Against Intellectual Property 270
danny writes "Australian academic and activist Brian Martin has written
a detailed paper Against intellectual property. This is an accessible presentation that covers the area quite broadly." Excellent paper - more than the typical slogans in this subject area, and well worth reading in depth.
IP is Protectionism (Score:2)
-- Faré @ TUNES [tunes.org].org
Re:Hmmm... (Score:2)
Well, he is a professor, and while people in the private sector like to sneer at academics for not having a job in "the real world", the fact is that academics generate a constant stream of intellectual property (that's their job), and so I rather think in terms of intellectual property, academia is the "real world".
Re:Hmmm... (Score:1)
You are free to keep your work secret if you wish to retain control of it. But if you publish it, you lose control of it, both practically and theoretically.
Intellectual property does not work like physical property because, unlike most physical objects, ideas reproduce themselves. Ideas don't change hands like money, they divide like bacteria.
If you create a beautiful table and give it to me, you lose a table and I gain a table. You can no longer give the table to anyone else. I can. You can no longer destroy the table. I can.
If you create a beautiful idea and tell it to me, you lose nothing and I gain an idea. Either of us can give the idea to someone else. Neither of us can destroy it.
Now of course you can argue that while you don't lose the idea itself, you lose control of it. You deserve something in return for your hard work. Fine, then sell me the idea. Keep it secret until I pay you to reveal it. But once you have revealed it, do not fool yourself that the idea still belongs to you alone. Now it belongs to both of us. If you want to carry on selling copies of your idea, you'd better make sure you charge less than I do. And as we both go around selling copies of the idea, the supply will grow exponentially and the price will drop. So make sure you charge enough for the first copy of your idea to compensate you for all your work.
I don't object to the idea that you should be able to decide whether to release your intellectual creations. They are yours. Keep them secret if you want to own them. But once you decide to release them, they are not yours any more. You cannot have them back. You should not be able to control what I do with the ideas in my head, however they got there and whoever told them to me.
Free software and other works certainly have their place, but it isn't something that should be foisted upon every author and programmer and artist.
Secrets have their place, but they aren't something that should be foisted upon every thinking being. You should not be able to force me to keep secrets for your benefit.
Why is it nonsense? (Score:2)
For instance the record industry bullies musicians into signing, and then owns the copyrights for the rest of that musician's life. Read that description and tell me that the system has *not* been corrupted!
In short, please don't mistake your ignorance on the topic for his.
Intellectual property is an artificially granted monopoly for the purpose of encouraging people to create and give away useful ideas. Key to that concept was a limited term. Today the industry is doing everything to make that term "forever minus a day" (in Jack Valenti's words).
That is too much.
Regards,
Ben
Cooperatives can't compete? Huh? (Score:1)
Slightly offtopic, but there is a statement here I have to take issue with:
I would counter that cooperation does not make more sense, as proven that collective societies cannot compete with competitive societies by the fall of the collectively based governments in Eastern Europe.
The fatal flaw with this reasoning is that it assumes a competitive society as the "standard," if you will, and thus fails to consider the cooperative society on its own. In other words, this is only saying that "competitive societies left unchecked beat out cooperative ones." Sure, just look at history. But the question is not about interactions between societies--it's about how a single society would work.
Of course, the whole planet suddenly turning cooperative, or even just deciding to leave cooperative societies alone, is about as likely as That Hot Place Downstairs freezing over, but I don't see that it would necessarily be impossible to have a cooperative society with a competitive "interface," so to speak, to the rest of the world.
Take that further with China, which arguably has much more access to resources than the United States, but the United States has used competition to exploit the resources available to it in a more efficient manner and thus produce an economy and standard of living for its citizens that China will not equal for decades.
I could point out that you fail to support this argument, but it is flawed anyway, since it assumes that the values of Americans apply to everyone in the world, which is simply not true. Look at all of the trade arguments going on, for example: the U.S. versus Europe on genetically modified food, or the U.S. versus developing countries on labor conditions, among others. As well, a number of Chinese people I've talked to have complained of the U.S. trying to force values on their society that they don't believe in. (Incidentally, I'm an American myself, but living overseas for the last year has been a real eye-opener on this topic. The U.S. is not the whole world, folks.)
I personally think that both competition and cooperation are needed. Competition gets you improvement on inventions faster (I'd like to use Linux and BSD as an example here if they'd quit flaming and start working), but I don't see how competition gets you a better novel. (And look at the mess competition has made of HTML.)
Re:Intillectual Property -- Oxymoron or just moron (Score:2)
Fire is a physical phenomenon, excluded from the range of patentable subjects (which exclude "laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas". Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175, 185, 101 S.Ct. 1048, 1056, 67 L.Ed.2d 155, 209 USPQ 1, 7 (1981))
or any other great leap forward?
It's too bad no one patented "The Great Leap Forward", since perhaps then so many people wouldn't have been killed by China from 1958-1960.
Get a grip on reality buddy (Score:3)
Spoken like someone who is truly ignorant of how the world works. Sorry to be so blunt, but I cannot understand how you could even come to your conclusions if you weren't clueless.
I honestly believe that people would spend billions of dollars to help other people
Okay, name how many people you know who have billions and billions of dollars? Bill Gates, Larry Elison, Steve Jobs ... there are probably quite a few. But you know what, even if they gave up all their money to help other people, they would not be able to come up with a fraction of the drugs that have been produced by 'greedy corporations'.
People don't have billions to spend. Corporations don't have billions to freely spend. The only reason corporations can afford to spend the money on research, to spend years throwing money down the tube hoping for a breakthrough, is because that when they do make a breakthrough, they can recoup their costs through IP.
Chuck out IP, and you can kiss goodbye to any research. Kiss goodbye to reseach, and you can kiss goodbye to drugs.
Re:Movies would suck without the MPAA (Score:3)
You mean like the Blair Witch Project [imdb.com]? Albeit, considerable sums were spent on marketing and advertising, but good films can be made on a tight budget.
Burning CD's....two measures for me (Score:1)
I don't think that those kids are the problem. I mean, they don't have the money anyway to buy all the CD's they want (at least, I didn't when I was a kid) I understand them. I even explained how to burn CD's to my sister, but told her not to make profit (I said she could just ask the value of the raw CD rounded up.)
What really makes me mad are collega's at work that want to borrow your CDs, burn it, copy the cover on the fancy color copier at work and think it is okay. It is *not* okay, those guys *have* the money and should pay for the goods they want.
Even tough I *know* that perhaps only 1% of the price of a CD goes into the pocket of the artist, it is my way to thank them for their work that lightens up my life.
And yes, I know...I'm using two measures for the same thing, but is the way I feel.
same old drivel (Score:2)
Quoted ideas from Hettinger include the notion that one's compensation is a matter of social policy and claim that receiving market value can only be a right once one has established the right of ownership. But if one own's one body and mind and time then one should have the right to trade one's energy and talents with others. The ownership is ownership of one's life and time. It is irrelevant if one is simply "lucky" or not. Life is not about some bogus notion of "fairness". Intelligence is not distributed equally. Nor is ambition. Nor dedication to a goal. Nor insight. Nature is a crap-shoot. But that fact does not mean that the successes that occur should not be rewarded. Evolution, including evolution of ideas and technology, works off of rewarding or selecting that which succeeds.
The market does not have to be "fair" in the sense of equal results or some rarefied and as yet unidentified measure of one's efforts or worthiness. To be fair the market simply needs to be free to all to trade their efforts and products for the effort and products of others.
This of course does not mean that most types of "intellectual property" are actually owned property. We need ways of trading the effort, ability, creativity, dedication and so on without tying up the products of these traits. Tying up the products reduces the useable value of the things we would like to reward and be rewarded for and actually slows down the future manifestation of these valuable qualities.
Re: Movies would suck without the MPAA (Score:1)
I can see the final scene now, where Jack (DiCaprio) is hanging on, about to drown...
Jack (hanging on to the edge of a filled kiddie pool): You must do me this honor, Rose. Promise me you'll survive. Promise me now Rose, no matter what happens, or how hopeless.
Rose (sitting on a plastic Fisher Price boat): I promise.
(She shivers when you see James Cameron, in the background, open up a bag of ice and dump it into the pool, making 'whoosh' noises with his mouth to simulate wind)
Jack: Never let go.
Rose: I'll never let go. I'll never let go, Jack.
(DiCaprio rolls over face-down into the kiddie pool filled with ice)
James Cameron (off-camera): Cut!... Cut I said! Just hit the red button on the HandiCam!
(In the next scene we see an older Rose walk up to the kiddie pool, reminisce about the past, and throw a candy Ring Pop into the pool. Zoom into the Ring Pop, fade to black)
I don't know about you, but I would like to see this version of Titanic. Of course, the budget would be tight, so Jack would probably be played by Austin St. John (the Red Power Ranger) and Rose by an overweight Molly Ringwald. The older Rose would probably be Cameron's mother.
It is clear we must defeat the MPAA so we can watch a $2500 Titanic starring a former Power Ranger and Molly Ringwald. Who's with me?
I don't think that this is a good essay (Score:4)
First off, I'll admit that I have not read the entire treatise, and mostly because of this:
The government's power to grant a monopoly is corrupting.
This is the third sentence of the second paragraph. I really dislike persuasive papers that delve into opinion so early in their arguments. Granted, most persuasive arguements have their basis in opinion, but good persuasive arguements go to great lengths to give basis to that opinion. Starting out the issue with a flat and unsupported opinion is bad form. There is no logic in nor attempt to explain the premise "The government's power to grant a monopoly is corrupting."
I've looked down through the arguements...here's one I don't like:
It(intellectual property) fosters competitiveness over information and ideas, whereas cooperation makes much more sense.
