Copyright Law

Introduction

I spent 23 years in research before ultimately inventing the world’s first standing computer desk, so I was occupied by that task and not by studying the minutia of the law.

However, according to copyright law other individuals are required to acknowledge the author or inventor of a method or product, to show me respect for the achievement, to be courteous and ask permission to use it for commercial purposes, and to pay license fees and royalties.

(It is not appropriate for someone who comes along later to claim the credit, or to say nothing and let other people make the mistake of assuming that the manufacturer was the inventor, or to say that “research shows” without mentioning that it was my research, or to derive a product from the original without mentioning the actual inventors name).

I suspected that some unscrupulous individuals would try to steal the idea by fraudulently claiming to be the first, and gaining the credit and the money due, but I did not expect ungrateful fools to say such things as . . . “Too bad sucker, you were stupid for not patenting it, so you can’t get anything, so get used to it”.

I didn’t know that some individuals go to university to study the law so that they could surf the internet to find profitable ideas, and then use the fine print, or loopholes in the law to justify their thieving behaviour.

I also didn’t expect healthy and wealthy and highly qualified professors to steal the idea, while using the academic image of honesty, integrity, and ethics as a front for their crime, or that they would steal in a systematic way in organised gangs and be protected by other supposedly respectable academics.

(I developed the concept to treat my own illnesses where there had never been an effective treatment before, and I wrote my 1000 page book on the topic while I had cancer. See here).

I also didn’t expect people to say that you can copyright songs and movies to become an award winning multi-millionaire, but not medical ideas because they have to be made available for free for the common good, even though my methods are more effective than medications which derive billions of dollars in profit for the researchers and manufacturers.

I also didn’t expect individuals to come up with utterly thoughtless and absurd arguments such as “there is nothing new about it because their uncle used one fifty years ago (before computers were invented), or that some rich people used tall desks in the nineteenth century.

Needless to say there is a lot of difference between the standing computer desk which I invented, and which is now being manufactured in the millions, and the comparatively simple and rare tall benches of the past.

However, I still have faith in human nature and justice, and that the millions of people who profit or benefit from my idea will eventually ensure that I profit from it, and that lawyers and university administrators will ensure that justice prevails. See also here and here.

If I get the credit where credit is due, I will resume publishing more useful ideas.

Ideas are valuable, words are cheap

If it takes me 23 years to develop an idea which solves a mystery that has been confusing millions of people for thousands of years, then it may only take me two hours to describe it in words.

If someone else then spends a few minutes describing the same idea in different words, and can argue that they haven’t breeched my copyright, then it is a waste of my time publishing it, and will also be a waste of time publishing any more ideas in the future.

If a cup of words contains an idea it’s full. If is doesn’t it’s empty.

It is ideas which bring advances to civilisation, not words

If ideas can be copied under copyright law, it’s interpretation, or it’s loopholes, then it is self-defeating in it’s original, ethical, and useful purpose.

It is penalising the useful person, and rewarding, encouraging, and glorifying corruption, and making the thieves feel justified, and proud of their crime.

A brief summary of it’s origins, philosophy and purpose

In previous centuries writers could derive an income from the publication of their books, but after the printing press was invented it eventually became possible for individuals to “copy” thousands or even millions of books written by other authors, or from other countries, and derive a profit without paying the original author, which often produced financial ruin, and destroyed the livelihood of that person.

Needless to say it is very difficult and rare for anyone to do something original, and yet simple and easy to copy it once, and just as easy to copy it a million times, so the person who does the difficult task of developing an idea goes broke, and the thieves get rich.

That was a disincentive to put in the time and thought required to produce original material, and was considered detrimental to the advancement of knowledge, and the progress of civilisation, so copyright laws were introduced to guarantee that the original author would have exclusive right to profit from their publication.

They also had the ethical, moral, and legal right of attribution which requires other individuals to acknowledge the original source, and the exclusive right to obtain written permission, and license fees and royalties from any other user of their material, particularly commercial use (where the copier uses it to derive an income).

One country after another adopted some form of copyright laws and then, in 1886, the first international agreement called the Berne Convention was accepted in Switzerland.

