Back when I first started blogging I sometimes blogged about SCO's efforts to claim the copyrights in Linux as its own. Eventually I stopped blogging about it, partly because I found other less ludicrous things to blog about instead, and partly because other people were blogging about it more thoroughly and insightfully than I was ever inclined to.
To summarize the saga for people unfamiliar with it, a company called SCO decided that it owned IP rights in Linux and tried to sue IBM for infringing on its IP rights in creating its Unix operating system. IBM didn't take this lying down, and from there the discovery wars took off. Undeterred, SCO then tried to pitch a licensing program to anyone who might be inclined to use Linux and not want to risk SCO trying to sue them too. But then the plot thickened, when Novell, who actually did have a tenable claim to IP in Linux, sued SCO.
Earlier this year Novell won a decisive round in that case, which is update #1. Update #2 is that SCO has just filed for bankruptcy protection. Couldn't have happened to a nicer company...
I may someday write more about this case, partly because it is a fascinating story of comeuppance, but mostly because it exemplifies the type of issues that can arise when IP laws are used (and abused) as swords. In this case the efforts boomeranged back towards the people who wielded them. But it was only because SCO's claims were so laughable and megalomaniacal that something resembling justice, both karmic and legal, has been able to come about. In many other situations unfortunately the same cannot be said.