Russian President: Time To Reform Copyright

An anonymous reader writes "While most of the rest of the world keeps ratcheting up copyright laws by increasing enforcement and terms, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev appears to be going in the other direction. He's now proposing that Russia build Creative Commons-style open and free licenses directly into Russian copyright law. This comes just a few days after he also chided other G8 leaders for their antiquated views on copyright."

Comments

Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[cgeys]

I'm starting to like Russia. It's also understandable why US tried to fight for copyrights so much - that's basically the only thing they produce now. Rest of the world produces actual products. US can try to attack rest of the world all it can, it only makes other countries see it faster - when rest of world start supporting free licenses and free copyright, US collapses really, really bad.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[MoonBuggy]

I think we'd be far better off if that were the entirety of the reasoning behind US copyright policy; an economy based on cerebral creative work is not inherently worse than one based on welding and riveting. That's not the whole of the issue, though: an awful lot of recent copyright legislation - from domain seizures to DMCA to term extensions - does little to help the creative industry as a whole, but an awful lot to help the few companies (many of whom are just middlemen anyway) with deep pockets and a vested interest in preventing their business models from changing, often even to the detriment of both the consumers and the actual creators.

It's not an attempt to protect an IP-based economy, it's straightforward crony capitalism stemming from the lobbyists who don't want change. Their business model isn't threatened by infringement: 'piracy' is barely even slowed down by any of the countermeasures attempted, yet the industry continues to post record profits, implying that people do recognise that they need to pay, even for a crippled product. What they're actually threatened by is the emerging landscape in which they aren't the gatekeepers of all creative content.

Fifteen to twenty year terms would be a more than adequate incentive for the creation of new works, as well as providing a huge catalogue of new public domain works every year which would, in turn, stimulate further creative re-use. Essentially infinite terms coupled with DRM that is illegal to remove have very little impact on infringement, but they practically obliterate the possibility of legitimate resale or re-use that would actually help the industry as a whole.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[kestasjk]

Yeah; as soon as the rest of the world eases up with its stringent copyright laws the US is done for!!

Seriously though; in the real world software is an "actual product", one which is valued by consumers and expensive to make.

Copyright law isn't enforced all over the developed world because the US is attacking anyone; it is enforced because that's the only way to build an environment where you get so much great software (proprietary and open source, US and EU).

As you move from cheap labor/cheap minerals to a knowledge-based economy developing IP in exchange for physical goods works out great for everyone. No amount of feel-good anti-US sentiment is going to stand up to economic reality.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Anonymous Coward]

I am Russian, and let me assure you that these talks are just that - talks to BS electorate for president elections this fall.
D.A. Medvedev is like Russian's Obama - he talks a lot but nothing is ever gets done -)

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[kerohazel]

It's also understandable why US tried to fight for copyrights so much - that's basically the only thing they produce now.

Although I share your worry that the US will become an IP-based economy, there's still a long way to go before that happens.

Manufacturing and trade still dwarf other the information and entertainment sectors:
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/IBQTable?_bm=y&-filter=&-sortkey2=&-defOrder=N&-sortkey1=&-ds_name=EC0700A1&-sortkey0=-RCPTOT&-NAICS2007=00|21|22|23|31-33|42|44-45|48-49|51|52|53|54|55|56|61|62|71|72|81&-ib_type=NAICS2007&NAICS2007sector=*2&-geo_id=01000US&-dataitem=RCPTOT|GEO_ID$|NAICS2007|NAICS2007$|OPTAX$|FOOTID|ESTAB|PAYANN|EMP|NESTAB|NRCPTOT&-_lang=en
(Sorry link got FUBAR, paste it manually if you want to see it.)

The US also remains the world's largest manufacturer:
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/10/us-still-worlds-largest-manufacturer.html
(Sorry to have to link to a blog, but the reference in the post is a dead link.)

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[bbbaldie]

BTW, with Russia's Creative Commons system, mp3 websites are holding on to mucho moolah that's for the artists, but the RIAA is not allowing them to collect.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[williambbertram]

My sentiments exactly. Good job Russia!

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[mijelh]

Sure copyright have a weight on US economy, but its not at all the "only thing they produce". If anything, that would be patents, because the technology sector on the US is much bigger than Cinema/TV/Books etc. But TFA doesn't cite patents. The new laws would be aimed at allowing authors to let an unlimited number of people use their content on the basis of free licensing. Sure, a few studios would suffer, but not Apple, GM, Boeing and the like.
(IANAL and all that stuff applies to this post)

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Xelios]

What it boils down to is the simple idea that copyright as it stands is too big to fail. Much like certain banks were deemed too big to fail when their shoddy business practices landed them in a world of financial trouble. If you ask me "to big to fail" is just another way of saying "it's broken". We let it run out of control for too long and now we're in a real bind. I don't see any way out but to let it fail and suck up the consequences, otherwise it's just going to get more and more ridiculous until it eventually collapses anyway, possibly dragging other good things down with it (like the internet as we know it today).

