Kodak Lawsuit Could Impact My Flickr Photostream, or I WANT MY KODACHROME!

The BBC is reporting yet another big lawsuit that may impinge on my tech life.  With the sensational language toned down to an appropriate level of British reserve, the glorified tabloid service warns of impending doom for all of us who upload photos.  Failing to do more than hint at the reality, BBC gives a few facts, some conjecture and conclusions to keep your fear and ignorance levels high.




Remember the old days?  If you are like me, an anachronismatic tech user, one who struggles to be an effective user, you probably do.  We thought it was a big deal that we could send a roll of film to Kodak and get a CD back, and that they would have the images for us later on if we needed them.  Guess what?  They were digitizing our images and putting them on a server.  Sound familiar?  Well Kodak went an patented the process!

Tech historians like to mock PARC and all the super techy ideas it gave away, or let be taken, while the company, XEROX went down the tubes.  What if they protected the fruits of their vast R&D investment?  Well that is exactly the path that Kodak is trying to avoid.  With nothing apparently left in the tank except the big billboard on Time Square, Kodak is pursuing what I call the Paul Allen strategy of Glory Days Litigation- sue the bastards!  Find anyone who may be doing something with the ideas you had and patented, and thus own, and get a piece of the ensuing real profits.  Perfectly legitimate, if a bit distasteful, and its even more green than producing more Silver Halide!

Now Kodak, unable to do anything you want to pay for, is trying to stay alive making people pay for using what Kodak invented.  Anything to keep that Time Square billboard lit.  They are engaging in a business strategy: rights litigation strategy.  First, pick off a small but significant patent infringer, in this case Shutterfly.  Then offer a deal to the rest to pay you license fees, with a precedent in your pocket.  If there is resistance, crush them with a suit that prevails against, say, Flickr.

What is worrisome, is that Flickr is owned by Yahoo, that suicidal entity that likes killing good business models,  and Flickr is it's best one.  Look for changes, or at least charges to pay for the cost of licensing Kodak property.  Kodak is also suing others, including Microsoft and Apple.  That is why a devise like the iPhone, that costs something like $187 to make, can cost over $700 (AT&T pays a big share of that), and Apple make a paltry 15% on it.

Oh by the way, those super cutting edge OLED displays now coming into vogue?  Kodak.  1987.  The digital camera?  Kodak. 1975.