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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?"
If we assume that technology and communications is improving, and the pace of progress is increasing then logically the duration of monopoly should get shorter and shorter rather than longer.
Nowadays if a movie is good it makes a profit within a few weeks of its release. If it's not good, stop making bad movies then.
It is ridiculous that there should be a monopoly for > 100 years.
Think about it, if copyright only lasted 7 years, do you think Microsoft would dare release something as crap as Vista? They'd have to make something significantly better than Windows 2000.
If Microsoft won't want to play by those rules, I'm sure Apple or some others will be happy to take over.
As for patents and people talking about drugs needing long patent terms, the AFAIK drug companies spend more money on marketing (aka bribing doctors with goodies and holidays) than R&D, and FDA approval.
The goal should be to encourage innovation and creativity. Copyrights nowadays just last too long. This encourages hoarding because you can make tons of money by collecting essentially endless copyrights. It encourages lawsuits because the value is in the ownership and money earned over time, not improving the product and giving something people want to buy right now. It discourages derivative works because building off the original costs so much, which, for instance, seriously harms hip hop music. It also discourages new works from going commercial since you can sell a proven product much more easily than creating a new one and teaching the public about it. An individual creator deserves to make money off their work because it gives them an incentive to make more and improve our lives. The current system does the opposite so the social contract is broken. Until balance is restored, I have no problem disregarding pretty much all claims of copyright, short of selling someone's product myself. Then there's patent law...
Whenever a dispute arises regarding intellectual property, it is usually, though not always, rooted in physical property. For instance, disks, books, or other material holding that property. The laws surrounding intellectual property limit use of your own physical property. For instance, you can purchase a hard disk with the bits set randomly, but once you re-arrange the magnetic charges in a specific fashion, you are infringing upon someone else's rights. This goes to show that intellectual property is indeed an illusion. Shouldn't you be able to do what ever you'd like with that chunk of metal in your room?
You can also look at ideas akin to something like fire. You take a candle and light another candle, and nothing was taking from the first candle. Ideas are the same - they are not a limited resource and thus should not be analogized to physical property.
I live in China right now, and the concept of intellectual property is relatively new here. It's a more natural part of Chinese culture to take ideas from each other. Instead of innovating into uncharted territory, Chinese innovate in place, creating immense depth within a single discipline, for instance martial arts, tea drinking, and calligraphy. This is because there are no intellectual property laws retarding development of these disciplines, and people have been copying and improving upon each others' techniques for thousands of years, spreading across a huge nation.
Chinese culture's reputation for the mysterious and secretive also comes out of this. With no protection of intellectual property laws, valuable ideas are kept secret through guilds and lineages.
Anyway just a few thoughts.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
1) Company A gets the patent, licenses it to shell company B.
2) Company B does nothing with the patent license, but since A has licensed it to *someone* - it wont automatically go into public domain
3) Profit!
The concept has its merits, but RMS makes a good point here. Using the term "Intellectual Property" distracts from what we're really talking about: Trademarks, Copyrights, and Patents.
And, within that, it's possible to break things down even more. Math should never be patentable. English prose should pretty much always be copyrightable. And so on. That is, do you believe that intellectual property is a valid construct equivalent to physical property, or do you think it's illusory? Oh, it absolutely is illusory. Big fat "duh" on that point. What you're asking is whether or not we should behave as though it's equivalent to physical property.
I do believe IP -- especially copyright -- is a valuable concept. It's not equivalent to physical property. Specifically, copying something to which you do not have the right is not equivalent to physical theft -- and, more importantly, the only way to "steal" intellectual property would be to obtain legal copyright for something you shouldn't have.
And I believe we're far too early in the game to even know what the ethics around this should be. 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? That's a bit over my head, but if your concern is things like DRM, that's absurdly easy to deal with: Just don't. It is entirely possible to make money without DRM.
In more depth: What I would do is remove DRM from the game, drop the minimum damages (whatever that's called?) for lawsuits, and try to educate the courts a bit on technology, so that real proof is actually required.
And then, I would let the content creators figure it out for themselves.
As a content creator, I would stop seeing piracy as anything other than a competitor, and start looking at what I can do to compete. For successful examples, look at real-world systems which don't have a serious piracy problem, and also don't employ any of the tactics we despise (DRM, etc). Big, obvious examples: Radio, World of Warcraft, most books, and some indie music sites.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
This is exactly right. I think a lot of the problems with the current system arose from people treating IP as physical property, which implies the ability of the owner to fully control it in perpetuity. After all, your ownership of physical property never expires, why should IP be any different?
As far as fixing the system is concerned I think the following steps would help:
1) Forced licensing for copyrights to be used in derivative works. Something like say 15% of profits. This will allow for innovation while still rewarding the original creator.
2) Actually, forced licensing for patents may not be a bad idea either. If you can't make a go of your idea with the advantages of being first to market and not paying licensing fees, then maybe you don't deserve to keep a monopoly on your idea.
3) Much stricter non-obviousness standards for patents. This one is tough, but I think in order to hold a patent you need to show that a top 5% professional in the field would not be able to reasonably come up with the same idea.