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[arisvega]

I'm starting to like Russia.

What do you mean "you 're starting to like". Perhaps "you 're starting to actually take time to think for yourself whether you like Russia or not"?

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[sirlark]

Fifteen to twenty year terms would be a more than adequate incentive for the creation of new works, as well as providing a huge catalogue of new public domain works every year which would, in turn, stimulate further creative re-use. Essentially infinite terms coupled with DRM that is illegal to remove have very little impact on infringement, but they practically obliterate the possibility of legitimate resale or re-use that would actually help the industry as a whole.

I think even 15 to 20 years is too long. To me it makes more sense to have a very short initial term, say 5 years (which can change depending on industry circumstances, e.g. motion pictures might get longer terms than music because of heavier initial investments). Then rights holders may extend the term by another year at a small cost (say $100). To extend a second year, the cost doubles. Then again, and again. As long as the ownership of the rights remains profitable, it's worth extending, but the exponential increase in price means that the ownership of those rights will become untenable pretty quickly ($102400 within 15 years of original date). You can even put a cap on the maximum term duration, again, possibly different for different industries.

The idea being, that if your idea hasn't paid off by the end of the initial term, it was probably crap anyway. At least everyone else thought it was! Your work can be considered the equivalent a defective material product; something for which nobody should be forced to pay, but can freely use the parts of to repair something that does, i.e. remixing. If your idea has paid off, you can hang on to it for as long as it stays profitable, but there's a check/balance that ensures others will eventually get access to your work. Also, as the costs of keeping the rights increases, the government, and indirectly the taxpayer, benefit from the profits of the work too

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[optevo]

Staring to like Russia? You do realise that it's one of the most undemocratic and corrupt countries on earth and that most promises of significant reform that Medvedev/Putin have made over the years are meaningless. If you don't believe me go and live there for a while..

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[JasterBobaMereel]

Parts of the Creative industry do not have copyright or Patents at all ... The fashion industry , they are almost totally US/Europe based outsource most of their production the the far east, and seem to be doing very well ...

It is a myth that the creative industries would not survive without Copyright and Patents, they do already, the only downside for the fashion industry it they have to keep innovating, constantly, "That's so last year.." was invented by the fashion industry for a reason ..

Note fashion houses/designers copy each other, the public, students etc.. and the high street stores copy the fashion designs with cheaper materials, and pay the fashion house little or nothing, but the designers still make plenty of money ...

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[phoomp]

Agree completely. In fact, I'll take it a step further. The current copyright system creates a disincentive in the creative industries; by artificially inflating the value of old ideas it discourages the creation of new ideas (yes, there are still some new and innovative ideas).

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[delinear]

At least he's still making the effort to pretend to care. Our politicians have pretty much given up even making promises. Now the approach is "Face it, it's going to be crap if you elect us but it will be more crap if you elect the other party".

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[geminidomino]

And now we know, without a doubt, that the US won the cold war. They've even adopted our politics!

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Jedi Alec]

Didn't the US numbers get skewed massively by counting eg burger flippers at McD as manufacturing workers as well?

Step 1. Measure
Step 2. Redefine parameters for measurement
Step 3. Measure again
Step 4. Shout off the rooftops how much better things are now.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Fnkmaster]

but the designers still make plenty of money ...

This is generally nonsense. Most high end fashion companies make very little money. Their labor costs are very, very high, and their sales volumes are very, very small because their price points are so high. In fact, these businesses would generally not even be viable if there weren't lots of well-to-do young women in New York and Paris willingly to work for free or nearly-free to "break in" to this industry. Same thing with the magazine world. Subsidized by nearly free labor, not much money to really go around, headquartered in very high rent, high cost-of-living areas, high production costs, etc.

The head designers at more mainstream fashion houses (the ones that guys posting on Slashdot would have heard of) may make many millions of dollars a year, but that's selling stuff that's carried in Bloomingdale's and Neiman Marcus, not the haute couture runway innovators.

And still I wouldn't really want to be a shareholder in any of these companies, compared to the many other investment opportunities out there.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Luckyo]

Worth noting that "democratic" means that it's lead by leaders supported by majority - the more democratic the country, the larger genuine popular support for its leaders the country has. Russia in several aspects including support for president is more democratic then USA - it has more parties and choices, yet their current president is supported by a significantly larger amount of population then any of the US presidents elected in this millenium.

At the same time however it's far more corrupt, which is the problem you, and several others in the thread are referencing. Stop imagining that democracy is some sort of pure goodness that fixes everything. It's not, it's just a political system in which (often a small) majority tramples minorities. What makes USA even less democratic is two party system (less to choose from).

If you want to see a pure form of representative democracy and what it does, I invite you to look at Nigeria. Christian slight majority, and muslim slight minority, vote is essentially a headcount, and when head count shows that former is bigger then latter, the latter starts to even the score by butchering the former.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[mblase]

I'm starting to like Russia. It's also understandable why US tried to fight for copyrights so much - that's basically the only thing they produce now. Rest of the world produces actual products.

