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The Demise of IP?
meetmeonaholiday writes "CNet has an interesting article on why intellectual property owners should worry. Melanie Wyne explains how open source and open standards will lead to the downfall of IP and hurt competition rather than aid it." From the article: "As part of the discussion between Massachusetts and software developers who would be affected by the state's mandate, the designer of the OpenDocument Format policy, Eric Kriss, flippantly stated: 'Here we have a true conflict between the notion of intellectual property and the notion of sovereignty, and I'd say that 100 percent of the time in a democracy, sovereignty trumps intellectual property.' This sounds positively pre-Boston Tea Party to me ... It reflects the currently fashionable idea that confiscatory government policy must be used to even the score (whatever that means), thrusting highly demanded, privately risked IP out of the hands of legitimate property owners and into the hands of other, favored actors to further 'develop' it."
I agree... Rather than compete with different non-interoperable standards, the companies will be forced to compete with better products. Sure, there will be casualities in the beginning, but in the end, it will benefit the endusers in terms of better working software.
As for open-sourcing all software aswell, that will be harder (ie, take longer time) but since the standards are open, they're forced to compete with functionallity and implementation aswell instead of just adding fluff (I heard MS Office 3000 XP Ultra Chrome Edition(tm) will be able to brew coffee for you when it finds the wordrate too slow), otherwise they'll fall behind and users will switch application.
(Hmm... guess I repeated myself somewhat with the last paragraph, ohwell)
All together now: "Intellectual Property"* is a privilege, not a right.
Your patent does not make you a unique and beautiful snowflake. The gov't does not usually invalidate patents outright. More often than not, they force you into a compulsory licensing scheme.
OMG ITS COMPULSORY!!!111
Calm down. Some governments won't even bother to license it.
Asian bird-flu example.
If the government feels that its national security is more important than your patent, it can and will take your "IP". In a small fraction of cases, the government says "You can't patent that idea. It is to sensitive." And guess what... you can't file a patent.
Ultimately, patents are a gift from the government to you.
*In this case I'm not including copyright...
even though its a privilege granted by Congress,
it has the word 'right' in it.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
IP protect file formats means MS is taxing us for the right to communicate. Every email containing a word document I receive is tantamount to saying I can't communicate unless I pay MS (and by that token, contribute to the US economy :-) ) for the privilage. Every JPG copied to a FAT formatted solid-state drive which is taxed by MS represents a limitation on Free speech etc.
That's why OpenStandards are the opposite of pre-Boston tea party, in fact they are the Boston tea party.
Chuck the tea in the river, let's brew our own!
I'd just like to address a particular point you raised there.
I truly hope this is not true. The principle of copyright is sound: to encourage those with the ability to produce useful and/or entertaining works to share what they create for the benefit of others. It is the corruption of this system, such that giant middlemen like the megacorps of the publishing and media industries reap all the rewards while effectively dictating terms to both sides through a complex monopoly, that causes pretty much all the problems we see today.
The solution to this, IMHO, is simple: copyright should not be transferrable, and should remain for the duration with the creator(s) of the work. Instead, the law should allow for exclusive licensing agreements, and probably restrict them to a relatively short period to avoid the same sorts of abuse we have now where anyone wanting to get published has to accept terrible terms from the megacorps in exchange, or go independent and take their chances.
The analogy you suggest, between the information revolution and the industrial one, is probably rather closer to the truth than most of us would like. Consider that in days gone by, skilled craftsmen and knowledgable traders could bring quality goods to society who wanted them, while still catering for those who just want cheap 'n' cheerful. In contrast, in today's industrialised economy, almost everything is cheap, nasty, mass-produced rubbish (or at least nasty and mass-produced). It's hard to find a skilled craftsman even if you want one and are prepared to pay for his services.
Right now, most software is released full of bugs, and the fact that some consumer device you've paid tens, hundreds or even thousands for doesn't actually do what it's supposed to is just "the way it goes". No-one who has a better way of doing things has much chance of getting into the market and taking on the big players. As a consumer who prefers quality to quantity, I find there's no-one competing for the quality end of the market, because the money isn't there to go up against the mass-market industrial firms.
