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In Defense Of Patents and Copyright
Romer!can writes "C|Net Editor Michael Kanellos offers a potentially contentious opinion piece about patents and copyright on the CNet site. Highlights of the fairly biased piece include: a cheap shot dismissing open source projects as existing only to act as a foil for Microsoft, blatantly equating copyright infringement with stealing, and an embarrassing failure to even casually mention the current term lengths of patents and copyrights as a driving factor behind popular dissatisfaction. Instead, he wades through obscure humor and emotional appeals characterizing patent trolls as the guy next door. 'Nearly every so-called [patent] troll turned out to have a somewhat persuasive story. Intellectual Ventures, a patent firm started by former Microsoft chief scientist Nathan Myhrvold, was staffed with fairly renowned scientists who didn't fit the profile of people trying to make a quick buck in court. Another man, criticized as one of the most litigious people in the U.S., had a great explanation for his behavior. He had only sued people who had signed--and then violated--nondisclosure agreements.'"
...why post it? I can find similar trolls with little or no effort too, but usually I'm here for a honest discussion. It is not like this article would be news in itself.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
But hey, what do you expect?
Newsflash: corporate media execs will say anything to protect their monopolies on intellectual products. As a last resort they might produce an intellectually satisfying argument, but only once they've exhausted all the easy ways to keep their fat status quo.
(C) Doc Ruby. All Rights Reserved.
--
make install -not war
...it IS a troll. NOBODY who works for C-Net can possibly be ignorant of the rest of this story, or of the tempest in a teapot that a biased editorial is sure to stir up. Therefore, it is purposeful, intended to drive up traffic and replies.
If that's his goal, don't give him the satisfaction. Don't read it, don't comment, don't reply.
Which is not about "winning" some argument, it's just about not letting media people get paid for the almost mindlessly easy job of drumming up fake controversy. Same as ignoring all the cable TV and radio "shock jocks". Let them all work for a living, do some investigative reporting, find out some new facts (you know, "news"?) to fill up their sites with.
Not just, as Jon Stewart said about 'Crossfire', "theatre".
The people arguing in favor of copyright/patent law, always belong to the richest .001% of world population. Some of us can't afford to buy every piece of software/media we want to consume.
Intellectual Ventures, a patent firm [and alleged patent troll] started by former Microsoft chief scientist Nathan Myhrvold, was staffed with fairly renowned scientists who didn't fit the profile of people trying to make a quick buck in court.
Why isn't that a persuasive argument? Isn't that kind of argument used all the time around here? Don't believe me? Have you ever heard:
"Drug companies don't deserve patents/as-lengthy-patents because they spend more on advertising than research."
They're both rank appeals to one's sympathy (or lack thereof) with the patent holder.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Honestly, why is anyone even posting something from C/Net on Slashdot? They are just another lobbyist mouthpiece.
The fact that he thinks that what OS projects are tells me, that he is a MS hugging cave man who can bearly work his cell phone, let alone understand projects like linux, open office, and my person fav WINE. Moral of the story, dumb people are in the big chairs because the smart people are to busy being inovative.
In other news, Romer!can submits a fairly biased article summary which includes: a cheap shot dismissing one critique of the open source community, blatantly pretending that there is popular dissatisfaction behind copyright and patent term lengths, and an embarrassing failure to even casually mention the serious legal status of copyright infringement. Instead, he wades through obscure humor and emotional appeals, mocking the comparison of infringement to theft and characterizing anyone who disagrees with him as a wanker.
As per usual they claim that Linux isn't a serious product while USING IT TO RUN THEIR WEB SITE. Netcraft confirms, news.news.com runs Linux Apache/2.0.
/ /news.com.com
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http:
In 2095, Windows 2000 binaries enter the public domain. The source, was never published and died on some overwritten/corrupted backup media long before.
Would the binaries be useful at all?
If not, the the copyright duration is effectively infinite.
Now compare the Public domain Windows 2000 of 2095 with ReactOS or Linux in 2095. which is more useful?
But you don't need to wait 95 years to see this result.
How many years of development do you think it takes for ReactOS to surpass Windows2000?
How many years of development does it take for Linux to Surpass an abandoned UNIX, like IRIX?
If for some reason, you wanted to create a DOS system, would you use MSDOS 6, or FreeDOS?
Here come the "it's not stealing" crowd.
"Waah, you spent hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars on something and I want to see it, but I don't want you to get a dime for it! I need justification! Oh wait, here we go, IT'S NOT THEFT CAUSE I MADE A DIGITAL COPY OF IT!"
All you whiners who hate on "Old Media" and want everything completely free should hang out on YouTube and exclusively watch all the video blogs and clips of people running into each other with shopping carts. Because if you're successful in killing Old Media, that's all you'll have! Sorry guys. It may not require tens of millions of dollars to produce gobs and gobs of high quality video entertainment with mass appeal, but it does take more then a couple dudes with a camcorder and six bucks.
Yes, it is a crime, but that crime is NOT THEFT.
There is a distinction for a reason. I suggest you might study the history of copyright, you fucking dumb ass.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I also like Monthy Python, but I wouldn't want to live in the world as they paint it.
I was especially, ehm, 'touched', by this sentence:
As true as a labrador. But not healthy. Not healthy AT ALL.
without prejudice,
M. Gregory Thomas(tm)
All software under copyright can be lawfully used for non-profit non-commercial purposes. Here is your tickette to the theatre. Enjoy the State actors, without prejudice [UCC 1-207].
without prejudice
Then the author immediately describes current "intellectual property." However the current state of "intellectual property" is more of the same: one uses some means (money, lobbying, market domination, bribes, etc.) to persuade the government to create laws that protect your monopoly. Of course instead of concluding that this current incarnation of monopoly-power is just as bad as the previous ones, he goes on to defend it. The analogy with the previous examples is so close that it almost makes me think the entire article is a gigantic joke.
Does the author honestly not see the parallel? At one time, wars and railroad monopolies were certainly considered legitimate business. In 100 years, will our era be looked upon as a similarly barbaric time, where, ridiculously, the citizens were oppressed in the name of profits for a select few elite?
when you get to invent the position of your opponents. It gets easier if all you have to do is to dream up some anecdotes about people who were emotional about the issue (especially if you don't bother to recount any reasons they may have to feel that way).
Honestly, how many people think there should be no copyrights? Very, very few. I don't dismiss the opinions of those people just because they are a tiny minority, of course, but it is really dishonest to imply that everybody who has a problem with the current copyright system is against all copyrights.
Very few people are entirely against patents either, although quite a few people are against certain categories of patents, which implies at least some more nuanced thought than the emotional rejectionism painted by the author.
The broad consensus among people who create intellectual property for their daily bread is that the system is badly managed and is being extended beyond its reasonable and proper boundaries. The net result is that it is not a "sure path to wealth", but a threat that undermines their ability to earn a living.
That would make anybody "emotional".
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Make no mistake, the Chinese are famous for having invented many of the greatest inventions in history. Problem is, they often did it multiple times, independently. In the Western universe, I seem to recall that intellectual property was kept as trade secrets, to the exclusion of the public and similarly lost to antiquity.
The reason for the prior (retention) is often equated to their lack of proprietary interest in intellectual property, and the reason for the latter (publicity) is adjoined by the consequences of divulging your technological advantages. While the incentive exists to invent gunpowder (for its usefulness), the incentive and mechanism to publicly retain a collective body of knowledge for such inventions in Chinese society did not exist. Thus, I believe the secret to gunpowder was lost to the Chinese on more than one occasion, only to be re-invented later. (Or perhaps that wasn't gunpowder, but some other set of inventions).
Patents help alleviate this loss of intellectual achievements to both antiquity and secrecy. However, in our society they have gone to an extreme, whereby we can rightly complain that they stifle innovation, undermine competition, and they may even be unnecessary in light of modern mechanisms for keeping tabs on new IP, notably the internet, and public collaborative projects like open source.
