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Two New Class-Action Suits Against EA Over DRM
In September, we discussed a class-action suit filed against Electronic Arts over the DRM in Spore. Now, two new class-action suits have been filed that target the SecuROM software included in a free trial of the Spore Creature Creator (PDF) and in The Sims 2: Bon Voyage (PDF). If this sort of legal reprisal continues to catch on, EA could be seeing quite a few class-action suits in the future. One of the suits accuses:
"The inclusion of undisclosed, secretly installed DRM protection measures with a program that was freely distributed constitutes a major violation of computer owners' absolute right to control what does and what does not get loaded onto their computers, and how their computers shall be used ... [SecuROM] cannot be completely uninstalled. Once installed it becomes a permanent part of the consumer's software portfolio ... EA's EULA for Spore Creature Creator Free Trial Edition makes utterly no mention of any Technical Protection Measures, DRM technology, or SecuROM whatsoever."
If uninstalling the free trial would leave your computer in exactly the same state as before, then nothing could stop you from free trying again.
I'm never buying anything made by Wil Wheaton again.
What's to stop them from including a clause in their EULA allowing the installation of shadow DRM?
I've just stopped buying any of their games. Simple yes, but the easiest form of protest, and it works because they are right now down about £200 in lost sales from me.
I don't download them from piracy sites either, I just completely ignore their products.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Don't buy them and don't download them.
Just don't play them at all.
Gone!
I installed the Creature Creator back when I was still looking forward to Spore, and I was unaware of that the Creature Creator came with that crap too until today.
Does anyone know of a way to remove it?
Why should I have to run Deep Freeze, or any type of software to return my system to a state before a program is installed?
Unless I give explicit permission for a program install something, then it should not be installed.
How is EA doing this different from anyone installing trojans, spyware, or virus?
Fight Spammers!
Does anyone have a solid description of specifically what this form SecuROM "installs", what it does, how it is harmful, and why it can't be removed?
Every time this topic comes up it becomes a "How dare they!" bitchfest so I've never been able to figure out the answers to the above.
I'm not saying that this is definitely just a pile of FUD combined with general anti-corporate hate against EA. But I'm leaning that way without real evidence.
The gaming industry does not listen to its customers, and has not for years. Before 'EA' became the monster it is now, it was called 'Electronic Arts', and in the early nineteen eighties it had a motto: "By gamers and For gamers". Sadly it has cast aside these noble intentions for over a decade. Like 'Lord British' with "Ultima IX", the industry cares nothing for its customers except how much cash can be wrung or extorted from them. The industry has also centralized into a de facto monopoly. As such their bad behavior has intensified as they now know that they don't care, they do not HAVE to care, as they think that customers can go nowhere else. It is this public be damned attitude that needs to be addressed. Obviousely the industry is not listening because it does not have to listen with its ears. Its ears were wired shut years ago. It only listens with its ass! Kick it hard enough and often enough and it will be forced to listen or go broke. We gamers need to realize that:
One: All the good games have already been invented
Two: There is a great deal of good old game software, like WarZone 2100 (open source now) out there that we can use
Three: We customers have the power to bring these monopolistas down by using the boycott.
Boycotting the monopolistas will eventually force them to take DRM out of their products, and to bring quality products back to a marketplace that has been bereft of them for years. Companies are increasingly putting 'eye candy' in products at the expense of playability..another gripe. Back to the point, DRMers will at first claim to be free of it, but many will conceal it and lie about it. The way to stop this is to demand that companies put up a 500 million dollar bond that instantly forfiets to all its' registered customers as soon as DRM is found concealed in their new products. Some may call a half a gigabuck as too excessive, but present day monopolistas are capitalized in multi-gigadollars American, and a half a gigabuck is the smallest present day amount that will cause real pain to a producer enough to force change. Remember these monopolistas are soulless present day BuchenWalders who take pleasure in forcing ninety years old grandmothers to live under bridges and freeze and starve in the dark all for 'the possibility of so called infringment'. Remember also that these monopolistas who hide behind the artists who create their capital often do not pay those artists anywhere near their due. These crimes by publishers are an old story run over from the music industry. Perfect example is the lowball 5 million bucks paid the Beetles for an early collection of their songs. One only need do a little googling to find other examples of cheating by the industry of their benefactors. Again, kick this industry monopoly in ass with boycotts until it hurts, and hurts enough to force DRM out of our machines. While we are doing that, we should also look to our fawning sock puppet politicians who are drunk with industry bribes. Yes bribes. Common folk do not 'contribute' near the amount that monopolistas do, and monopolistas do their bribing (political contributing) far more directed and get far better results. The way to counter this is with something that we gamers have that the monopolistas do not, boots on the ground. We can act personally and collectively to campaign for change, and for the political opposition of the lackeys of the monopolistas. We can to this for free, and collectively if there are enough of us we can make a difference. Maybe enough difference to give pause to these servants against the public trust before the next time some monopolista calls in a 'marker' from them.
I have personally stopped buying any EA PC games after spore and I know of other who have also. I am also aware that piracy for EA games have SPIKED after they started implementing the DRM scheme. You have to seriously wonder what is wrong with EA. While the games are still making a buttload of cash, They have to realize that they are probably not making nearly as much as they would if they had not implemented the DRM scheme. On top of that they are pissing off the fan base into rabid hatred for them, and motivating the fans to not only pirate the games, but to go to review sites and post negative reviews about the games because of the DRM. Buisiness 101 should tell them this is not a good business in the long run and if you are a shareholder I would suggest getting rid of the stock because this is going to come back and bite EA in the ass.
To waste their time on so fundamentally trivial a complaint as the DRM used to protect a free demo - is ludicrous.
http://www.reclaimyourgame.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&layout=blog&id=17&Itemid=57 this site has all the information to contact the lawfirms handling 4 EA lawsuits over DRM covering Spore, Mass Effect, The Sims and other EA games
it doesnt take two monkeys to understand that placing something on someone's computer without their consent and knowledge constitutes not only a violation of their rights, but also an information technology crime, as same as hacking a pc.
but apparently it takes infinite amounts of lawyers to understand that as a company. or, EA's lawyers were TOTALLY stupid, or bloodless bastards.
this is 21st century, not wild west. enjoy your class action damages, jerks.
Read radical news here
That makes no sense at all..
Class action lawsuits "bite you in the ass" because of increased pricing, however you say that lost sales because people refuse to purchase has no effect? What?!
This happened to me once- I bought something from Microsoft - same exact situation. I couldn't see the policy until I opened the software, and once I opened the software I couldn't return it even if I disagreed with it and didn't install it. I went to the store and raised a fuss with the manager. First they attempted to tell me that if I didn't agree with the terms I could return it to *Microsoft*. After I kept pushing it (I went to a different store location), the manager there told me that if I didn't agree with the terms I could bring it back to the store. Turns out the terms weren't as onerous as I thought they'd be, so I kept it. But it was nice to know what my options were.
Ok, looking at the complaint over Sims 2: Bon Voyage, the same allegations of not informing the consumer of SecuROM is made (including not making the user agree to it in the EULA, which is moronic in the extreme in my completely non legal advice opinion, EA may lose this on the basis of having crappy lawyers). In this case, ambiguity as to exactly what SecuROM does is lessened, since the primary plantiff's personal experiences are listed.
Allegedly, backup CDs of other Sims 2 games stopped working. Her USB flash drive and Ipod failed (I assume this means it busted USB data transfer altogether),. Forum posts of the time indicate numerous people having the issue after installing the Bon Voyage expansion.
There is not, as far as I can tell, any hard evidence linking the problem to SecuROM, since she neglected to try and duplicate the issue after an operating system reinstall, and 'Dell tech support said so' isn't really reliable evidence. These issues could be from another program, a virus other than SecuROM, or just a bug in the game (iTunes does similar things on occasion after all). Seems like a weak case, though they could be building a better analysis of SecuROM as I speak.
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
I'm waiting for a DRM-using company to get so fully and completely ripped that no other company in the future will ever try it again. I'd hoped it would be Sony over their audio CD rootkit, but that lesson didn't seem to stick. Perhaps this will be the one.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Band together, plan out a distributed attack against EA in court. file multiple individual lawsuits for different charges for the maximum allowed in your small claims court area.