Copyright law goes hand-in-hand with patent law. Patents govern who can make those actual products. China's flagrant disrespect for patent rights is almost as bad as their disrespect for copyright, and it means that if other countries manufacture in China, they have to assume their designs will be stolen and pirated sooner or later.

Like it or not, there should be SOME incentive for innovators and creators to continue to innovate and create, without having to rush to be first to market in order to make any money on it.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm starting to like Russia

In Soviet Amerika, Russia likes you

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[kerohazel]

Could be. But even so, burger flippers are still producing something.
I guess the question is if IP-based "business" like, say, patent trolling, is somehow counted under tech manufacturing - then we have a problem.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[zach_the_lizard]

The US still has a large manufacturing base. Is it as strong as it used to be? No. But it's very very close to China in size (depending on whose numbers you use, the US base is either a tiny bit smaller or bigger.) China and the US each account for almost 20% of global manufacturing output. Of course, China will pass the US in manufacturing (if they haven't already), but it's not like we produce nothing.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[mrchaotica]

What it boils down to is the simple idea that copyright as it stands is too big to fail.

No it's not. The entertainment industry is tiny compared to manufacturing, banking, etc.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[zach_the_lizard]

IP can be copied very easily. If, say, China ignores IP, you lose a good chunk of revenue. Compare Windows revenue in China vs. the US: The two PC markets are roughly the same size, but MS makes far more money in one market. If your entire country is based on IP, all a rival has to do is get rid of IP protection and they can use any innovation you've come up with while we're busy fighting patent lawsuits over one-click.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[blahplusplus]

Extension is just a bad idea because the RULES always get over-turned by lobbyists, I can't believe how mind numbingly stupid some people are. If you think those 'rules' will hold you're clueless, any rule that goes against corporate power will just mean corporations poor money into transforming it or eliminating it.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[JBMcB]

I think 15-20 years is entirely reasonable. Think of all the movies that tank at the box office, but become "cult classics" years later. I think the people who put the work and sweat into making them should be able to profit off of that success. Ditto all the songwriters whose songs become popular after some other band has reworked it, such as the endless covers of Not Fade Away in the 60's.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[bws111]

Why are you just starting to like Russia? They have hundreds of years of history of ensuring that individuals can never advance themselves, earn money, or own anything substantial.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[somersault]

Face it, it's going to be crap if you elect us but it will be more crap if you elect the other party".

You mean politicians actually tell the truth over there? I suddenly have a bit more respect for the US..

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[ThosLives]

an economy based on cerebral creative work is not inherently worse than one based on welding and riveting

I'd argue the opposite actually: an economy based on actually producing wealth will always have an advantage over an economy that is purely based on services.

Now, I would argue that an economy that uses "cerebral creative work" to augment its wealth creation activities will be better than both. But if all you do is cerebral activity, you are enslaved to people who actually provide the food, machines, etc. Because as soon as those providers no longer have an interest in getting the services from you (for "cerebral creative work" is just a service) then you're SOL to get the material you need from them unless you can figure out the type of services for which the providers are willing to trade.

Yes, it may not be as economically efficient to be self-sufficient, but it is much more robust to be so. Take a look at the effects of the earthquakes and tsunamis: industries grind to a halt because they are incapable of producing everything they need locally.

The thing is, people opt for the short-term profit from efficiencies of specialization, even though specialization makes you very vulnerable to changing environmental conditions. I think specialization has a hidden cost for which an account is not taken.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[kestasjk]

But then the rival has no IP laws, no incentive for people to develop software locally, and no-one develops software locally. That means no export of IP, that means you're getting all your IP elsewhere, that means you're relying on cheap labor / minerals / agriculture.

You could try only enforcing IP laws locally, but then you have trade wars and no export market for your IP. You could try sticking with cheap labor / minerals / agriculture, but then they run out and your economy goes nowhere.


Bear in mind also that patent lawsuits are a tiny fraction of the industry. A large chunk of it is tied up in writing software that helps business function efficiently; you really don't gain much by saying "we're not paying for Microsoft Office! screw having IP laws and writing our own software" when Microsoft Office is small potatoes compared to what having a bunch of smart Chinese software developers can do for Chinese businesses.

I'm not making a case for this for you, that would be pointless, I'm just pointing out why inevitably copyright laws will naturally be taken more seriously in developing countries for their own self-interest, and the GP was jerking off with the tired old anti-US / anti-IP line.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Yaa 101]

This is starting to change, the designer Marlies Dekkers has sued Sapph for patent infringement on a design for bra's in my country and won. This is setting a precedent for others to patent and sue.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[mcgrew]

It doesn't do "little to help the creative industry as a whole" but in fact harms creativity (unless you have shiploads of money, which artists seldom do). Like science and technology, art is built on what has come before. So you have outrages like ZZ Top being sued for "Ahow how how" which was in a Howlin' Wolf song decades before La Grange was recorded, Eddie Money was sued for the phrase "Whatever will be will be, the future is ours, you see" by the guy who wrote "Que Sara Sara", George Harrison being sued because "My Sweet Lord" has the same chords and is vaguely similar in tune to "She's So Fine".

