspective like Tshaka's, where the argument is made that if you don't enforce your rights, you lose them.

Nothing could be further from the truth in this context, even for trademarks (i.e. the only time you lose your trademark is if it becomes generic for the class of goods you sell; no one would ever start calling cartoons "Doras" and birthday cakes aren't even in the same class of goods). What Tshaka is really worried about, it seems to me, is a loss of *control* over the use of one's creations. The idea that someone other than the creator might actually make use of the character without permission is what drives copyright maximalist authors, owners, and advocates crazy, not loss of rights or even, often, compensation.

It is this battle for control that is at the heart of the copyright wars and little else. From the perspective of consumers and fans, characters like Dora have become part of our lives and we shouldn't be ashamed or intimidated from enjoying that fact, even if it involves putting their image on a birthday cake. From the perspective of the Copyright Maximalists, however, even a "Let them eat cake" policy is far too lenient and infringing of their rights.

Swedish Burglars Steal Fish Cakes,
Shrimp (AP)

Swedish Burglars Steal Fish Cakes,
Shrimp (AP) 09/01/2004 01:22 PM
AP - Burglars tore down part of a wall to get into a grocer's shop in central Sweden, but apparently were only after fish cakes and a little shrimp — they didn't touch the cash.

Comdex cancelled - again

Comdex cancelled - again 03/31/2005 09:05 AM
TechWorld Mar 31 2005 1:49PM GMT

COMDEX Cancelled Once Again

COMDEX Cancelled Once Again 03/30/2005 02:09 PM
Once a conference staple of the IT industry, COMDEX has been cancelled for the second year in a row. Its new organizers, MediaLive International, confirmed the Las Vegas show will not take place due to lackluster interest from exhibitors. January's CES has now become the conference of choice for the industry.

Comdex cancelled again

Comdex cancelled again 03/30/2005 01:59 PM
iTnews Mar 30 2005 5:39PM GMT

Comdex cancelled

Comdex cancelled 06/24/2004 03:01 AM
USA Today Jun 24 2004 6:52AM GMT

Sandcrawler Cancelled?

Sandcrawler Cancelled? 04/22/2004 11:52 AM
British news site the private universe has posted a story explaining that Hasbro's 2004 Jawa Sandcrawler has been cancelled. Before you knock it off your personal wish lists please bear in mind that its exclusive release has been highlighted by the Star Wars Insider and via several distributors in Europe. For the moment treat it, at worst, as cancelled in the United Kingdom only until we see an official statement.

12" Plo Kloon Cancelled

12" Plo Kloon Cancelled 03/21/2003 01:32 PM
Sad news for 12" fans as Hasbro discontinue production of this item. Click through for more details.

Comdex Cancelled For 2005...Again

Comdex Cancelled For 2005...Again 03/31/2005 11:43 AM
Mac Observer Mar 31 2005 2:26PM GMT

Comdex cancelled again this year

Comdex cancelled again this year 03/31/2005 06:51 AM
Macworld UK Mar 31 2005 10:45AM GMT

Comdex 2005 cancelled

Comdex 2005 cancelled 03/30/2005 09:06 PM
EXPOweb Mar 30 2005 11:19PM GMT

Trio close to being cancelled.

Trio close to being cancelled. 01/04/2005 12:25 AM
Trio close to being cancelled. They are one of the few good cable nets. They showed Pink Lady and Jeff fer goodness sakes. Link to how to complain here. As the poster sez: "Isn't the point of paying for hundreds of different channels to not have them be all the same?" Caveat: I killed my tv in March and have never been happier.

Cancelled Netflix Tonight

Cancelled Netflix Tonight 04/17/2004 11:05 PM

The wife and I were watching Frida, which is quite a good movie, when we decided to cancel our Netflix subscription.

We've been subscribers of Netflix since December of 1999. We bought our first DVD player then when we were living in Dupont, Washington. It was a Sony (still have it and it works great btw) and it included a little Netflix promo card in the box along with the manuals.

We signed up then, and we were paying $15.95 for 4 movies out at any time. We watched a lot of movies back then -- generally one a night, because it was all so new...

