Kane Kramer... Steve Jobs should pay him millions...

I was listening with great interest to the Guardian Tech. Weekly podcast this morning - which I try to do every week (and highly recommend it for keeping one abreast of all techie things without getting bogged down in details) and they were talking about Kane Kramer... the British inventor who came up with the idea, the concept, the technology, the drawings and business plan for digital audio downloads and portable players back in 1979!  This was his drawing then of the portable digital audio player:

Everyone knows, of course, that Apple never invent anything, they just take other inventions and make them work a little better or more user-friendly and then they put them in a pretty box (disclosure, I used to have Apple computers in the 90s and that has put me off anything the company does for ever more); but it poses the lovely question of intellectual property.

Kane, as I'm sure I'd call him if we ever met, came up with the idea. Patented it. Was talking about it with various technology companies, but was unable to get it up and running.  An idea ahead of its time.  The idea that his idea was ahead of its time is also past... the Daily Mail wrote about it last September... and how Apple will not pay him anything.

So what happens now?  Out of patent, the iPod and other mp3 players, which would not work without Kane's invention, are earning billions for the various companies (let's not forget that Apple are the biggest and worst at it... Creative are also big in the arena, Sony still muddling along etc.).  

One could argue that that's always the way - the inventors might get the posthumous glory but never the riches in life... but surely there has to be a better way?  With Web 2.0 encouraging collaboration and sharing on all levels, what happens to people who give ideas and knowledge freely, to see others make millions out of it?  Isn't it about time that ideas should be protectable through Intellectual Property law?  Shouldn't there be a global agreement on inventors getting some compensation (not much, but let's say 0.01% of gross profits... not enough to damage the companies concerned, but for every $1 million that they make from the inventions, the inventor would then make $100.  OK - it isn't much.  It's quite pathetic even, but over time it could make a difference.  And with companies such as Apple making $5 billion per year, that 0.01% would become $500,000... which would at least allow the inventors to buy themselves a little peace of mind.