4) Repeal business patents. Business patents have a low enough development cost that being first to market should be reward enough in itself.
5) The point above also applies to software patents.
I think that is a good answer to question 1.
For question 2, there are copyrights and patents to consider.
Copyright:
Eric Flint (who is an author himself) makes a pretty good case for 40 years' copyright on literary works, possibly with the addition that copyright does not run out during the lifetime of the author:
http://baens-universe.com/articles/salvos3
I think this argument can be extended to movies and music.
Patents:
I think those already do more harm than good. While patents help the inventor, they also can be used against anyone who made the invention independently and just was a bit slower to file for the patent. Which is compounded by patent offices handing out patents for far too vague ideas with too little explanation. That breaks the basic covenant that the inventor gives away his secret and gets a temporary monopoly in exchange.
Also, if you look at the history of important inventions, many of those pop up in different places at nearly the same time, not always patented. I take this as evidence that inventions happen when the time is "right" (the supporting technologies are there) and patents as incentive are not needed.
Overall, I think the patent system is counterproductive in most cases and needs to be abolished. With the possible exception of pharmaceuticals. In that field, the clinical studies take long enough that competitors might copy the drugs before they get on the market, so the original developer pays for the research without having a benefit.
C - the footgun of programming languages
As an anarcho-communist, I have to say, I don't acknowledge property rights. Why? Because property rights boil down to "I was here first, I stuck a flag in it, it is mine", and everything had a flag stuck in it before I was born, and I refuse to acknowledge a system that considers all of this to be someone elses property. It is not. It is my birthright, to share with others of my generation. If you claim I do not have a right to my birthright, I consider that justification to kill you and take it by force.
As far as intellectual property and creative works are concerned, there are two ways to measure the value of those. The first way of measuring the value is to determine how much leverage you can achieve over your fellow man with them, how much they are willing to sacrifice to get it. That is a valuation based entirely within the system of property rights. But there is another way to measure the value. These types of works can also be measured in the advantage they bring humanity. The more people who are enlightened, entertained, educated, cultured, the more value.
The first type of value is entirely arbitrary. The intellectual work doesn't create the physical work that was used to pay, the amount available to pay was fixed before you came on the scene, and you will get less than is available, because the creator needs some too, and he's inclined to compete and give you as little as he can.
The second type of value, the real value, it is destroyed the more you restrict the propagation of the intellectual or creative work. Your neighbours become a little more barbaric, their lives a little more desperate, their minds a little more closed, their thoughts a little less effective. You cripple their capacity to be your allies and friends, and give them reason to wish to break the system and take the wealth that is being destroyed, because they know it's being destroyed simply because you would pay armed men to keep from them what it would cost you nothing to share with them.
Private property is a bad system. But intellectual property in its myriad forms is a needlessly destructive and utterly stupid system for any person to support who doesn't have harming their fellow man and keeping him small as an agenda.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
"intellectual property" is the 21st century's version of the victorian slave trade and other issues.
think about the phrase "intellectual property" for a moment.
intellectual. property. information. owned. intelligence. enslaved.
therefore, "intellectual property" is the "enslavement of intelligence".
this isn't some sort of waffly joke, the words "intellectual property" _say_ so.
the implications are quite straightforward: the use of the phrase "intellectual property" has behind it just as much enslavement and disempowerment as physical slavery.
* when you sign an employment contract, your "intellectual property rights" are taken away. you are given money, as a "sop". you cannot get any work anywhere else - you cannot get any money to live on - if you do not follow the "norm".
* when you come up with an idea, which you find that nobody is implementing, you are afraid to make money from it because there might be someone who will bully you into submitting to their will because there is a "patent" - a government-sanctioned right to bully - the owner of which has been waiting for someone just like you, so they can take money away from you.
ultimately, however, "intellectual enslavement" is driven by "maximisation of profit".
fortunately, there are solutions: read muhammad yunus new book, "creating a world without poverty", in which he describes "social business" as being "capitalism with non-loss, non-dividend" at its core.
if you have non-loss, non-dividend replacing "maximisation of profit" at the core of your articles of incorporation, then you do not have to suppress or own to "make money". you can cooperate with your former competition, working towards social goals.
it's a long story.
This reads to me like an excellent defence of patents. The whole concept of patents is that the ideas are out in the open, and the inventor can talk freely about their idea without worrying that they will have their idea pulled from under them by a larger competitor with more resources.
The alternative would be much as you describe, with inventors fearing to talk about their ideas lest they become public knowledge, and the inventor sees no return. It's a nasty world where NDAs roam free and lips are tight.
There's also the case of value. An idea might be intangible, but it obviously has value if it can generate a profit. There's also the real cost of intangible things such as technical and economic feasibility studies. An idea doesn't lead straight to a product, there is R&D involved. Here the cost is not tangible matter, but time and salaries.
The idea that only tangible things can have value is absurd. To suggest otherwise would be to suggest that your house would still be worth the same amount after it had been knocked down - after all, all the material is still there. In reality, it is the architectural design of the house (an idea), and the man-hours involved in building it (time and salaries), that make up the bulk of its value.
