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Intellectual Property Laws bad for business
mshiltonj writes "The NYTimes has a story called "Report Raises Questions About Fighting Online Piracy" that talks about how the stringent enforcement of current Intellectual Property laws (see: RIAA) may acutally be bad for business. It's the not EFF or FSF saying this, it's professors at Harvard Business School and Cardozo Law School. The professors say, "The ideas of copy-left, or of a more liberal regime of copyright, are receiving wider and wider support, It's no longer a wacky idea cloistered in the ivory tower; it's become a more mainstream idea that we need a different kind of copyright regime to support the wide range of activities in cyberspace." and "Bits are not the same as atoms. We need to reframe the legal discussion to treat the differences of bits and atoms in a more thoughtful way.""
There's an article like this in this month's Wired too.
It is pretty clear that an idea is not something that someone can "own", because it doesn't exist in space and time. Property laws were developed because there is only a limited amount of material objects in the universe, but everyone can "own" ideas without "taking" anything from anybody else. In fact, it is better to spread good ideas around, for the same reason that it is better to live in a good neighborhood than a bad one.
Yes, stringent enforcement is bad, but so is blatant infringement. Companies should allow some latitude with infringing properties of their works, and some basic trading between friends. However, I also believe, both as a creator and a reseller of intellectual property, that placing your 300 CD Collection on Kazaa is going way too far as well.
Copyright should always be a balance. Promotion should be allowed, but only on an intimate level with people you know, not the entire world, unless the creator or publisher says it's all right. Region codes on DVDs, encryptions, copy prevention methods, etc., are all just profits and ineffective in what they're named to do.
I love libraries, borrow from friends and let them borrow from me, and will take DVDs over to parties so we can watch movies. Some publishers, studios and organizations will call me a pirate, but I would like to think that I'm a consumer and a citizen of the USA who prefers to share what he rightfully paid for with those who would also enjoy it.
Just my opinion and observations.
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
when [large corp] comes along and just takes your idea to market without giving you a bean, they make billions all the execs get to live in bliss and you can eat dirt out of the sidewalk
sounds fair to me, yeah "do away with copyright ! say already financially secure professors and stock trading buisness tutors"
of course you can just watch [large corp] spend billions on developing widget X then just steal it saving $$$$!
yeah sounds fair to me !!
A>S
If it's now being said by the Harvard Business School and Cardozo Law School, you might say that it's no longer just being said by the long-haired hackers, but now it is also coming from the ivory tower.
"There is no night so forlorn, no mood so bleak, that it cannot be infused with pleasure by tender meat..." - R.W. Apple
The use of the word "property" in "intellectual property" is itself misleading. It is similar to the common lie of calling copyright infringement "theft". I prefer the term "copyrighted material".
It is just hard to apply the term "property" to something that is so easily duplicated and propagates so easily.
Existing copyright laws are not the major problem. It's the 'over-enforcement' of copyrights, and the ridiculous nature of the patent system that are really the major problems with IP laws in the US.
The issues here are too complex for one to argue either for or against IP laws. The simple matter of fact is that it does benefit some businesses and it hurts others. I could find cases of both and this kind of arguing over if it is really fruitless and only serves to deepen the pockets of the media which distributes such articles.
in the end, the free market will decide.
Jeff Cagle
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
You mean threatening people into agreeing with your absurd ideals isn't a successful business model?
It's been said umpteen times but these folks at RIAA just don't seem to get it.
Its good that these reports are coming from schools that might have a louder voice in getting the point through.
When Joe Sixpack buys the CD, there is no ulterior motive behind that buy. He is not thinking about ripping the songs and sharing it for free. The DRM/copy protection/encryption/blah and all other technologies only make the experience of listening to music bittersweet when you put the CD into the player and it refuses to recognize it. And no digital protection is good enough for the Black Hats who would get around it, no matter what.
