Slashdot Mirror
The Guardian On Intellectual Property
mykdavies writes "The Guardian has an excellent article giving lay readers an overview of some of the problems being caused by the concept of 'intellectual property', including references to stories familiar to Slashdot readers, such as DVD Jon, the Sony rootkit, Amazon and Google business patents." From the article: "Even facts about the world can, in some cases, become the property of commercial companies. It was the promise of gaining patents on the human genome that lured investors into the private consortium that attempted to sequence it in competition with the public effort. Laboratory animals have already been patented, starting with the OncoMouse, an animal whose genome has been manipulated to ensure that it develops cancer."
Something is very wrong with the patent system when living creatures can ba patented.
I read the article shortly before it appeared on /., and was irritated to find that it makes no mention of the FSF or Richard Stallman at all, despite making the point that software patents are bad and are stifling creativity. How to take action against such a great threat must surely be an important part of any critical article, yet the author makes no effort to do any such thing.
Other than that, though, it was a good read, covering more than just software patents, and is a good attention-raiser for this important topic. Maybe the mainstream media will finally wake up to the very real threat IP poses...
HAH! I just wasted a second of your life making you read this, but I wasted a minute of mine thinking it up. DAMN.
Would you rather we all just keep quiet over the Sony/rootkit story, do as we're told, keep buying our DRMed/etc. CDs, and act like good, unquestioning consumers? Sorry, but I think that this is something we simply do have to keep on about. We have to make sure people know that Sony are not beneath putting this sort of software on their CDs (even if they didn't know quite everything the rootkit did, they're still responsible for putting it on their products), else we'll only see things getting worse.
And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
This makes it likely for other those so inclined to understand our point. They even note the paradoxical effect that manditory enforcement of copyright would have on Microsoft and other monopolist companies relying on licensed products.
However, I notice that there is very little variety in the links at the end of the document. Maybe they should point to a few different places---the FFII website might be a good start, as they seem to come out as being friendly to (small- and medium-sized) business IMO, and they're European.
I just know the US will weaken its IP laws somewhere in the near future. The US has developed a nice system for correcting draconian laws, it goes something like this:
Government: Look here, we have some nice (new) laws to make you feel better.
People: *yawn* Who gives a fuck?!?
Government: Ok then, lets up the ante...
Small group: Hey, that's not right.
People: *yawn* Who gives a fuck?!?
Government: The "small group" didn't elect me *rinses* *repeats*
Small group: Ok, now I'm mad, I'm calling shenanigans...
People: *yawn* Who gives a fuck?!?
Government: Just one more tweak, then we can retire...
People: Huh what's happening?.... Get out the guns, it's time for a revolution
For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
Excellent read. The first article I've read that actually covers the investor-patent relation as a trade market independent of the 'inventor'.
It also makes a clear distinction between the right to copy and concepts of ownership without overt use of analogy and metaphor.
The final point, that Intellectual Property is itself an idea that can be manipulated, distributed and copied, also offers fresh perspectives on what is often accepted as an ancient and unnegotiable moral framework; one in fact enforced by laws that are invented to make allow for the idea of IP in the first instance.
Hence we need a system for dealing with those conflicts, by deciding who gets to sit in the chair or eat the bread. And the system we use is the property system. We assign control over such things to individual people, and call those items "their property".
With ideas, the sort of things which are covered by patents and copyright, these conflicts do not exist. When you have an idea, everyone can make use of it without limiting its functionality. Hence there is no such problem to solve. No reason for such notions of property to exist. The notion of "intellectual property" is therefore an absurdity.
The purpose of copyrights and patents is completely different to the purpose of property. Deliberately implying otherwise is deception.
And if anyone needs to make use of deception when putting their case forward, it's a good sign that their case isn't strong enough to stand on its own merits.
(Also, copyrights and patents are a really stupid way of trying to get people to create ideas. Giving up your freedom is very seldom a good plan, and the limitations on freedom imposed by copyrights and patents have two obvious effects; they create more power, which by its nature centralises and then corrupts those who hold too much of it, thereby creating entities which hinder the growth of the very thing which we're supposed to be encouraging, and they cripple the end result, meaning for example that your new drugs are only of limited use, because only the relatively wealthy can use them. I can't immediately think of a field in which we wouldn't be better off in the final analysis if we used other non-freedom-removing means of paying the people who we need to pay to keep things moving, and in many fields we'd be better off with no such system at all over the current system.)
There seems to be this attitude that the suffering of slaves prior to 1850 was something that only happened back then. That it has nothing to do with now, that we are more civilized, more modern, more mature, and more sophisticated. With it comes the arrogance that what happened then, means nothing now, that what happened there has no value here, that the great torment and suffering back then can safely be ignored now as we blow off history and all the values that go with it in terms of understanding, freedom, markets, property, technology, and the coming replication age.