It's insane. Today's copyright law is a huge drain on creativity. Imagine how technological progress would suffer if patents lasted as long as copyrights?

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a foolish idea. Five years is too long? Perhaps in certain areas of technology. But there are plenty of advanced systems which are patented and then take five years to show up in products. They wouldn't even make back the patent application fees. At that point there is no reason to patent your product. Perhaps 20 years is too long, but five years is too short. The extension is an interesting idea, but where the hell is a small time patenter going to get their money in five years? Certainly isn't going to be from their product. Doesn't mean the product isn't worth it, but it doesn't have time to make any money. Ten years allows it to get to market, make some money, and still be useful once the patent is up. If it was a fad item, ten years is also long enough to allow market penetration and people to be over the whole damned thing.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Loki_666]

I do. Over the last 5 years there has been tremendous changes. There have been large clamp downs on corruption, investments are sometimes actually making their way to what they are intended for (instead of just going to give wife number 5 a new villa in Spain etc).

Its far from perfect, and still lots of problems, but its getting better.... which is more than i can say to the US, which just seems to be getting worse and worse.

Doesn't matter anyway. QE2, QE3.... won't be long before the whole Ponzi scheme that is the US economy (and largely worldwide) comes falling down.... then IP will take a large back seat to massive unemployment and starvation and other problems. Well, maybe i'm being pessimistic, but once you really study the whole financial system as things stand, you come to realize that its largely a house of cards that is mainly being held up by an illusion.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[cavreader]

I do believe the US produces a least a couple of items since it is still the #1 manufacture in the world. http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-top-manufacturing-countries.htm A factories in Asia are little more than sweat shops that treat their employees like indentured servants. The US and others outsourced to these countires because of the lower labor costs but that one advantage is starting to disappear. China is fighting high and steadily growing inflation and manipulating their currency to try and perserve the low labor cost model is not working. China actually posted a trade defecit in the first Qtr of 2011 and they are now they have to compete with other countries in Asia who have finally gotten their act together and can also provide cheap labor. And I woudn't get to excited about the US collpasing because if it does it will take a large part of the world with it.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[poity]

That's not a very fair comparison. Fashion has a luxury component in it that demands authenticity, so while it may be that LV bags are copied all the time, one cannot expect the impact of counterfeit in that area to be as high as that of digital content, which is the crux of the issue when we talk of IP in the USA.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[syousef]

What you need to do is divorce the right to control a work from the right to profit from it.

It should be permitted for anyone to copy or make any derivative work from day one. It should not be possible for the rights holder to disallow further creative work or making physical copies. HOWEVER the creators of the copies or derivative work must in turn compensate the creator at a similar price to the one that the creator set. (There need to be rules and standards).

For example Disney creates a new Mickey movie in 2011. It should be possible for some other company to make a new TV show based on it BUT they would need to provide some large percentage of gross to Disney. If they make it right away to capitalise on Disney's marketing investment, the percentage they should pay should be higher than if they wait 5 years to do it. Also it should be clear that their product is based on the Disney one but does not come from Disney. If Disney creates it's own series, it'll just have to compete along with the rest but it does get to carry the Disney name. But Disney can only sue the 3rd party company for not providing payment to Disney, rather than actually controlling the work and all derivatives for centuries. The result: Disney's has greater incentive to make any derivative works better and make them sooner. Innovation by little companies is not stifled. True competition. True capitalism.

Of course the current media mega-corps would never stand for it. They'd actually have to compete...

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[utahjazz]

It's also understandable why US tried to fight for copyrights so much - that's basically the only thing they produce now. Rest of the world produces actual products.

That's fiction. US manufacturing output is still far ahead of every other country. [1] [2]

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because Obama never gets anything done...

Sure, 42 promises broken is bad. It's too much - far too much. But on the other hand, 135 promises kept, 219 promises in the works and 40 compromises are quite good.

All in all, 394 vs. 42 is a good score.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Jeek Elemental]

I love Russia, and I think this gesture is more important than the language suggests.
Russia is the first country to give the finger to US acta shakedown, which makes it easier for others to follow.
Its not "most of the rest of the world" that wants harsher ip crap, its the US and some spineless countries that do as they're told.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Thuktun]

It's also understandable why US tried to fight for copyrights so much - that's basically the only thing they produce now.

