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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?"
See, this response is flawed. Monsanto does own their seeds because they invested a lot of time and money in the traits of those seeds. Nothing is being stolen from the farmers...they can use the same old seeds they have been using for thousands of years. You, person who thinks scarcity is artificial, have never lived in a world in which you must fight for your food or you must kill in order to stay alive. Business must make profit in order to enrich your life. DO not expect freedom of existence without a fight for it...you must earn it.
Now, you've done a good job standing up for your rights and Monsantos rights, and justifying your position.
But, what if, when faced with the choice, we would genuinely prefer to fight and kill for our existence rather than allow what we consider expolitation to continue?
If that were true, would you make further compromises so that we can all work together, or would you sit in your stronghold with your poisoned seeds, waiting for us to come string you up by the neck and claim what you consider yours?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
IP isn't just an assault on free speech rights, it's also an assault on real property rights.
ONE MUST AT ALL TIMES HAVE IN ONE'S MIND A CETERIS PARIBUS COMPARISON TO THE ECONOMIC RESULTS WHICH WOULD EVOLVE IF REAL PHYSICAL TANGIBLE PROPERTY COULD BE COPIED AND EXPANDED AS EASYILY AS IDEAS CAN BE COPIED AND EXPANDED.
1.) Poverty would be eliminated.
2.) Inequality would be eliminated.
3.) Innovation and creative change would not be eliminated, as that is all anyone who was not lounging around in biblical garden of eden paradise would be doing, thinking of how they would want something better, even though it could be infinitely copied. Innovation and artistic creation would become the sole economic production activity, and remuneration would consist 100% in extremely valuable fame.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
Great way to frame a debate - rule out all of the options other yours and a strawman.
The correct answer is going to be legal recognition of intellectual creativeness is nothing like physical property. Using the property word immediately heads you off into the wilderness.
-- Butlerian Jihad NOW!
I make my living from "oppressing" you, I guess.
Fortunately I have a simple answer in this case: You don't *need* the stuff I produce. So if you wind up with it in your possession and you haven't paid for it, it's pretty clear cut: You have no *right* to my work, and if it's clear that you've ripped it off I'll feel justified suing the bollocks off of you.
Everything else is details on how this is accomplished. I agree that SWAT teams and a patent system that makes patent trolling easy are bad. But if you're "trading" music or software, I have no problem with hauling you to court, and technologies that make ferreting you out easier are just dandy with me.
Strutting around arguing that you are somehow entitled to the fruits of my labor just because it is easly copyable is simple greed. Copy protection systems are the speed-bumps that get lazy oxygen-wasters like yourself to occasionally pay for the stuff you would otherwise steal. The fact that copy protection systems need to exist has more to say about *your* morality than my own.
I owe you nothing. Go to Hell.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is insufficiently documented.
To be honest I'm not certain there's a difference.
But, there is a difference. I didn't kill anyone, and Shew0lf is trying to kill my entire family. See, Shew0lf is committing a crime, murder, an invasion, of sorts. That's today, and you see, the only way he can rationalize it, is by inventing some past ancestor to "even the score".
If you believe in property rights, now is the time to give the whole of the territorial United States back to the First Nations, because, with the exception of a very few small enclaves, they were there first and they didn't give it up voluntarily (and before you think I'm getting at Americans, the same is true virtually everywhere else on Earth, too
Absolutely not! First off, what does the past have to do with anything? The people, their cultural framework, everything about them, are dead. We can have a few historians tell a few stories about them that entertains us, but such histories will always be through the viewpoint of our culture. The only way you can deal with property rights with any sort of intelligence or consistency is to look at what property is today.
And if it's actual possession, when's the date from which we say property rights apply? Is it before 1948 or after? I'm not picking on the Israelis particularly here, either
Well, again, you are confused. Property rights exist today. You are either killing someone to take their land, or you are not. The past is entirely irrelevant. Honestly, if you wanted to take this silly "past" approach back, I can always go further back in time. You see, if I have the first oxygen atom in me, that was ever made, and, so, everyone has stolen everything from me. Therefor, I should be Emperor of the Universe.