I will say it one more time. I have bought MORE music after I listen to it online before buying it. ARE YOU LISTENING RIAA?
BR 10 years down the line, I am sure we will all look back and laugh at RIAA tactics.
Free XBox, PS2
The mainstream press and acedemics are now saying what /. has been ranting about for years. This is not necessarily a good thing. I believe IP should be reformed, but great care should be taken lest we shoot ourselves in the foot. There are a lot of programmers as well as artists here that could stand to lose their livlihood. Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.
Stay tuned for new sig...
The ideas of copy-left, or of a more liberal regime of copyright, are receiving wider and wider support
Really? What a surprising finding. I would never have guessed that the vast majority of people, who happen to be the consumers of copyrighted material, would actually prefer the copy-left concept where that material was available to them free.
All sarcasm aside, people have always preferred free to paying for something but, the creators of the copyrighted material do deserve to make a living off of their work. The RIAA may be going to extremes with draconian practices but, the presently unspoken idea that "music wants to be free" is not justifiable. When I create a work, what ever it may be, I should have the right to determine how and by whom it may be used. The fact that someone else would rather have it for free is not an adequate reason for me to give it away if I choose not to.
...if you're Amazon and you're talking about one click ordering, or RAMBUS if you're talking about royalties on DDR RAM, etc. Obviously, if you're not the one holding the patents then you're not so lucky. But if you are that guy then you're laughing all the way to the bank.
This isn't a post about how good patents are. On the contrary, it's a post about how patents can be misused or abused to give one company an unfair advantage over its rivals.
I don't know where you draw the line between good patents and bad ones but it seems to me that a patent should at least illustrate a degree of innovation and invention beyond "Let's take this old idea and put it together with that old idea and have ourselves a licence to print money!", which is where we're at now with the USPTO handing out patents to overly-broad, far from unique ideas to anyone who ponies up the relevant filing fees.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Copy-left software is conceptually different from the intellectual property that RIAA so stingily guards. I don't see what one has to do with the other. To associate the two categories weakens by association the legitimacy of copy-left (since "file trading" is legally actionable, if not altogether wrong).
Its a double edged sword this one...
A startup requires some kind of protection from companies that are bigger and more established from taking their idea and using their extra resources to get the product to market first. The IPR laws were orginally designed to protect the small guy and give him a fighting chance... in this case they add competition to the market.
The problem is that they are being used as bargining chips by huge global-hyper-mega corps as the corperate equivilant of a nuclear deterant (You sue me for this and i'll sue you for that!). This is absolutely NOT what they are designed for.
It would be great to come up with some hard and fast rule that prevents this abuse, but I cant think of one. Perhaps some kind of patent lifespan restriction based on company net worth (to prevent a company with ample resources to develop a patented technology from just sitting on the idea).
Any other suggestions?
Once a person decides that a price of $15 is not a good price for a CD, or that $150 is not a good price for Windows XP, the economy as a whole is better off with that person downloading said program. Sure, the RIAA or Microsoft are happy with it, and would fight to the death over it, but that sale would never have been made in the first place.
The access to the infinitely duplicable material destroys the notion of scarcity of the product itself - whereupon the obvious price for such a product is no more than the cost of transport - usage of an Internet account.
We're seeing the destruction of an entire industry; its old guard will cry foul every step of the way, until the market eventually drags it into this new age. Observe the American car industry in the '70s, or of US Steel.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
Or did you think all free software has been developed by a bunch of teenage hackers?
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Intellectual property laws may be bad for business in general, but they are invaluable to big business. How else could they ensure that upstarts don't come in, undercut them, and take over the market? Yet, as anyone who's taken Economics 101 should know, monopolies are hopelessly inefficient - they restrict output leading to high prices for the consumer, whereas a competive market produces more and can only charge around their cost to produce the product. It's hard to be optimistic that big business interests and their lobbyists will ever allow the status quo to change.