See also: An illustration which depicts a 17th century man with his foot on a book called “Law” carrying two money bags and claiming that he has the legal right to publish other peoples books while famous authors such as Mark Twain, Jules Verne, and Tennyson, who actually write books, are accusing him of publishing them illegally.

It is from Puck, v.18, no.468 (1886 February 24), centrefold, and can be seen here.

The purpose of copyright law

The fundamental purpose and objective of copyright law is to provide incentive for individuals to produce original material, and to protect them from the predatory use of the ideas by profiteers. Anything which reduces that protection also reduces the incentive, in which case the only alternative is to require fees in advance prior to publication, as was the case before such laws were introduced.

Essentially, if the person who produces ideas gets nothing, and the copiers get all the financial benefits, then the incentive for all members of society is to do nothing, in which case knowledge will cease to advance, and the progress of civilisation will be snafued (from the acronym SNAFU – Situation Normal All Fouled Up).

How my copyright has been breeched

In my case, in 1975, I had several health problems which were not responding to treatment, and it became obvious that nobody in the world knew what to do, so I decided to try and solve those mysteries.

During the years since I was making steady progress, and in some cases their value was recognised, but in most cases I was wondering why nobody was acknowledging them as viable solutions to those problems.

I therefore suspected that other authors were breeching my copyright but didn’t find any definite evidence of it until about 2007, and then it was becoming more and more obvious by 2012, and now, at this point in time, 2015, I have literally lost count of the number of people who have published my ideas under their own names, or attributed my research to other individuals or groups, or to general knowledge, or have argued that many people have produced the same ideas independently, and in effect have deliberately, or through ignorance, been depriving me of attribution and financial gain.

The typical methods which they use involve making slight changes to the text, or the diagrams, or the treatment details, or the list of symptoms or diseases in order to fraudulently claim that their ideas were not a takeoff from mine, but were different, or an improvement.

An Example

Supposing I spend 23 years researching a problem before determining a solution, and then draw a diagram to illustrate the idea, and then somebody else pays an artist to redraw it professionally with minor changes in half an hour, and then distributes it without my name as acknowledgement, then they have sabotaged my 23 of my research.

Under those circumstances why would anyone waste their time publishing more ideas, and why would anyone else bother to do research in the future.

A summary of my publications can be seen here.

I have described some examples of breeches of my copyright here, and here

The right of attribution

Copyright law provides the producers of new ideas several rights, including the right of attribution which is the right to be recognised for being the first person to produce it.

For example anyone who uses that idea afterwards is required to acknowledge where they got if from with a statement under a diagram.

Also anyone who thinks up the same idea later does not own the copyright, because, at worst they are fraudulently claiming to be the author, and at best they can say “great minds think alike”.

General ideas and medical treatment methods

Supposing a teenager spends a few hours writing the words to a song and nobody sings it, then he has waisted his time, but if it becomes popular and sells a million copies then he can become a millionaire and is praised for his success by his country, and can gain more gratitude for donating a few thousand dollars to his local hospital.

Furthermore if someone wants to sing that song at home they can sing it for free, but if they sing it at a concert where they charge an entry fee they are required to pay the author a royalty, or be prosecuted for copyright breech.

I have also been told that I have to provide effective medical treatment methods for free because it is for the public good, and that doctors are the only ones who have a right to make money by treating patients because they have spent six years at university to get the qualifications required.

It leaves me in a position where there is no value to me for publishing any of my newer and better methods, and I could make more money sun baking at the beach and occasionally collecting shells to sell at trinket shops.

It also means that anyone other than a medically qualified person who tries to cure diseases is wasting their time, and should just suffer in silence and wait for someone else to do it, even though several thousands of years have passed by and it will probably be another 1000 years before a cure is found.

Is the value in the pill, or the result?

If someone invents a new pill or a new form of technology then they can make a billion dollars profit each year for the shareholders of a major international company, yet my methods have been described as the best, which means better than medication, and more valuable, and more people are charging a fee for using them, and yet I am supposed to get nothing?