Rosabeth Moss Kanter makes an interesting point on her blog at The Harvard Business Review when she writes about a successful legal action brought by Mattel, owner of the Barbie brand against MGA Entertainment Inc which owns Bratz.

Former Mattel designer Carter Bryant was charged with intellectual property theft because the company said he had the idea for Bratz while working for Mattel. The company’s contracts make it clear inventions made while working for the company become its property.

So, if your current employer does things badly and you know a way to do them better, you now need to halt your thinking processes while you serve out your notice or you could find yourself on the nasty end of a writ. It’s a twist on the idea an knowledge worker is someone who is paid to think for a living.

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• Why Should Mattel Get Future Plans For New Bratz Dolls? (techdirt.com)

Google’s plan to steal author copyright is the flip side of New Zealand’s asymmetric copyright regime.

The Stuff.co.nz website has a story this morning saying New Zealand authors are angry about Google’s plans to scan and digitise their books.

This is perfectly understandable- as the author of a popular book I understand why they are upset. It seems odd the New Zealand government, like so many others, is happy to bend our laws and traditions to give extraordinary levels of copyright protection to the huge movie industry corporations, but is unwilling to stand up to Google when it wants to strip the rights of local copyright holders.

Could it possibly have anything to do with the local authors not being able to finance teams of expensive lawyers and political lobbyists?

Here’s the current state of play:

• A child in New Zealand downloads a movie from a huge multinational reducing its profits by a tiny amount – perhaps there’ll be one less caviar egg on the table at the next Hollywood indulge-fest. The child will lose its internet connection, pay a huge fine and could face a criminal record.
• A huge multinational can steal intellectual property from a New Zealand author, wiping out their livelihood and reducing our cultural treasures – Maori have a good name for it Taonga.

Does this add up? There’s something asymmetric going on here.

Authors are knowledge workers and deserve your support. You can read more here:

NZ authors protest Google book plan – technology | Stuff.co.nz.
The Great Google Book Grab
Google steals taonga, rips off law commissioners
New Zealand Society of Authors

Incidentally, if you’re an author with a taste for technology, you might like to include your name on the New Zealand media people on Twitter list.

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• Five things New Zealand’s copyright law rewrite must cover (arstechnica.com)

Important message from global entertainment industry

Cartoonist Dylan Horrocks protested against New Zealand’s S92A copyright law change in an appropriate manner by drawing this copyright-free cartoon.

Horrocks is a cartoonist who depends on the notion of copyright for his livelihood. As a journalist I’m in exactly the same position.

One of the wisest things I learned from former colleague Jack Schofield was governments have a habit of enacting laws that result in the opposite effect to their intentions.

New Zealand’s poorly thought-out S92A is a classic example of this. Rather than strengthening New Zealand’s copyright law, it has further undermined the concept of copyright in this country.

This is not a good thing.

Thanks to @glynmoody for drawing my attention to this locally produced cartoon even if he is sitting on the other side of the world and to www.scoop.c o.nz for hosting the cartoon here.

And Juha Saarinen provides some context for NZ’s harsh new copyright law.

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• Black Out Your Twitter Photo: NZ Copyright Law Protest Goes Viral (readwriteweb.com)