Adam Smith and *Intellectual monopoly* (Score:5, Interesting)
by NZheretic (23872) on Fri 18 Oct 12:11AM (#4467943)
Everyone realises and acknowledges that Microsoft is a business, there to make a profit to share with it's marjor stakeholders, from it's shareholders to it's employees. However ...
I estimate that the iTunes music store holds around 500.000 songs, which requires about 2TB storage. At the moment, it costs only around $1300 in harddisks for consumers to store the entire iTunes collection. It is likely that in a few years, it will only costs about, say $300 bucks. Another few years and it will be affordable (in terms of storage) for consumers to have the entire library of songs ever published in their pocket. Does having copyright on music still make sense then?
The primary motivation for copyright is to stimulate more output by giving creators limited-time protection of their work. But do we really need stimulation for more musical output if you can a million songs with you at anytime? If copyright were to be abolished, the amount of new works will undoubtly fall, but it's unlikely to dissappear altogether. The benefits is that everybody can, for little costs, enjoy about the complete published musical output of the past with them. Is this a good tradeoff?
Man-on-the-street: "But, aren't you a member of that group of ivory tower theorists?"
Profs: [runs off] "AAHAHAHA! Man the battlements! Back, I say to thee, BACK!"
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Copyrights and Intellectual Property are protected through the use of force by the only monopoly legally allowed to use force: our government.
Copyright makes sense in some ways, but if you look at copyright historically, much of the greatest art and music was produced with no protection for the author. Great literary works and poetry also had no protection under copyright until recently.
In the past 300 years, we decided in order to protect the "rights" of a creator, we need government to step in and threaten anyone who wanted to steal such creations and use them without compensating the artist. Fine.
Our Constitution gave very limited protection (7 years, extendable for another 7 years maximum). To many free thinkers, copyright was a great concern, as it now gave government a new power it didn't have before. As many of the free marketeers here know, every new government power is a slippery slope towards ultimate government power.
Copyright has been made into a monopolizing power for corporations, and now capitalism and the free market is blamed! Capitalism would never allow copyright -- if you create something, don't release it until you have the best way to market or distribute it. Should I have a better tactic, I should be able to move it too. Creating a product or art is only part of the profitability -- marketing, distribution, and other parts of selling the item are just as important.
Copyleft is no better. In the end, you still need some entity to enforce it. If its a free market entity, people will have no reason to support your copyleft as they aren't forced to. If you allow government the ability to enforce it, they will only use coecion through force to protect it, and that again creates a monopoly.
When it boils down to software, there might not be any reason to copyright or copyleft or protect the software through the monopoly of force. There are free market protections in place already!
If you were the author of Windows, and someone wanted to promote the product without your consent, you could submit to the buying public that they should buy your product as they'd get your support. They'd get your updates (as you have the source code) quicker than through your competitor. They'd get the support of knowing they can submit new ideas to you that might get into the code (your competitor wouldn't have that ability, no source code). Your customers would also have the knowledge that they'd be supporting you to continue to make better products.
Where does copyright fit into this? Is copyright preventing rampant piracy? Not a chance. If you want to protect your software from getting copied, force your software to register itself online at every use. Fixed. No pirating.
If you want to protect your software from getting copied, how about hardware locks like in the past? Sure, some have been worked around, but in the end, the pirates would have to work extra hard to do so. If you price it properly, business would have no incentive to pirate.
Copyright and copyleft are both automations created that can only work through force. Only government has the legal mandate to initiate force. And once we allow that power, we have no power to restrain it should it get out of hand.
Don't download this unless you have some free time... the 617 KB, 101 page PDF can be found here on the CED website.
I was recently listening to the NPR archive of a recent Science Friday. The guests were some folks from Xerox PARC who were there are the beginnings of it all. Some happened to be working for Microsoft now and their viewpoints were in line with that. One person (don't remember his name, unfortunately) did mention that Open Source ideals, though it was not called that then, was what allowed all those emerging companies that sprang from the Xerox research to blossom. It was the freedom that created this little industry of the Internet.