Why does cooperation make more sense? There is no support to that premise, and therefore, the statement is not using the correct logic that is necessary to support a valid arguement.
I would counter that cooperation does not make more sense, as proven that collective societies cannot compete with competitive societies by the fall of the collectively based governments in Eastern Europe. Take that further with China, which arguably has much more access to resources than the United States, but the United States has used competition to exploit the resources available to it in a more efficient manner and thus produce an economy and standard of living for its citizens that China will not equal for decades.
The neem tree arguement was taken from a publication about intellectual piracy. I won't argue that the patenting of the products of the tree is piracy, I believe that it is, but I certainly don't believe that it is a good arguement against intellectual property. All kinds of similar piracy goes on all over the world, not the least of which is IP piracy. Take DeBeers for instance. DeBeers controls much of the diamond mining concessions on the African continent, and the peoples of the countries that give/sell those concessions to DeBeers receive very little in return for the billions of dollars worth of diamonds that DeBeers pillages from them. The same thing happens with petrochemical resources in Africa. I always hear about Western oil companies operating in Africa, but I know of no "African" oil companies.
Perhaps some of the arguements presented in this paper are good arguements for reform of IP laws, but not the condemnation of IP itself. Companies like Intel and AMD would have little incentive to innovate if not allowed to patent their chip designs. That goes for just about every other major manufacturing industry in the world. Why should Intel spend billions of dollars on research when they are forced to turn that research over to AMD in the spirit of cooperation.
This paper takes a too altruistic view of the human animal. The arguements presented here assume that humans can be converted into honest and righteous characters. The truth is, people lie, cheat, steal and murder in order to better their own ends. Keeping a grasp on intellectual property is much less of an evil that the arguement presented in this paper would have you belive.
Yes, secrets have always existed. (Score:1)
If you want to keep your ideas secret, I support your right to do so. (Make sure you use strong crypto - once your secrets get out of the box you can't put them back in.) If you publish your ideas, then you are giving up control of those ideas. You are no longer the sole owner of those ideas - you share them with the person you told, and the people he told, and the people they told. You don't control the ideas anymore, even though you still own them in the sense that you still know them.
Say, for example, I come up with Invention X, a remarkable discovery that will benefit countless millions. However, I don't have a factory to produce the product, and I fear that without government protection, Big Company Y would steal my idea and immediately begin producing Invention X in their existing factory more efficiently than I could, thus capturing the market for my invention. Why, then, would I put in all the effort to develop and perfect Invention X, when I would never have the opportunity to recoup my costs (let alone make a profit)? I'd be better off just keeping my ideas to myself.
No, you'd be better off selling your invention to Company Y and using the profits to build your own factory to go into competition with them! (Or buy a yacht, I don't care, it's your money.) Remember, the idea is free (libre) so even though you sold a copy to them, you're still free to use your copy. They benefit because they can use their head start to get market share. You benefit because that market share's worth a lot, and they will pay you a lot for your idea. And you still get to compete with them, because there's no intellectual property system creating an artificial monopoly.
Re:I don't think that this is a good essay (Score:1)
Without IP restrictions, Intel would have to innovate a lot more than it does now. Anybody would be able to take an Intel chip, reverse engineer it in a couple of months, tool up a production line in another month, and start turning out identical chips. After another few months their quality control levels would have approached Intel's, as they came to understand the reverse-engineered manufacturing process a little better. So maybe six months after Intel shipped its chip, Obscurotech would be shipping copies with the same performance and yield.
Six months is a long time at Intel. They do not stand still for six months. While Obscurotech was busy copying the Pentium III, Intel would be working on the Pentium IV. By the time Obscurotech understood what was going on in the Pentium IV, Intel would be one step ahead again. Each innovating company, selling cutting-edge products at a premium, would be followed by a pack of carbon-copiers, cloning its products and competing with each other to provide the cheapest, most up-to-date clone. Innovation would survive, and prices would fall.
Competition, as you rightly say, is the best way of making use of scarce resources (mental or mineral). IP stifles competition by stopping companies from using ideas that they know will work. Why do you think the US government is so worried about piracy in southeast Asia? It knows that a country without IP laws can out-compete a country with IP laws.
Re:High Capital Costs (Score:2)
Re:Coincidence? (Score:2)
Just imagine the rate of technological development we would have if technology was available for everyone to develop, and not controled by the few who benefit from IP law.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:2)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:2)
Opinion (Score:2)
property is primarily of value to those who are already powerful and wealthy"
The graph paraphrased above is opinion and conjecture and not fact. When I wrote papers in college, I was required to make statements based upon fact, otherwise, I would be guilty of writing a rambling thesis of my opinions and not a true research paper.
But then I read the Mr. Martin was an "academic and activist" and realized he has no real job, no real use to society and probably lives off somebody else, most likely a guilt-based handout.
This is not news or even of interest. It is one person's opinion whom somebody with Slashdot agrees with and therefore it has become an approved article.
That makes Slashdot pointless.
the paper was stupid (Score:2)
Re:same old drivel (Score:2)
A friend of mine, totally a non-techie, once gave me an idea for a program by something she said. She wasn't talking about programming or even computers. It just clicked as she was talking. Do my shoes belong in part to her?
Let's take a look at physical products. A blacksmith, for example. He (or she
What the smith is compensated for is his value added, both to the raw materials used to make the shoes, and to the ideas of those that preceded him in the making of horse shoes. Because the smith learned how to make horse shoes, I don't have to when I want horse shoes. That's knowledge. What I am compensated for is the value added to the work of those I learned from and those they learned from, etc. Because I leared to do that, the smith doesn't have to if he wants a web site.
Yes, there have been and are abuses of intellectual propery rights, some quite blatant and some quite grievous. But let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.
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Re:Shetland times example and some comments (Score:2)
The original purpose was to prevent large publishing houses from publishing the works of authors without renumeration. If there were no copyright laws, do you think Metallica would get paid by Sony Records?
Hmmm... (Score:3)
Now first, a disclaimer. I like to think I've done my part for the world of Free software. I want this to go to show that I have no qualms giving away intellectual property that I have created, but I want it to be my choice when I decide to do that. That, friends, is the real meaning of intellectual freedom.
At more than one point in my life, I survived as a writer, and to tell you the truth, it scares me to think of a world where my copyright means nothing. Stephen King just recently said it quite well, as I attempt to paraphrase him: "Please respect my copyright; as a writer, it's all I've got." Not bad, coming from a no-talent hack
Free software and other works certainly have their place, but it isn't something that should be foisted upon every author and programmer and artist.
yours,
john
Don't be ridiculous, it's not about "fairness" (Score:3)
For that, the mere possibility of a reward will suffice. How many Edison-wannabes were inspired to follow his example by seeing how rich he got from it? Do you really think that Edison getting it before Grey discouraged people from inventing?
Sure, only a few novelists get rich, or even make a living. But looking at those few who do tempts everyone, and draws out those who are talented enough to succeed.
Scientific and mathematical research works just fine without IP, so there's no IP available. While there are a fair number of poems, essays, and short stories written with no hope of reward, it's a very unusual person who spends months or years working full-time on a book without expecting to get paid for it. Factories started to hide how they were doing things, so patents were brought in to give them a reason to share their techniques with the world. It's all about society's benefit, and freeing information.
Arguments about how it's "unfair" are utterly irrelevant. I would, OTOH, love to hear arguments about how other things could work better. Suggestions of something perfectly "fair" but ridiculously unworkable only serve to illustrate my point: the two don't go together.
I can't prove it anymore than the pro-IP can prove their system works.
No, you see, the pro-IP people know their system works, from experience. What they can't prove is whether it works better than an IPless system. What the anti-IP people can't prove is that their "system" works at all. Pre-IP society was so radically different from modern society that it doesn't provide any real evidence about the effects of dropping IP. For all we know, society could collapse into chaos.
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
Re:Some good, lots of crap (Score:2)
Nels
Just silly..... (Score:2)
And yet, this guy would make it economically imposible for Charles Gentile to make a cent from his poster of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Without Copyright, anyone could take one copy of the poster, which say costs $30, slap it on a large-format copier and make cheap, crappy copies that they can sell for $10. This not only destroys the original owner's income, but puts sub-standard product on the market with his name on it.
Quit trying to solve the obvious abuses of IP by destroying it all together.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2000 Andover.Net -Every Slashdot page.
Re:Intellectual property is extremely important (Score:2)
More generally, intellectual property is one more way for rich countries to extract wealth from
poor countries. Given the enormous exploitation of poor peoples built into the world trade
system, it would only seem fair for ideas produced in rich countries to be provided at no cost to
poor countries. Yet in the GATT negotiations, representatives of rich countries, especially the
US, have insisted on strengthening intellectual property rights. [3] Surely there is no better
indication that intellectual property is primarily of value to those who are already powerful and
wealthy.
Did he get that last sentence from a Lenin speech or something?
What's almost spooky here is in how some of his arguments are actually well formed and articulate. His "manifesto" side only comes out in little tid bits. cooldev, I'm sincerely glad to see that you picked up real quick on his redistribution of wealth scheme.
But there would be economic resources released: there would be more money available for other creators
That bold faced lie has sold far too many of those 3rd world countries he's apparently so concerned about into far dire straights than anything IP has ever inflicted.
Since intellectual property can be sold, it is usually the rich and powerful who benefit. The rich and powerful, it should be noted, seldom contribute much intellectual labour to the creation of new ideas.
I love this bit. "Rich and Powerful" used back to back. Ahhh, I get it now. These are the folks that are making my life rotten. Feel free to replace that phrase with "Jews", "Whites", or even "Japanese" and I think we all get a much clearer picture of the ideology here. He's gotten himself an enemy on which to focus, but only in the abstract. No, examples out of context don't count as getting specific either.
This guy is a Marxist zealot. There are a number of very good run downs on the weaknesses of our current IP structure. This is not one of them.
Re:RSA (Score:2)
I think you misunderstood (Score:2)
1) Using legal means to keep information from spreading
2) Using non-legal (but not necessarily illegal) means to keep information from spreading
3) Giving away physical matter.
4) Charging money for anything at all.
5) "Must" vs "should"
Let's stick with the pharm example. Let's say DrugCo works 20 years and perfects an anti-aging cream (a real one).
No one is saying they MUST immediately hire a dozen planes so they can shower the populace with free bottles of the miracle drug, although clearly this would be nice. They can sell the physical cream and bottles it comes in.
No one is saying they MUST print the formula on the side of the bottle. Then can sell or not sell the formula all they want.
What we ARE saying is that I own the knowledge that is in my head. So if a copy of the formula makes it's way into my head (through whatever means) then I should have no legal restraints on what I can do with it (beyond the legal restraints I have on the rest of my knowledge). This might include telling other drug companies, starting my own drug company or just saying "Hm, so that's how they do it" and forgetting the whole thing.
In other words, if YOU want to turn knowledge into money by keeping the knowledge a secret, then YOU are responsible for the keeping the secret.
This same argument could have been posted to the "Napster isn't releasing their source code" story. Napster is in the business of trading secrets that have already been revealed (we call those secrets "music"). This should be perfectly legal. But Napster's secret (the source code) hasn't yet been revealed. No big deal, it will be eventually (or we will stop caring). Napster apparently sees value in keeping their secret where Metallica didn't. Fine.
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Re:But Intellectual Property Has *ALWAYS* Existed (Score:2)
While I can see this applying to patents, I don't see how this applies to copyright. The most widely published computer programs are the freely distributable ones. Almost everyone has a copy of gzip, which can be downloaded from GNU, but also from thousands of other places too.
Coincidence? (Score:2)
So does the incredible rate of technological development.
A few overrated old artists don't compare well to the incredible diversity and quality of modern IP-protected literature.
Comparisons of pre-IP productivity to modern productivity certainly don't make a case against IP.
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
Standard? What standard? (Score:2)
As well, a number of Chinese people I've talked to have complained of the U.S. trying to force values on their society that they don't believe in.
You're trying to turn a factual arguement into a moral one. I'm not trying to say that one society's morals are better than the other, I'm using each as a point of reference based upon economics.
My arguement has nothing to do with whether or not American values are beneficial or warranted around the globe. My arguement is grounded in the circumstances that our little world has to deal with on a daily basis. Many of those circumstances are based around human nature. For instance, it is human nature to want to improve one's station in life. Take a look at Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs [connect.net]. Physiological and Safety needs top the list. Accumulating wealth allows humans to fulfill these needs. Accumulating vast amounts of wealth puts humans in positions where they hardly need ever worry about whether or not they are going to eat the next day.
You say I do not support my arguement that China's economy and standard of living are unequal to that of the United States. It has nothing to do with American values. You seem to be confusing economic advantage with a morality play again. Speaking in strictly economic terms, the economy of the United States allows the U.S. to be able to produce more tools and derive more productivity per capita than China. I'm not trying to say that the U.S. is better off because more people in the U.S. have a car or a television than in China. I'm trying to say that the U.S. is better off than China because we have the capability to produce laser lithography machines to improve the speed of microprocessors. Our manufacturing sector is the most advanced in the world. Machines, such as earthmovers and other infrastructure building equipment are shipped from the U.S. to everywhere in the world because the U.S. has the ability to make these tools better than anyone else.
China simply does not have the economic muscle to build a freeway system similar to that of the United States. They will eventually do it, but it will take years. China's collective style of society (not government) puts them at a competitive disadvantage when compared economically to the United States.
Re:A lot of ostriches around here... (Score:2)
This premise ignores two inconvienient facts:
- The establishment of IP laws rose with the advances in technology that made it progressively easier to duplicate the original works. The primary way to protect invention before patents was to keep one's methods secret, but in these days of reverse-engineering the trade secret is far less viable than it was, say, prior to the Industrial Revolution.
- The primary way that creative workers such as composers and artists lived before IP law was to attract the attention of a rich patron. Having largely disposed of hereditary nobility (this year's U.S. Presidential election notwithstanding), the modern-day equivalent would be the wealthy businessmen and the heads of powerful NGOs. While I'm sure it would tickle Bill Gates no end to be in such a position, I doubt that this is a good thing.
It's one thing to realize that IP law has become flagrantly abused. It's another thing entirely to claim that this means that there is no use for it.Re:Leftist *trendies* are in vogue (Score:2)
Companies or organinzations which are "For Profit" are speculators and profiteers and enemies of the people.
Those with money (kulaks) must be hunted down as they are enemies of the revolution (New Democrat Revolution of 1992). Enemies of the revolution will be dealt with accordingly through the use of regulations, government mandates, unauthorized usage of military and law enforcement personnel and news media collaboration.
The people are the State, the State is the people and the State is infalliable.
I wish you had not posted as Anonymous. Please stand behind your beliefs here.
Communism? (Score:2)
Since the economic growth is right now in companies focusing on IP value, we would lose a lot of wealth in short term. In longer term, this real IP value requires organizations to make it work - the question is, whether these organisations would exist without some private companies showing the path...
Maybe it would work in software, because investments are pretty low, but how about more expensive technologies like IBM's harddisk technology? How would that be with no IP rights?
OK - with Linux you don't need that big harddisks, but I am happy that I have a bigger harddisk than my original 30MB Seagate ST238R...
I believe that it would be a giant failure to make a such extreme experiment as to remove IP. The communists had nice thoughts about a land called utopia, and their experients has cost so many million people their lives - I guess removing IP could do the same.
Anarcho-liberalism as usual - and classical music (Score:2)
In a world without IP nobody will be allowed to earn a living out of the product of his mind.
I stress the word "allowed". This is not about freedom. This is the very opposite of freedom. The basic idea holds in a few words: "I don't care who you are / what you do, as soon as you publish something, whatever the genre, whatever the way, you lose any kind of rights over it. It does not belong to you any more. Just forget the idea that you might even be rewarded for it - let alone make a living from it."
I especially like the way he makes his point: "IP is inane in this and that situation, therefore the very concept of IP is bullshit". Obviously Mr Martin would have done very poorly as a science teacher (for info, he seems to be a profes sor at Wollongong's faculty of arts [uow.edu.au]).
But I think it is better explained by an excerpt from Mr Martin's paper:
Suppose you have written an essay or made an invention. Your intellectual work does not exist in a social vacuum. It would not have been possible without lots of earlier work - both intellectual and nonintellectual - by many other people"
This man is telling us that since Beethoven used the western musical style, and would probably not have existed would there have been no Josquin des Prez, Monteverdi, Bach and Haydn before him, Beethoven has no significance in himself - and that the very idea that he should be rewarded for his work is ridiculous.
"Pitoyable".
Thomas Miconi
Unless you overturn the Berne Convention (Score:2)
It appears you folks are not going to make much headway in terms of "intellectual property" in terms of copyrights and registered trademarks.
You do forget that people work long hours to create these "intellectual properties," and they do want to be rewarded for their hard work. I mean, think about it: musicians often work six to seven days a week working more than 12 hours a day for several months to complete an album, and movies can often take 2-3 years to complete from start of production to making the final print for theaters.
Besides, the world is governed by the Berne Convention on Copyrights, and most of the "First World" countries (e.g., USA, Canada, the European countries, and Japan) have strict copyright laws internally.
Unless you can overturn these national laws and the Berne Convention protocols, you can essentially forget about doing anything that can circumvent copyright laws. That's why Napster is being shut down, and it's likely that the folks who wrote DeCSS may end up in legal hot water in the courts (even if they win their current case because you know the MPAA will appeal to the higher courts).
Anyway, here in the USA the dominant political parties are strongly in favor of copyright laws, so the chances are not good that either George W. Bush or Albert Gore, Jr. will favor any laws that overturns our current copyright protections.
Is this the same Brian Martin who runs Attrition (Score:2)
Re:That Stallman guy.. eh? (Score:2)
Anti business? Sure. But RMS's slant doesn't hurt big business. It hurts the little ones.
This one is especially interesting, and is appearing to be more true than not if the stock market is any indication. For example, you've got this little ol' RedHat company that's been announcing all kinds of really exciting things going on with them. Market share, sales, profits, partnerships, all the things that should indicate positive value to a stock. Do I need to quote where they are trading at now?
On the other hand, IBM the Huge gets to announcing they're gonna put "some" of their R&D into Linux, while getting around to actually putting it on their hardware line. Folks owning IBM stock are most likely grinning too hard to read this.
Do we have any financial success stories that involve GPL thus far? It seems that there's a whole lot of Corel kinda stories that make up the bulk of the news out there concerning this.
So what's the ultimate end? A fringe group of idealistic creators who labor for the masses (who, incidentally, could care less).? More likely, a fringe group of idealistic creators who labor for each other. Hm. Sounds familiar.
I tend to think of RMS in much the same way I do libertarians. (don't try these kinds of logical leaps at home kids, we're talking deep hurting if you miss) I like a lot of the direction that the libertarians push towards. Smaller, more focused government and much of what that means. Thing is, I don't want to live in the land that they would create where things are just on the bitter edge of anarchy.
With RMS, I like the direction he's managed to get folks moving with opening up the source of the applications out there. Essentially moving towards a community of programmers working together to build an infrastructure we can all share into. I don't want to see a world where we have nothing but open source software because there is still (and I believe will remain) tremendous value in closed sourced projects as well.