Nonetheless, patents are predictable, and having arisen out of hundreds of years of jurisprudence over the need to retain and publicize useful inventions. They appear to be econommically over-bearing nowadays, and may even be superfluous in light of modern technology for retention and dissemination of intellectual property (i.e. the internet), but they are integrated into our economy in ways that make it superbly difficult (not to mention prohibitively expensive, as in the USA the government may have to compensate patent holders by weakening their rights) to completely do away with the system. They also still serve the purpose for which they were intended, publishing and retaining useful innovations, but they have side effects which now make us question their value.
While we can and should criticize the patent system for its failures, we should also bear in mind the consequences of going too far in the opposite direction. Too few discussions of patent reform have an intelligent, informed and balanced basis in the purpose and benefits of the current patent system, with suggestions for either balanced reform across all arenas where patent law is applied (drugs, software, hardware, automobiles, etc.), or any sound alternative that is not subject to the same criticisms that are inherent to what we have now.
(That being said, I think the idea of patenting software strikes me as wholly inappropriate, the problems of publicity and retention long having been solved by the internet and open source projects, and the value software patents provide to the public is virtually nil in almost every way.)
Historically, what happened when the publishing monopoly of the Stationers was killed, 300 years ago (decreasing the monopoly duration from infinity to 14 years)? Did people stop writing books?
There is a lot of talk about getting rid of patent trolls, but little consensus as to what a patent troll is. Very few companies will say "yes: we're patent trolls." At best, they're willing to tolerate being called patent trolls.
What makes a patent troll? Does a company that develops a new technology but licenses it because it does not have the capital or market position to exploit the technology count as a patent troll? What about IBM? They produce products, but they license their patents for use by others in products that don't compete with IBM's products. Does that make IBM a patent troll? Would they have to be making competing products to be on morally solid ground?
There are definitely companies out that abuse the patent system (e.g., by filing continuation applications or requests for reexamination during which the applicants try to stretch the claims of their patents to read on subsequent innovations). But this author has a point that distinguishing the bad guys from the good guys is not easy. Many companies out there see themselves as just legitimately trying to leverage their full rights. Is that significantly different from consumers trying to maximize their rights as consumers by engaging in activities that aren't clearly legal (e.g., using direct music and movie clips for new works without seeking permission, creating libraries of MP3s and copying them to multiple systems, etc.).
Activities that push the limits of the law create risk. Patent applicants pay significant fees and must spend a lot of time in their efforts, resulting in a guaranteed loss. Certain uses of a patent can raise anti-trust concerns or result in loss of the patent. Consumers pushing the boundaries of "fair use" often play a lottery in which the winner loses a nasty law suit. And there is always the risk that Congress or the courts may react by changing the law or interpretation of the law to minimize questionable activities.
But those who are engaged in those activities probably believe that all they are doing is playing by a valid interpretation of the rules.
A completely biased summary trying to describe a biased article... makes for good reading... ???
After reading that "summary" I assumed it was a submitted blog. I can't believe garbage like that makes it on to the front page.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
so it's obvious he's not really up on science very much and therefore, is more like a salesmen who writes articles.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
And frankly, without them, most open-source projects would rapidly wither away: without an intellectual property behemoth like Microsoft to fight, what would be the point?
The point would be to get the nightmares out of my head, you idiot! Fighting Microsoft or even earning money is a distant motivator in comparison to actually fixing something that needs fixing and that I know how to do.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I was thinking about copyrights the other day and how "stealing" is not the right word. When a car is stolen, it is not there anymore, when money is stolen is cannot be accessed anymore.
But when a file is "stolen" it is not taken away from the owner. It remains. How could a car be stolen if it's still in your driveway?
So I tried very hard to imagine a way that something could be stolen, while still leaving the original item intact and I realized that genes might be a good example.
For instance, let's imagine that someone copies your genetic pattern and clones another you. Sure, he's not you - has different memories and such - but still, isn't that YOUR dna?
What if he is used for medical experiments - wouldn't you feel more strongly about him than just a random person because he has "your" genes?
Just a thought experiment.
I am wholeheartedly opposed to DRM and in fact the current state of copyrights. Still, I find it useful to determine strong arguments for any opposing view.
After all, in my opinion any scientifically-minded and reasoning person's greatest joy should be derived from being proven wrong.
Doubt is the beginning, not the end, of wisdom.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
You don't even have any choice as to whether or not to ignore software patents. There are hundreds of thousands of them. Then there are several thousand new applications a day. I'll give you a hint. It's impossible.
That's why Microsoft ignores software patents. Even they, the richest company on the planet, have no alternative. And that's also why they're getting hit with a few 9-figure verdicts already. But they still play the game and pretend they're legitimate, because they somehow think they'll benefit, in the end, using them to crush current and potential competition with multi-million legal actions and the threat thereof.
It is impossible to tell if any piece of code infringes. By the way, have you read many of these things? Almost every line of code does infringe.
Every line written is a ticking patent timebomb. Every player has to ante up and make their own "patent portfolio" which they can then apply against whoever sues them. If that sounds like it excludes everyone but a few rich, dominant corporations... now you're getting the idea. Only minor fly in the ointment: those patent shell companies that actually don't do any work except suing people, therefore can't be hit with a retaliatory claim. Ooops. And yet even after getting whacked by a few, MS is still winking and continuing to play the game. Shows you how much they hate honest competition.
Software Patents are currently ignored by almost everyone. But to the extent they are enforced, they will categorically end the American software industry, and software will continue to be a business in Europe, Asia, and... well basically every other civilized nation, who have soundly rejected this silly game and are by the way laughing their asses off at us.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
I Michael Kanellos am a rare species of toad. Abandoned by my parents at an early age, I was fortunate to be adopted by a family of bovidae. It was during these formative years grazing with my adopted family that I became intimately familiar with bullshit. Bullshit provides one of the most dependable means toward wealth and independence in the world today. In the dark ages, nobody much cared for opinion pieces that reeked of bovine excrement, thanks to intellectual property that has changed. Real progress means restricting ideas and information, just like they did in the dark ages. Err...
I believe in copyright so please print and distribute this article.
And frankly, without them, most open-source projects would rapidly wither away: without an intellectual property behemoth like Microsoft to fight, what would be the point?
Maybe to produce truly good software, rather than just lie about doing so in your marketing, perhaps? The author seems not to understand that some people create things for the sheer beauty of it; more often than not, OS projects have nothing to do with Microsoft; in fact, if OS was out to "get Microsoft", it is doing a pretty poor job considering the level of skill which goes into most OS projects. If we wanted to "get Microsoft" we wouldn't be licensing our code with the GPL; instead, we'd use a restrictive license which would prevent someone from compiling the code on a Microsoft platform, or not supply the code at all.
While some open source contributors do have an anti-Microsoft bent, most open source projects go beyond mere competition with Microsoft. In fact, the roots of open source were growing before Microsoft was even a company; Richard Stallman was doing it in the sixties at the MIT AI lab. It wasn't called open source until someone needed a term to differentiate those who felt software should benefit everyone from those who believed only the priveledged few (i.e., rich) should be able to benefit.
I'm not against copyrights and patents, per se, though I do realize that the system has been, and continues to be abused by corporations. Those who create works should share in their successes and from their labor be able to earn a decent living. The problem is that while a reasonable person would overlook the occasional sharing of IP among friends, a corporation would not; nor would a corporation feel any pity for those who would use their software if they could afford it.
Perhaps things would be better if it were illegal for corporations to possess intellectual property. Or perhaps fair use should be extended to any purpose for which there is no commercial gain.
But creating and propping up an artificial property right is not the answer. It is just the closest thing we have at the moment.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
"Children so stupid they think America invented the Internet, computer, motor car, light bulb, telephone etc ad infinitum...."
Internet: Developed by the US Department of Defense
Motor Car: Karl Friedrich Benz, Germany, co-founder of what would later be Mercedes-Benz - modern factory-process manufacturing of said automobile: Henry Ford, American
Light Bulb: Thomas Edision, American. Prior to that there were electric lights, but not light bulbs.
Telephone: Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell, Americans both.
Go back to school, fucko.
On one hand, the current legal environment around intellectual property is broken. Everytime you read something by RMS and think "this guy is a crack pot", 6 months later something happens that is uncomfortably moving us toward some of his dystopian predictions (i.e. "Freedom to Read").
OTOH, the key innovation in the liberal western revolution (liberal in the Adam Smith sense of the word) has been the ability, due to lax legal and societal restrictions, of the individual to use their ingenuity to better their condition.
Said differently, absolutely all of the progress of society in the last 300 years comes not from the owners, or from the workers, or such strange Marxist notions, but from the ideas and ability to make good on them.
The progress of humanity western society is based in the ability of the individual to profit from their own intellectual labor - not their lower back strength.
So how does one resolve this apparent conflict? It is man's mind, not his back, which creates wealth, progress, and an easier life. Yet the current implementation of intellectual property laws is broken, causing many to question even the valididty of intellectual property as a concept?
I'm familiar with Jefferson's quote, but i don't think it can credibly used as an argument for dismissing the concept of intellectual property entirely.
So what does a world look like where people are still compensated for the labor of their mind but which has a rational / sane legal framework around that compensation?
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
I found that C-Net is only anticipating a change in the political views when this article appeared. It's no different than watching how Amazon vs IBM turned into a crying match over patents, with IBM puting-down Amazon for no legaly-prevailing reason. Both could have easily proved their points, with the interested parties to decide the purpose and intent of their Patents, but instead it was a dog and pony show because there are some things about patent law that they don't want to reveal until the very end of societies willing to tolerate eachother's patents. Don't pat me down on that matter, but consider my petting the ideal outcome. It's pretense to war, when societies divide one from another. Entire countries have gone to war over patents; in the past it was over cotton fabrics, tavern beer, competition to established barristers, mint of money, the conduct of currencies, and the preservation of rites. The first deception on the intent of patents is to isolate counterfeit matters, when in fact there is no such thing as counterfeiting a thing until computers came along. Now patents are trying to establish their foot-hold on computer software because it is arguable if the data on one disk shares the same time and space continuum as that on another disk; it's the matter pressed (pat) of origin (ent) is the cause.
This will help you out on the matter.
a patent troll?
That's like expecting it from a Zionist - or a Republican - or a Democrat - or...well, just about any human.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
"... and an embarrassing failure to even casually mention the current term lengths of patents and copyrights as a driving factor behind popular dissatisfaction."
I'm going to ask another one of these "unpopular" questions that slashdot doesn't like. How many illegal copyright violations are within the 14 years that the original copyright stated?
He was talking to me. But I won't dignify him with a response...maybe a raspberry, but I'll leave it that.
What?
I know this is off-topic, but is anyone else seeing the GIGANTIC flash ad that is covering the first story on the front page?
Kanellos' piece was not particularly well thought out, and frankly it's not worth getting too worked up over it. He begins by defending the very notion of patents and copyrights themselves. Fine. Almost everyone would agree that SOME kind of intellectual property protection is necessary and just. But then he suddenly launches into a defence of so-called "patent trolls", and claims that "almost every one" he talked to had a persuasive story, and then preceeds to cough up a few anecdotes in support of his defense.
First of all, "almost everyone" isn't "everyone". I'd like to hear about those that didn't have a persuasive story too. And there's no way we can tell from this piece if his sampling of the "trolls" is in any way characteristic of the group as a whole or if his selection was pre-sorted by political or economic bias. The article contributes nothing to the public debate on this issue and therefore deserves to be dismissed with dignified scorn.
I for one would like to read an **unfairly** biased opinion piece...
He contrasts wealth acquisition in the Dark Ages against what is available today as if there was no "intellectual property" during the Dark Ages.
From everything I've read, the general explanation for the explosive advancement in the sciences during the Age of Enlightenment was the acknowledgement by scientists that discoveries belonged to mankind and should be shared so that work can be done advancing progress rather than duplicating effort. I believe that is why there are restrictions on what can and cannot be patented and why there are time limits.
Prior to the Age of Enlightment, discoveries that promised a competitive advantage were used as "property" which hindered innovation and progress.
"C|Net Editor Michael Kanellos offers a potentially contentious opinion piece about patents and copyright on the CNet site.
So we just had to post it on Slashdot in order to get an assload of new hits.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Flamebait like this the logical outcome of an ownership society. The media conglomerates own their media to do with what they want.
As much as I personally disagree with it, I certainly would not want to see it end if it were my property on the table. I'd employ every trick they have to modify consumer behavior such that it seems perfectly logical to check with the media conglomerate who owns the media each and every time before I consume it.
And then I'd maintain my dominance in entertainment distribution and lock out competitors by implementing trusted platform computing in any media capable device thereby taxing device manufacturers and making consumers pay me more than once. That way all media flows through my entertainment conglomerate. And that's okay because I own it.
You would want the same for yourself if it was your content wouldn't you?
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
Open source wouldn't be there if it weren't for Microsoft. Why is that biased? I don't know ANY software programmers that like to program for free. NONE. Everyone has a reason, and it sure as hell isn't "because it helps people".
Someone needs to download firefox
Uh, okay ... wait a minute...
Hmmm, so should we believe the last line of the page, or the second to last line of the page?
Fuck it...
-- The Hoss Man
Intellectual property indeed DOES need to be defended, but this article is a weak defense. The basis for IP is in fact based in Article 1 of the constitution:
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries"
This is lumped in with trivialities like granting the government the power to coin money and maintain an army. Why? Because if we take IP away, then it removes the power for people to control and profit from the fruits of their labors. If we go too far down this road it will remove the incentive for innovation, even open source innovation. We all know this guy got it totally wrong:
"And frankly, without them, most open-source projects would rapidly wither away: without an intellectual property behemoth like Microsoft to fight, what would be the point?"
The REAL need for copyright for open source is that we need to actually be able to enforce the GPL license or whatever license a project is operating under. If there is no copyright then anyone can steal and use and close up anything they want.
The point of copyright after all, is not to prevent copying. It is to promote copying! It is simply there so the IP holder can profit from the work the way he wants, every time it IS copied. Even if that benefit is non-financial, the interest of the holding entity badly needs to be enforced.
On the other hand, we have a serious problem with overapplication of the copyright laws, as outlined in Lawrence Lessig's book The Future of Ideas. We are coming to a point when IP is held so closely on so many things that really aren't inventions or authored works that we can barely breathe or think. The solution, however, is NOT to do away with copyright. The solution is to rethink where we have taken it and reapply it for the benefit of the general society.
Which is obviously beyond the scope of a slashdot post!
Sounds like a good idea to me.
Actually, ancient gunpowder recipes are available from books written in the Middle East. In fact it's amazing how much of this stuff was written down. I watched a show where they reproduced plans for a fireproof suit, and a torpedo. The torpedo worked really well. To say that this stuff was lost is not true and ignorant of the facts.
cNet is owned by Microsoft I believe.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
What a surprise. In other news, dog bites man.
If the Patent system were working as designed I'd have no problem with it. I've actually seen a few things patented where I thought "Wow, that's actually an innovative idea and the deserve a patent for it!" It might even be OK to reward a truly innovative software design with a patent. The current rubber stamp patent system pretty much guarantees that you can't have an idea that someone else doesn't already own. And a patent should never be put before human lives (I'm looking at YOU, drug companies!)
Same thing goes for the copyright system. If it hadn't been subverted to protect corporate profits by whores in Congress it'd actually be fine. Congress has been selling out the good of the US Citizens for years and I don't expect those fuckers to stop any time soon. I figure the best thing you can do is always vote against the current incumbent in the hopes that freshman Congressmen will be too green to do much damage before you vote them in the next election.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This guy has no idea what copyrights and patents are for. Copyrights and patents were given to us by our government with the expressed intent of fostering economic growth by providing a limited monopoly on a new product to its creator for a number of years. Limitations on monopoly length were specifically to encourage the creators to produce more products, and to eventually allow these products move into the public domain where the general public can better enjoy them.
This worked well for most of our history, until both systems were broken in one way or another. Now, they are both abused to protect the monopoly granted. In copyrights, the monopoly was no longer limited by time, among other things. In patents, the monopoly is abused in several ways, such as patenting several different ways of producing a product, with vague language, or even patenting a product that already exists.
To use their language. This abuse of monopoly is in itself theft. In copyright, it is theft from the general public, by preventing a product from entering the public domain. In patents, it is theft from both our economy and the general public, stagnating research and invention of new products.
Non sequitur: Your facts are uncoordinated.
All those straw men are a definite fire hazard!
"I think patents, trademarks and copyrights are simply fantastic and a primary, necessary driver of the world economy."
Yep, they sure are. Don't forget contracts, licenses, and trade secrets. They're all useful tools... open source developers use them too, you know.
The problem comes when you start using the wrong tools for the job. For example, the fact that software can be copyrighted doesn't mean that software should be patentable. The fact that music can be copyrighted doesn't mean it should be licensed in copy-protected form.
The point the parent makes here really is core to "troll" vs. "non-troll."
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
It's very easy to distinguish a patent troll from others. The patent troll will not produce any products based on the patent. The patent troll will, however, file lawsuits against people not entering into licensing agreements with them (and sometimes even then). Finally, patent trolls generally file lawsuits against established players, rather than new products.
Finally, there is a difference between legal and legitimate. The patent troll will ignore that.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Slashdot gets hits from this just as much as C|Net does.
Anyhow, why do they frame it as "no copyrights" vs. "the economy will collapse without strong IP"? Is there no room for debate on this any more? Look, I totally disrespect "IP" in its current form. I have nothing but contempt for the current laws, but that's not to say I wouldn't respect them if they were modified to something more in line with reality.
We have patents, especially software patents, that are "I filed for a patent on something no one else thought was worth while first, so I own it for 20 years" not to mention the "we changed two totally non-functional atoms on our drug, so we should keep this drug patent almost forever" ones. We have copyrights that outlive their authors for the better part of a century, as if that would somehow promote new works. Because, naturally, authors should not only get paid endlessly for work done only once, but their heirs should as well. And we have trademarks that not only block counterfeit products, but which are twisted into preventing comparative advertising and criticism.
And I haven't even begun to complain about the way DMCA Takedown Notices are used to censor criticism and deny fair use, the obnoxious super-trademarks things like the drug-addled, nationalistic, worthless adaptation of an ancient Greek series of sport contests (which I probably can't mention by name) get via treaty where they even censor tourists' clothing, the drift net litigation whereby the RIAA entangles innocent people based on lackluster proof and in which they improperly join unrelated John Does for the purposes of discovery, the attacks on P2P networks by folks like Media Sentry (who may or may not inadvertently poison the very evidence the RIAA gathers), retroactive extensions for copyright, the ridiculous "common law" copyright one court in New York encumbered otherwise public domain recordings with, Sony's rootkit, DRM, schemes forcing us to watch insipid FBI & antipiracy warnings as well as commercials and previews, TCPA and other lock-in systems, or a whole host of other things I have to complain about!
Oh, but I'm sorry. Someone will say that that's "just whining" and I "just want everything for free" rather than realizing that "I'm so disgusted by the current laws and the tolerance for the abuse thereof that I afford the law no respect as my only means of retaliation given that my senator won't give me the time of day."
To which we'll hear "but then you can't support the GPL, hypocrite!" As if I'm pretending to believe one thing when I believe another. No, I give away my works under free terms. I see copyright law as the GPL's legal, but not moral, authority, and would like to see it rewritten due to changes in law—changes that make the GPL less necessary due to having copyright laws that are far more sane, having been reformed.
But who am I kidding? This whole thing was never intended to be more than a troll wank-fest. Serious issues? Real complaints? No time for those! We have positions to utterly distort in our quest for advertising dollars! People will get pissed at being called hypocrites because we think they're pretending to believe something they've never, ever claimed to believe (in spite of them having repeatedly tried to hammer that point into their thick skulls) and post long-winded rants.
Like this one.
*sigh*
No.
But this author has a point that distinguishing the bad guys from the good guys is not easy.Actually, it is pretty easy. A patent troll is a company that licenses patents to other companies, but do not produce any products themselves. If you are sued by a patent troll for patent infringement, you do not have the option to countersue them for infringement of your patents, since they do not produce any products. And without products, the number of patents that can be possibly infringed are much lower, the only ones I can think of are business method patents.
[mostly agrees with parent]
Clearly, this was an editorial; an opinion-piece. The headline for TFA is far more inflammatory than anything in TFA itself.
Why didn't anyone tag this slownewsday?
I think the summary above is far more biased than TFA could ever be, to wit...
I read TFA, I scoured the text, and even took some liberties with semantics. I couldn't find this “cheap shot” for the life of me.
All I found was this thoroughly quoted statement: (from TFA)
Let's take another look at this. I don't believe Mr. Kanellos was talking about any survivalism or dependence between OSS and Microsoft. Rather, I believe he was playing “chicken and egg” with the dichotomy they represent. Much like a buddhist philosophy, he sees software-patents and open-source as two sides of the same coin. Light does not exist without shadow. There can be no “up” without “down”. There can be no open-source without closed-source.
I mean, if there was never such a thing as closed-source software or patents... I think it would just be “software.” Why would we ever be inclined to call it “open source” if we never had closed-source or patented software to contrast it?
Mr. Kanellos brings up valid points, succintly analyzes a rather complex phenomenon, and even provides a fairly balanced—albeit opinionated—view of the current state of intellectual property.
Frankly, if I were Keith Richards, I'd be looking into a Likeness Rights lawsuit on the Haywards. If they keep it at home and show it to their friends, fine... but by selling the footage, it becomes a published medium. The Haywards may indeed be the “artists” behind the footage, but do they have any release by the celebrities allowing them to sell their likenesses? Aye, there's the rub.
There's a reason that Copyrights and Patents exist in the first place, and let's not forget that they actually fulfill their tasks for the most part. It is the complications introduced by faster, cheaper and more-accessible technologies (and the folks that try to take advantage of them) that have made such a mess of things. Let's not forget the utter sloth and procrastination of a profiteering government failing to address these concerns in time as the abusers continue to tear at the fabric of the GNP that government is supposed to be protecting in the first place! [gasps!]
Speaking of messes... back to the “discussion”...
This post © Copyrite Duggeek, all rights reversed.
I don't have a problem with the concept of copyrights and patents.
The problem is that the terms are unreasonable, and the enforcement is simply ludicrous.
Copyright violations that don't involve charging money should be a civil fine only, and should certainly not involve the FBI. Go after people selling pirated DVD's though, by all means.
Patents should not have the one-size-fits-all problem that currently exists. One-click and a cure for cancer that has gone through the trial system certainly don't deserve the same protection.
since when has cnet been even remotely useful? this crap doesn't suprise me at all. even more amusingly, the open source he dismisses is what this guys crummy article is being hosted on - and netcraft confirms it.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Well, it's not "its" for starters...but more to the point, it IS stealing. It is not theft, you're absolutely correct.
:: murder != manslaughter; copyright infringement == stealing :: manslaughter == killing
But saying it's not theft is no *less* inaccurate. Just like vehicular manslaughter isn't murder. It IS killing another human being, however, and should be treated as such. It doesn't mean, as the statement implies, that it can be dismissed as a triviality. Likewise, saying "it's not theft" is technically true, but it doesn't mean that taking something that does not belong to you, you have no legal entitlement to, and courts have specifically SAID that you can't do it is acceptable. Taking something that doesn't belong to you is stealing, and saying otherwise is inaccurate rationalization by "the victims of copyright." It's not hard to make a distinction between stealing, an act with a simple definition, and theft, a statutory crime.
Theft != copyright infringement
One is the hoarding of books and knowledge by the church during the middle ages - only a privileged few was allowed access to them. The industrial revolution started when knowledge became freely shared.
It also reminds me of the final scene in the Hitchhiker's Triology, where survivors of the B ark burned down all of the trees so they could use the few remaining leaves as currency. He tries to justify the same thing - trying to create an artificial scarcity on things which are plentiful and easy to reproduce.
My rights don't need management.
Evidently it not that easy since you missed that a large number of patents are issued to companies or individuals who aren't capable of producing the product themselves but rather license the right to other manufacturers.
Maybe a more appropriate definition of a patent troll is an entity that aquires a patent with no intent to distribute or license the right to produce goods from the patent, but rather with the sole purpose of extorting other companies who actually produce a product to satisfy a perceived need caused by the inactivity of the patent holder.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Because if you're successful in killing Old Media, that's all you'll have!
At least the folks running into each other with shopping carts care about something other than their net worth. Why are "Old Media" suits getting millions of dollars from artistic works while the artists themselves get shafted?
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
It's not like anybody clicks on the article here anyway.
why try or accept the defending of the indefensible ..
..
.. i or anyone for that matter .. can make arguments for both sides of the issue ..
..
.. otherwise there is no reason for people to try .. and because I thought of it first .. I should benefit from it first and most ..
..
..
..
.. once they are aware of the idea ..
.. although given the old and mostly true cliché .. there truly is nothing new under the sun ..
.. the majority should rule .. that is if democracy is another notion to be entertained ..
.. if the other maker does not charge enough they will simply go out of business and the consumer will have to accept the price the other manufacture wants to charge .. that is until someone else want to compete and wants to be FREE to try and do it for less ..
.. is that "they" allow some people to get on top of the pile and stay on top ..
.. to keep innovating in order to get out in front and then to stay out in front .. lest they be run over ..
..
.. safely on top and mostly now out of harms way .. i have one good idea and i am set for life .. a free ride .. free to stay on top no matter how competitive things get ..
..
..
.. and truly free trade ..
.. as FREE trade agreements that mandates and requires me to sell you my water oil and gas .. has absolutely nothing to do with free trade .. in might be FAIR trade if you are the party that benefits .. but not FREE trade .. certainly not to me ..
..
.. free from tariffs .. barriers .. copyright .. patents .. etc. although if you are a smaller nation faced with a 10/20 to 1 population disadvantage .. then imposing tariffs in order to protect your sovereignty and market .. should be your chose ..
.. not to accept or enforce you perceived copyright or patent .. we should be free to do so .. etc. etc. etc.
.. if i say it is FREE trade and keep calling it FREE trade
it is not weather copyrights and patents are a good thing or bad thing
and yes
it is that copyright and patents are inconsistent and have nothing to do with FREE market economies
the idea is that they encourage innovation by protecting peoples ideas
and while it might be considered to have an element of so called fairness
to who
the consumer
to the person who can and is willing to make and sell it for less
or to the person who believes they were the first one to think of it
one would think that as it is 2 to 1
for in a FREE market
all that actually happens with copyrights and patents
if you really want to encourage people to innovate through real and true motivation
front runners
as opposed to a top sitters
if you want to advocate and profess for a FREE market
fine
but lets have truly free markets
IE.
i am free to trade with you as i want to or don't want to
to call it free trade is nothing but pure Orwellian news speak
a FREE market economy is just that FREE
and if we choose
but hay if i call it FREE trade
I think he was being "a bit" harsh as not all marketing is evil, but I thought I'd add this:
By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself. No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I don't know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself. Seriously though, if you are, do. Aaah, no really, there's no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers. Okay - kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you're going, "there's going to be a joke coming," there's no fucking joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself.
Planting seeds. I know all the marketing people are going, "he's doing a joke..." there's no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend - I don't care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking makinations. Machi... Whatever, you know what I mean.
I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, "Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very smart."
Oh man, I am not doing that. You fucking evil scumbags!
"Ooh, you know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar. That's a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We've done research - huge market. He's doing a good thing."
Godammit, I'm not doing that, you scum-bags! Quit putting a godamm dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!
"Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market, Bill's very bright to do that."
God, I'm just caught in a fucking web.
"Ooh the trapped dollar, big dollar, huge dollar. Good market - look at our research. We see that many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then separate them into the trapped dollar..."
How do you live like that? And I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night, don't you?
"What didya do today honey?"
"Oh, we made ah, we made ah arsenic a childhood food now, goodnight." [snores] "Yeah we just said you know is your baby really too loud? You know?" [snores] "Yeah, you know the mums will love it." [snores]
Sleep like fucking children, don't ya, this is your world isn't it?
The artists agreed to the deal when they signed their recording contract. If they had wanted to make more money per CD sale, they could have recorded and produced the CD themselves, and distributed and sold the CD themselves, then there would be no record company taking "their" profits.
And more and more bands are doing just that. Some are even joining creative commons groups. The internet helps with this, people and bands are able to get their names and music to more people quicker.
The musicians made the deals with the record companies willingly.
Oh, I agree. Many may not have the ability or the desire so going with record companies may be a better choice for them. Even so though downloading and sharing music doesn't rip off the artists. Actually the studies on this I've seen conclude this actually increases sales. A person will download a song and listen to it, then when they find one they like they'll go out and buy a better quality version. Apple's iTunes has shown people will pay for music they can download. Though I don't have and haven't seen, that I can recall, the stats for the US in Britian iTunes sold more than a million songs the first weekend. Give people an easy way to pay for and download music and they will. That may not seem significant but when you consider that when iTunes opened only Macs were supported. It's be another 6 months before Apple came out with the iTunes app for Windows. Considering Windows' market share I bet that if there had been a Windows app when the iTunes store opened sales the first weekend would of been closer to 10 million.
Also the RIAA and it's members talk about declining sales they only mention illegal downloads as the reason, yet they never mention that when people started downloading music the economy was bad as well. And with a bad economy people wouldn't be spending much on entertainment anyway. Instead they blamed it entirely on Napster.
The simple fact is that downloading illegal music does not rip off the artists.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Because as a writer I want to make sure it is worthwhile to write. If I am going to spend all my tyme writing I want to make sure I get paid for it before someone else takes my book and sells it as their own. The same applies to photos I take.
FalconShould there be a Law?
And that is that this man recently bought ten thousand shares of stock in ScatShine.Inc, world's largest distributor of turd polish. He can spin this all he wants, but even my computer-illiterate siblings know what DRM is (not what the TLA means, but what it *is*) and this wouldn't fool them. I suspect the public at large is getting there as well.
~Eien no Inori wo Sasagete~ Searching for my Hatsumi...
http://moneycentral.msn.com/ownership?Symbol=CNET
As another poster already indicated, this is a spurious reasoning.
If you construe 'theft' as anything that is deprived from someone else, then a myriad of things could be deemed to be 'stealing'. In fact, the terminology would become next to useless. We both know the law and the courts don't see it that way, because of the simple reason that equalizing everything to theft would be completely unbalanced towards the crime that was commited. I'm sure this will not convince you one iota, but let's cut the crap and go beyond our mere opinions: copyright-infringement and theft are viewed by the courts as something differently, just like all those other examples the other poster gave.
Furthermore, EVEN if we would take your premise as true, and consider it 'theft of revenue', than still one would have to prove that revenue was lost because of the copying. After all, it's fully possible that someone copies something, that he otherwise would never have bought. If he never would have bought it, the company can not claim they lost any revenue because of his copying. You can not convict someone of 'potential thievery'.
Both reasons are more than enough to counter your assertion that it is theft, based on your own opinion that it is.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
"There could be lots of reasons why someone views one as reprehensible and the other as acceptable[]"
That's probably because some ARE more reprehensable than others, wouldn't you say?
If all 'crimes' were equally reprehensable or acceptable, the courts wouldn't make such huge differences in regard to their sentencing, and the law would not have such huge differences concerning jailtime (including even capital punishment). Mind you, in some cases, it's difficult to know what is more reprehensible than other things, since it's ultimately very subjective and arbitrary (and it changes with time anyway, so its rather dynamic). But it can not be denied that in every culture there ARE things deemed to be more reprehensible or acceptable than others.
I would claim that any laws wich are massively broken by their populace should be revised. And I think copyrights in the digital age are massively infringed upon. Let's face it; if one would get automatic jailtime for each case of copyright-infringement, how much % of the populace at large (which have internet connection) would have to go in jail? 70%? 80%? More? There is little doubt that almost all pupils and students would have to go to prison, then, especially with the current mp3-rage. Is it reasonable to have laws which, when applied consistently and thourougly, would incarcerate a large part of your own populace? I don't think so. I think, if that's the case, new laws and mechanisms are in order, like the French parliament did, when they introduced a flat fee internet tax to compensate artists for their works. (Alas, thanks to the new bureaucratic EU directives, this law has been reduced to nothing.)
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
I thought your post to be well-balanced and reasoned, though one small remark:
"There certainly is some rationale for ignoring unjust laws,"
True.
" but those who do so should at least admit that that's what they're doing - it IS stealing as our current law defines it, even if the current laws don't seem reasonable."
Untrue. I'm quite sure you (and others) may be of the opinion that it is theft, but the law and the courts disagree. the problem with defining it as theft that broadly, is that than one could as well equate everything with theft. You can say murder is 'the theft of life', but semantics aside, the crime there is not theft, it is murder. A whole lot can be seen as 'theft' in that way, but it is necessary to make a distinction, certainly in a legal sense. Thus, copyright-infringement is NOT theft - it is copyright-infringement. Thus, contrary to what you claim (well, unless you're in a country I don't know anything about) current law does not define copyright-infringement as theft. If I'm wrong about that, please show me one case of copyright-infringement where the courts condemned the culprits on the legal nominator of 'theft'.
there is good reason to make a difference too: thievery means you take something away from someone; when you copy something you make *a copy* of it, you do not take away the original. some claim it is 'theft of revenue', but that's equal to saying 'theft of life' for murder. Legally, this has no merrit. Furthermore, even when one would accept that premise, it still would have to be shown that revenue was actually lost. It's quite possible, for instance, that a person downloading a song, would never have bought it otherwise. If he would never have bought it, the company can't claim it lost revenue through his copying. And there is no such think as a crime called 'potential thievery'.
Mind you, I'm not saying copyright-infringement isn't illegal (though how justified that is, is indeed questionable), I'm just saying there is more than enough grounds for not equalling it to theft (at least, in a legal sense).
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
"Almost everyone would agree that SOME kind of intellectual property protection is necessary and just."
"First of all, "almost everyone" isn't "everyone"."
The criticism you have about what he said, seems to be equally applicable to what you said.
The 'almost everyone' sentence is used to imply that it has more validity because of numbers (e.g. 'everyone knows that...'). You correctly point out that this is a fallacy, and that the implication is far from substantiated - even though you used the same technique.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
"Intellectual property indeed DOES need to be defended, but this article is a weak defense. The basis for IP is in fact based in Article 1 of the constitution:
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" "
I find your assertion that it 'indeed' needs to be defended contentious, especially since you base it on a quote that doesn't really indicate it needs to be defended. What it says is, that it is needed for the promotion of science and arts. However, nobody has really proven that at least patens *does* promote science and art; it is only assumed by some that it does. But in fact, many researchpapers have found that it (at least our current implementation of IP) rather hampers science and art. Thus, even when accepting your reason for it, if it is true that it does not promote, than the basis for it becomes unvalid, and we do not *need* to defend it.
(Even if it was proven beyond doubt that it promotes science, it would still be necessary to have an optimal result, thus, have a system in place where IP-laws are such, that science and art is MOST promoted.)
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Sounds reasonable to me.
"When did desire ever imply a right?"
So the desire of people and companies to get paid for what they're selling does not imply that they have a right to get paid?
Good!
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
"So called intellectual property does need protection in order to encourage invention and innovation, but after a point (20 years at most), that protection starts having a stifling effect."
e nts-manifesto.html )
It 'does need' protection? It's only after 20 years it starts having a stiffling effect?
And that assertion is based on...what, exactly? Certainly not on the researchpapers that have looked into the matter. (see appendix A and B of http://newsbyte.blogspot.com/2005/07/software-pat
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
So, basically, you can find yourself more with those slashdotters that argue for no copyright at all, than for those who would want to shorten it? ;-)
Of course, the argument goes a bit beyond your assertation that 'slashdotters' (that would be you too, btw) want more moderate IP laws because they want to download the lastest film. In fact, the argument I have seen is that IP-laws should be beneficial to society as a whole, and that the purpose of it has always been to promote science and arts. It those condituions aren't met, then something should change about the IP laws.
This reason remains valid, *even* if a lot of slashdotters *would* download the latest blockbusters.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
"I am also not sure why the ideal world wouldn't include that the authors and inventors profit from their labors."
e nts-manifesto.html ).
Because copyright is a *monopoly* given by *the state*. It's not the states' job to cater to special interest-groups, rather they have the duty to be beneficial for their populace as a whole. Thus, the question from the the perspective of the state should be: 'what benefits most to all the citizens/society as a whole?', NOT 'what financially benefits authors or inventors most?'. The creation of more wealth for a small subgroup of society (certainly when it would actually hamper the creation of new works and inventions), isn't and shouldn't be the goal of the state.
The reason why IP-rights were given in the first place, is the (maybe unvalid) assumption that the financial benefits for the authors/inventors would lead to more works and inventions (e.g. the 'promotion of science and arts'), because from the perspective of the state, the creation of new works and inventions is what's most beneficial for society.
"I think our basic disagreement lies here: if there was no guarantee in the law that an author could profit from his work, I don't think that would be an environment in which the maximum number of works would be created."
I think the parent poster doesn't really disagrees, but he leaves the possibility open. As do I. I rather think it depends on the field it pertains to, and what kind of IP-rights we are talking about (copyright, patents, trademarks,..?). For instance, I think it IS possible for musicians to still make music (making new works), even without copyright on their Cd's. A few exeptions not withstanding, most musicians never see a dime of those sales anyway; they earn most of their money my going on a tour, and give life-performances.
So clearly (and this was what the parent poster was saying), things are not as black&white as you seem to think. It is quite possible that many works would still be made (and even more so, due to derivates) with the abolishing of (some) IP-rights, depending on the field. Others may, indeed, be worse off - in the sense that less works might be produced. the optimal solution is, as the parent poster said, in looking what fields benefit from it (in the same sense), and which not. And another is to look at the maximal benefit for society in determing the level of IP protection (for how long, etc.), even to those were it has been demonstrated to be beneficial.
While many seem to auto-assume it is always beneficial, this is far from substantiated. In fact, many researshpapers indicate the opposite. (see appendix A and B of http://newsbyte.blogspot.com/2005/07/software-pat
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
"The basis for IP is in fact based in Article 1 of the constitution:
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries""
Sorry, but that's not historically accurate. The first copyright law was the Statute of Anne in 1709:
"An act for the encouragement of learning, by vesting the copies of printed books in the authors or purchasers of such copies, during the times therein mentioned.
"I. Whereas printers, booksellers, and other persons have of late frequently taken the liberty of printing, reprinting, and publishing, or causing to be printed, reprinted, and published, books and other writings, without the consent of the authors or proprietors of such books and writings, to their very great detriment, and too often to the ruin of them and their families: for preventing therefore such practices for the future, and for the encouragement of learned men to compose and write useful books;"
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne
Please look beyond the borders of the United States for history - there really is a world out there, and they really did come up with some concepts first.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
Dear friends, I have my own blog based in Argentina.http://robertoporcel.blogspot.com We discuss there about patent, trademarks and IP. However, the most important topic at this very moment is about anti counterfeiting. This crime is growing very fast in all South America. Above all in Argentina. But the problem is in our case, that we have not law to face this matter. Indeed, we have a trademark law. But this law doesn't punish this offense. In other words, the law hasn't penalties for the breach of law. It would be very useful to listen for your opinions. It is important to know different points of view. I look forward to know about you. Regards, Roberto Porcel
Correction: Gay porn.
I don't know what the six dollars for though.
"One is the hoarding of books and knowledge by the church during the middle ages - only a privileged few was allowed access to them. The industrial revolution started when knowledge became freely shared."
Um, no. Sorry, that's not how it played out.
In the Middle Ages there had been an economic and social collapse after the fall of the Roman Empire, with most of Europe living on a subsistence level. The books were being held in the monasteries for two main reasons - first, churchmen and the occasional noble were the only people who could read; and second, there was no printing press, so the only places where books could be reproduced, painstakingly by hand, I might add, was in the monasteries. The church spent plenty of time enforcing dogma and suppressing heresy, but a conspiracy to hoard knowledge was not one of their sins.
Even before Gutenberg invented the printing press, there was a movement of knowledge and learning into the secular world with the first universities, where textbooks were copied by the students in lectures (that was how the lectures worked in the early universities - the professor would read the textbook he had written, and the students would copy it down). Again, though, copying books was slow and painful.
With the invention of the printing press, literature can now move into the secular world, it is affordable, and that means that people of all classes are now able to learn how to read. So, society slowly begins to become literate, and the publishing industry grew alongside. Knowledge, as you put it, was freely shared by the time Shakespeare came onto the scene in the 16th century, and society had become very secular with a strong progression of secular science (there's a reason that the Renaissance was followed by the ENLIGHTENMENT). The Industrial Revolution began with the invention of the steam engine - it had nothing to do with a shift of knowledge from being shared to being hoarded, simply because knowledge had never been hoarded.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
" I know it's the next step on the Slashdot anti-copyright argument go-to list, but it's just total bullshit in this context, even if it's true as a statement of fact."
;-)
Well, that would depend on the context, wouldn't it?
*I* only use that further argumentation in regard to people (or their argumentation) who continue to try to make a case for copyright-infringement to be 'theft of revenue' (because they obviously have to acknowledge that the original owner is not deprived from his original product).
I agree that this further argumentation is not necessary and irrelevant if it is already accepted that it's not 'theft' in any context.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
"So is shoplifting not theft because the shoplifter would not have purchased the item anyway?"
I thougt I made the reasoning clear, but aparently I didn't.
If you shoplift, you *take away the product*; therefor, you deprive the owner of his product.
With copyright-infringement, you don't deprive the owner of his product, you take a *copy* of it. You ALSO do not deprive him of revenue, if that revenue wouldn't have happened anyway.
So, basically, one has no case because the owner wasn't deprived of anything. In your shoplifting example, the owner is clearly deprived of something, namely his product.
"Besided who said that murder can't be defined as "theft of life"?"
One can define whatever one wants to define. I can define 'speech' as 'censorship' and vice versa, but in normal conversations, to have any succes in having a sensible discussion, we normally don't give interpretations as we see fit.
Now, as I already said (subjective semantic interpretation) one can call murder 'theft of life', but everyone (at least, most normal people) understand quite well that it isn't *really* a case of theft. And certainly we can all agree that the law and the courts don't deal with it as a case of theft. Neither do they with copyright-infringement, so the whole "why can't I call something whatever I want" is rather irrelevant to the discussion at hand, and only serves to obfuscate proper logical reasoning in regard to the matter.
To make things even more clear: if your interpretation of theft is such, that an action (of copying) you feel is improper, even when nothing has been taken away from the owner, constitutes theft, then I gladly concede the point. I, however (and I think most courts and laws) do not follow you in that interpretation.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
The clown who wrote the opinion pierce clearly doesn't have any understanding of the history of the monopoly grants we call "copyrights" and "patents." We need to be clear on this, they are grants of monopoly given by "we the people" to creators of works to, as the Constitution says, encourage the useful arts and sciences.
There is no such thing as "intellectual property". That's a fiction created by corporate lawyers. It doesn't exist, it never existed, they're trying to create it by fiat. Our founders explicitly rejected the property model for ideas and inventions. Over two centuries ago, they already knew that if you lock everything up in a "property right", innovation and creativity die.
Their whole point was to provide economic incentive so people would create new works of art and inventions. Give them a short term grant of monopoly during which time they could make what money they could. Then the work would pass into the public domain so society in general could benefit. That is, the actual point was the end product: a steady stream of creative work entering the public domain. Not fortresses built around works to lock things up until the end of time. We've slid back toward feudalism. The monopoly grants originally were handed out by the king and lasted long as he said so.
As example, believe or not, the King James Version of the Bible is still under copyright. The monopoly grant was made in perpetuity. The only reason the KJV is public domain here in the US is we thumbed our nose at the whole idea of perpetual copyright.
Conversely, the first copyright law passed by the actual founders themselves under our brand, spanking new government allowed for a total of all of 14 years. That was it. It was later extended to a total of 28 and that's where it stood for generations. Now it's stretching endlessly into the future and the public domain is being choked out of existence. Last I read, nothing has entered the public domain since about WWII. Certainly not one work has entered the public domain in the lifetime of the bulk of people reading this website.
Oh, I was particularly amused by the comment of the idiot who wrote the piece when he wrote:
"Everyone likes to think that studio execs are evil incarnate. But when you steal movies, you're also whittling down the royalty checks for some old lady who had to make out with William Shatner in a bit role on Star Trek."
I hate to tell him this but there are no such royalty checks. Bit players are paid once. Period. Actors get paid when they work. Period. Unless an actor rises to one of the hyphenated positions such as actor-director or actor-producer and can demand a contract with royalties (which is rare and only the very few, very in demand actors), there are no royalties. Shatner himself hasn't seen a check from the original series in decades now.
The whole point of the studios is to get past that initial window of having to pay actors and writers and such. They want to get past those few payments and then the property is paid for and any sale (DVD, reruns, etc.) are pure profit.
I hate to burst anybody's bubbles but the reason the secondary actors of Star Trek such as Doohan or Takei or such showed up at all those conventions is...
They needed the money.
Some 40 years of profits have accrued to the corporations because ST was such a long running "cult" show. But actors and writers and such who did the work did NOT share in the money. Paramount got it all.
And the corporations are still not happy. I forget the exact details but there was a relatively recent push to declare entire libraries of music to be "work for hire" so the corporations could start selling them without giving a dime to the artists. The music artists (Don Henley of the Eagles was one of the big ones involved as I recall) fought back. And hard (t
"But shouldn't the burden of proving whether or not the IP laws are beneficial to society as a whole be on those who want to get rid of them?"
e nts-manifesto.html
;-)
Actually, no. The *original* status was: no IP-rights, so it would have to be those that favour the IP-laws that should demonstrate that it *is* beneficial. The main reason the IP-laws came through, is because it was *assumed* that they would be beneficial for the promotion of science and the useful arts. I didn't see any evidence of that neither, let alone that studies were done to evaluate the optimal level of IP-protection to get a maximum of new works and inventions.
It's a bit unfair to demand proof of the beneficiality (if that is a word) of IP rights, when that proof was never asked for of those who wanted it to get instated. Having the IP-rights isn't the normal state: we only have those for the last 200 years of human history, so one can easily argument the question should be reversed: shouldn't those who want to keep the IP-laws demonstrate that it IS beneficial, since *that was the argumentation used to allow them in the first place*?
"But shouldn't the burden of proving whether or not the IP laws are beneficial to society as a whole be on those who want to get rid of them? Where is the evidence (not anecdotal, real studies) sowing that the current copyright laws and current patent law stifle creativity?"
For a list of references: see appendix A and B of http://newsbyte.blogspot.com/2005/07/software-pat
"I've asked this before here, and every time I just get a bunch of replies stating that I am stupid, or a stoolie for the IP lobby, or that I can't see what is so blatantly obvious in front of my face."
Poor you!
Ah, well, that's slashdot for you!
"As you can probably tell, I don't believe that IP laws stifle creativity and progress for society as a whole."
You don't say?
The problem I have with your kind of type (well, I'm generalising now; you could be the exeption), is that they are never satisfied and always find something to dispute or to ignore, when they *are* confronted with real studies. They never deliver *any* scientific study (to prove otherwise) of their own, but every study that is presented, is deemed incorrect or unvalid or somehow lacking - as if they are all statistical experts who've analysed all those researchpapers. All of those people complaining they never get pointed to real data (with one exeption) either ignored those references/papers, or found it 'not convincing'. Well, duh. Even with a hundred more papers made by scientists, they still wouldn't be convinced - because they don't want to be convinced, and they will not be convinced by data that contradicts their own idea about it.
Whether one is 'convinced' or not, all indications are, that at least in some fields, it IS doing more harm than that it is beneficial (in terms of more creativity and innovation). I'm still waiting to see *one* counter-indication in a true scientific paper that refutes those conclusions.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
"Where did I say that I wouldn't be satisfied?"
;-)
Well, they hardly say it about themselves.
But, maybe you are the exeption to the rule (and I did say I was somewhat generalising in that statement).
"My position is that the person challenging the law needs to provide the evidence -- the reason being, the laws already exist (whether the "natural" state is no IP law or whatever, the laws are here). If you want to change, you need to show why change would better benefit society as a whole than the current system."
Two remarks:
1)If so, then they needed to show why the change would better benefit society as a whole when they wanted it to change the law into supporting IP-rights. They never did. Are you asking for more proof to revert it back to the way it was, then for it to have changed to the current condition of IP-laws in the first place? Why? The studies thusfar, have already given more indications that it isn't beneficial (at least in some domains) then whatever 'proof' was given in support of implementing IP-laws (which was next to none, only an asumption). If no proof was good enough to change the situation, the limited proof we already have should be more then sufficient to revert it back.
2)The fact remains, that it is clearly indicated that the laws are there 'to promote science and the useful arts'...that is *the condition* for it; thus, it should be proven it IS doing exactly that, and not for us to prove it isn't.
If you get the right to ask 2000 dollar for a puppet, but with the condition that you make 10 puppets a day, is it for me to disprove that you made ten a day, or for you to prove you did make 10 a day? I would claim you only keep the right as long as you can show that you fulfill your obligation.
"It's not like our legal system is set up so that a law is only valid so long as it is shown to be good"
I'm not getting this reasoning. If it doesn't need to be shown it is good, then why do I need to demonstrate no patents is a good thing? And if it IS to be shown that a law is good, why didn't it need to be shown when the law changed to include IP-laws? However you turn it, it seems to me a double standard is being used.
"...we change laws when something better needs to be done."
And the use of IP-laws has been proven by studies (just like you ask of me now) that it was better then the situation before there were any, right? clearly, your theory is not being followed, so why should it suddenly be emperative for a change? One can not arbitrary decide when proof is needed for a change, and when not. If your position is, that it needs to be proven before a change can happen, that should count for both ways.
Besides, numerous laws have been and are being changed, and I doubt there is evidence provided for all those changes.
Mind you, I'm all for scientific proof before a law is changed, but the law was changed to incorporate IP-laws, so the first burden is to proof that THAT is beneficial.
Certainly you must see the logic of that? One can't just say: but the laws are like that *now*, so *now* you need proof - that's completely arbitrary. Seen the fact that laws still change without scientific proof provided, one could abolish IP-rights, and then claim the same thing: "but since it is now law, you have to prove that IP-rights are better". The principle of proof is valid for every change, or for no change, you can't pick when it is needed and when not; that's intellectually dishonest.
"I will take a look at your references, maybe I will be convinced -- although the first one I looked at, the Groklaw cite, simply pointed to the front page of Groklaw,"
I would concentrate on the references in appendix A. They contain summaries, but I'm sure most of them can be found online (try google with the titles provided). Appendix B is more a list of sites, some of which link to studies, but a lot also to more generic sites which had information relevant to the EU directive, but not always to scien
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
"History? Logic? Common sense? The words of the founding fathers? My own experiences as what I would call in my more bold moments an "artist?""
r ee-world.html
;-)
History?
Others have a different interpretation of what we can/have learn(ed) from history, see the links at http://newsbyte.blogspot.com/2007/04/patents-vs-f
Logic?
Others have a different opinion of how logical the patentsystem is. (see links again - or even the myriads of posts on the subject on slasdot)
Common sense?
Well, I don't need to give any comments on that, I suppose. What is common sense for one person is bullocks for another. For instance, I'm quite sure you think you're only talking common sense, while I think you're completely wrong (and vice versa).
"The words of the founding fathers?"
Well, if it *would* be based on that, then it should only be defended if it 'promotes science and the useful arts' - I'm still waiting on any researchpapers that proves this is the case. Because, you know, your 'own experiences' and 'common sense' isn't really a measurement for determining if it's really beneficial to society at large or not (in the sense of creating more innovative works). It's *assumed*, yes. Just as you assume your assertion is true, but without delivering any proof, nor even a scientifically based indication that it is true.
"I said 20 years at most, not "only after 20 years."
OK...so, now that that is cleared up, I'll repeat my question: you base that number on, what, again? Does history show it's after 10 years? Does logic indicate 15 years? Does common sense tells us it's 8 years? Didn't the founding fathers say the term for copyright to be 14 years, with an additional 14 years (which would make for more then 20 years, actually)?
Or could it simply be, whatever number of years you take, it's arbitrary, and not the result of logic, history or common sense? Just as the assertion that it 'needs protection' is completely arbitrary?
Instead of 'common sense' or your personal anecdotes, it would be more convincing if you could show me a scientific paper indicating that what you say has the validity you seem to claim it has. Can you provide such a link?
Because, you know, you might have missed it, but I gave you a whole list of references of researchpapers that indicate that, at least in some fields and for some IP-laws, we don't need the protection *at all*. I therefor doubt that your general remark that 'we need it', can be accepted at face value.
"Sarcasm requires intelligence, and by demonstrating a second grade reading level, you're only making yourself sound stupid."
The fact you realised I was sarcastic, already negates most of the rest of your sentence, since you then must realise that I only *sound* stupid. I'm not sure if *you* only *sound* stupid, but I'll wait with my conclusion on that untill I've read some more posts of you.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---