So I'd definitely agree that this travesty of laws that have sprung up at the behest of media companies is indeed harming the economy.
If you look back, the entire motivation for IP laws was to promote the greater creation of those works.
There doesn't seem to be any reason to believe that the current system of IP laws produces the greatest benefit for the least cost to society.
If not optimized, the laws just preserve some artificial revenue stream protection scheme.
Having invented a patentable idea, I can say that the term of the patent had absolutely nothing to do with my creation of that idea. It might have something to do with how much money the patent is worth to a company that wanted to buy it, but it had nothing to do with the creation of the idea.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
This is unamerican and illegal thought!!! Whether it be atoms or bits, everything needs to be owned and properly licensed for use! The idea that something can be free for all borders on communism and treason! Here in the U$A we must ensure that authors and inventors rule the use of their work with an iron fist! Write your senators and the FBI, these traitorous academics must be silenced and jailed, in order to preserve their freedom!
The access to the infinitely duplicable material destroys the notion of scarcity of the product itself
Currently when assessing the "damage" when a copyright violation has taken place, the retail cost of the item is used. However, this doesn't make sense - when a 14 year old kid pirates a movie industry standard $40,000 dollar 3D rendering package - is the damage really $40,000? Of course not, it is really $0. (I'm not saying the kid should go unpunished - that's a different argument).
I don't know why the labels and studios cannot just realize the obvious:
1 - Sell each song on the internet for $1,
they will probably get more money than
trying to sell CDs with 12 songs for $15.
If for no other resason than because you
don't have to leave your house.
iTunes proves that a lot of people prefer
this to just swapping files.
2 - The same goes for movies -- if you could
"order" a high quality copy for $5,
you wouldn't have to go out to the
movie theater, but you will watch at least
4 times the number of movies.
When the networks get faster, to download a
high quality 4GB mpeg for $5 beats
downloading a crappy version for 0
Right! A bit is 8 electrons.
Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed "nucular" accelerator on his back.
Sig changed for readability by G.W.
CEOs and children under five prefer a whole cupcake to a piece of pie, regardless of the comparative amounts. But isn't it nice to know that corporations are not ruled solely by the desire to increase profits? It seems, at some level of affluence, the desire for more control exceeds the desire for mere gain. And some people claim idealism is dead!
My take on it is this.. We shouldn't make a blanket statement about all IP laws. They initially do what they're supposed to: Give the creator control over his property in order to recoup costs of creation. It's also good to let the creator make a profit as well. Pharmaceuticals have a high research and development cost, especially considering the time it takes for FDA approval in the US. Entirely removing IP protections from the area would likely make the industry not want to invest their time.
I feel that tuning the amount of IP protection for different types of industries is helpful for business. Long-term or indefinite-term copyright just doesn't make sense, especially when the original creator is long gone, or the current owner isn't the original creator. Fifty years should really be the maximum, or should be the maximum if the property has been sold by the original owner (thinking of printed materials here). There are some other issues that need to be addressed with the sale of specific types of rights. One example that comes to mind is that of the works of Philip K. Dick. Hollywood basically gave him the "we'll call you later" line while buying movie rights at bargain-basement prices. Now that he is deceased, we've got three big-budget screen adaptations of his work that raked in the dough. There's also the issue of studios which review a script, reject it, then make a movie based on that script (without proper credit) years later. Occasionally a couple of studios will do this, producing similar movies at about the same time. Weakening IP laws in this situation will only hurt the "little guy" even more.
