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World Intellectual Property Day
Dotnaught writes "The Business Software Alliance wants everyone to know that today is World Intellectual Property Day, 'an initiative to educate young people about how intellectual property rights foster innovation, creativity and economic opportunity.' To mark the occasion, CopyNight, a monthly gathering of people interested in restoring balance in copyright law, is hosting a get-together tonight in various cities throughout the U.S."
So, who wants to be the first to give us a list of all those wonderful inventions that would have never been invented if it wasn't for the copyright law?
Software, particularly OSS, is very different. Much of the value in software is derived from all the testing etc that is done to prove the software and flush out the bugs. I have heard of this being compared to the "stone soup" story. Throw out any (sometimes crappy) software and let people give you feedback. Copyright only protects the interests of the authors - not of those who do all the testing etc. Often the value added by the testers etc is many times the value added by the original authors.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The far more creative method of human thinking is to express ideas to as many people as possible and have those people alter and improve upon the original. One person sitting in a box alone will come up with boring ideas (unless they are crazy).
Don't mod me up.
Let's celebrate!
There's so much to celebrate.
Laws that allow others to lock their ideas away so no one can use them.
Laws that allow organised price fixing.
Laws that allow people to own ideas that should belong to everyone. Everything down to your own DNA has some form of IP on it.
Rejoice world.
Gimme a break!
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Notice how they made it DURING EXAMS?
That way, all those free-spirited, pirates will be too busy studying their asses off to give a hoot about it. "intellectual property day". LOL.
You mean all that innovation that comes from 1-Click software patents, the Happy Birthday song, Winnie the Pooh, etc.
If you look at the Constitution, copyright covers: "[o]nly the writings and discoveries of authors and inventors...and then only to the end of promoting science and the useful arts."
Original ideas should not become commodities that are transferred to purchasers and assignees - which is the problem with all the examples above.
April 26 is the anniversary of Chernobyl. 3.2 million casualties.
Now THAT's worth remembering.
If you buy music from allofmp3.com, none of that money goes to the artists.
That's why you follow up by tipping the artist directly at allofpaypal.com, short-circuiting the vulture-capitalist labels.
If they said there was no incentive to do good things unless the government could choose your religion ... or they said there is no incentive to grow food, unless farmers could rip up your garden ... most people would see these as the awful values that they are. But if they say that there is no incentive to make beneficial or creative works without the power to restrict what people copy (copyrights), then all too many people just take it on faith. They don't even question it, as if incentive makes rights, as if society would fall apart without them.
This is a very strange comparison really. In the first case it's quite logical that people would protest; after all something important gets taken from you namely your potatoes or your freedom of religion (excuse me for the hilarity but they were YOUR examples). In the second case, all that is harmed is the right to own everything, even that what belongs to others. Since when is that a basic human right?
But just as much of the Renaissance happened without copyrights so should the information age.
This comparison is even stranger. If you don't see the essential difference then let me explain. In the information age, large groups of society depend on selling copyrighted material for their living, such as music, movies and software. In the period of Renaissance, there weren't. I love all your utopian idea's about absolute freedom of speech and everything being owned by the community instead of individuals, but are *you* gonna feed all those people that lose their jobs?
The truth is that for every artist or writer that has made it "big", there are unmentioned thousands whom copyrights haven't helped a bit, hindered, or even destroyed. Some are even barred or sued from sharing their own creations in public, while others die with the world never truly knowing their artistic genius as the mass media drowns them out. Most creators are far better off sharing and distributing their creations freely to make a reputation for themselves.
Yeah, and there are probably even more who make a living *thanks to* copyrights. Where do you get all these vaguely statistic statements? I'd like to see some figures here. And by claiming that creators are better of sharing everything for free, I understand that you yourself aren't depending on it for a living?
You have some nice utopian ideas man. But I'm affraid it's never gonna work out. Collective property has been tried before and it didn't work... people got lazy because there was no motivation. Besides, I really wonder how you want to make all this happen without ridding huge groups of people of their daily source of income.
Uhm, would you settle for better limits on copyright laws? If I understand correctly, you want to toss IP laws out the window because of draconian measures like the DMCA. That is sort of the definition of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I mean, patents, copyrights, trade secrets and the like are meant to allow people to protect their IP for a short time before it becomes public property. In my line of work, I'm basically paid for my ideas and I think I have a right to make a living at it, which wouldn't be possible if I weren't able to protect my ideas from being spun-off after I do all the hard work (too bad I can't get paid for run-on sentances and poor spelling).
Let's say we had no IP laws. In our capitalist society there would be an entire industry created around snatching up the work of others and profiting on it. Imagine a company that scours the country for inventions that are just about to make it to market - but have no IP protection. They then swoop in at the last minute and bring the product to market, while I've invested all this capital inventing, testing, streamlining, etc. The same applies to copyrights... One could wander around compiling hit-songs by simply recording live performances and selling them before the artist can even make enough money to buy a CD burner... Moreover the level of secrecy that would have to be maintained in order to prevent the poaching of your ideas would stiffle progress and creativitiy as it would rob us of the right to "stand on the shoulders of giants" as it were.
Now in the real world, copyright laws have gone too far. Companies do wander around finding the next greatest hit, but they sign artists into shit-end-of-the-stick contracts (sometimes going as far as "purchasing" the IP from the artist), lobby the government to extend copyrights indefinitely, and sue people who don't adhere to their square-peg-in-a-round-hole business model. Disney has managed to extend the copyright on Mickey for how long..? Drug companies are able to weasle out of patent restrictions through a myriad of poorly thought out laws (often drafted by the very lobbiest that represent said drug companies) and when that doesn't work they just ban re-importation from countries that don't respect those poorly written laws.
Look at it this way; I should have the right to make a career out of creating things. If those thigns happen to be ideas, I should still be able to make a living at it. What if, at the end of the month, everyone's paychecks were dropped from an airplane and the first person to the bank had the right to cash them? Would that be fair?
Actually, I wrote my thesis on life experience.