Down the road I think we're going to see RMS's influence pushing the computer industry towards a direction without ever reaching his wished for destination. The same could also be said of them libertarian folks as well.
In political discussions an analogy to a pendulum often comes up. When the pendulum is pushed hard into one direction, it always ends up coming back the other way eventually. If GPL does manage to push this analogy hard enough one way, you can darn well expect it to swing back.
Killing the goose that lays golden eggs (Score:2)
Web pages advertising perscription drugs.
Perscription Drugs which cost billions to design.
Billions which were payed by a drug company hoping to make its money back.
Drug Companies spend billions and will make the money back by having a monopoly on the drug for its useful lifetime.
Web Pages which are copyrighted.
Goddamn! This puts me out of a job, dumbies!
Think about it: in the middle ages was there any copy protection other than that few could read or write and writing was so expensive that even Archemedis' drawings were written over to get paper? No. There were no copyrights then, and not much innovation, either.
Oh, and that GPL? It's a contract based on copyright. If you got rid of copyright, you would instantaneously be able to use ALL intelectual goods created UP TO THIS POINT. And yes, artists would still create. But they wouldn't have as much money to create with, as their creations wouldn't get them any money. So you may be killing the proverbial goose that lays the golden eggs.
-Ben
Re:A lot of ostriches around here... (Score:2)
Correct. They either created under contract to some rich aristocrat (who became owner of the work), were dilettantes or otherwise rich themselves, or lived in a time less dominated with money.
Does not work in a non-feudalistic economy as the current. If I could spend two months writing a novel or two months flipping burgers, which would enable me to pay rent and food if the monetary comensation for the novel would be $0?
Should Einstein have patented relativity? Or copyrighted it?
Ridiculous: you cannot copyright an idea, but Einstein had the copyright to his papers on relativity. Nor can you patent ideas as such, just physical expressions of them.
As another poster noted, as long as we have an economy based on profit and income, you need IP in order to have "intangibles" (IP) produced in some quantity, otherwise only those who gain money "automatically" (interest on large fortunes, automated stock trading) will have the time necessary.
The alternative is for the "State" to provide everyone with what they need to live, aka. communism. (However, as history shows, communism mutates in few months into a feudalistic system where the politicans and administrators become the upper class. Everyone else lose.)
Re:To make things clear (Score:3)
No he doesn't. He mentions that it's a dilemna, then he plugs Freedom Press, but he doesn't provide any explanation. He gives guidelines for determining if copying is undermining Freedom Press, and he reccomends negotiations. He even says that negotiations will be important in a post intellectual property society, completely sidestepping the issue that whereas they are legally necessary as long as he holds a copyright, they would become instantly useless if he made his writing free.
Re:Some good, lots of crap (Score:2)
Chances are you will be working for some company when you work on this. Chances are you signed an agreement with them that if you come up with anything, anything at all and they own it. Chances are they will be compensated unfairly and you will see a raise that is just enough to buy an extra cup of coffee in the morning. It won't be your product, it will be theirs.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
High Capital Costs (Score:3)
An argument could be made that a legal system that makes it possible to produce and profit from a movie with a $200 million budget is not socially beneficial. Does society need $200 million movies?
What about drugs, something with more obvious social benefits? It costs a huge amount of money to develop, test and get approval for modern drugs.
What will the drug industry do when someone invents a cheap molecular synthesizer? Do you want 100 grams of the latest antibiotic (or cocaine)? Just type in the chemical formula and come back in an hour.
Re:Why Intellectual Property *sometimes* works... (Score:2)
I don't think that there is any reason that we have to view online distribution of MP3s as a complete business model for musicians. First of all, at the moment they are operating in a world where there are established distribution channels that nearly everyone is aware of. If you want a CD, go to the store or order it online. What percentage of the music-buying public knows that MP3.com is out there? My parents probably don't.
Second, why should musicians ever give up actually playing in front of audiences? I love live music. One of the most interesting performances I have ever heard was a little-known band jamming with a friend of mine after a show one night. Three very talented guitarists doing things with the music that required all three of them. It wouldn't have happened in a studio. Okay, few musicians make a living performing live, but it is another part of the equation.
What I'm getting at here is that the fact that nobody is making a living via MP3.com doesn't mean that it doesn't have a place. Are there musicians who can point out how their audience has grown through their exposure there? Are they making money at it? Personally, I'm looking forward to the day when somebody like MP3.com sponsors webcasts for obscure groups.
I look at music online from a very biased perspective. I have non-mainstream tastes (unusual celtic bands, filk, and some even less mainstream stuff). I look at the net as a way to build audiences big enough for the musicians I like to continue performing and recording. I can't get to their performances, and the record stores don't carry their CDs. This is about, among other things, the survival of diversity.
Re:Some good, lots of crap (Score:2)
Not stop, just slow down. If any pharmaceutical company could legally produce any drug, ignoring current intellectual property, all incentive to create new drugs is gone. Why spend millions developing new drugs when you can just manufacture existing drugs instead? Whoever goes first always loses, because they spend big bucks to get something that everybody else then gets for free. Like you said, a free market effect would kick in, and pretty soon you would have a couple of very big pharmaceutical companies, conspiring and price-fixing to keep a healthy profit margin and not even considering doing any R&D in any field other than marketing.
Re:Hogwash. (Score:2)
1) You are assuming that because it is true in the current situation that if Intel were to go to sleep for 6 months, they would get clobbered by the likes of AMD, that it must also be true that any technology older than 6 months is worthless. This simply isn't the case. Hence I see serious flaws in that it never occurs to you that perhaps Intel makes technological investments that extend beyond your 6 month window. There are numerous situations where this is the case!
2) Intel is a large company. But, without decent IP protection, who is to say the larger and better capitalized company couldn't come along and rape them? I could see someone like Microsoft finding it perhaps advantageous to prevent Intel from developing non-PC chips that might turn the market against. They may even be willing to do it at a loss!
This seems largely a baseless assertion to me. If you don't know what it costs you really can't say this. If you don't know the technology, you really can't say this. Furthermore, merely having an "edge" is not enough. It goes back to risk and reward. If you cut into an already thin market, by "liberating" technology, you may be cutting the market off at the head. That ~2% may just be enough to make the industry totally unprofitable for ANY innovator, thereby draining any and all serious R&D dollars.
As to the technological side of things, there are many innovations which are visible in the product and relatively easy to mimick (certainly cheaper than doing the R&D yourself). There are many issues in product design, where you'll look at the product and say "duh, that's obvious". But 3 months before you couldn't do it no matter how hard you tried. Even if you spent most of that time and effort spinning your wheels, that doesn't mean the competition didn't either. They took risk. You will curb the reward by allowing all out copying.
As for your arguments against IP, I think you overstate your case, whether or not you know it. There is more than one way to skin a rabbit. In many industries, simply proving that a thing can be done, or the creation of a market is sufficient to bring about further innovation. So while that patent may grant exclusive use to the holder, it does not, in reality offer the protection it claims, nor does it hold back meaningfull progress. Which is another very important reason why it can be terribly important to maximize profits while possible.
Intel is just ONE company in ONE section of ONE industry. There are hundreds of vastly different, but equally tricky, industries. But I've yet to hear you give an accurate depiction of even one.....
To make things clear (Score:5)
Throw at the baby! (Score:4)
That is so much nonsense.
If you were to argue that period of a patent or copyright should be limited in this day of the internet..okay. If you argue that the DMCA takes copyright into areas it should never have been extended...okay. But throwing the whole system out is even more rediculous than the problem this paper is arguing about!
Re:Some good, lots of crap (Score:2)
Just thought I'd mention that the big drug companies spend significantly more on marketing than they do on research.
Ever seen the crap that doctors get? Bloody drug companies aren't at all shy about spending tens of dollars *per doctor per promotional sample* to buy their way onto the prescription pad.
It ain't nothing to do with the efficacy of the drugs, nor even their appropriate use: it's about buying the doctor.
It's pretty scary. Next time the doctor prescribes something outside the tried-and-true, one's gotta wonder: is it because this drug really is the best solution... or is it because PharmaGlakCo bought him a hooker at the last convention?
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Re:Hogwash. (Score:2)
While I'm well aware that Linux, Apache, Perl, and a couple other IP-less products have enjoyed relative success, I don't view them as even approaching proof of IP-free environment. They
are orders of magnitude less involved than the likes of Intel's microprocessors. They truely aren't breaking any new ground. In short, the bulk of the development is handled by people working in their part time--the product of which has never terribly impressed me.
The bottom line is that the onus lies on you to prove an IP-less environment is viable, let alone desirable. You have yet to even do this theoretically. I, on the other hand, have first have knowledge of some important industries (i.e., biotech, medical devices, etc.) where the obliteration of IP as you specified would cause great harm. If the most you can give is an abstract argument with flaws for one industry, it really is not terribly realistic of you to expect me to agree.
This comes down to numbers, not just ideas. Pull out a calculator and do the math.
Ideas! What's so great about 'em? (Score:3)
Social Vaccum (Score:2)
Eric Hoffer's observation that "Given freedom of choice most people choose to be like everyone else." is a valid observation. Robert Showalter observed that creators and inventors of any type are people who are different, if they were like everyone else they would do things the way that everyone else does them; they wouldn't feel any need to do things differently.
In my opinion the "Social Vacuum" argument is a bad argument. It sounds good on the surface, but if you examine it closely you will realize that it is just another case of a majority trying to exploit a minority; in this case the non creative, conformist, majority trying to exploit the work of the creative minority while simultaneously trying to make the minority feel guilty for being creative. If ever an intellectual argument could be characterized as a "Pile of Crap" this one qualifies.