The area that definitely needs the most tuning is IP with regard to technology. There should be some type of orphan clause, if the creator goes bankrupt (or the author dies), and no one had previously made claim to the IP. I'm thinking primarily about software source code lost in limbo. In specialty sofware areas where there isn't a high profit margin this is a major concern when picking the right package: Will this company still be in business 10 years from now? And, of course, (everyone's favorite) tech patents on methods really need an overhaul. Seven years seems to be a bit to long. We really need a new way of reviewing patents. It's not that all of them are overly broad, but a problem that exists because changing a few key words makes something patentable. The "pausing live broadcast" patent should be tossed. The concept has existed and has been implemented since probably the late 1950s for the purposes of "instant replay" during sporting events. Throwing in the words "digital" and "disc", or the amount of time that can be "shifted" shouldn't have a bearing on the validity of the patent. Likewise, the concept of recording in the background shouldn't be patentable either, even if it uses the buzzword "buffer".
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
well, if that correlation comes as a surprise, i'm no longer surprised! just look what prohibition did to the alcohol business!
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
THey are used to protects ones work from being copied but at the same time with enough patents start turning major patent holders into global monopolies. New ideas usually come mixed with old ones and you have to liberate this process as much as possible unless you want to bottle neck it for the sake of $$$ which is what pattents do.
During the 19th century, England tightened its patent laws to the point that reverse engineering was disallowed (cf. DMCA and some EULAs).
The main result was the decline of new invention and improvement originating out of England and a surge of advancement of invention in the US.
(England continued to 'coast' as a world power by expending its capitol (i.e.: the empire) for another 50 - 100 years before precipitous decline was obviously evident.)
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
Egads, you people can be really bizarre.
Why is the grandparent FUD? Because you decided to start a different argument? Just because there are jobs NOW - which is what you said - doesn't mean there will be the same types of jobs in the FUTURE - which is what the grandparent said.
No, the grandparent is making a prediction. Perhaps it's a weak one, but you didn't argue that. You didn't argue with the poster at all. In fact, you started a whole different subject. Please, if you're going to try and refute someone's predictions, think through the post before you do it and make sure you're at least talking about the same thing the person you're trying to refute was.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
I don't know for sure, but it seems quite likely to me that the US is the world's largest exporter of intellectual property, the export stats might even include that.
In any case, it seems to me that IP laws are "good" for the movie and recording industries in the US, and that is why the US is so hell-bent on enforcing their IP laws on other countries. I think it was Marx that said Capitalism is Imperialism. In my books, IP laws are just another weapon on that front.
what I really think is going way too far is companies deciding who can or cannot be my friend. I have no problem whatsoever with treating everybody as a friend (yes, there are different 'levels' of friend, like all other friends.), and I have no trouble sharing with all my friends.
That's not insightful, it's just manipulation of words to thinly veil a support of wholesale piracy. In no meaningful way is a person whom you have never met--and with whom your only interaction ever is the trading of a song file--your "friend". Saying "I'm a friend to the world" doesn't change the fact that wholesale piracy is fundamentally different than sharing music with a close circle of actual friends.
It's pathetic when people try to make this defense of massive online filesharing (as opposed to, say, sharing within an actual, meaningful, community of people, be it online or in the real world). If you are for piracy, say so. Don't try to defend your position using meaningless redefinition of terms. There are grey areas in file swapping--calling everyone your friend is not one of them, and weakens much more legitimate arguments (such as calling a smallish online music discussion group a group of friends with whom sharing should be permissible).
Any crime can be "defended" by relabeling:
but the relabeling itself doesn't make the defense valid.
I think the fact that Disney keeps lobbying/bribing to push copyright length into the future to keep Mickey Mouse from the public domain coincides nicely with their current financial, business, and haven't-made-a-decent-movie-in-how-long woes. But remember, correlation does not denote causation, but...
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
This IS the point, and the whole point. IMHO, read the constitution and THIS is what you come to.
Let's phrase it a different way:
A person can be supporting his/her self and family OR advancing the Arts and Sciences. The purpose of Copyrights and Patents as put forth in the Constitution is to remove the devilment behind that 'OR' decision. Even if it's not enough incentive to enable and Artist/Scientist/Engineer to make a life wholly supported that way, it's got to be worthwhile, as opposed to putting in a few more hours at a day job.
The other side comes from the phrase, "If I can see farther, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants." Patents and Copyrights are SUPPOSED to release that stuff into the Public Domain, so others can use it as a basis for further works. THIS is the single most broken aspect of current IP law, IMHO.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
"no more new music for you!"
It'd be funny if it happened, even as a marketing ploy.
You mean it hasn't happened already ?, all i can hear on the big radio stations and tv are "professional kareoke people" aka "manufactured pop" singing a bad cover of a song that another band from 1980 wrote (inspired by a 1970's band) because the record company can't be bothered to nurture real talent because they now deem its too financially "risky" better to go with what we know right ?
now as a result you have the odd phenomonon of "manufactured garage bands" as in bands that are designed to look like "real" bands (like in the pub/club variety) but really they are completly assembled by a marketing team and dont usually write/play their music (meaning covers) or subcontract it out to "real" songwriters all because "real talent" is too risky
so yep im pretty convinced thats it !, you have heard it all, for the rest of your life you are going to listen to basically the same songs from the same 60-90 eras repeaded ad infinitum, until you end up hating that song and can no longer tolerate it, if its a bad song tough shit, it will be played to you regardless until you do like/buy it (if you play something enough for long enough they will like it MTV method)
same goes for movies too, have all the tales really all been told ? i could go on but i won't, looking at the this centuries film output and what they are planning in the future, i don't hold a lot of confidence.
marketing is clever at being stupid
Things are not always that simple. My own employer recently presented me with a new contract. It included among many other things the three following points:
1) A clause about 'any software/hardware/idea/invention... etc' of mine being the property of the company'. It was so loosely worded that they could theoretically have laid claim to things I 'coded/designed/invented' in my spare time even if this had nothing to do with the business the company is in was likely to cause the company loss of revenue.
2) Forbid me to code in my own time for an Open Source project even if the project is in no way related to the business the company and is completely unlikely to cause them loss of revenue.
3) They also tried to insert what they called a "competition protection" clause in the new contract where they reserrve the right to place an injunction on me, forcing me to remain unemployed for a period of upto 6 months, if I should happen to quit working for them and begin working for somebody they feel is a competitor or if I might be using knowledge obtained in my old job at my new place of work.
All but the third clause were shot down after intense negotiations (read: most of the empoyees staged a small scale mutiny). The third point has been kept in the new contracts but nobody expects it to hold up in court, at least not here in Europe. Although the poor bastard who the company decides to honor by testing that clause on is probably going to have to shell out a small fortune in legal fees to prove them wrong and employees will probably think twice beore signing the new contract. Fortunately I was able to avoid swapping my old contract for the new model.
Now, I will agree that a comany owns what I code/design/invent on company time. I also think that a company is no worse off rewarding employees for valuable innovations in some way. But when the company starts trying to dictate whether or not I can innovate in my own spare time in a way that does not undermine the company I work for I think the company has gone too far.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
For over a year I've been suggesting that artists stick a PayPal button on their sites and offer amnesty for downloaders. Paying the artists 2 or 3 times what they actually profit for these crappy CD deals that the RIAA companies force artists to sign, is peanuts compared to CD prices.
Amnesty is the answer!
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
1,163,548,552,000 imported and
693,257,300,000 exported and thats a difference of
-470,291,252
how does that help the situation??
cite- http://ese.export.gov/SCRIPTS/hsrun.exe/Distribut
remove spaces as necassary
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Steal means "to take, and carry away, feloniously; to take without right or leave, and with intent to keep wrongfully; as, to steal the personal goods of another." You haven't stolen anything from the mechanic, but you have breached your contract to pay for his work. You've probably also trespassed in his shop or yard while collecting your vehicle. He can sue, and if the state agrees it will use its monopoly on violence to compel you to pay. He may also be able to press criminal charges for your trespass.
Electricity is an interesting thing if you try to think of it as a physical object, since the act of consuming it actually involves flowing electrons through a device and then back to the producer. Of course I'm no more entitled to use the city's electrons in my cellphone (even if I send them right back) than the city is entitled to go using random stuff in my home - even if they put it back right away.
Electricity makes a bit more sense if you think of it as a service, like auto repair, but the same principles apply. If you're obtaining electricity without the provider's consent, it's probably through trespass, fraud, or similar unlawful means.
All that realy needs done is to provide value. I bought a program to make lables with barcodes on them. It's called Lables Unlimited. It was less than $15 off the shelf. Before I found it, I found fonts for $200, Label programs from $50-600. Needless to say most stuff was way overpriced as they were trying to sell automation solutions instead of a simple version of Printshop. When the choices were part with lots of money or do without, I did without. When a reasonable priced program came out, I bought 2 copies. One for home and one for work. (It can be registered either way. I did both.) After that with word of mouth advertising, (the best kind) I bought and re-sold 5 more to coworkers.
Trying to own and sell automation using barcodes (the concept, not the product) is viewed by most as open seas type piracy. One of the major bar code manufactures was sued for patent infringement for providing factory automation solutions which used barcodes with a workflow database. Somehow someone thought the concept of tracking with a database and barcodes instead of hand entry was a violation of IP. It got thrown out (thank goodness). Unfortunately more and more stuff is being tyed up in a concept as IP rights, not product rights. This started with songwriters as far as I can tell. A band records a song. I respect their recording. Another band sings their song (produces new product). They can either pay for what they produced or are prohibited from distributing or performing it in public. Somehow this seems wrong to lots of people.
Imagine if the concept were copied to the building industry. Someone makes nails. Someone else makes screws. Someone else makes glue. Someone makes 2X4's. They all patent the idea. Do you know the problems this would create for the building industry. Screws and screwdrivers only from International Fastener, Nails only from National Wire, 2X4's only from Georga Pacific.. etc. Some in the fastener industry have already done some of this. Posi-drive screws, Torx tm., etc.
Building materials are much cheaper if there is not a single vendor choice. Market forces set prices.
I see Open Source, Creative Commons, Public Domain, and the internet as a great equalizer. We just have to wean ourselves off the **AA licensed stuff. Tonight I was downloading free Public Domain radio programs. Laurel and Hardy, Fibber McGee, and Jack Benny are great alternitves to much of the high priced stuff. Don't pirate. Shop for the deals. They are out there.
There are lots of sites dedicated to collecting the material, selling or trading for very reasonable prices. Why can't BMI, Capitol, etc. sell MP3 CD's full of over 20 year old stuff for $5 each? You just can't tell me it's the cost of production and distribution. They would rather sell a couple of copies of $100 CD collections of old stuff than sell thousands at $5. They are also unwilling to use MP3's. Funny but the competion is using MP3's. All the radio programms I downloaded tonight are unencumbered MP3's. They will work in my MP3 CD player unlike what they are selling.
Do a search of Old Time Radio MP3's. You can literaly get days worth of material on MP3 CD's for under $10. Hey RIAA, are you listening? Want to sell from your old catalog? Naw, they would rather sit on their archive while I shop the competion. Their artificaly scarce material is being diluted by the competion. Piracy isn't their only competion. Games, movies, Public domain, Creative Commons, and freebies are their competion. Killing piracy won't make it go away.
The truth shall set you free!
The major problem is that copyright should not be transferable.
The person who created the work should retain all rights to the work. Not some global megacorp that can monopolize on the giant mass of copyrights they have bought or taken from employees.
If you can only monopolize what you have actually created then the power and wealth would be spread much more evenly. An individual is normally much more likely to license or sell a product at a reasonable price.