Basically a legal-system DDoS - no lawyers allowed in small claims court, and multiple suits (loss of property, trespassing, etc.) will be enough to bring up so many criminal charges against the company they'll likely lose their business charter and be sued out of existence by their shareholders.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Only recently I went back to my copy of STALKER - Shadow of Chernobyl only to find it was unplayable on my PC unless I downloaded a no-cd crack. I don't buy it when companies say "oh don't worry we'll make sure you can always play your game" since I've not had a satisfactory answer from THQ as to why my game won't run unless I use a legally dubious hacked version. It really puts me off buying PC games at all, and I know that I'm not the only one.
Some of us wanted to RTFA.
Their EULA says nothing about installing hidden software that will never be removed.
Even by agreeing to the EULA you don't agree to "all things not mentioned."
If so where would it end? Could they search my harddrive for credit card information? Format my harddrive on a whim? Store their own stuff on my computer without telling me? Of course not!
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
i hope they burn (Score:1, Flamebait)
How appropriate.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
I just don't get this attitude. Copyright is a social contract. It isn't part of a capitalist economy. It is defacto a subsidy for production of culture in the form of a government mandated monopoly. In a pure capitalist society you wouldn't have rights to control the replication of bits. Copyright IS by definition a form of socialism.
Here is the deal. We give companies and people a time limited, government mandated monopoly on the reproduction of a good because the cost to develop the good is large and the cost to reproduce it is very small. We throw in a few caveats to try to stop them abusing that monopoly. We do this with a good everyone has a right to have access to (national culture), and in return we expect a few things.
First off, don't abuse the monopoly. You get the financial benefit of a monopoly, that's it. You don't get to screw customers just because you are the only provider of a product. Secondly, respect the social contract. The monopoly is time limited and if you release a product in such a way that you establish a permanent monopoly you are abusing the social contract. DRM does exactly this because it is design to prevent works of art from being copied.
Here EA have basically done both. They have abused the social contract by putting DRM in the product in the first place. Then they have abused the monopoly by essentially infecting machines with a virus. That virus would not be there in a free market environment because competitors to EA would not be stupid enough to put it there.
The rule should be simple. You can have the protection of DRM, or you can have the protection of copyright. But you cant have both because one is a de facto permanent monopoly.
Now I happen to be one of those people who is prepared to put up with a bit of socialism if it increases net societal good. But if EA cant live up the the social contract then their monopoly should be withdrawn. That should be the penalty for abusing what is at the moment a pretty sweet deal (at least for the major content producers). Heck I wish I could still be getting paid for work I did today 100 years from now.
If you read through EAs Terms of Service you are agreeing to pretty much anything they want to do to your computer. Its vague and broad and pretty much absolves EA of any wrong doing. I chose to vote with my wallet, I stopped buying their products few years ago. Hitting companies in their pocket books, especially in todays economy, is the way to go. Regards!
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
And this BS of suing companies is only going to bite us all in the ass with increased costs
Only if you continue to buy their games.
I haven't really played PC games in 20 years, but back in my day the procedure was to remove copy-protection checks from illicit copies of games before you redistributed them. Are people still doing this? Or is there something about the way that SecuROM works that makes it difficult to remove a game's dependence on the service?
It seems to me that not having to install irremovable malware would be a very strong motivator to install pirated versions of games, rather than the store-bought ones.
Breakfast served all day!
Try telling that to the RIAA, MPAA and Microsoft
Make SELinux enforcing again!
What EA and others need to do is realize that they have been sold snake oil. These anti-copy, DRM, and invasive copyright enforcement products SIMPLY DO NOT WORK. The are circumvented all the time. In fact its absolutely ridiculous that a money making entity would continue to spend money on a client-alienating product add-on that does not fufill its advertised intended purpose. This product does not function as intended and never has, the fact that companies like SecuROM and Starforce are still in business speaks volumes to their sales teams. Cheers to their exceptional sales skills, jeers to the stupidy of game producers for buying into it.
You must be new here.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I know it's like an open secret here, but why not just pirate the damn thing? I got started doing this in the 90's when it was hard, now even joe the plumber could do it. If you were really self righteous buy the game after you get the pirated one up and running. Not all downloads work, but at 90-95%, it's better odds then the DRM Crap. Side note, every once in a while to assuage my conscience I will buy a game (specifically if I liked the previous iterations) and even then I'm batting .500 at best. And I'm lazy, irresponsible, and disorganized so I loose those fucking cd's all the time. so I say fuck it.
...is a way to implement a KVM-style switch box for internal storage devices. A setup that would all the user to have multiple boot drives for the same system while keeping both unaware than the other exists.
This way, the user could install a separate OS license on each drive, then use one drive for games and other invasive software and the other drive for day-to-day mission critical use. Then, the user would simply shut down the system, hit the A/B switch, then reboot without the system being any the wiser as to what just happened. (Assuming the software on either drive doesn't modify the system firmware directly to test for this...)
8==8 Bones 8==8
Er... isn't 'screwing customers because you are the only provider of a product' the whole reason that there is a financial benefit of a monopoly? I thought that was the whole point of monopolies - that you can charge whatever you like, with no competition to drive prices to a fair market value.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
A serious question - does EA have to pay each person who bought the game a settlement figure, or would they have to put a big notice on game cases saying "This game contains SecuROM", or would they be barred from using software like this in the future (the best outcome imho)?
this looks to me like a case of unauthorized access under the (Federal) Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. And that this unauthorized access has caused serious economic damage -- PC repairmen are decidedly not free!
In my non-humble opinion, some Sony execs should be doing serious jail time for their rootkit exploits. If they had, EA might not have done this. In the absence of that (or in addition to it), EA execs should be put in the slammer--for five years per incident, as the law specifies.
DISCLAIMER: I'm in that minority that doesn't use my computer for playing music, and in the smaller minority that doesn't use it to play EA-style games (I play KPatience, sometimes), so the axe I'm grinding is purely my interests in legal behavior, individual freedom, and Constitutional restraint.
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
I have done this for my wife, who wanted to get Mass Effect. The problem is: it's a pain having to reboot every time you want to switch between playing and working.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
I just don't get this attitude. Copyright is a social contract. It isn't part of a capitalist economy. It is defacto a subsidy for production of culture in the form of a government mandated monopoly. In a pure capitalist society you wouldn't have rights to control the replication of bits. Copyright IS by definition a form of socialism.
Here is the deal. We give companies and people a time limited, government mandated monopoly on the reproduction of a good because the cost to develop the good is large and the cost to reproduce it is very small. We throw in a few caveats to try to stop them abusing that monopoly. We do this with a good everyone has a right to have access to (national culture), and in return we expect a few things.
This post is logically more twisted than an Escher print. Let me ask one simple question in response to your post. What gives YOU the RIGHT to something created by someone else?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What gives YOU the RIGHT to something created by someone else?
No one gave me the right to use, copy, distribute, and modify someone else's ideas. It is a natural right of all human beings, just like free speech and privacy, and is acknowledged by my country's (US) constitution as such. The same constitution allows the government, if it so wishes, to grant temporary monopolies on works (section 8), which is meant solely to benefit the public by encouraging science and arts -- the social contract mentioned in the parent post.
The fact that they offered it to me in exchange for my money, and then they confirmed that offer by accepting my money. If they weren't giving up something as part of an exchange, then what gave them the right to my money?
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
How would one who had installed one of those programs become involved in the class-action lawsuit?
I have no right to something created by someone else. If they wish to keep it private then no court should be able to make them hand over what they have created.
But if they don't keep it secret, if they published it, well that's a different matter. Once you sell something to some it becomes theirs, and assuming they don't use it to do something unpleasant to someone else then they can do what they darn well like with it. Including replicate it. Including giving away those replicas.
Everyone has a right to experience their national culture. Not just because that is a fine idea in principle, but because preventing them from doing so is an unnecessary restriction. You might just as well ask what gives me the right to drink coffee or dance in the rain. I have those rights because no one else is harmed when I exercise them.
The fact that they offered it to me in exchange for my money, and then they confirmed that offer by accepting my money. If they weren't giving up something as part of an exchange, then what gave them the right to my money?
Exactly, it's money. You trade your money for their product. You do not have a "natural right" to anything anyone else produces, only your own "products" and those for which you trade. You do not get a right to copy it and give it away to all your friends unless you are granted that right by the producer. I do have issues with producers' assertions that you may not copy something you have bought for your own archival purposes.
If there is an issue that interferes with your ability to use the product you have paid for in the future, then I am strongly on your side. After all, you paid for that ability. But the idea that you have some God-given right to anything anyone else makes is absurd and should be called such.
I have no right to something created by someone else. If they wish to keep it private then no court should be able to make them hand over what they have created.
But if they don't keep it secret, if they published it, well that's a different matter. Once you sell something to some it becomes theirs, and assuming they don't use it to do something unpleasant to someone else then they can do what they darn well like with it. Including replicate it. Including giving away those replicas.
Everyone has a right to experience their national culture. Not just because that is a fine idea in principle, but because preventing them from doing so is an unnecessary restriction. You might just as well ask what gives me the right to drink coffee or dance in the rain. I have those rights because no one else is harmed when I exercise them.
I would never question your right to enjoy the things that are yours. The sticky point comes when you bring-up the question of harm. Does it harm EA to spend lots of money paying people to develop a great game only to sell a single copy for $50 and have the rest of the world get it for free? Why should they do that? Why bother making a great game in the first place? Or perhaps they should ask the same amount of money for that single copy as what they invested in making the game?
My point is simply that if we, the gamers, do not make it worthwhile for the software companies to make good games, they won't. I don't like the draconian measures used to protect a company's ability to make money. They are often an inconvenience. But I certainly do not have any rights to their products unless I pay them.
It is true that if making games wasn't profitable then EA wouldn't do it. Thats why I support limited copyright (way more limited than it is now).
But they do not have a right to make money (if they can all well and good, but they don't have a right to it). We subsidies them via copyright.
That's why class action lawsuits like this one are legitimate and ethical. When copyright is abused it should be reigned in. And it is widely and massively abused.
Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and the creation of an egalitarian society.
To me, it sounds like copyright has no place in socialism. I'd imagine a socialist would argue that government should pay artists to produce works. Then, the government would have the right to copy and sell these works. Granting monopolies is antitheses to socialistic philosophy.
Are there any socialists on Slashdot who care to comment?
It is true that if making games wasn't profitable then EA wouldn't do it. Thats why I support limited copyright (way more limited than it is now).
But they do not have a right to make money (if they can all well and good, but they don't have a right to it). We subsidies them via copyright.
That's why class action lawsuits like this one are legitimate and ethical. When copyright is abused it should be reigned in. And it is widely and massively abused.
I never said they have a right to make money. The may produce something creative and offer it for sale. You give them your money in exchange if you wish. But what, exactly, is it about a copyright that you feel is a subsidy?
Furthermore, are you suggesting that if you built your house with your own hands that I somehow have a right to claim it as my own? If not, how is the example I cite different from proposing that we all have "rights" to EA's products?
Software is easy to duplicate but it is otherwise no different from any other product. It takes ingenuity, creativity, and effort to produce. If we are not willing to pay for that it will most certainly go away.
You and I certainly have some common ground in as much as I agree that there are cases where companies claim more control over a purchased product than they are entitled to. I would also agree the courts should decide where to draw the line between protecting the company's ability to make a profit (so they can make more games) and the consumer's rights (yes rights) to use products they purchase. But please do not suggest that anyone has a right to the creative output of another. There is no such right.
Your analogy reveals why you don't understand what I'm saying. You don't have a right to claim my house as your own. But if you build a perfect replica of my house then we are all square. That is the difference here.
Yes, I'm a socialist and I would be happy to comment. (I'm also the GP)
By granting them a monopoly government is de facto paying artists to produce work. It is interference in the market by government with the objective of improving society.
The problem with quoting the top line of a Wikipedia entry is socialism is a broad term that can depending on who you talk to include everything from the political perspective of most centre left parties through to Stalinism.
However we can operate within the limited definition. The question here therefore is, what industry has been (at least in part) nationalised by the copyright legislation? It's the content reproduction industry (which is so intimately tied to the content distribution industry that one might well consider them the same). Think of copyright as giving the owner of copyright the ability to levy and then keep a tax (whose rate they can set themselves) on the replication of their work in return for producing it in the first place. Think of it in these terms also reveals how obvious and big the potential pitfalls are.
Now I'm no more happy about the current state of copyright than a free market capitalist would be about a completely deregulated police force or armed service. Both are examples of poor implementation of an ideology. It doesn't change the fact that both are consistent with those ideologies.
Umm...other people are free to make their own games, so it isn't a monopoly in any traditional way you would define the term. Let's pretend like your term is different, but still accurate. You go on and call it socialism. What??? I know in this election cycle it is a fad to call everything socialism, but let's get back to reality. They make games. It costs lots of money to make games. They want to make more money than they spend to make games. There is no monopoly or socialism in there. The only thing different is that this item can be replicated for free. So the first person could buy it and then just give it all away. That's great, but no one person is going to pony up 5 million dollars for a game. Basically, in any dumb ass system you would come up with, big games wouldn't exist. This is where the highly moderated slashdot posts on this point all fail.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
They are the only people who are allowed to produce a good. They are the only seller of that good. That is the definition of a monopoly (in fact most definitions of monopoly only require substantial control of the terms of sale). There are mitigating factors that reduce their monopoly power and drag their prices down from what a simplistic analysis would suggest, but they are a monopoly.
Socialism broadly defined is state intervention in the market in the interest of increasing social welfare. In a free market there would be no copyright, no patents. The market would be left to fix prices. I suspect this would be (as you suggest) an unmitigated disaster with only the rich able to afford being patrons of the arts. So we socialise the cost of producing arts by essentially giving content producers the ability to levy and keep a tax on the replication of their work. We even let them fix the rate of that tax.
I have no problem with socialism (I'd call myself a socialist or social democrat). There are situations where it is necessary and useful. This is actually a good example of that. I not using 'socialism' as a dirty word. I'm just calling government intervention in the market what it is.
I happen to think the basic premise of this system is fine, so long as we remember that this de facto 'tax' is a privileged we grant artists and creators. It is time limited, and subject to the requirement that their work enter the public domain when that time limit is up. If they stick DRM on their work they cheat the system since it provides them with a permanent monopoly. That is wrong.
How is this for a fair system (I'm not an expert here so this is just an uninformed opinion). Copyright term limits on the order of 10 years. No DRM or other mechanisms that prevent entry into the public domain. Fines and damages for infringement (punitive or otherwise) the same order of magnitude as the damaged caused.
Exactly, nothing gives me the right to your house unless I buy or you give it to me. It is the house that is the subject. Now, carry that over to the world of software. It is the code that is now the subject. The difference is the amount of work required to make a copy. If you are willing and able to sit down and write the code for the game from scratch, then do so. That is something you have a right to do. If you are not able or willing, then buy it from those who are. If you buy it and don't like it then give your copy to someone else. But you cannot claim a right to the code itself and the free distribution of it. You didn't create it, just as I did not create your house.
Also, you didn't explain what about a copyright constitutes a subsidy.
(re-posted because I did not realize I had been logged-out)
Copyright amounts to the right to levy and keep a tax on the reproduction of something. It even allows one to choose the tax rate.
Let me give you an example to show you how very absurd your idea is. I'm a particle physicist by profession. At some point in the future my discoveries will probably be used in some new fangled gadget or other. Do I (or my sponsor, or whoever) have the right to claim anyone who uses my discoveries should pay me (or my descendants) for the privilege? I don't think so. You would effectively set up scientific dynasties. The offspring of Dirac or Boltzman would be would rich beyond measure (or more likely, technology would have stagnated). Are you really suggesting that if I think of or produce something first then that idea is my property in the strictest sense of the word? Do you not see where that leads?
My apologies, I replied to your other (Anonymous) post.
Copyright amounts to the right to levy and keep a tax on the reproduction of something. It even allows one to choose the tax rate.
The government cannot grant a right to something it does not own. The rights to the products of my mind and my hands are my own, unless I grant them to someone else. I do not need anyone to grant me that right. The government, however, can help me protect those rights, i.e. copyright law.
Let me give you an example to show you how very absurd your idea is. I'm a particle physicist by profession.
Interesting... so am I (high-energy nuclear physics, hence the tag heavyion).
At some point in the future my discoveries will probably be used in some new fangled gadget or other. Do I (or my sponsor, or whoever) have the right to claim anyone who uses my discoveries should pay me (or my descendants) for the privilege?
Absolutely! It happens every day. It's called a patent. Although, if you are funded by one of the typical agencies for particle physics (DoE, NSF, etc.), then it is indeed your funding agency or your institution that has rights to what you produce. That was in the agreement you signed when you took the grad appointment or postdoc, or faculty position, whatever applies to you. Given that DoE and NSF are taxpayer funded, it is the taxpayers that have bought the rights to your work.
I don't think so. You would effectively set up scientific dynasties. The offspring of Dirac or Boltzman would be would rich beyond measure (or more likely, technology would have stagnated). Are you really suggesting that if I think of or produce something first then that idea is my property in the strictest sense of the word? Do you not see where that leads?
Yes, that is what I am suggesting. If you are able to produce something then do so. It and the rights to it are yours, unless you give or sell them to someone else. As scientists, you and I are paid for our work by the agencies that fund us. They, in turn, were setup to pass our ideas and work to the world and to future generations. Others who develop ideas independent of government funding patent their ideas and make money from them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Explain to me how, exactly, technology stagnates when there are significant profits to be made by producing something new.
What I see in a future where everyone claims rights to the ideas and property of others is a world in which those who can think creatively and produce new and better things no longer see a reason to do so. Their ideas and products will be seized by the masses claiming "rights" with no return for their efforts. Why bother to be productive when there is nothing to be gained?
I think you are conflating two issues into one. The first is how do we get people to develop new technologies, produce new media and so on. The second is what rights do those people have to the ideas they produce.
It is interesting you list patents. Patents are time limited. They are another government mandated monopoly with the exact same intent. Do you think we should remove that time limit and make them into a permanent sort of property?
Imagine for a second if every physicist in the world had to pay Dirac's family 5c for a license to use a new book on quantum theory. Now 50c isn't that much, and I'm imagining Dirac's family being generous. But Dirac was hardly alone in his work. Now comes 50c for Hilbert (after all you are using a Hilbert space). Schoedinger will want a cut, as will Heisenberg, and Einstein. Bohr shouldn't miss out, neither should de Broglie, Bohm. Which interpretation are we using? Maybe Everett deserves a cut, or Feynman. Probably both since I would imagine we will use whichever is most conceptually or mathematically useful. Of course the cheap publishers will just opt not to talk about more than one interpretation, saves money after all. Lets say we are studing a modification of the Ising model and pick ourselves up a book on that, well there is 50c for Ising, and better pay up 50c for Onsager too (we may well be using his exact solution or some result derived there of, we aren't sure, better pay up to be safe). And so on, this list of people you would need to pay would be immense. We have a system that is expensive beyond measure and a legal minefield. Now this just in a book. What about if I want to publish my work. What if I want to make a product. Well that had best be on a per unit basis (or some more expensive bulk licence). Everything from TVs to through computers to digital wrist watches depends on countless discoveries.
The problem with making ideas into property is that you create massive scarcity. We go from a world where a TV costs a few hundred dollars to a world where a ordinary TV costs thousands of dollars because it depends on thousands and thousands of ideas, each of which has a price.
Now if you time limit control of ideas (like we do with patents), then eventually all the above problems go away (and you incentivise new discovery). But if you make ideas into property then the problem remains in perpetuity.
I have to admit that at this stage I have no idea what kind of system you support. I can only assume your last comment was directed at someone else because I'm not opposed to a reformed version of copyright, which incentivises the creation of new works. I am in favour of a reformed version of the patent system, which incentivises new inventions. I acknowledge that this deprives others of the right to the knowledge and culture there in (a right I believe we all have), and I'm prepared to infringe upon those right to encourage creation.
I don't wish to put words in your mouth but you seem to believe that ideas are property and that creators of ideas have a right to control who uses those ideas and how. Sure that will incentivise creation of new ideas, assuming that they don't depend on too many prior ideas. The problem being that almost every new idea depends on countless old ones. What is the point of coming up with a new work of art, or a new theorem, or a new design if all of your proceeds have to go to the descendants of people who came up with the ideas your new work is based on?
It is interesting you list patents. Patents are time limited. They are another government mandated monopoly with the exact same intent. Do you think we should remove that time limit and make them into a permanent sort of property?
That question is not for me to decide. The current law imposes a 20 year limit, so be it until the law is changed. My personal opinion is that the originator of an idea should retain their rights for the remainder of their life. Whether or not there should be rights of inheritance is a open question.
Imagine for a second if every physicist in the world had to pay Dirac's family 5c for a license to use a new book on quantum theory. Now 50c isn't that much, and I'm imagining Dirac's family being generous. But Dirac was hardly alone in his work. Now comes 50c for Hilbert (after all you are using a Hilbert space). Schoedinger will want a cut, as will Heisenberg, and Einstein. Bohr shouldn't miss out, neither should de Broglie, Bohm. Which interpretation are we using? Maybe Everett deserves a cut, or Feynman. Probably both since I would imagine we will use whichever is most conceptually or mathematically useful. Of course the cheap publishers will just opt not to talk about more than one interpretation, saves money after all. Lets say we are studing a modification of the Ising model and pick ourselves up a book on that, well there is 50c for Ising, and better pay up 50c for Onsager too (we may well be using his exact solution or some result derived there of, we aren't sure, better pay up to be safe). And so on, this list of people you would need to pay would be immense. We have a system that is expensive beyond measure and a legal minefield. Now this just in a book. What about if I want to publish my work. What if I want to make a product. Well that had best be on a per unit basis (or some more expensive bulk licence). Everything from TVs to through computers to digital wrist watches depends on countless discoveries.
Except that you and I both know science works by publication and reference. We are paid for our work ahead of time (via grants, salaries, etc.) with the mutual understanding that our ideas will be published for the use of others. We must always carefully reference prior work so that interested individuals can follow the references back at least to the originating paper. The reference chain is, in a limited sense, the currency with which we pay each other and those upon whose work ours is built. The idea, the thoughts, are the commodities in science.
The problem with making ideas into property is that you create massive scarcity. We go from a world where a TV costs a few hundred dollars to a world where a ordinary TV costs thousands of dollars because it depends on thousands and thousands of ideas, each of which has a price.
There is no problem, because you do not make ideas into property... they already are. You do not have access to my ideas unless you pay me for them, or I offer them to you, or you threaten me in some way that forces me to give them up. If I come-up with a new way of making my home more energy efficient and decide not to offer that idea to others (either by sale or gift), you are left with two possibilities if want that invention. Either create it yourself (without studying what I've done), or steal it from me in some way (which includes looking at what I did and duplicating it).
Now if you time limit control of ideas (like we do with patents), then eventually all the above problems go away (and you incentivise new discovery). But if you make ideas into property then the problem remains in perpetuity.
As I said above, there is no problem. We are fortunate that clever people are willing to create and sell useful and fun things. Suggesting that we all have rights to what others produce is wrong. We have rights only to the things we produce and the things for which we trade.
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I understand the point you are trying to make, but I must admit I feel your premise is deeply flawed. Since you seem keen to end the discussion I just wanted to clarify a couple of things.
I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to keep secrets. You choose to write a poem and keep it secret no force of law should be able to make you do otherwise.
Where we disagree is what happens once it is published. You believe that once an idea is published it remains the property of it's originator. I do not. I believe that once you sell and object an individual to someone they can do what they like with it. Be it replicate it or otherwise. You thoughts are your own, if you keep them to yourself.
You are correct in how you describe how science is currently done, but I was illustrating how it would be done if we changed to your system (who in their right mind is going to accept a measly government grant when they can make a mint from their ideas and theorems for the rest of their life?).