The scenario Charles Stross posits for the USA and copyright in Accelerando is becoming more and more believable. (government-sanctioned and supported copyright mafia)

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Paul Fernhout]

Or you could tax copyrights based on a small percentage of a self-assessed value, where anyone could pay the self-assessed amount to put the work into the public domain. I suggested that almost a decade ago, based on someone's slashdot sig that said something like "if it is intellectual property, why isn't it taxed?"

More on that suggestion:
    http://journalism.berkeley.edu/projects/biplog/archive/000431.html

But in general, if about 20 years was long enough for copyright in the age of the Pony Express, why should copyrights be longer in an age of optical fiber?
   

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[LWATCDR]

I find peoples comments on copyrights and IP really annoying. Yes we live in the world where a lot of things are very expensive to produce but cheap to duplicate. That is why we have copyright law. To protect the investment in production of this material. I am not going even pretend that there isn't problems with copyright law. We without a doubt need to reform it and make rules about things like fair use, reduce the terms back down to be for the Disney law took place and so on. copyright laws also need to have consumers rights put into them. The Music and Movie industries a whole are out of control.
I agree with all of that but people have got to stop confusing production costs with duplication costs. Even things like CPUs are cheap to duplicate compared with the cost of producing them. That is no different from software, movies, music, and now books. Copyright and patent law protects investment in RnD. Yes software should be protected by copyright not patents without a doubt but the laws need to be reformed not destroyed or ignored.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[c0d3g33k]

I like your idea of rights ownership being something you have to pay for to maintain. That would actually provide more of an incentive, it seems, to *actively* work at keeping your IP valuable, rather than just sitting back doing nothing while the terms get extended for work produced a life-time ago.

I would also add some form of property tax. I have to pay taxes on things I own that are considered valuable (my land, house, automobiles, boats etc.). If rights owners (and their apologists) want to insist that creative works and exclusive rights to them are valuable 'intellectual' property that warrants police-state-like measures to enforce (often at taxpayer expense), then this property should be taxed just like other highly valuable items. (I would love to watch the rights owners tie themselves up in knots as they simultaneously try to inflate the value of their IP to exaggerate the impact of unauthorized copying and deflate it to minimize the tax liability.) Shifting to a CC-license of some sort would reduce or eliminate the taxation, much as non-profits are tax-exempt.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[LWATCDR]

Copyright and Patients are all about the differences in the cost of production and duplication. Many products are very expensive to produce. Software, electronics, music, books, movies, and TV Shows are all examples but are easy to duplicate. Copyrights and patent law allow the cost of production to be spread all the users of the item produced. It may cost millions of dollars to make a wireless networking chip. The company then makes the money back by charging everyone that buys it just a few dollars.
The same is true of say video editing software or a movie.
Yes the law is in many ways broken as far as protecting the rights of the consumer and the destruction of Public domain needs to be reversed but copyright law does actually protect those that risk the most and work the hardest.
What most people on slashdot really want is free stuff. They see that they can take it and get away with not paying and want to justify it. They then wrap it in a fiction that they are all about freedom.
There a few that don't fit that category but for the most part the Slashdot discusion of copyright vs piracy has all the moral weight of millionaire baseball players striking for better pay from billionaire team owners.

Hey that gives me an idea on how to solve professional sports strikes. If any professional sport strikes prevents a single game from being played all the owners forfeit 25% all their their TV, merchandising, and sponsorship revenue for the season and it goes to the teams home town school district. The Players loose 25% of all their pay for the season and it goes to the teams home town food kitchens and pantries. If it goes to a second game it is another 25% and so on.
I bet you will never have another strike again.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Anonymous Coward]

we still make lots of missiles and bombs!

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[hotseat]

There's actually quite an extensive economic literature on what the optimal economic term of copyright might be. See for example Pollock, R., 2009. Forever Minus a Day? Calculating Optimal Copyright Term. Review of Economic Research on Copyright Issues, 6(1), pp.35-60.

The short answer is that the rational term is much lower than the present one - of the order of twenty years or less. The majority of works make no money that long after release, so the average economic value of the longer term is tiny, especially when the net present value of the income is calculated at a reasonable discount rate.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[nomadic]

And now we know, without a doubt, that the US won the cold war. They've even adopted our politics!

Because before the end of the Cold War Russia wasn't undemocratic and corrupt? You have an adorable naivete about you.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[bjdevil66]

Interesting concept, but there are two possible issues: 1) Cost - Who pays for the bureaucracy that kind of system would create? It wouldn't be THAT expensive, but it would cost something. 2) Inflation - Do you adjust for inflation in those annual payments? What if the dollar hyper-inflates itself out of existence?

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Whalou]

Copyright != Patent

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[mdmkolbe]

But (playing devils advocate) fashion has two major differences from music, books, video, software, etc. First, fashion is not digitally duplicable. The design might be digitally duplicable but it's not like you can torrent a dress. Thus "casual" copying is rare. Second, buying a dress doesn't give one access to the design merely the product of the design. A bit of effort is required to reverse engineer the design from the dress.