And the quality of the service was fantastic. We'd watch a movie, mail it back, and get a new one within 3 days. We'd watch it that night and mail it back that morning.

In 2001, we moved back to Texas, and service was sort of crappy at first. It took 8 or 9 days to get replacement DVDs when we first moved back to Texas, because of the speed of the US Mail, but then, Netflix opened up a distribution center in Texas, and we were back to our 3 day turn around, and all was well.

At some point, Netflix changed their service levels such that our price went up from $15.95 to $19.95. We were happy with the service, and the 'no late fees' peace of mind.

Then, they changed their service to only allow 3 movies out at one time, but they grand-fathered us in, so that we kept our 4 movies out at a time service level for $19.95.

We got in the habit of sometimes watching a lot of movies, and sometimes not watching any for months on end.

Then yesterday, I got an email saying the price was going up to $21.95 for the same service level. I applaud their ability to offer me 4 movies out at a time for $22/month, with a 3 day turn-around. I was happy enough to stay a customer, and then...

We watched a movie last night that was so scratched up that it skipped chapters, and we missed out on a chapter or two and the whole experience was ruined. Eh... no biggy, it's happened before... and I was prepared to write off that one bad disk as a once every six months issue...

But then tonight, Frida skipped a couple of chapters too. Ruined the experience again. And what a good movie too...

So, I logged into my Netflix account and cancelled the service.

Cé la Vie, eh?

Comdex cancelled for this fall

Comdex cancelled for this fall 06/23/2004 03:55 PM
MediaLive International Inc. said on Wednesday that it is cancelling this year's Comdex trade show because of a lack of support from the industry's biggest IT vendors.

Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.1 Cancelled

Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.1 Cancelled 03/19/2005 03:08 AM
Slashdot Mar 18 2005 4:12AM GMT

CeBit 2005 cancelled

CeBit 2005 cancelled 08/04/2004 01:26 AM
Sunday Times South Africa Aug 4 2004 5:23AM GMT

Motorola MPx100 cancelled

Motorola MPx100 cancelled 07/31/2004 02:04 AM
MobileTracker Jul 31 2004 5:25AM GMT

Motorola MPx Officially Cancelled

Motorola MPx Officially Cancelled 04/18/2005 07:01 PM

It looks like the long, storied journey of the Motorola MPx is sputtering to a halt. Moto officially cancelled any future launches of the device today, despite an initial toe in the water in Malaysia. It was a great idea, but its implementation was funky—too big, awkward to use, and underpowered. Sorry, Tycho!

We were talking about the MPx over a yea r ago. Now where's that RAZR version of the MPx, Moto?

Motorola Scraps MPx Launch [PhoneScoop]

Cyber X Games Cancelled

Cyber X Games Cancelled 01/11/2004 05:57 PM

Comdex 2004 cancelled

Comdex 2004 cancelled 06/23/2004 02:24 PM
ZDNet Jun 23 2004 4:55PM GMT

Comdex Las Vegas Cancelled

Comdex Las Vegas Cancelled 06/25/2004 05:34 AM
Digital Connect News Jun 25 2004 8:56AM GMT

Andromeda And Mutant X Cancelled

Andromeda And Mutant X Cancelled 04/28/2004 03:15 AM

Comdex Fall is cancelled

Comdex Fall is cancelled 06/24/2004 07:59 AM
PC Pro Jun 24 2004 11:49AM GMT

Comdex cancelled due to lack of interest

Comdex cancelled due to lack of interest 06/28/2004 11:23 PM
Sunday Times South Africa Jun 29 2004 2:59AM GMT

Sony's DSC-T11 American Tour Cancelled

Sony's DSC-T11 American Tour Cancelled 04/19/2004 06:53 AM
Looks like that CyberShot DSC-T11, a slightly thinner version of the the DSC-T1, will not be heading to American after all. No big loss; the DSC-T11 wasn't different enough from the T1 to really set itself apart. Thank you, Sony, for letting us hear the news and for listening to...