This is my sig.
I'm sorry but I just don't buy into that argument. It's not my fault that my grandparents kicked your grandparents ass. It's not my fault that my grandparents discovered how to effectively use gunpowder before your grandparents did.
If we are willing to bring up claims that old then we might as well prepare for perpetual warfare, because no nation-states borders will be safe. Should we give the United States, Canada, Mexico and Australia back to the Native populations and force all the people of European decent to leave? Should France be able to seek reparations from Italy for the actions of Julius Caesar in Gaul? Should Italy be able to seek reparations from Germany for the actions of the Germanic barbarians? What about Tibet? What about all of the Pacific Islands? What about Northern Ireland? And who gets that disputed strip of land on the Mediterranean currently called Israel? The Jews? The Palestinians? The Romans? The Greeks? The Turks?
I don't think I owe anybody an apology because my forefathers were more successful (sometimes with the checkbook, sometimes with the sword) than your forefathers. And for all the finger-pointing that people love to do at Europeans/people of European descent, history is ripe with examples of outside powers attempting to conquer Europe. Can we get our reparations check directly deposited please?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
And the solution to that is to not sign unfavourable contracts, or DIY. It's not like arists today don't have a choice.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Maybe the **AAs of the world would be less inclined to lobby for harsh copyright regulations if millions of people around the world would stop stealing copyrighted material in the first place. Content producers aren't spending millions of dollars on lawyers and lobbying every year because they enjoy it, they do it because the world is full of thieves who think nothing of stealing intellectual property and then passing it on to all their thief friends. Do something about that, and maybe the content corporations will calm down and call off their dogs.
There are plenty of tribes that have continued well into the modern world.....Saying that they are all dead and their culture is little more than a legend is just an easy way for your greedy, white culture to continue to comfort itself.
And what did your culture do with what it had?
Absolutely nothing.
Were it not for Europeans, the USA would still be in the stone ages and the people that live here would still be worshipping rocks and trees and the great spirit. You know who is greedy? It is the native American that continues to claim that they are entitled to a continent that they utterly wasted so they can prance half haked in the wilderness and feed a few million people eating wild animals and berries, rather than the billions of people that Americans now feed. Was it wrong to steal the land from native Americans? Yeah, it was, on some level, but, the world is infinitely better off that humanity did. Americans have cured numerous diseases, made advances that have brought clean water and plenty of food to a planet, persuaded the world to adopt an economic system that has, at long last, promises to abolish poverty -planet- wide. And you want to take that away, so you could do what? Native Americans didn't even have calculus when they were discovered, and couldn't even make cast iron, let alone steel.
This is my sig.
I didn't say content creators can't charge for what they make, my problem is the idea that IDEAS are property, this is the biggest bullshit ever. When someone copies music, movie or a game they, the owner is NOT deprived of the work, they are deprived of income, but then there's the abuse of IP: Profitting off stuff forever or lockout and abuse of other peoples property rights by claiming they only 'liscense' property, which is just BS, we wouldn't tolerate this in any other sector (i.e. someone 'liscenses' you your car, but you never own it when you buy it and you can't messs with it or have it fixed by a third party).
Property is all about monopoly, and IP is about protecting ideas/information so they must be forced to become public domain after a set period. Otherwise you get IP dictators... it's the same problem people have with inheriting wealth, a small group of people suck up and basically control the other 90%.
There aren't any easy answers, things like Freespace 2 SCP are only possible at an IP owners behest, which is complete BS. Every gamer who paid for FS2 owns a chunk of FS2 and should have a say in opening up the source after it's sales period.
Lots of IP just sits there and lays fallow, and allows companies to endlessly profit off a finite amount of work (i.e. infinite supply but negligable cost to reproduce), which is basically a form of rent seeking.