(Don't get me wrong. I would love to see good examples of a creative industry without copyright, but without answering these sort of objections, I don't think fashion is an example I could use to convince anyone.)

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Attila Dimedici]

You know there is one problem. The poster you replied to said, "...the designers still make plenty of money," and you replied, "This is generally nonsense. Most high end fashion companies make very little money." Well, you see "designers" aren't companies, they are people. You even go on to support his statement when you say, "Their labor costs are very, very high,..." Who do you think those high labor costs go to? That's right, to the designers.
Of course, that does mean that the OP's point doesn't really work either. However, whether or not the fashion industry represents a workable model for the rest of the "creative" industries to thrive without copyright is a very complex issue that is not amenable to careful analysis in a forum such as this.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Anonymous Coward]

While I take your point, I'd rather see a linear model - 10 years or so with each additional year costing $100,000*(# years). The advantage of that is that it lets Disney keep copyright on the mouse while defanging them as a prime mover in lobbying for copyright extensions.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Anonymous Coward]

So... it's like being stabbed? Some knives are too large to pull out, because if you do you'll certainly die before anyone can get you to A&E.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[coofercat]

...or how about you get 5 years by default. When you can show the Patent office an actual, working, implementation you get an extra 15 years. Of course, that doesn't mandate you actually go ahead and sell/use your invention, but it does mean you at least had to spend the time trying to make it. For everyone who's genuinely trying to invent something and make it, well, they've got 5 years to perfect it, and then another 15 to make money off it - all stuff they were going to do anyway. For all the leeches, well, they've got the cost of that initial build/manufacture to deal with. The more significant the "invention" the greater that cost - if they choose not to bother, then they get 5 years and then it expires.

If nothing else, it would curb a lot of the "teleport by imginatron" type of patents which are basically fantasy and a waste of everyone's time. It still allows for business process patents, although they'd be quite hard to demonstrate if they're genuinely just a process (something like 1-click is pretty easy to demo though). So crappy software and business process patents are still possible, if that's your bag.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[geminidomino]

In a word, "Whoosh."

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[sirlark]

By you're reasoning any modification of copyright rules/laws is worthless, because it simply won't be adhered to... Is doesn't affect the idea of extensions specifically. I'm not sure I get your point?

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[ArsonSmith]

I know it always seems like a good jab, but the US isn't "not producing anything anymore."

http://investing.curiouscatblog.net/2008/09/23/top-manufacturing-countries-in-2007/

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[sirlark]

Fair enough, I concede that the value of copyrightable work is not always immediately apparent, and hence not always immediately profitable. However, in counter argument to to your two examples

1. Movies: would get a longer initial period based on outlay, i.e. longer period to recoup investment. There's a balance that needs to be struck here of course, and the figure of 5 years was, I'll admit, pulled out of my ass as something I thought would be reasonable. But as the slippery slope argument goes, if we set an initial period of X years, and tanked box office film number 1 becomes a cult classic in X-2 years, recouping enough to at least tempt the owners to extend a few years, but film number 2 doesn't make the cut off, what makes the first film any more deserving of the profits, because ultimately X is essentially arbitrary.
2. Songs and covers: I think it's fair to say the song would not be popular enough to make a profit without the cover being released to make it so. So really the original artist owes something to the cover artist in this respect. If the song is still under copyright, the cover artist has to negotiate rights to make the cover anyway, so the original artist doesn't lose out. If the song is already out of copyright, then my argument about slippery slopes applies again: at what point is it fair for someone to stop profiting from their work.

All that said, 15 to 20 years really strikes me as too long in the internet era. Distribution is cheap, success is viral. If you haven't made any money within 5 years, chances are you're not going to.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[sirlark]

Actually this brings me to one of my other pet bitches... The way I see it, ip producers (call them artists, writers, whatever) are much the same as freelancer consultants in any other industry. They don't have a reliable stream of income, so they get to charge significantly for their work when they do it to tide them over in the 'bad times'. This is fair, I'm a freelance programmer supporting myself through a PhD, I know how it goes. But what is it that justifies the *expectation* of huge incomes in the case of musicians and actors. Why should someone be able to write a song and live off royalties for the rest of their life, when any other freelance worker gets paid once. Yes, I know, "creating art is hard", but it's a also a job, like any other. I suppose the difference is that my work is commissioned, and I have no expectation any equity in my creations. But what's so different about this than girl band X teamed up with song writer Y by production house Crap Inc. We both have the opportunity to 'go it alone' and produce creative works entirely our own, but why should artists by default get equity is commissioned works.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Adayse]

I agree that 15 to 20 years is too long but ownership of ideas naturally decreases by sharing and fair IP law should formalize that. Your scheme doesn't change the essential unfairness of the current system. How it should work is very simple - if you have an original idea or creation and don't share it with anybody then you get to own it forever, if you share with a few people then you mostly own it but if millions of people know it then they own it too because their combined effort in knowing it is much greater than your investment in creating it and you only have the right to be known as the person who thought of it first.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[nomadic]

Did you make an error in writing your post? I don't know what you thought you were saying, but what you DID say was that Russia being corrupt was "adopt[ing]" the US' politics.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[sirlark]

The question really is, how much more would the new bureaucracy cost compared to the old one. One has to remember there is bureaucracy already in place. As far as inflation goes; hadn't though of it tbh, but yes I suppose the amount for the initial extension could be revised regularly, and the schedule of later extension amounts adjusted according to the doubling series. Come renewal time, owners pay for the next extension according to the newly revised schedules costs. That should take care of basic inflation... hyper inflation a la Zimbabwe breaks so many other things that trying to deal specifically with it for copyright would fail because the rest of the economy would already be out of whack...