The idea that a corporation has the rights of a person but no way to be held accountable for its actions was not taken into account when these laws were passed or when the US Constitution was originally written to grant copyright.
IMHO, returning a corporation to its original status of a group of accountabe individuals with individual rights and copyrights, rather than the current status of an untouchable person, would correct many of our current problems.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
"However, I also believe, both as a creator and a reseller of intellectual property, that placing your 300 CD Collection on Kazaa is going way too far as well."
Sorry, can't disagree more.
Elvis's stuff should be PD. Not only because he's dead, but because he's been dead a long time and the bulk of his work was really done over 40 years ago.
What good does it serve to have Elivis's stuff under strict copyright? Is Elvis "incented" to create more stuff? Is Lisa-Marie "incented" to take up music as a career? Is she not rich enough? Should Elvis's music be an entitlement to any number of generations of presleys and music companies?
If Copyright lasted 14-21 years, it would all make sense. But when Copyright lasts 100 years and is backed up by encryption and criminal penalties for cracking that encryption, you don't have copyright, you have tools of social control.
That's why I copy old music freely without regard to copyright. The companies have said they don't give a shit about me. I'm simply replying in kind.
I can't help but be reminded of why Hollywood is in Calfornia rather than New York. All the early movie studios were in New Jersey. Edison, who owned patents on the movie camera charged royalties on every foot of film shot, and send thugs out to (in some cases) smash the cameras of those who didn't cough up.
Eventually people got sick of it and moved to the other side of the country & got on with it unmolested.
Current US IP laws are a significant incentive to move any business involved in the creation of IP offshore.
I suspect in a hundred yeasr noone other thana few historians will know why it is that the biotech or IT industry is centered on, say, Australia or India or Marituis and that it once was centered in the US.
Also, consider the possibility that the same process was independently developed. Is it still "theft"? It doesn't map as easily onto property law now, does it? Yet independently developing a process which happens to be covered by a patent is still a breach of patent law.
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
You cannot own an idea. One major difference between 'intellectual property' and physical property is that ideas have unlimited use; Everyone in the world can think about something all they want without preventing others from doing the same, causing wear, etc. If physical goods had these characteristics, we would have no justification for property either. The reason for property rights is that multiple people cannot use it at once, and thus using someone else's property without permission reduces their rights to it. Physical objects cannot benefit everyone, so they must be owned to provide any benefit other than squabbles as to who's turn it is to use it.
If you don't like the terms, do something else.
Why? Ideas often are developed independently. For example, Newton developed calculus, but didnt publish it. A few years later Liebniz developed it and published it. If I come up with an idea, just because you thought of it first should not give you a right to force my to accept your conditions to use my own thoughts.
These things are subject to the same market forces as anything else- if its owner wants to make money, he will balance market demand with the price he charges.
They are subject to the same market forces as monopolies, not competitive goods. DeBeers for instance must balance market demand with the price it charges. If it decided to charge 1 billion dollars for a small diamond, no one would buy it, because they have the choice to do without. However they can sell a diamond that in a competitive market would be worth well under a dollar for a thousand dollars. Just because they are subject to some market forces does not mean they do not have a monopoly. Intellectual property is a monopoly on an idea, which is, unlike physical property, a true monopoly in the sense that their are no competitors. A physical object is for all practical purposes the same as another object of the same design, except that they are different objects, and thus most of the time different people's property. Intellectual property laws on the other hand prevent copying, meaning in the analogy between physical and intellectual property, that another object of the same design cannot be made without the owners permission.
If you don't want to pay simply because you can copy it, you are engaging in theft- it's no different than any other good in the marketplace.
It is different; you cannot take that particular copy, but there is no law preventing you from making copies of physical objects, and if it were as easy as it is with ideas, we would all be living like kings, and anyone who suggested it was morally wrong would be laughed at or even thrown in an asylum.
"We have got to make Stan understand the importance of voting, because he'll definitely vote for our guy." - South Park