Therefore, suggesting that you should be free to take my idea is tantamount to saying that you should be free to come along and knock down my house.
The land is still not yours, you just own a piece of paper that the King will use violence to enforce on your behalf
Actually, I'm an American citizen, and as such, have a -natural- right to possess guns. I do not need a king to enforce my property rights. I have a gun to enforce my property rights, and by my act of agreeing not to shoot the "king", I consent to be governed and live by the laws of the USA. Thus, because I have a gun, I own my land, and the King (aka gov't), has no rights of its own at all.
This is my sig.
IF, unlike the cases so far, you have not purposely gathered said seeds and planted them with the goal of avoiding purchase. The GP takes an abstract and acts like it happens. Read up on the cases.
Prior art = the multiplication and growth of seeds. Monsanto has conscripted "air", and is now charging you a fee to breath air. Monsanto is infringing on nature, is infringing on the bounty nature hath provided, is stealing from you. You can see clearly th incentive for Monsanto is to create an internet virus that invades every field eliminating natural competition and then collect extortion fees.
Copying, the action, the method, the process, of copying, is "IP" just as much as any product is "IP". So how is it all "IP" copies the ideas of copying and limiting copying?
COPYING IS PUBLIC DOMAIN TECHNOLOGY, with billions of years of prior art. And all "IP" claims are infringing that public domain technology, and are therefore invalid.
Stupid clueless IP proponent idiots are deaf, dumb, and blind as to how they are copying the ideas of others whilst crying like infant children how people copy them while refusing to see how they copy others. It's no wonder IP proponents get their clocks cleaned in debates on philosophical, ethical, economic, and scientific grounds. They are in one word, demonstrably "*dumb*".
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
Awesome point! Fruit, grains, all agricultural products which exist naturally are being infringed upon by Monsanto's derivative genetic modification work. Monsanto didn't invent any new fruits or vegetables that didn't already exist. They are essentially writing new Harry Potter books using the trademarked and copyrighted characters of the b/witch that wrote them. If taking Harry Potter characters in adapted derivative works is illegal, then so too is taking public domain "oranges" and "corn" and making them, for instance, "seedless", an illegal public domain infringing derivative work.
Those farmers sure shouldn't be able to label their genetically modified harvests by their common public domain agricultural names. If genetically modified "oranges" are being sold in grocery stores under the label "oranges", they are engaging in fraud. So it's time they start properly naming their produce in the same manner car manufacturers label their models. Do you want to buy an "orange", or an "OXSeven", a seedless genetically modified non-orange that is likely an infringing derivative work of a real orange?
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
I like the first post about time limits but...
The issue with a patent license is probably something that will become obvious to the business involved and may turn into a contingency of the contract. One possible outcome would be to have the contract execute fines or additional fees if the lessee fails to produce a product in a time period that is 75% of the patent time limit. (Recall that I don't agree with 12 months so I used 75% instead.) This will greatly inhibit the tendency for companies to make money by leasing patents because the risk to the lessee is much greater.
But I think the intention here is to force patent holders to play out their hand on their patents and not just camp on the intellectual territory surrounding their product. Where I work they routinely have calls for more patents of any kind to try and expand on the IP range that they cover to try and prevent competition. There is no intention of executing 90% of the patents and for many, they are obsolete by the time they are granted. But it screws with anyone attempting to compete.
We would go along ways to revert back to the notion that you need to bring in a working demonstration of a patent to the USPTO before a patent could be granted. But today that would be unrealistic. Still, some limit must be established.
You do not have a right to what you did not create.
Okay, let's follow through with that initial statement...
It's my land
Really? Did you pull the baryonic matter from the void, shape it into a neat rectangular plot of land, and paste it onto the surface of the Earth? Of course, I hope you pay for the right to use all that "free" gravity on "your" land, unless you made the entire 3d solid of "your" land going all the way to the core, right? Same goes for the air and water, naturally, unless you live in a habitat bubble.
my property
Did you create your TV? Your microwave oven? Your washing machine, refridgerator, computer, couch, even your house itself?
and you can go find your own. Your laziness and lack of creativity does not give you a right to steal.
Thanks, but I like yours, and you don't sound like you could put up much of a fight, so I think I'll take yours. Your naivete and belief in fictional "laws" over the reality of a cold hard monkey-eats-monkey world does not give you the right to hoarde the best bananas just because you found them first.
but, if they are so important than shouldn't you be willing to work for them?
You forget that throughout most of history, "taking yours" did count as the "work" needed to obtain such things.
Do we have it better today? Well, we certainly live longer... Of course, while pre-agricultural-revolution humans worked roughly 10-15 hours per day to obtain their necessities, we work 40-50 hours per week. Does living longer matter, when doing so just means slaving away for the gain of those who's ancestors, as the GP put it, first stuck their flag into the land we still need today?
There is no solution. Intellectual Property is a fantasy. Here's a great example: giving a speech. We call it "giving" a speech, because after you've said it, it's not yours anymore. The same is true for a performance - we "give" those too. You can't give a speech and then take it back, nor can you publish a book while keeping it to yourself.
If you want to control your "intellectual property", you have to keep it to yourself.