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[mdmkolbe]

Hmm, after more thought, fashion might be a good example for explaining why software patents are a bad idea.

With patents, Amazon has no incentive to make a better one-click because even a basic one-click already distinguishes Amazon from it's competitors (which aren't allowed to have one-click). Without patents, six-months after Amazon introduces one-click everyone else would have it and Amazon would be forced to introduce a better one-click to continue to distinguish themselves. For those six-months Amazon would have a competitive advantage, but in order to maintain that advantage, they would have to keep keep innovating.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Politburo]

"Also it should be clear that their product is based on the Disney one but does not come from Disney" We can't even get people to do not click on links for v14gr4.. you think they'll discern that derivative works aren't made by the original IP holder after XYZ corp makes a Mickey porn? If I'm Disney, I wouldn't bet on it...

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Max_W]

I do not want the USA collapse. I want that the Russian president continues to participate in G8 discussions on this subject and a good quality solution is found, which suits all, including the USA and Russia.

The USA assists many countries, including my one. The USA shall not collapse. It should hang on.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Politburo]

You forgot the most egregious example, John Fogerty. As some might know, he was the lead singer of a little band called Creedence Clearwater Revival. The band broke up and John went solo. The music label for CCR (which owned the rights) ended up suing him as a solo artist, claiming that he copied his own song.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[c6gunner]

Parts of the Creative industry do not have copyright or Patents at all ... The fashion industry , they are almost totally US/Europe based outsource most of their production the the far east, and seem to be doing very well ...

The others have already provided a decent response, so I'll take a different tack: I don't really care if the "creative industries" live or die - I'll get along just fine without some goofy hat from Milan, or the newest Bieber album. I'm much more concerned with pharmacutical companies, aerospace manufacturers, electronics designers, etc. What pharma company will want to spend tens of billions of dollars doing research, testing, and getting approval, only to have the patent yanked and given away for free to their competition?

I approve of open licenses ... but they have to be voluntary. Provide encouragement for companies to use them. Like, for instance, offer a 10% tax rebate to any company which releases X number of their patents per year. Or figure out some other way to make them competitive. There are plenty of ways to encourage people to release products under open licenses, but just changing the laws and saying "sink or swim" is the wrong move.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Politburo]

No, that wasn't even proposed, let alone implemented. It was a comment in a report to Congress that got blown way out of proportion. Very similar to the "miles driven tax" that people claimed Obama was proposing. It's just some bureaucrat filling out the pages of a report, not a serious proposal.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[pnewhook]

I like your idea of rights ownership being something you have to pay for to maintain

Pay to WHO exactly? The government? Which government? How would you enforce this if another country took the idea?

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[c0d3g33k]

What you need to do is divorce the right to control a work from the right to profit from it.

Beware the law of unintended consequences. This is exactly the kind of thing that enables things like patent trolling. Buy the rights to control something, wait for someone else to do the hard work and extract payment. We want less of that kind of thing, not more. Rather figure out a way to ensure that the right to control a work comes with the obligation to exercise good stewardship and a mandate to develop the work, not just the right to profit.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Agent0013]

Fifteen to twenty year terms would be a more than adequate incentive for the creation of new works, as well as providing a huge catalogue of new public domain works every year which would, in turn, stimulate further creative re-use.

The reason that the industry does not want shorter lengths of copyright is that their back catalog would become competition for their new releases. There is plenty of old music that the rights holders don't even bother selling. I was listening to an independant movie maker that was trying to get the rights to use an old song and the amount of difficulty she had was rediculous. It seemed as if the rights holders were not interested in making money.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Hognoxious]

But then the rival has no IP laws, no incentive for people to develop software locally, and no-one develops software locally.

If they can just leech off others then they don't need to.

The other possibility is of course selective enforcement. Which we know could never happen in Russia or China or India ...

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[c0d3g33k]

What most people on slashdot really want is free stuff. They see that they can take it and get away with not paying and want to justify it. They then wrap it in a fiction that they are all about freedom.

Whoa there, good sir. You paint with an awfully broad brush. I suspect what most people really want is "fairly priced" stuff, not "free" stuff. That describes me pretty well.