Surely anyone who claimed that there is no "incentive" go grow cotton without slaves on the plantation would be considered a barbaric. But if someone claims that there is no "incentive" to create intellectual and knowledge works without patents, then society calls them enlightened. If someone had said that the great wealth of America rested on slavery as a property right and the plantation system, they were a foolish idiot. But if someone says that the great wealth of societies in the coming replication ate rests on "Intellectual Property", then they are called wise. Anyone who says that slavery was about property rights and not control, is a liar. However, if they say that patents are not about control, but "Intellectual Property" then they are considered trustworthy. How about - if you don't like slavery - don't own slaves, and if you don't like patents no one forces you to buy those creations. How about - if you don't believe in slavery, you must be an anarchist, if you don't believe in patents you must be some kind of a communist. How about - you are a thief if you free slaves from the plantation, you are a thief when you copy "Intellectual Property".
So why are we spoon-feed these poor logical explanations over and over again? Because, like the assassin who befriends and mis-places his victims heart medications, rather than pull out a rifle and pop a bullet in the head. Like the rapist who drugs his victim, rather than attack her overtly and violently where all the scars, blood, and bruises can be detected. Patents are the pinnacle of quiet violence, they seem so innocent, they seem so sincere, and it is so hard to see any direct evil. After all, what could be less harmless then providing an incentive to inventors, right? But do they really promote invention - or just lock out and tie up inventions and discoveries that were likely to happen anyhow? Do they really help inventors, or do they hinder collaboration and sharing in a way that would put a police state to shame?
Perhaps the old lady has none to blame when her patented medication is too expensive to afford anymore. Who can the workers blame when the patented technology they bet their career on becomes useless as society migrates to less controlling technologies. Who can a child in Africa blame when they are dying of AIDS, and there are no generics to treat it! Who do we blame when researchers seeking a cure for cancer encounter massive obstacles to sharing individual research for fear that their peers will get one up on them, get a key patent, and lock them out! What do you do when a company buys up a patent on a safety device, but then decides not to use it nor let their competitors use it, other than watch people die who might not have otherwise. And all to often people just assume that every manufacturer having incompatible parts and appliances with every other manufacturer is a natural part of a free market, but is it? And does that really help our environment?
As people die because patents are either too costly and alternatives too sparse, and the needy go without, not because of genuine shortage, but because artificial human made restrictions. We must ask what will our role be in the pages of history as society enters into the replication age? Will it be like the lost souls who thought that the slave states could peacefully get along with the free states who today think that patents can peacefully co-exist with freedoms. Or will we be like the plantat
But there is one, inescapable truth - Internet piracy is mostly to blame.
I have not pirated any music over the internet...ever. Yet I stopped buying CDs:
1. I found out some are disabled for my digital devices.
(I buy music for simple enjoyment, for FUD, hassle & frustration)
2. I discovered new artists at the free legal download sites.
3. I discovered commercial-free, announcer-free internet radio, like SomaFM.
I might resume buying CD's when music companies can gurantee they'll work and will accept liability for selling me crap. On the other hand, I must give credit to their mis-treatment's role in expanding my digital music horizons beyond the limited world of CDs.
I would much rather see them make the point in a clear, concise and conspicuous fashion than have an article resembling an Oscar speech. It's rather ironic that you are asking them to acknowledge Stallman's ownership of the ideas they are presenting. Most people don't understand that this is a problem yet; let the fact that they have a problem sink in before evangelizing the solution.
Very sad, but you fail to cite any proof that piracy is causing harm to you or your business, besides two kids (who from your description could have got the law on you for assault).
.torrent, or a copy of what ever P2P service kids are using these days. Speaking of, from my case I think you can tell that most P2P pirates don't stay in the game forever, I used to pirate my fair share back in High School, but now that I'm out in the real world, I've switched to legal free music, iTMS, and buying indie CDs from the bands themselves (show your support twice, being at the show, and buying their music). Nope, never gonna step foot in your store, probably, but not doing any illegal.
Perhaps the problem is that you are in a very very small niche market, and being so you are more vulnerable to economic changes. Perhaps a switch of the demographic of your base area. Perhaps the economy in general.
Perhaps people like me who rely on free music (like from Jemundo and such), and iTMS to cut out the middle man, and the resultant high prices from it ($17 for a CD?! 9.99 is about right). Perhaps it is because people are buying less, period.
For your niche, I really doubt that many people are pirating that type of music. Go on to any P2P service, and count the amount of Christian rock, as compaired to the stuff that you don't want to sell. You'll notice that it is a severe minority, in that most people don't want to listen to it, and the people who do are less apt to pirate it.
I think you wasted a sob story, since there is no overt causation between piracy and your plight. I don't agree with you being modded as a troll though (though you might be one, indeed), being that your post can open up a dialogue, and you offer a solution of some type.
I'm all for your pirate blacklist, since most pirates won't really need to ever go to your store, if they are indeed pirates. I'm sure if they were dilligent they could find a
The CD store niche is probably suffering, since there are so many more convienient and inexpensive alternatives.
I didn't know, BTW, that there was a pirate lobby, I knew that there was a huge corporate lobby trying to restrict my right to IP, since they have more money (money = rights). Companies are allowed to do nasty blackhat-ish activities that restrict me (Sony, oppressive DRM), and lower my security. They are restricting constitutional rights of IP by making it eternal, and thus stiffling the creativity of the whole world (by coercing other countries to buy our system of insanity) so some folk can make more money. This piracy lobby really should actually do something from time to time, I think.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey