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What's the Solution To Intellectual Property?
StealthyRoid writes "I'm an anarcho-capitalist, and a huge supporter of property rights, both physical and intellectual. At the same time, I find the current trend of increasing penalties for minor violations, criminalizing civil IP matters, anti-consumer technologies like DRM, and abuse of the legal system by the *AA's of the world really disturbing. You'd think that by now, there'd be a reasonable solution to the problem of protecting intellectual property while at the same time maintaining the rights of consumers and protecting individuals from absurd litigation, but I have yet to find one. So, I pose these questions to the Slashdot community: 1 — Do you acknowledge the legitimacy of intellectual property to begin with? That is, do you believe that intellectual property is a valid construct equivalent to physical property, or do you think it's illusory? If not, why? 2 — If so, how would you go about protecting the rights of intellectual property holders in a way that doesn't require unfair usage limitations or resort to predatory abuse of the tort system?"
To save you 300 pages of reading "Against Intellectual Monopoly," basically patents don't spur innovation, not even the ones on concrete inventions. Case after case is presented where it is clear that the idea of spurring innovation through patents is flawed at best, and highly damaging at worst. They basically prove that steam engine development was slowed down by patents and only really began to chug when the patents expired. Inventors you thought were heroes finally come across in a more realistic light. They present lots of examples like this and you just basically see the light (at the end of the tunnel?). Now, if your goal was to slow down technological progress or science itself, then maybe patents would be a good idea.
Before reading some chapters from Boldrin & Levine I was somewhat convinced that copyright at least had some beneficial elements to it that should be respected and preserved, but they sure put the nail in that coffin too. They went through the origins of copyright as a *relaxation* to a censorship regime by the crown (IIRC), and it just went downhill from there. Now it just seems like copyright is extended to every damn little thing, and that wasn't the original purpose of it by far. While they don't prove that removing copyright would be beneficial to everyone, they take a shot at showing that it wouldn't be a total disaster to authors/artists. For everyone else, it wouldn't prevent new books from being written, new music from being produced, etc., and it would be a net gainer, by far.
If you have the time to read a 300 page book this summer, by all means at least read a few chapters of Boldrin & Levine. You will understand intellectual property much better and hopefully lose a few sacred cows in the process.
You can select what you may want to read from this landing page:
http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm
You can't send a takedown notice to an already printed newspaper.
Physical property and intellectual "property" rights are incompatible. You simply can't successfully have both - the one necessarily undermines the other, as Stephan Kinsella laid out. See http://www.stephankinsella.com/ip/, particularly "Against Intellectual Property" [PDF].
Since the choice is ultimately between physical property rights and intellectual "property" rights (and of course I already think the latter are rather suspect for a number of other reasons) I simply choose physical property rights.
When people say "but I'P' is valuable!" I say - of course it is, each EU or US patent granted steals value from literally hundreds of millions of people's physical property rights. A patent lets you usurp the value of everyone's physical property - A patent, by definition, says "you can no longer make your physical property into this particular form without my permission".
An I"P" system is death of a thousand cuts to the physical property system. "Anarcho-capitalists" who think they can support both should get a clue.
The purpose of patents is to get inventors to disclose their inventions in exchange for a temporary monopoly. It's a deal between the inventor and everybody else: tell us how you did it, and we won't compete with you for a set amount of time. The alternative is that the inventor attempts to keep it a secret, and the idea dies with him.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
In the US maintenance fees are due according to the following Schedule:
Time after grant Non-small entity/Small entity
3.5 years $930.00/$465.00
7.5 years $2,360.00/$1,180.00
11.5 years $3,910.00/$1,955.00
There is a six month grace period to pay for which a surcharge of $130/65 is charged. There are no other requirements to keep a patent in force (well, other than having the patent held invalid or unenforceable by a court)
In many countries outside the US fees are charged annually, although I'm not familiar with the various amounts.
You mix copyrights and patents.
Neither of these concepts is inherently bad or evil.
I am a semi-pro photographer (meaning that I earn some good money from doing commercial photography) but it's a side-job. I like being in control of my work, meaning that if you want to use a photo I made, you should ask for permission - after all I had to invest in equipment and it took considerable amount of time to create that photo; if you want to use that photo in a magazine or for advertising, you better pay up. Without that protection, I may not be doing this. If anyone could copy my work with no consequences, photography would remain strictly hobby for me.
In other cases, IMO sometimes photographers abuse their position. For example, some wedding photographers would take photos at weddings for the customer, but retain the copyrights, so the client goes to the photographer each time they want a new set. A "work for hire" style of agreement would work better - the client pays a fee and then the photos (slides, RAWs, whatever) is their.
In the same vein, if I'm a publishing house and decide to print Harry Potter, it's perfectly fine for the author to be compensated. Same goes for Mickey Mouse. Things get muddy when we start talking about derivative works. If I want to write a book about the Adventures of Young Gandalf, should I pay up?
Patents are a whole different matter. Scrapping them completely wouldn't really work, but limiting the time to 2 years, requiring a working prototype, banning patents on concepts (algorithms, practices) would do wonders.
(Watch documentary "The Future of the Food" for more details)
The biggest problem here is how to revert to non-contaminated crops and how to prevent future contamination (aka stop the wind from blowing).
The land is still not yours, you just own a piece of paper that the King will use violence to enforce on your behalf.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Well, the outcome was that the farmer in question got sued by Monsanto, and Monsanto won. Neat how this works, huh ?
If you don't want someone to use your photographs, you shouldn't give them your photographs... You don't need copyright laws to achieve that effect.
You've said it yourself. A "work for hire" style of agreement works just fine. Someone wants a photograph, he pays you to make it. No copyrights needed at all. You can even make a contract over how they are allowed to use said photographs, so you can use ordinary contract law to protect your photos in those few cases.
Ever look up the definition of "sophomore"? I sincerely doubt you have ever worked hard to obtain anything of significant value, hence the belief that the communist ideal has anything to do with human reality in a universe of limited resources. How can an author make a living if he doesn't have the right to sell his book? I'm not arguing that the current system is ideal, but there needs to be some way to earn a living by trading in something other than material goods.
Value is and always will be relative, variable in nature and subject to disagreement. The best way to resolve the argument of value is a truly free market where people can decide for themselves what something is worth. Think "web 2.0" applied to economics. If you create something unique, put it up for sale. Fiddle with the price until "sales volume A" X "unit price B" = "the largest amount C". If you set "B" so high that "C" decreases you are clearly an idiot. The whole system is predictable because everyone is expected to look out for their own interests.
The only way this isn't fair is when the seller rigs the market, but even then the buyer is still free not to buy-they can also buy something similar from someone else. Maintaining a truly free market is the fairest thing any government can do-the fact that this doesn't always happen is another story. Free market forces include human ingenuity. Our main problem now isn't the market itself but the fact that it isn't as free as it needs to be to function in a fair manner.
Private property is a good system. Why should you have the right to take something I make with my own two hands? Why can't you just go make you're own? You first invoke the right to kill to take someone else's property, then later claim it's wrong for them to defend themselves. Frankly, if you tried to take my house because of some imaginary "birthright" I would consider it justification to kill YOU. So much for material property rights.
Intellectual property isn't different. How many months of labor does an author put into a book? Why do you expect them to do this work for free? The problem with our current system isn't that intellectual property isn't fair, it's that we have a bad system for authors to sell their work. Besides, the whole linux thing shows that even when someone abuses the system, the market will produce a viable alternative. The MARKET decided that OS software should be free, but I guarantee that every person who chose to contribute code is getting paid for something, somewhere. This is the only way people could afford to donate their labor.
Art like books, music, movies and games are a bit different. Because nobody NEEDS them to survive so the value best assigned by what people are willing to pay. Creators deserve to be able to trade their work for other goods, but the current system is out of whack as evidenced by the RIAA/MPAA litigations. I can't say exactly how to fix the system, but it will have to account for the market reality that production and distribution costs are essentially zero. Prices have been artificially high for years as production and distribution were limited by existing technology. Technologies changed and the market must be allowed to adapt.
By the way, please don't launch into some idiotic argument claiming that everyone's labor per unit time is valued equally. The garbageman's time is not as valuable as a doctor's. The garbageman went out one day and got a job that anyone can do. The doctor spent years learning and honing his skills, studies continually to keep his knowledge current and bears legal responibility for his decisions. How do you valuate? Let the market decide - just remember the market includes buyers AND sellers and it needs to be free.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.