If the system were fixed, the effective cost of entry would become lower, more niches for smaller players would become viable, and those with a superior product could ask and receive a fair price for it without disadvantage or risking having their market wiped out by the big players on a whim. In time, they could increase their market share, driving standards up for everyone.
However, if the system were disolved rather than fixed, you would embed today's status quo just as various other industrial firms have done, and the concept of a quality product would be just as dead in software and high tech goods as it is today in average consumer fare. Perhaps that's what the market wants in its short-sightedness, but it's certainly not what I want, nor in the long term interests of society.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
"Melanie Wyne is executive director of the Initiative for Software Choice, a global coalition run by the Computing Technology Industry Association"
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t eam/2100-7344_3-5942913.html?tag=nl
"Microsoft is a member of the Washington-based Initiative for Software
Choice, that has written to Australian MPs asking them to oppose open
source preference Bills
http://www.sam.org.au/club_news.asp?clubid=4685&n
"In August 2002, Microsoft became a member of the Initiative for Software
Choice. The ISC has close associations with the Computing Technology
Industry Association (CompTIA) based in Washington DC
http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/6927/print
"One editorial labeled Massachusetts' OpenDocument Format plan as the "domino" that will cause other governments and private parties to follow suit," Melanie Wyne
There *is* no mention of a 'domino` or any phrase to that effect on the linked to article. There is this quote thought:
"Heck, it's just standards...Outside of some politicians and some Microsoft-backed industry groups, there's an overwhelming support for this thing," he said. "It's kind of hard to argue against it." Bob Sutor, IBM
http://news.com.com/OpenDocument+format+gathers+s
"Through privately owned and developed IP, American and European IP companies have given back untold public benefit" Melanie Wyne
This is nonsence. It was because of the lack of IP legislation that companies prospered by utilising a common pool of knowlege. If it had been locked down we would have no national electricty grid, television, radio or a car industry.
What you are trying to do with your IP legislation is get a lock down on the developing markets. So they pay you to use their own software on their own computers.
You're going to have to be a little more specific than "if you get rid of government, people will automatically play fair" though, since that gets proven not to work quite frequently throughout world history.
Oddly enough, this is precisely what the Communists originally claimed. "State Capitalism" was supposed to be a transitory phase leading to a society ruled by perfect brotherhood. All you had to do was get rid of the evils of capitalism, and everyone would live in perfect harmony. Communism was pure Castle in the Sky bullshit; real pretty, nice to dream about, but absolutely no way to get there. What the Russians got was Stalinism, which was just more of the same old tyranny.
It's amazing how often the people on extreme right mimic the old extreme left. Subsititute the word government for capitalism in old communist rants, and you could pass a lot of them unchallenged on libertarian sites. But then, it shouldn't be too surprising, given that most of the neo-cons are ex-Marxists themselves. Same utopian shit, different bucket. The pendulum swings to the extreme yet again.
Wouldn't it be nice if we actually took the time to understand and solve our problems instead of coming up yet another utopian panacea doomed to failure?
Just a quick bit of history: a society without a government is called anarchy. It inevitably ends up being ruled by the guy with the most guns and the biggest gang (see Stalin.) People would rather recognize one big tyrant who robs them in a systematic fashion than a whole army of little tyrants who just kill them indescriminately. This is how kings and governments came to be in the first place.
A good government is one that rules the least because it recognizes where the society is going and works with it rather than against it, enforcing the social contract but not trying to dictate it. A bad government tries to impose an unnatural or outdated social contract. Successful revolutions happen when the society has moved on but the government hasn't--the "new order" already exists. Unsuccessful revolutions happen when some revolutionary group seizes power and tries to create a new order by destroying the existing one. What this means is that things can get much worse very quickly, but they usually don't get much better very quickly. Progress takes a lot of time and effort.
In the case of copyrights, a new order is taking shape. Large corporations are attempting to use government enforcers to oppose this, and even to roll back existing rights (people have been taping each others albums for 30 years now.) This will fail. The only question is whether there will be anything left of copyright when the dust settles. The longer it takes for the elected leaders to pull their heads out of their asses, the harder the fall will be when it comes.