Re:Intellectual property is extremely important (Score:2)
This guy is a Marxist zealot. There are a number of very good run downs on the weaknesses of our current IP structure. This is not one of them.
The whole analysis is written in typical socialist fashion. Pick on abuses of the current system, of which there are many; then conflate the abuses, which favor an easy hate-group, with the legitimate uses, to invalidate the legitimate uses of the system. There are plenty of changes that should be made to the IP system in the US and other countries, and there are many abuses to correct. There are even sound arguments that IP in general is detrimental. But "Intellectual Property allows people to get rich and I don't like that." is not a legitimate argument against IP, and never has been.
So when is slashdot going to post a link to a capitalist analysis of what's wrong with our current system of IP?
Shetland times example and some comments (Score:3)
Scottish newspaper, The Shetland Times, went to court to stop an online news service from making a hypertext link to its web site. If hypertext links made without permission were made illegal, this would undermine the World Wide Web
I remember this example from when it was going around when it happened. The crucial point IIRC(which was ommitted from the chapter) is that it was not the fact that it had been linked that was the problem, it was the fact that it had been linked such that it appeared within the frames of another site and was made to appear as if it was their content. In essense the other site was claiming ownership of work which had been produced by the Shetland Times.
This comes to the crux of my feelings on copyright. As well as my computer work I am also a short story writer. I have no objections to people having copies of my work and distributing them, I distribute most of my stuff for free as it's just an interest for me and not a source of income. What I do object to and would invoke the law to prevent is someone else claiming ownership of something I have written or charging for it's distribution.
I suppose you could describe it as 'Freework', you can copy and distribute it so long as you don't charge for it or claim that it's anything but my work.
Of course not (Score:2)
The possibility of owning ideas is, uncontroversially I think, created by the action of government. For that reason, thoughtful capitalists seem much divided on the subject. Some are more attached to what's become traditional in the marketplace, and are inclined to label strident libertarians like ESR "communists". Others see IP as government again tampering with the natural order of things, obscuring that great Platonic Form of the One True Market.
I'm being a bit facetious, of course... but I hear bunches of people taking your position. Of course, that's in geek spots like Slashdot. In society at large, capitalists are indeed a small portion of the anti-IP folks, who are themselves a tiny fraction of the statisically insignificant group of people that cares about IP.
But cheer up. I agree with you. :-)
Copyright term (Score:2)
discussion of copyright in _The Atlantic Monthly_ (Score:2)
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Move cautiously, and experiment before jumping in. (Score:4)
Remember, the main purpose of patent law is to get people to disclose their designs, similar to opening your source code. Without any patent law, manufacturers will keep a lot more things secret.
I think we can move toward a system where IP is not necessary, such as Mass Market Busking [boswa.com], but we should let people demonstrate that the system works without it before we dump it.
If we demonstrate that we can support the efforts of producers without them using IP to force us to pay them, we shouldn't have any trouble getting rid of IP. If we can't demonstrate it, then maybe it's not such a good idea to drop IP.
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
I said "technological", not "scientific" (Score:2)
Kepler: 1571-1630
Galileo: 1564-1642
Leeuwenhoek: 1632-1723
Newton: 1642-1727
Look at how long it took to capitalize on those developments. Especially Da Vinci, who was an incredible designer, but could only afford to work in models and drawings. They were all hamstrung by lack of funding when it came to actually making things, unlike Edison and Tesla.
I won't argue that people don't have good ideas and share them without IP, but getting people to invest in developing these ideas into useful products is another matter.
There has to be a profit motive to invest the cooperative efforts of hundreds or thousands of people in building prototypes and working up to an assembly line without letting all of their competitors just grab those expensive advances and have the advantage of not having the debt from them. You could argue that without IP, the visionaries couldn't command labor to assist in their development, and had to do almost all of the grunt work themselves, slowing practical developments to a snail's pace.
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
Re:Robin Hood was a crook.... (Score:2)
Of course, the article presents the issue in a very one-sided manner and in a very vague sort of way. It is quite possible, from the wording of the article, that the investing corporations did in fact innovate procedures or materials that did not previously exist. Regardless, I doubt that anyone who has been making neem-based toothpaste for generations has been suddenly excluded from making neem-based toothpaste, I suspect the Indians are angry because other people are making money off of neem-based toothpaste and they want a piece. I wouldn't know, because the essay makes no pretense towards being objective.
Some good, lots of crap (Score:3)
First off, I am a molecular biologist. I love science and the field. I am willing to do work for the good of all but I expect to also make a living. If I came up with a treatment regimen that would reverse or halt aging, I expect to be well compensated, given that such a thing would be in HIGH demand by everyone. If I stood to gain nothing for this, then guess what, I'll keep it secret and offer it on the sly to only those I select (family, close friends). I would quietly offer it for a fee to the rich but I would not release the information to the public if I could look forward to...nothing.
I do not and will not work for nothing. If I produce something that people find valuable, then I WILL be compensated fairly and I WILL make a living, better or worse based on the "value" of the product, be it a technique, a chemical, or whatever. If not, you all lose (except for the select few).
So, you have a choice, revamp copywrite and intellectual property law, NOT eliminate it, or lose out on a lot of good. Stephen King wont write stories for nothing. He expects compensation for entertaining you...quite rightly. It is simple, really. You don't toss out the baby with the bathwater.
Does ANYONE honestly believe that a pharmaceutical company, which spends millions or billions of dollars in research and development to produce drugs that YOU ALL USE AND NEED would continue to do this if they were not allowed to make a return on their investment, time, and effort? NOT! Those anti-cancer drugs do not produce themselves. There is a tremendous amount of time, effort, and money involved in saving your lives or keeping you living and healthy. If you want drugs to treat your INEVITABLE diseases, then intellectual property protection and patents are absolutely necessary. No protection, no drugs.
Property protection, be it intellectual or otherwise, is good so long as it is tempered with common sense.
Re:Too Much of a Change (Score:2)
Re:Intellectual property is extremely important (Score:2)
The reason I admire the free software movement is precisely because they put their money where their mouths are: they release their software (an incredible amount of work!) under free licenses. You can blather on all you want about intellectual property, but until you actually start to contribute I'm not going to take you seriously. This guy says that if you want to copy his chapter or his book, you have to get permission. How is this any better than any other book publisher?
This guy is no better than the arm-chair environmentalists who write essays about why we shouldn't use so much oil then drive to work every day in their SUVs. I say put up or shut up.
Intellectual Property Rights (Score:2)
Re:Get a grip on reality buddy (Score:2)
If research will not happen without IP, then how was there scientific progress of any kind before there was IP? (Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, et. al.) Please explain. (Granted, there is probably "more" research done now, but I would like evidence that this is due to IP. Keep in mind that there are also *more people* now than there used to be, and therefore more people to do research, regardless of motivation.)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3)
Anyway I find it hard to believe that people can own songs. Every mettalica song uses the same damned chords as every AC/DC song and almost in the same progression. How can then say with any honesty that they "invented" this song. They listened to endless Led Zeppelin, black sabbath, ac/dc albums and basically just repackaged the sounds, chords, words, and ideas and called it metallica. Really now how original are they really. I don't mean to pick on them same goes for everybody who has ever ripped off James Brown or Chuck Berry and calls it "my song".
In order to claim intellectual property I say you should be forced to explain exactly why your idea is unique and not a simple derivation just like an invention.
On another note. It's easy to go too far in enforcing your perceived IP. Technically somebody can sue you for singing a song of theirs (after all you are depriving of them profits if you perform their songs). All those crappy bar bands who ruin cover after cover could be sued. Maybe that's not such a bad thing.
Trade secrets are absolutely wrong! (Score:3)
Patent law was made to encourage disclosure of the principle of mechanisms. Copyright was created to make it possible for authors to profitably distribute their work widely, instead of, say, memorizing their stories and knowledge and being hired to tell or teach them. Copyright was applied to software so we wouldn't all get stuck hiring computer time for running their secret programs from IBM. Trademark (the oddball of the group) was created so you can't stamp shoddy products with the name of a respectable manufacturor.
All laudable goals, whatever the practical flaws.
But trade secrets? What are those for? To protect the profits of people who invent something and hide it away so they can monopolize it?
IP laws are supposed to benefit society in general, by spreading information, not to help people hoard it for their own use. Trade secrets must go!
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
Why Intellectual Property *sometimes* works... (Score:5)
Now, this also leads to the problems we're facing now - IP being taken to a far extreme of what it rightly should be. I think that patenting the human genome is explicitly wrong, I believe that software should be build at least to open standards and preferably to Open Source, and I think that people should have free access to governmental information. On the other hand, if we just ditch the whole idea of IP, then it is going to hurt artists and thinkers. Yes, the current system of IP is horrendously broken, but throwing it out is a bad way of fixing it. The simple fact is that artists need some kind of support for their work. Granted, a true artist or thinker produces their work becuase they love to do it, but the whole purpose of the IP system is that they can have the level of support they need to concentrate solely on their craft.
Already, IP is changing. Napster was just the first step, the old channels of IP distribution are falling down, and rightly so. However, we have to remember that we need to somehow support the arts. I think that a nice micropayment system would be a great first step. Already Steven King's begun his own experiment in decentralized IP. The fact is that the old gatekeepers of IP, the RIAA, the MPAA, the big publishers Microsoft, all of them are rapidly becoming less and less relevant. What worries me as a producer of art (I'm a musician, and I have released several 3D models into the public domain) is will this shortchange the artist? I think Napster can work for new talent, I've personally supported artists via MP3.com, but I still don't see anyone able to make a living off these services yet.
So, what's the compromise going to be? I forsee a new patronage system coming out of all this. Back in the early days of the first artistic revolution, just after the Renaissance, artists would be supported by wealthy patrons. These patrons would support the artist and many of them allowed them a great latitude in what they could produce. Look at VA Linux and Slashdot... VA Linux is a patron to Slashdot, they foot the bill in the interest of the community, and they give them editorial freedom.
But there lies the catch... even when Napster wins and music is cheap and/or free, are we really better off? Look at the people who see a conspiracy between VA Linux and Slashdot, imagine what they would say if all art is sponsored that way. Also, would that guarantee sufficient funding for the arts and sciences? Public TV works this way, and look at how they're doing financially. We certainly won't see any less pandering to popular interests, even if the RIAA and the MPAA and their ilk disappeared tomorrow, it wouldn't mean that we'd lose crap like the Backstreet Boys. It would just come from a different source.
So, we're stuck between a rock and a hard place on this one. The current IP system is screwing the consumer over through poor legislation and litigation, along with the content producers who are being held back in much the same way. Get rid of IP altogether and we're just as screwed, if nobody can make a living off their work, a lot of people aren't going to go through the trouble and effort to distribute it. Some will do it for the love of art or science, but they won't be able to popularize it effectively and will have to juggle a lot more issues, all of which will distract them from that creative process.
In the end, we'll have a compromise between the two. Art is always going to be around, but there needs to be a level of support. I think that artists like Chuck D and Steven King have the right idea, get rid of the middle man, go direct and leverage technology. That way you get the best of both worlds, consumers get freedom to choose, and the artist gets support. Of course, all this counts on that support emerging from the consumer. We'll probably see the status quo remain, albeit changed, for quite some time.
In other words, support your artists. If you hear a song you like, buy it. Go to concerts, attend plays, get off your ass and support people who actually care about their art. Nine tenths of the problems with IP could be cured if people just stopped giving into those who are corrupting the system. Support *good* Intellectual Property. IP itself isn't really the problem, it's the way in which it's been mishandled and corrupted. Through these steps, we can preserve both the freedom and choice we want as consumers without losing the ability of the artist to support their work.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5)
Ironically, while Stephen King might own the copyright to his work, but the majority of creators of copyrighted have no such luxury.
You miss the point though. Amazingly, you can be reimbursed as a writer without stringent enforcement copyright laws. Here's a thought: it'd be trivial to post Stephen King's book on Gnapster or Freenet, and thereby avoid paying for it. Instead, people ARE paying for it for two reasons:
Similar principles apply to most forms of art work. One way to look at it is this: writers, musicians, researchers, sculptors, painters, etc. all existed prior to the existence of copyrights. So somehow it's possible. On the flip side, publishing companies, recording companies, etc. didn't. Copyright makes it possible for those kinds of businesses to exist.
Now, publishing and recording companies actually have, in the past, served a very useful purpose for society, namely they broadened the exposure of various works of writing or music. They were the most efficient way to get the job done. However, with the growth of the Internet, there is now an even MORE efficient means of pushing around intellectual information. Unfortunately, publishing companies and recording companies are slowing this process around. Ironically, where they were once an accelerant they now are an impedement.
I'm not saying that these kinds of companies need to go away, as there's a lot more to either business than just printing and shipping books and cd's. However, owning the material they print one of the ways they make their money, and that aspect of things has to change because it no longer is beneficial to society.
Re:I don't think that this is a good essay (Score:2)
Quick shot (Score:2)
You say that IP stifles competition by stopping people from using ideas they know will work. I counter that AMD has benefited from the fact that Intel would not allow them to use their chip designs, therefore, AMD came up with a new chip design, which (in my mind at least) is better than what Intel has to offer.
Re:High Capital Costs (Score:2)
Re:Some good, lots of crap (Score:2)
Pharmaceutical industry's profit margin in 1999: 18.6%.
Fortune 500 median profit margin the same year: 5%.
Ratio of pharmaceutical industry's marketing and administration expenses to research and development: 2:1.
Number of lobbyists industry hired to work on Medicare prescription drug coverage in 1999: 297.
Amount pharmaceutical industry has spent on campaign contributions since 1993: $33 million.
Got it? A 2:1 spending ratio of admin/marketing to research.
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great article. but some disagreement.. (Score:2)
First, there is clear abuse which needs addressing. Professional epigrammist? Please. I'm no lawyer, but I find it amazing that such a person could EVER win in court, if only because of fair use.
Both the epigrams and weak patents come back to the root of the problem: you obviously shouldn't permit IP protection for "the obvious". Obvious phrases, and obvious patents are the bane of IP. Whether it is a patent on web links that (gasp) change color, or a catchy phrase which anyone could have come up with (and 10 people probably have), that's a major problem. But the issue is that we don't have a good way to handle it. If we go to court, anyone can buy expert witnesses. "It was obvious", "It was innovention" -- and the judge is supposed to impartially decide? One possible solution would be the court independantly selecting the 3 most qualified experts themselves, deciding on their testimony, and the loser of the case is liable for expert testimony payment.
Trademark law is also grossly abused. I'm all for letting McDonald's fend off "MacDonald's Big Mic", but I've known too many people who've been on the wrong end of this dirty stuff. For example, people who've registered legitimate domains, only to LATER have someone register a trademark against it, then file a trademark claim. How absurd is that? I own animal.com, say, and have free info for zoologists. Someone who wants to sell pets, say, registers an "animal.com" trademark and then sues. I had it first, sure, but if I didn't do any commerce, I can lose. That's a fictitious example, but one ecommerce project I've worked on, I've watched exactly that happen to someone (who's domain we ALSO wanted to acquire, and they were forced to sell to someone because they couldn't afford to defend themselves legally).
It's time to get back to our roots: things should require public recognition for trademark status. No more "Mug O' Coffee" for Denny's. Things should have to be truly non-obvious for patenting. (Hi, Amazon!) Copyrights should be for distinctly original work -- no patenting a phrase anyone could turn in a witty moment.
Finally, we need a way to level the legal field so that the legal system can't just be used for intimidation. At the risk suddenly sounding like Katz gone wild: corporate america has really run wild, and their need to protect themselves helps stimulate the kill-or-be-killed mentality.
The point where I really get ambivalent is "discovery" of things which really can't be invented, but really are novel. Obviously, RSAs legendary patents are primarily a mathematical construct, they are clearly novel, and I would be hard pressed to label such an advance "discovered" instead of "invented". (And I'm skeptical about the benefits of denying a patent on such cases, in terms of motivation)
All in all, a very good read, although some parts were weak. I don't see spielberg making jurassic park without the chance to cash in (movies cost bank). But a strong case that IP law has gone too far, and is too easily subverted, and most of all, too hard for the layman (who it should arguably protect most effectively) to take advantage of.
How to explain "buskware" (Score:2)
Of course, you could always write a more detailed explanation (the way shareware authors used to back in the days when the term "shareware" was still new and many people hadn't heard of it yet), or you could point people back to http://www.boswa.com/buskware/buskware. html [boswa.com].
I would suggest adding a second essay to your page: a "What is buskware?" essay written for users rather than developers -- the "more detailed" explanation I mention in the paragraph above.
Urgh, I feel like I'm not being very clear here. Hopefully you'll understand what I'm trying to say.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Intellectual property is extremely important (Score:2)
I'm sorry. I just don't buy it. I don't have time to refute this entire article point by point, but I'll do a bit. (But first of all, I want to note that I have absolutely no problem with people that want to give their work away.)
Governments generate large quantities of information. They produce statistics on population, figures on economic production and health, texts of laws and regulations, and vast numbers of reports. The generation of this information is paid for through taxation and, therefore, it might seem that it should be available to any member of the public.Agreed. This part makes sense, nothing to do with the subject really since governments are supposed to be servants of the people anyway.
The idea behind patents is that the fundamentals of an invention are made public while the inventor for a limited time has the exclusive right to make, use or sell the invention. But there are quite a few cases in which patents have been used to suppress innovation
This is pretty much a summary of the article. Intellectual property is sometimes abused by the rich, so it must be altogether bad.
More generally, intellectual property is one more way for rich countries to extract wealth from poor countries.
Sigh. "From each according to his ability... to each according to his need." "Why can't we all just be even?"
The potential financial returns from intellectual property are said to provide an incentive for individuals to create. In practice, though, most creators do not actually gain much benefit from intellectual property. Independent inventors are frequently ignored or exploited (...and later on...) What about all the writers, inventors and others who depend for their livelihood on royalties? First, it should be mentioned that only a very few individuals make enough money from royalties to live on. For example, there are probably only a few hundred self-employed writers in the US
Pure bullshit. Every writer, actor, producer, director, programmer, designer, architect, publisher, and many millions of other people all make their living from intellectual property whether they know it or not. Oh, but wait:
Those few currently dependent on royalties could instead receive a salary, grant or bursary, just as most scientists do.... Getting rid of intellectual property would reduce the incomes of a few highly successful creative individuals.... But there would be economic resources released: there would be more money available for other creators
Oh! Now I see!! Let's just collect more taxes and subsidize everybody that wants to be creative! I mean, why should the truely creative people get paid more than people who's stuff sucks and no one would actually pay for it. Yeah, this way both Mr. Speilberg and I will make movies, and we'll get paid the same! Cool!! BTW: I'm pretty sure most scientists work for corporations, colleges, or for the government doing specific work for the military or public health and environment issues. I've never heard of a general subsidy for scientists.
I could go on and on, but to wrap it up: Doing away with intellectual property would bring us back to the dark ages. Intelligent and creative people would all of the sudden have no real opportunity. Anything they create would fundamentally have no value. Land owners and those strong enough to snag up other material resources would become all powerful. Yuck.
There are few things I would fight to the death for, and intellectual property rights is one of them, right along with freedom of speech.
Last but not least, the author is a total hypocrite:
Available for 7.95 pounds from Freedom Press
Who will be first to OCR the book and put it online? Not that I want to read the garbage, but it's just the natural thing to do...
Re:Trade secrets are absolutely wrong! (Score:2)
That's a good idea. (Score:2)
Sometimes, I get so hung up on precision that I destroy clarity.
I've got lots of plans for more explanations, but, of course, that takes time. I'm just about finished with a "Rules of Buskware" cheat-sheet that gives donors and producers guidelines to make the system work. There's about ten for each side, and the sense of them should come through a lot more clearly than a dozen pages of solid text.
I posted an abridged version of the essay to kur5hin, and was starting to get some good debate going, but then, of course, kuro5hin died. I got several good ideas for changes to make the essay, though, as it became clear what wasn't coming through.
Thanks, it's good to know that some people are interested out there.
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
To be fair, the essay is under a week old. (Score:2)
Also, I haven't released any really good products. I've got some (hopefully) interesting stuff coming up, but all I've got on the site so far are things I hack together in a day or two. I only called it buskware because there's no reason not to (and also, because some of the things are precursors to stuff that should be worth paying for - lrnkana to lrnkanji, perpol to morph; maybe it'll make sense later on). Maybe they'll bring in a few bucks, maybe not, at least it should spread the buskware idea around.
Hell, even the essay needs a rewrite. A few things didn't come through quite right. I'm not expecting to make a fortune off of anything that's up yet. I do, however, hope to make a living off of the bigger and better projects I'm currently working on.
---
Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
Did Stallman write this?? (Score:2)
But it does bring up an interesting point. That the large corporations are using IP rights to crush smaller ones, or countries from exploiting natural resources.
Hogwash. (Score:2)
Sometimes you need to actually think things through, and ask yourself tough questions that no amount of impassioned slogans can banish. Even after such deliberations, each individual result isn't always going to be pleasing. Instead you must take the long view, and look at the results on the aggregate. You must ask yourself: What is the greater good?
Sure we can all find examples of failure in any system, be it capitalism or socialism. This is not to say, however, that they're both equals. Anyone with half a brain who scrutinizes them will arrive at the conclusion that socialism fails miserably.
I can't possibly hope to prove to you in this time and space that the current situation (IP) is light years better than your proposal, no intellectual property. What you need is hard won experience to shake your darling notion of "competition." To that end, I shall cast some serious doubt on your specific example.
First, and foremost, your example of the semi-conductor industry is a very poor one. as it's terribly productive. Why is it that chip speed doubles time you bat your eye? In how many other industries do you see this same amount of R&D spending? How is it that you can on one hand claim Intel is massively holding the industry back, while on the other assert that 6 months in such a long time? I grant you, Intel isn't perfect. They're definetly somewhat anti-competetive. Their chip designs are even somewhat mediocre in some areas. On the other hand, and most importantly, they serve the consumer very very well. They've been continually producing fast chips at affordable prices, a combination of which most consumers obviously find preferable to any of the generics.
Secondly, your notion of the industry itself is way way offbase. You don't just build CPUs that can compete against Intel on whim, it's a very very expensive propostion--billions of dollars. It simply doens't scale well to the generics you allude to. Even the smallest competitor to Intel today requires hundreds of millions in cash and other liquid assets for just one such attempt. Completely ignoring the research angle, developing a manufacturable chip is an entirely different game. The point here being, that your generics are completely mythical. If anything, if an intel could survive an IP-less environment, their massive wealth would give them a huge advantage over even the smartest of small competitors. Intel could snatch their IP and get the ball rolling before the competition even acquired the necessary capital. Where is the incentive for the little guy, when they can just freeride on good ole' Intel.
Third, while it is true that 6 months is a long time in the computer industry, it's not everything. They don't reinvent the entire wheel every 6 months. Many of their patents 5+ years old are still terribly valuable today, from the manufacturing process to development to the chip itself. In other words, 6 months is not necessarily (in fact, it is not) a sufficient window of profitability to encourage Intel to take spend the money here.
Fourth, have you ever heard the word economies of scale? Even if your idea came to fruition somewhat they way you wish, where 6 months is sufficient. A splintering into many different competitors would absolutely kill the market. Because of the high fixed costs involved here, every competitor needs a large share of the market to hope to offer even remotely competetive pricing. In other words, since developing the technology and building the plants and machinery costs hundreds of millions (and even billions), if they only sell a hundred thousand, they could not survive. The chips could never be sold for that the necessary amount, and they'd need to sell more of them. The only reason modern Intel chips are as cheap as they are is because of huge economies of scale, as in millions. Only a small fraction of most of Intel's sale represent profits--not exactly fitting for the monopoly you seem to be implying.
Fifth, the concerns over southeast asia's approach to IP have nothing to do with domestic (their bread and butter) fear for their IP. Where piracy is rappant all companies that rely on IP lose a market (that country). You are mistaken if you think these companies can really export IP violating products en masse to more developed nations. Even if they could, your statement that they could "outcompete" the US is totally foolish, because they're simply not, and they've been brazenly violating IP for some time now.
Last, but not least, you are basically completely failing to calculate risk versus reward here. You don't understand the scale of development. You don't understand how much money they spend on R&D. You don't understand their current profit margins on the aggregate. You need to look at how much is actually coming back to the investor. Proportionally speaking it's not the least bit unreasonable when weighed against the risk. You don't understand manufacturing. In short, you don't know the high tech industry, never mind semiconductors.
By destroying IP, you'd destroy the already thin margins in the industry, not just in the semiconductor industry, but most every high, pharma, and biotech business.
Re:Hogwash. (Score:2)
Re:Hogwash. (Score:2)
Re: Showing non-obviousness for patentability (Score:2)
Re:Hogwash. (Score:2)
But Intellectual Property Has *ALWAYS* Existed (Score:3)
Take, for example, the closely guarded secrets of medieval stone masons -- which I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned yet, since it was the key closed-source metaphor behind Eric Raymond's The Cathedral and the Bazaar [tuxedo.org]. Or take secret recipies, or any other trade secrets that existed just as well without government.
My point is that intellectual property is not something to be argued for or against -- for better or worse, it just exists. And, as the founders of the United States noted in the Constitution, it takes its most undesirable form when good ideas lay dormant for fear that they might be stolen. IP law is a trade-off: the government will protect your monopoly on your idea, under the condition that you allow the government to publish the idea after a certain period of time.
Why would this be desirable? Say, for example, I come up with Invention X, a remarkable discovery that will benefit countless millions. However, I don't have a factory to produce the product, and I fear that without government protection, Big Company Y would steal my idea and immediately begin producing Invention X in their existing factory more efficiently than I could, thus capturing the market for my invention. Why, then, would I put in all the effort to develop and perfect Invention X, when I would never have the opportunity to recoup my costs (let alone make a profit)? I'd be better off just keeping my ideas to myself.
By "securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries," intellectual property laws prevent against this, the worst-case scenario: that a brilliant idea or invention might die with its creator, never having been passed on to contribute to the public good.
-IT
Rebuttal to Objections of Principle (Score:2)
Brian Martin's first objection of principle against intellectual property is that it is intrinsically a "social product." So, if I make, say, a microwave from scratch and wish to sell it, I can only charge you for parts, since I should be paying fiscal homage to everyone from Maxwell (E&M) to Joseph Bardeen (transistor)? Or how about my great-to-some-power-grandmother, since I am a derivative of some grueling interval of 9 months for her? His fallacy is to malign the nature of the work, rather than accepting that the nature of the product is different, and gunning for the ethical basis of property in general.
Another criticism he makes is against the economy of "deserving." I agree with this -- let there be a free-market of intellectual property, where the social value is irrelevant to the extrinsic. I must say I am non-plussed by reading a critique against socialist ethics housed inside an anti-IP strawman.
Really, the only objection that I have read that holds water is the Though Control thesis (promulgated by RMS, among others); its downfall, though, is the intrincism of "information wants to be free."
*** Proven iconoclast, aspiring epicurean ***
Re:Intellectual Property -- Oxymoron or just moron (Score:2)
"It is not about stopping progreess, it is about trying to encourage it."
your next sentence simple doesn't follow. The referenced article -- and most of the discussion recently -- about IP attacks the premise that IP still serves to encourage progress. Ignoring that for two sentences, effectively every inventor is somebody else's employee. The IP is not going to an individual/group -- it's going to the company (government institution, etc). If we want to encourage innovation by rewarding it, IP law ought to be changed so the individual/group gets more money. (And, incidentally, yes, I would invent. I'm a programmer (among other things) -- I do it all the time.)
The essence of patents is an attempt by the government to bribe those with secrets into exposing them by helping to exploit them commercially. This is distinct from the essence of copyright, by which it was decided that the creation of more works was beneficial to the people, and that the best way to promote more works was economic -- to allow the free market to handle it. With that in mind, the copyright system was set up to create such a market. The essence of the argument against copright is that the market (as consituted by, say, the MPAA) created by copyright law no longer -- or less than optimally -- benefits the people, and the same for patents, though the specifics, obviously, vary.
-_Quinn
Re:Intillectual Property -- Oxymoron or just moron (Score:2)
Also blockquoth the poster:
Nah, that'd be as silly as granting a patent on single-click purchasing, or on affiliate Web site programs, or... oh, wait. The USPTO has allowed patents on broad topics despite manifold examples of prior art. I guess that argument doesn't hold.And finally, blockquoth the poster:
Yes, it's well known that Mozart flipped burgers for a living. And no one ever heard his music, more's the pity. Likewise that Homer guy, and Bill Shakespeare swept streets and never got around to writing those plays he was always talking about.It's time to face facts: Human creativity dates back at least, oh, 10,000 years. Intellectual "property"(*) and its protection date back about, oh, two hundred years or so. It is absurd to argue that the latter is necessary for the former. And if IP works so well, why is it necessary to make those laws increasingly oppressive? If simple copyright and physical patents produces the Industrial and Information Ages, why the sudden and increasing pressure to "tighten" those laws?
===== (*) Intellectual "property" is to property as fool's gold is to gold.
Ever hear of "limitation of trade"? (Score:2)
(IANAL, TINLA)
In general, businesses keeping secrets about how they do things is bad for society. This is the premise of patent law.
Why, then, do we have these laws making this kind of contract stronger? I think it would be more appropriate to restrict this kind of contract as detrimental to commercial development and the general welfare.
IMHO, without trade secret protection, they wouldn't "have to twist themselves into pretzels to hide their secrets", they wouldn't be able to hide their secrets at all. Good ideas would only secure a temporary advantage before they spread around, and that's the way it should be.
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
A lot of ostriches around here... (Score:4)
The ones that gall me the most are the ones who complain about how bad things would be without IP, and never acknowledge how bad things are *with* IP. I myself haven't a clue which would be better or worse. I simply do not believe the current IP situation is fixable, so I would be quite willing to try having no IP. But I don't claim to have any argument that it would be clearly better, only that those arguing against anti-IP are not arguing for IP, they are merely ranting with blinders on.
His thesis is in part that no invention stands alone. The most obvious is scientific discovery. How many scientific discoveries were truly years ahead of their field? How many were invented completely out of the blue and had no genesis in the ideas that came before?
About zero. In other words, all would have been invented by some other worker soon enough anyway.
As I wrote in a response elsewhere, the current IP rewards only a few, all out of proportion to their actual contribution. There is no allowance for those who contribute the pure math, or the drudge work trying to replicate other work, or who tested a million reagents or ran a million particle experiments. Why should the one who did the last little bit of work get the jackpot, and the hundreds, or thousands, or millions of others, get nothing?
Why should Alexander Graham Bell have gotten the patent on the phone, and the incredible monopoly riches which followed, simply because he beat that other forgotten man to the patent office by an hour or two?
Should Einstein have patented relativity? Or copyrighted it? Good gosh, there's an idea! Suppose Bohr had to pay royalties to Planck, who had to pay royalties to Maxwell, and so on?
The current IP is broken because it rewards so unevenly and unjustly. The only fix is to patent everything, and I mean everything. That biologist in the lab -- he will need a lab book next to him, and every single idea he uses, every equation, every drawing of a benzene ring, he will log that, and every month, he will cut checks for 13.5 cents to this patent holder,
But wait! Did he get permission to use that benzene ring? Oh, ho, no he didn't! Quick -- some one will sue him. Remember, copyrights are now good for 95 years after death. I bet that benzene ring is still under copyright protection.
Yes, that is unworkable. But that's the trade off you have to make to make IP fair and just.
I bet you could get exactly the same results and put a lot of lawyers and accountants out of work if you simply threw out IP. But I can't prove it anymore than the pro-IP can prove their system works.
--
RSA (Score:2)
The number-theoretical properties on which the RSA patents are based have always existed. R, S and A "just" went to the trouble of discovering, documenting and automating them; in principle, though, it might as well have been Euler or Gauss. Either way, they're purely intellectual constructs. It's absurd to say that they "own" that portion of mathematics; in this case, the discussion shouldn't be about intellectual property per se, it should be about how much it cost R, S and A to do all these things and how long they should be allowed to profit from the fruit of their work exclusively to compensate for those costs.
If that doesn't convince you, think about where we'd be if Joseph Fourier had decided to patent his transform. What about integration by parts? Heck, what about Euclid's algorithm for GCD determination?
What is it we're really against? (Score:2)
I don't think people are against copyright laws and intellectual property as a whole. I'm pretty sure we can all agree that the creators of works - artists, programmers, writers, performers - should have control over how their stuff is distributed and transmitted.
I think what we're getting angry over is the abuse of IP/copyright law and the legislative process by entities that have less interest in the creators' works, and more interest in the amount of money those works can bring in through various forms of control. For one example, take the frightening pay-per-use concept that's slowly seeping into comments made by spokespeople and executives for groups such as Seagram's, Microsoft, the RIAA, and anyone else with a vested interest in draconian control over all media they're involved in (not necessarily media they own, just involved with) and profit in those fields. They not only want consumers to accept it, they want laws in place that will allow them to force it upon the market, whether the consumers know about it up front or not, while providing an unfair legal advantage over people that dare produce art, music or software outside of their sphere of influence.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3)
The printing press was never a threat to writers. It *was* a threat to scribes. Imagine if the printing press had existed in aristotle's time without any copyright laws in place. Net effect: aristotle's work gets printed and seen by more people, improving his stature in society. I can't think of any economic impact it would have had on him.
As far as Metallica being millionares goes, keep in mind that even for a successful artist you'd be lucky to get more than 15% of the take. Actors, script writers and directors all get a tiny portion of the million dollar industry that is film making. The bulk of the money goes to those people who invested the money to get the work made/distributed. Which is fine, btw, as far as I'm concerned (they took the financial risk, so they should be financially rewarded).... unless that investment was unnecessary.
You make a bad assumption (Score:2)
Your hidden assumption is that this invention would be such a breakthrough that no one else could possibly duplicate it.
One of his points is that IP differs from physical goods in that no invention stands alone. Your breakthrough would stand on the shoulders of everyone who came before you. He is objecting to the fact that others may have done the pure science background while you scarfed up the next natural step, got to the patent office a few hours (days, months, makes no difference) before all the others who could also come up with the idea, and now you alone stand to reap the reward.
You are outraged that you will not make a fortune. He is outraged that you alone make a fortune.
This is why he says IP benefits one at the expense of many.
If there is no IP at all, then some, like you, would lose out on a fortune which you did not earn purely by the sweat of just your own brow, but by the sweat of all the brows that came before you. The only fix for this, if IP is to be kept, is to protect literally everything. Then you will have to pay royalties everytime you use literally every other idea. Your every working minute will be spent with a logbook by your side, documenting every single idea you use. How would you like it if those big pharmaceuticals you are so fond of turn around and sue the bejazus out of you for all those incredibly trivial ideas you forgot to document?
--
Re:Interesting points, but... (Score:2)
Ideas have no intrinsic economic value. That is, once an idea has been transmitted -- even once -- there is no natural scarcity in that idea. With the Internet and the digital age, ideas can be copied and moved for essentially no cost. Thus, by all the high holy laws of capitalism, the price should be zero. Copyright is created, in effect, to force an artificial scarcity on the idea and thus to allow economic value to it.
Since the scarcity is artificial and is created by law, the people have a right to expect something in return. Current trends are to move toward longer-lasting and more viciously enforced copyright, reducing (rather than augmenting) the cultural sphere. As such copyright is broken (but quite possibly fixable).
Re:Ever hear of "limitation of trade"? (Score:2)
Actually, this is perhaps better rooted in the 13th amendment's prohibition against slavery, but the "contrary to public policy" argument works as well.
Personally, I don't find trade secrets any more odious than patents or copyrights, as long as they're enforced correctly (unlike with the whole DeCSS mess) -- it's a spectrum where more disclosure is rewarded with more protection and less disclosure is penalized with weak protection. To be perfectly honest, though, of the three, my preference is patents, since there is full disclosure in exchange for a still limited monopoly, whereas trade secrets last indefinitely, and thanks to the bastards at Disney and a willing Congress, copyrights are perennially being extended indefinitely. That, and patents rarely infringe on speech, whereas trade secrets and copyrights inherently do.
Here's how we carry IP to its proper extreme (Score:2)
Here I explore some of the more extreme possibilities if the current IP expansion continues to (even more) ridiculous conclsuions.
Lawyers. I have read of serious proposals to allow lawyers to patent their styles. After all, that's their sole stock in trade, isn't it?
Anyone who invents a new phrase that catches the public imagination. Remember, Eddie Murphy isn't dead yet, so that "trademark" laugh of his is not something you can repeat in public without permission and without paying royalties. Oh yes, I am dead serious about this. That is his stock in trade, right? Or George Carlin's seven dirty words. Not only will you owe him for mentioning that phrase of his, but he probably owes royalties to the FCC for banning them and making his phrase generate income.
As mentioned in the article, the Fosbury Flop and other athletic tricks. Really -- Fosbury had a new way of setting records. Surely that is patentable. Does that mean that every high school kid who got an athletic scholarship for his high jump prowess now owes royatlies to Fosbury?
Who invented "Hungarian notation"? Come on folks, pay up! I understand Microsoft will owe a fortune, but -- ha ha -- you would have to get a look at their own IP (their source code) to know how much. Quite a quandry, eh?
Wanna pay royalties to K&R for C and every language which aped it?
IP as it currently stands is broken because it is such a half hearted attempt. The only way to fix it is to protect literally everything, or protect nothing.
--
Re:Robin Hood was a crook.... (Score:4)
It bothers me that people are confusing the world-changing nature of digital copying. It is not that digital copies are somehow new and fundamentally different from older methods of copying. The "perfection" of the copy is irrelevant. Digital copying is significant because it has reduced the cost of copying (which has always been determined not by the idea but by the physical medium in which it is expressed) to essentially zero, thereby exposing the grotesque flaws of the IP system.