ABSURD - Inventor of Electric Slide leveraging DMCA to stop bad dancing!

Now this is getting a little crazy. Richard Silver claims to hold the copyright on the Electric Slide dance and is using the DCMA hammer on everything from YouTube to The Ellen DeGeneres Show to force licensing from the perps!

Richard who supposedly invented the Electric Slide in 1976 filed for his copyright in 2004 must be low on cash or something. Richard claims that there are too many examples of the dance that are performed incorrectly and he doesn't want future generations learning it wrong!

That is a bunch of Hoo Hockey! Get real Richard it was a lousy dance in 1976 and that hasn't changed! You should have copyrighted it back in 1976 - real nice to hoodwink people 30 years later! That just isn't cool.

This is another prime example of copyrights going wrong. Next he will claim a use patent on toe inflexion during the slide!

Maybe Richard can join up with the NFL and go after all the people who are watching NFL players doing the Electric Slide in the end zone after a touch down on screens bigger than 55"!

Aye yi yi! Richard go get a job like the rest of us and stop whining because you haven't invented anything worthwhile since 1976. BTW that was over 30 years ago and the Ford Pinto was all the rage back then too!

IMHO this is another prime example of what holds us back! These artificial barriers ultimately suppress innovation and creativity and hinder people from achieving great things for everyone!

ABSURD - NFL now trying enforce copyright infringement if you have a screen bigger than 55 inches and have your friends over to watch!

Techdirt has an article today that really makes you shake your head. It seems there is a really poorly written copyright law on the books (another great slice of mastery from a lobbyist no doubt) that basically states once you are above 55 inches for your display it is considered a "public performance".

Aye yi yi!

The NFL is trying to stop a church from having a Super Bowl party! I am not quite sure how the NFL loses anything by a church having its members gather to watch "the big game"!

The copyright and patents laws are starting to show their limitations and really need to be re-visited and updated to match what is reality today.

Between MLB and the NFL and their legal saber rattling it is a wonder why anyone watches these sports anymore.

Take a look at the article over on Techdirt as it has even more information.