CeBIT America 2005 Cancelled

CeBIT America 2005 Cancelled 08/03/2004 12:39 PM

As much as I love trade shows and conventions, I can't say I'm terribly brokenhearted about the news that Hannover Fairs USA, the people responsible for hosting the technology and gadget trade show CeBIT America, have decided to cancel the 2005 show. I went to the 2004 show here in New York, and it had a couple of mildly interesting things, but all in all it was a boring, lackluster affair clearly populated by people who were going through the paces, biding their time until they could get back to drinking at the hotel bar (you know, a trade show). CeBIT America was always second-fiddle to the prime CeBIT in Germany, so maybe it's for the best. They never even had any booth babes, for god's sake. Who could take them seriously?

Read - BLUH [WinnetMag via LockerGnome]

Microsoft Train Simulator 2.0 Cancelled

Microsoft Train Simulator 2.0 Cancelled 04/30/2004 04:34 PM
As you know, every business segment within Microsoft is responsible for continually evaluating its strategy and investments in all areas of the business to achieve operational efficiencies. At Microsoft Game Studios (MGS), we must continually evaluate our portfolio strategy and investments to ensure we are achieving our most important objectives of creating successful, platform driving titles for Windows gamers. In addition, Microsoft Games Studio must streamline game development operations to be more efficient and critically examine all projects in development to position the business for long-term success and profitability. Microsoft Game Studios has cancelled the Windows-based game "Train Simulator 2.0." The decision to cancel "Train Simulator 2.0" was made some time ago and was based on a long, hard and difficult look at our business objectives and product offerings. We remain focused on the simulations category with successful, platform-driving franchises such as "Microsoft Flight Simulator."

Mythica MMORPG Cancelled By Microsoft

Mythica MMORPG Cancelled By Microsoft 02/12/2004 11:40 PM

Motorola MPx100 possibly cancelled

Motorola MPx100 possibly cancelled 07/15/2004 10:20 PM
MobileTracker Jul 16 2004 1:37AM GMT

Treo Bluetooth Bounty cancelled

Treo Bluetooth Bounty cancelled 09/14/2004 08:43 PM
infoSync Sep 14 2004 11:38PM GMT

Biggest computer fair cancelled

Biggest computer fair cancelled 06/24/2004 03:00 AM
BBC Jun 24 2004 7:31AM GMT

Mac virus-writing contest cancelled

Mac virus-writing contest cancelled 03/29/2005 06:49 AM
TechWorld Mar 29 2005 10:59AM GMT

Pentagon's LifeLog Project Cancelled

Pentagon's LifeLog Project Cancelled 02/10/2004 03:00 AM
Wired says that the Pentagon has Killed the LifeLog Project. The controversial LifeLog project was to record all of the data of a person's experiences (sees, hears, does, etc). This would create a huge database that scientists could use for any number of evil purposes. Civil liberties groups threw up red flags on all of DARPA's Electronic Frountier Foundation projects such as Lifelog and were probably thrilled that the project is cancelled. Other similar DARPA projects such as FutureMap have also been cancelled. Some conspiracy theorists believe the Pentagon will still secretly continue all of DARPA's evil projects at somewhere like Area 51! Now I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I'm pretty sure this is not the end of this line of research.

Tribes: Vengeance 1.1 Update - Cancelled

Tribes: Vengeance 1.1 Update - Cancelled 03/23/2005 10:48 PM

Comdex trade show gets cancelled for
2004

Comdex trade show gets cancelled for
2004 06/24/2004 06:14 PM
IT Vibe Jun 24 2004 9:00PM GMT

2004 Comdex trade show cancelled

2004 Comdex trade show cancelled 06/23/2004 05:25 PM
MediaLive International today announced the cancellation of this year's Comdex trade show. Slated to return in 2005, the show has been hit hard by the growth of the CES and by major vendors choosing not to exhibit.

Notes and Tips: 17" PowerBook Dock
Cancelled

Notes and Tips: 17" PowerBook Dock
Cancelled 05/20/2004 10:03 AM
Photo Control bails out of 17" PowerBook Bookendz dock plan.
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Filet Mignon is Cancelled. Eat These Rice Cakes

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