Why IP Laws Are Blocking Innovation 348
DrJimbo passes along this quote from Groklaw:
"The White House is asking us to give them ideas on what is blocking innovation in America. I thought I'd give them an honest answer. Here it is: Current intellectual property laws are blocking innovation. President Obama just set a goal of wireless access for everyone in the US, saying it will spark innovation. But that's only true if people are allowed to actually do innovative things once they are online. You have to choose. You can prop up old business models with overbearing intellectual property laws that hit innovators on the head whenever they stick their heads up from the ground; or you can have innovation. You can't have both. And right now, the balance is away from innovation."
Remember the vast innovation in the baroque period (Score:5, Insightful)
No IP was a contributing factor.
And the worst offender is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Patents. Bloody software patents, and fat cats using patents to bludgeon little guys. IIRC, the intention was pretty much the opposite - patents were supposed to be a way to put the law on the side of the little guy. Where did it all go wrong?
As for copyright - no more damn extensions. Indeed, ratchet back.
Suggestions (Score:1, Insightful)
Of course, without strong ip laws there's no reason to innovate. Any suggestions? Clearly this debate belongs on a larger basis than the 1D, "stronger - weaker". How about a policy of "use it or lose it?"
Re:Suggestions (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, without strong ip laws there's no reason to innovate.
LOL.
The 'reason to innovate' is to make money by making better stuff than your competitors.
Or do you really think our ancestors sat around in a cave saying 'you know, I'd really like to invent the wheel, but since I couldn't patent it, what's the point?'
Its intellectual feudalism. (Score:5, Insightful)
a concept is like a bridge. once you give the ownership of the bridge to someone, that someone has the control of that bridge, can use it to do anything, toll anyone, deny access to anyone. and buy more bridges. eventually, most of the bridges get concentrated in the hands of minority, which then end up controlling the social, political and economical aspects of life through their power. its the inevitable result of inheritance-supported, unlimited ownership.
Re:Fanaticism is losing sight of the original goal (Score:5, Insightful)
Orson Scott Card had a comment about the impossibility of expecting a bureaucrat (and presumably by extension, lawyer) to be able to understand the spirit of a law. Can't remember the quote offhand, but the gist of it is, if they understood enough about how the world works to be able to understand when to follow and when to ignore the letter of the law, they wouldn't be willing to be a bereaucrat.
First to file (Score:5, Insightful)
You fail to patent, or file slowly? That's okay! We will patent for you, and then sue you for violating our patent!
As I understand first to file, prior art published outside a patent application can still invalidate a patent or application. It makes a difference only when two inventors have pending applications on the same thing (e.g. AG Bell and Elisha Gray).
Re:Suggestions (Score:5, Insightful)
The fashion industry manages to innovate just fine without strong IP laws for anything but trademarks.
The food industry does just fine without patentst on recipes.
etc
it's a myth.
A myth perpetuated by a horde of business graduates who wouldn't know an original thought if it bit them in the ass and who just accept the idea that patents are utterly essential because the general idea sounds kinda good.
Re:Remember the vast innovation in the baroque per (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, the good old days, when you needed a the support of the Church or a wealthy patron to make a living as an artist.
Thanks but no thanks.
Re:Welcome to the real world, hippies (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. Remember what happened the last time the President used the internet to ask the people what they wanted? The most popular response, by a long shot, was marijuana reform. The President came out and laughed, as if tens of thousands of people in jail were some sort of joke. I don't expect patent reform to be taken any more seriously.
Good thesis, poor execution (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, I just think the sheer amount of licensing boondoggles and lawyers required to build any kind of useful tech device these days is completely out of control, and I don't know if the paper made that clear (it didn't to me anyway).
Re:And the worst offender is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Where it went wrong is when the "big guys" were allowed to pull tricks like patent-slamming and overwhelm the patent office.
That and when the rules were changed so that a corporation, rather than an individual, got to own the patent.
Absurd patents have always existed, but now they're allowed to destroy industries - and not just the software patent. When Wizards of the Coast [thefreelibrary.com] was granted a patent on card games, for instance, the patent NEVER should have been granted. It's a motherfucking joke [patentstorm.us].
A copy of Mr. Hoyle's Games Complete, circa THE YEAR 1750, offers every single mechanic WotC's patent describes that could possibly be counted as a nontrivial change. The idea of a "trading card game" in the patent ought to have been invalidated by, to name one early example "The Base Ball Card Game", produced by the Allegheny Card Company in the year 1904.
But some dope-on-a-rope in the patent office, overworked and underbrained, granted the patent to WotC. Sheer lunacy but the patent-slammers prevailed yet again.
And before you say "well but you could sue to have the patent invalidated" - NO. The point is that crap like this should never be granted. Most of the competing CCG-makers simply folded up shop after WotC started demanding royalties. It took until years later for Wizkids to finally offer a lawsuit to try to invalidate WotC's patent, and then it got settled without judgement [icv2.com], meaning WotC can still bully and make asses of themselves on an obviously invalid patent.
Re:Remember the vast innovation in the baroque per (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Suggestions (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, without strong ip laws there's no reason to innovate.
Innovations are made in spite of and not because of strong IP laws. The amount of ideas popping out of your mind doesn't increase if you can make one innovation or magnum opus and then live happily on it for the rest of your life. That actually stifles innovation.
Force the innovators to continue innovating, by taking away their exclusive rights after a time short enough that they can't rest on their laurels.
And make copyrights and patents non-transferable and only licenseable for a year at a time.. If the company who hires you only have access to your innovations as long as they still pay you, the bright minds who come up with the ideas would be rewarded much more than the fat cats who reap the profits from other people's ideas.
Re:Stephan Kinsella's "Against Intellectual Proper (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Remember the vast innovation in the baroque per (Score:5, Insightful)
No IP was a contributing factor.
I don't know what you people are talking about. There is considerable innovation in America today. The US is the leader in CDOs, derivatives, tax avoidance, and is always coming up with new and innovative schemes to part working people from their money.
No lack of innovation there, it's just misdirected.
Re:Suggestions (Score:5, Insightful)
Really. Interesting - innovation seems to predate "intellectual property law" by at least millenia.
In ancient Egypt: "Hey, buddy! You in the chariot with the wheels! Pull over! I own the IP for my innovation of the wheel, you owe me license fees. So pay up, or take them off the chariot!"
In the sixteenth century, the Venetians innovated ways to make colored glass. They protected their IP by turning the glass blowing factory into a fortress. Revealing the secrets to folks outside the factory was punishable by death.
The Chinese had a monopoly on silk making, and used similar methods to ensure that no silk worms left the country. Italian monks eventually managed to smuggle some out hidden in hollowed out walking sticks. Hey, ancient Industrial Espionage!
So ancient cultures did understand the value of protecting their innovations. They just used different methods to protect them.
Re:Remember the vast innovation in the baroque per (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Suggestions (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course, without strong ip laws there's no reason to innovate."
I work in web shop developing software for WordPress. Before we switched our license to GPL, we found that copyright was essentially worthless. People did whatever they wanted with our software, and there was very little we could do to stop it. In essence, we would have to litigate the world if we wanted to create a feeling of protection. Even then, it would have no effect on the actual infringement.
I guarantee that this is exactly the feeling that the media industry has. They know that they can never win the IP fight, but they have way too much invested in the old way of doing business to do nothing and have a hard time convincing themselves and their investors that change of business practices could bring greater profits.
For us the solution was simple, go GPL and stop caring about the delusion of control. You know what changed for us? We had to change some text in our files and got a little press for switching our licensing. Other than that, not a thing changed. We still have customers that buy products from us and ask for support. Our stuff can still be found all over the web, just as it was before. We still have the same level of control over what people do with our code, none. And personally, I don't mind that one bit. I still put well beyond my 40 hours a week into creating new code and trying to be "innovative," yet the farce of IP and the delusion of control it would seem to offer has nothing to do with my efforts nor with the efforts of anyone else I work with. In addition, all the devs I know that do similar work don't have any thoughts about protecting their work. They are just concerned about making something new and making things better, because that's how we make money.
Can the same be said of everything? Maybe. Maybe not. There could possibly be legitimate need for some kind of IP protection. I'm not quite sure. I do firmly believe that most of the belief in IP is just our being conditioned to think that ideas can be possessed like tangible pieces of matter. I also firmly believe that most IP protections have grown wildly out of scope (I'm looking at you infinite copyrights, software patents, DMCA, and careful manipulation of IP laws permitting businesses to legally perform anti-competitive practices).
If the goal of IP is to foster innovation, it has failed.
Re:And the worst offender is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Be careful what you wish for.
Copyright is for life + 70 years.
Patents last 17 to 20 years.
The OP had it right. Patent law prohibits patenting ideas or algorithms. Programs are algorithms by definition, and shouldn't be patentable at all. Yet the Patent office has decided to allow software patents in spite of what the law states.
Re:And the worst offender is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Remember the vast innovation in the baroque per (Score:2, Insightful)
TFA is built on the premise that crime would pay if there weren't patents on the crime methods.
Napster? Really?
Napster wasn't hit with a patent suit for its method of stealing music. It was busted up because it was stealing music.
I couldn't read the rest after it started with that. Someone tell me if it redeemed itself.
