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(right:  Google CEO Eric Schmidt conjuring the 22nd Century)

Thanks to Ron Coleman of Likelihood of Confusion for passing along this gem from the The Trademark Troll on the S&L Vitamins case:

Almost every case involving the sale of unauthorized but genuine goods is a case where a brand owner is asking the courts to become an enforcer for the brand owner - against the brand owner’s own customers!!…

This brings to mind Jonathan Schwartz's brilliant post Free Advice to the Litigious which spawned our blog category Innovate, Don't Litigate.  This short tale from Sun Microsystem's CEO can't be repeated often enough: 

Years back," he writes, "Sun was under pressure in the market."

Although many users loved our core Solaris operating system, others thought it was built for high end computers, not grid systems. Our computer business had failed to keep pace with the rest of the industry . . . . [W]e gave customers one choice - leave Sun. Many did. Those were the dark days.

Where did they go? They went to GNU/Linux, a free and open source operating system built by a growing community, running on x86 systems. Why? Because the pair ("Linux on a whitebox") delivered, then, better grid performance, with more flexibility. We didn't erect barriers to exit, we promoted customer choice. Even when it cut the wrong way, as it did here. And yes, it hurt.

Was litigation a solution? It was suggested as one:

With business down and customers leaving, we had more than a few choices at our disposal. We were invited by one company to sue the beneficiaries of open source. We declined. We could join another and sue our customers. That seemed suicidal. . And we were encouraged to innovate by developers and customers who wanted Sun around, who saw the value we delivered through true systems engineering.

So we took that advice. . . . We redoubled our focus on innovation, in hardware and software, that would differentiate our offerings. Not just as good as the competition, but vastly better. . . . 

In essence, we decided to innovate, not litigate.

If "Our business Models Are melting Down Around Us," Should We Be Attempting to Freeze Them at the Very Moment in History When They Are About to Revolutionize Our Lives?

Schwartz is not alone in singing the innovation song.  Bruce Nussman advised CEO's this summer to Be Designers, Not Just Hire Them with this explanation.

There are moments in history when the pace of change is so fast and the shape of the future so fuzzy that we live in a constant state of beta.

I mean, let’s face it, our business models are melting down around us, our personal careers are morphing—or disappearing-- and there is less certainty about tomorrow than at any other time in our lives.

Innovation is no longer just about new technology per se. It is about new models of organization.

Design is no longer just about form anymore but is a method of thinking that can let you to see around corners. And the high tech breakthroughs that do count today are not about speed and performance but about collaboration, conversation and co-creation.

Could We Kill Internet 2 and 3.0?

All of this makes me wonder how misguided it might be to prevent the consumer-innovators of internet content sharing sites like YouTube from using, sharing, downloading, mixing, ripping, and burning the content that made YouTube what it is in the first place -- one of the most valuable internet sites on the planet in a mere eighteen months.

I am not the only one who has had this thought, of course.  None of this wild proliferation of creativity could exist had it been planned and controlled by a single corporate or governmental entity.  The internet -- and everything on it -- has arisen in relationship to and as a result of everything else.  No one can truly claim authorship.

Will demanding our "rights" to control our creation kill the creator, i.e., the collective consciousness that built the internet?  

Another innovator (brought to us by Coleman in Google Tumult via a Tech Crunch Post about  Attributor) CEO Jim Brock, has an answer -- snippet below:

If you are playing whack-a-mole and remove something from one site, it will appear somewhere else. Web-wide visibility is what publishers want. . . Smart publishers recognize that the blogosphere is the greatest promotional medium ever created.  . . A lot of publishers are holding back . . . they are fighting digitization. We’d like to see it set free.

While We're At It, A Little Propaganda About Net Neutrality Below

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