Category: News

Top 10 SXSW Panels to Check Out or Follow at Home If You Care About Copyright & IP

SXSW LogoCreativity and copyright reign supreme this week in Austin, Texas where over 32,000 creatives from around the world have converged for the annual South By Southwest (SXSW) Festival.

The festival continues to deliver on its goal to “create an event that would act as a tool for creative people and the companies they work with to develop their careers, to bring together people from a wide area to meet and share ideas.”

We’ve put together our Top 10 favorite panels to attend or follow at home on Twitter if you want to learn more about cutting-edge copyright issues facing the creative community.

Given our mission here at Kunvay to make the world safe for creativity, we were bowled over by the impressive number of conference sessions addressing copyright and intellectual property – subjects of great importance to creatives everywhere.

Follow our Storify feed to find out what people are saying about copyright and IP at the festival, or use these Twitter hashtags to follow the panel conversations directly.

  1. DIY IP: Protect Yo Self, Don’t Wreck Yo Self     #swsw #diyip
  2. The Artists’ Copyright Conundrum      #swsw #crightcon
  3. Copyright & Disruptive Technologies      #sxsw #copytech Continue reading Top 10 SXSW Panels to Check Out or Follow at Home If You Care About Copyright & IP

What Apple vs Samsung Means for Creatives and Designers: Imitation vs Inspiration in the Spotlight

The verdict in Apple vs Samsung has brought the patent system sharply into focus.

Some argue the complexity of patent law is unworkable because, arguably, designers, engineers and techies need not only the requisite skills in their own areas of expertise, but also advanced skills at recognizing that a product does not infringe existing patents.

So, what does the verdict actually mean for creatives and designers, and does it matter?

A Monopoly Over Rectangles with Rounded Corners in Question

At this point it is worth looking at what the actual infringements are deemed to be. Samsung’s statement after the verdict ‘that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners’ was rather unfortunate.

Although, the court did find that Samsung had infringed a number of Apple’s patents, rounded corners was not one of them.

The infringements covered the software patents enabling ‘bounce back’, ‘pinch and zoom’ and ‘double tap to zoom’, and the design patents for the front face, the back and icon design.

It can be argued that some of these software patents could be seen as new standard forms in the industry, so why has Apple won a patent case based on some of these features?

Without going into the legal intricacies and without over-simplifying the issue, the key point in the verdict is the ‘willful copying’ of these aspects of Apple’s patents.

Apple Designer’s Choice of Sunflower for Icon Used Against Samsung

Mac Iconographer Susan Kare’s testimony in the witness stand illustrates this, pointing out that her sunflower design for the photograph icon was an Continue reading What Apple vs Samsung Means for Creatives and Designers: Imitation vs Inspiration in the Spotlight

How Copyrights Ruined the Olympics and What You Can Learn From It

The Olympics is the biggest sporting event in the world, with London 2012 on course to achieving record-breaking viewing figures across the globe.

The Olympic brand is widely recognized and is, therefore, a significant and highly valuable asset of the Olympic Movement.

The London 2012 Olympics will be remembered for its particularly aggressive stance on brand protection with new laws being passed – the Olympic Symbol etc. (Protection) Act 1995 (OSPA) and the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006.

These laws stand alongside existing copyright, trademark and other intellectual property laws and create a new ‘Unauthorized Association’ Law for the protection of the Olympic brand.

Olympics Sets New High for Brand Protection

Collectively, the brand encompasses a variety of names, phrases, logos and designs, known as the ‘Games’ Marks’.

The legal protection is necessary to preserve the commercial value of the brand and to bestow upon authorized sponsors and licensees of the Games exclusive rights to use the Olympic brands.

At first glance, Continue reading How Copyrights Ruined the Olympics and What You Can Learn From It

Kunvay Launches at International Startup Festival

Today we are born!

And here in Montreal in a special NYC Startups tent (courtesy of the Doer Express) we can’t help but exhale a bit and be reflective.

We didn’t make it to launch day alone, and so on this special day rather than repeat what what’s in our cleverly-written press release (you should read it though; yes, seriously, it’s really impressive), I (Reggie Solomon) wanted to thank Ashish Mukharji and Johannes Enders for all of their work and support during these nine months of building Kunvay.

I also wanted to thank my first class development team at 12 Spokes who deliver impressive Ruby on Rails and design magic – thanks Chris Hart, Matt Bishop, Trey Bean, Erin Bean, Ethan Vizitei and Coleen Palmer. More thanks to others to come in future blog posts, but this is a start today.

Enjoy some links below to coverage from our journey to Montreal, including posts written by some of the other startups on the Doer Express.