Re:Welcome to the real world, hippies (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, there's no reasoning with pure authoritarianism. If the law is the law because it's the law, and breaking the law is bad because it's against the law, the law is always right, tautologically. Any sane individual (and most insane ones!) will realize that there are just and unjust laws. People imprisoned for possession of marijuana are victims of a repressive regime. There is absolutely no reason why that should happen, the punishment should fit the crime.
Re:Remember the vast innovation in the baroque per (Score:5, Insightful)
If you enable people to make illegal copies of their copyright material, and to find more people to make illegal copies from, and you make money from it, how is that not stealing?
You cannot 'steal' a digital bit. It simply exists and is copied or erased. But you cannot 'take' or 'steal' it in any way.
Napster is a bad example but for a different reason. Napster was busted for violating the copyrights of the music they were allowing to be traded.
How about Guitar Hero being killed because the copyright holders of the songs demanded ridiculous amounts when the game amounts to free advertising for them? They are certainly in the rights to do so, but it doesn't mean that 'innovation' isn't being stifled by it.
Patents are the bigger problem. Specifically software patents, but patents in general too. That Tivo can be sued because someone patented a completely vague idea without actually building their idea hurts everybody. Vonage also got sued over really technical things that Verizon (I think) purchased patents for and then sued Vonage. Worse, 'Patent Trolls' - companies that literally don't make anything purchase lots of patents solely for the purpose of suing companies who actually create things - *that* stifles innovation significantly.
I'm not advocating illegal sharing of copyrighted works. I am advocating that the current mindset of today's 'media' companies is very short sighted and backwards. Digital copies, instead of being a 'product' like a CD, are now the 'advertising' they should be using to drive people to buy things that aren't available in infinite supply. (This is not saying that because it's illegally available they should just give up).
Digital copies can be made in infinite numbers at just about zero cost. Say I'm selling apples and one day, someone comes and, without taking any apples, creates an apple tree next to my apple stand. Now apples are available for free right next to me. The value of my apples is lowered. I have not lost anything, nor been deprived of anything. There are simply more apples on the market and that causes value to go down. An infinite supply of apples puts the 'value' of any one apple at zero. I can complain that free apples exist - this is what 'media' is doing today. Or I can shift to having people come to my cart to by my 'worm free' apples. Instead of selling apples, I'm now providing a service of quality apples. I can certainly take apples from the tree too, I just spend time verifying they are worm free; that's the 'value' I am providing.
For the music industry, the 'value' is in live performances and merchandising. You simply can't produce a live performance infinitely, it can only be done at the concert with those musicians for a finite set of people.
But unfortunately we have billions of dollars fighting this basic fact of the digital world. Best description I've heard "Trying to make digital bits not copyable is like trying to make water not wet".
Re:Remember the vast innovation in the baroque per (Score:3, Insightful)
I wish I hadn't blown all my mod points to increase the visibility of a couple titty jokes. You should have got one.
Even the jokes need their patrons.
Re:Remember the vast innovation in the baroque per (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a bit sad, considering the amount of energy spent on Slashdot discussing IP and innovation, that a sweeping and incorrect generalization like "No IP protection in the Baroque" that is still considered "Insightful." You would have hoped that people would have spent a fraction of the time writing and ranting instead reading.
There were of course considerable legal efforts used to keep smart people in place and harvest their output. This was an era when monopoly rights were routinely granted to restrict competition and the wealthy were obsessively worried about secret knowledge.
If you were, say, a glassblower in Venice, it would be impossible to take that knowledge and use it elsewhere within Venice; risky to use it outside Venetian control; and downright fatal if you did use it outside Venice and then returned home. By comparison, a patent lawsuit where most of the time you split the profits is downright encouraging.
In the arts, Handel basically had to defect from Hannover to compose in England.
This is not to over-dramaticize; states were weaker and their understanding of what could be considered a "valuable innovation" much more limited. I don't know how you could reasonably compare "IP" restrictions and say one era was better or worse; they were just very different. It would depend what you were trying to do.
I'm afraid my own opinion is fairly bland--clearly IP laws hurt innovation and clearly IP laws help innovation. (I could give personal examples of both--projects killed because an invention was patented but not developed by a competitor; projects not considered because you couldn't establish exclusivity and thus saw no path for ROI.) They have different effects in different industries. The proper balance between freedom, basic fairness and innovation is tricky.
Re:And the worst offender is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the thing. Sending you a nasty-gram explaining that your product is infringing on the following 27 patents will take 1 company lawyer maybe 1 hour.
That doesn't mean they are suing you. It's not a suit, until it gets to court. We only hear about the big vs big, because they are the only ones who can afford going to court.
You, as a private person or even a small company, does not have the resources to defend yourself against 27 patent infringement claims.