Also, the conundrum faced by industries based on (as you say) high cost of production and nearly zero cost of duplication is that customers not purchasing the product due to lack of interest are indistinguishable from those not purchasing due to obtaining a duplicate copy. The challenge is how to convince potential customers to pay, regardless of whether they have access to a copy. Make the product better by offering something of value that can't easily be duplicated, convince people who haven't yet paid for something they have benefited from the value of doing so, make it dead easy to make a purchase and above all, make the asking price fair. Stricter laws and more draconian DRM doesn't really work as a way to cultivate a customer's willingness to purchase a product (it seems to be a good way to cause people to ignore it in favor of something else.)

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[shutdown -p now]

their current president is supported by a significantly larger amount of population then any of the US presidents elected in this millenium.

Only if you look at the results of the elections, which are known to be falsified (numerous cases were documented).

It's not to say that the man doesn't enjoy considerable popular support, but it's a far cry from 60-70% that official propaganda likes to tout.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Anonymous Coward]

If you ask me "to[sic] big to fail" is just another way of saying "it's broken".

Really. While there are parts of, say, the interstate highway system that could be improved, it'd be a pisser if it disappeared overnight.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[c0d3g33k]

I like your idea of rights ownership being something you have to pay for to maintain

Pay to WHO exactly? The government? Which government? How would you enforce this if another country took the idea?

That's easy enough. Yes - the government. Which? The one that has jurisdiction over the region/population for which you desire exclusive rights. Small businesses register themselves to the local jurisdiction, larger corporations to the national government, multinationals - whatever they do. Enforcement as it occurs now - by agreements between nations. The infrastructure is already there - what changes is the degree to which the benefit of the work is one-sided. If you want national or world-wide protection for your IP, you can damn well register yourself and pay for the resources needed to ensure your exclusive rights are protected. If your work isn't valuable enough to actively develop and protect, then you just fall back on the defaults or release to the public domain.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Pentium100]

Yea, something like that was in the USSR. The artist got paid for performing, whether that was for a record or in a concert. Then, in case of the recording, the record would be made and sold, but people could copy the music to tape, since the record belonged to the state and by extension to the people. The artist got paid only once for every performance, that is if they got permission to perform at all (you had to be good and your music had to be appropriate for the ideology). That was in line with everyone else, since, for example, a factory worker got paid for the amount of items he/she made, that is for the actual work done.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[green1]

If the original term was 7 years, in a world where publishing and distributing took months to years, why, in a world where publishing and distributing takes minutes, would a LONGER term make more sense? It would seem to me that if 7 years was a good length of time when copyright was first invented, 1 to 2 years should be plenty in the modern world.

Remember, the point of copyright is NOT to protect the creator, nor is it to make them rich. The point is to convince them to create for the benefit of mankind.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[green1]

What the rights holders want is irrelevant. What IS relevant is what is best for society as a whole. Intellectual property laws were introduced to encourage creation, not protect rights holders, that's just an unintended side effect.

If shortening the terms of protection cause more creative works to be available, regardless of why or how, it is the right thing to do.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Anonymous Coward]

when rest of world start supporting free licenses and free copyright, US collapses really, really bad.

It's okay, we'll fix it with nukes.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[LWATCDR]

I do agree that they do need to drop their prices but why should they have to add anything that isn't easily copied. They created the content which is expensive and hard to replicate. It is easy to copy but why don't you write and produce a movie yourself sometime. Or even write a book.
To create is hard work to copy is easy. It has been that way for a long time for many things. Now DRM is just a terrible idea. It doesn't work and only punishes those that are honest paying customers. Draconian laws are also less than useful. That combined with no real rule on what is fair use and what is not makes everything a mess. The media industry needs to adjust to the new world. A lot of media companies only existed as a means of distribution. That market is now on the way out because the ease and cost of distribution is now dropping like a rock. Other companies made money on providing a local shopping experience. Those companies now have to deal with websites and digital distribution. Why buy a CD at Bestbuy when I can buy the song I want from home? Why should I drive to Blockbuster when I can stream it on NetFlix?
But the elimination of IP rights is not the solution. People that invest the time and effort in content creation need and frankly diserve protection from people just coping their work. Their work is not easy to replicate it is easy to copy. The difference is this if a scientist publishes a paper and another follows his steps and conducts the same experiment that is replication. If he copies the other guys paper and publishes it as his own that is copying.
     

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[blahplusplus]

"By you're reasoning any modification of copyright rules/laws is worthless, because it simply won't be adhered to... Is doesn't affect the idea of extensions specifically. I'm not sure I get your point?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act

You can't change the rules unless you change the system from having corporations having a seat at the table. Laws should not be passed by lobbyists, now in other countries changing the law is feasible but at least if we are talking about the US it is unlikely given that the US is THE haven for corporate rule. Lets not also mention the ignorance of the electorate.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[fyngyrz]

Interesting. The question that comes to my mind is, how much was the artist paid? An hour's living wage for an hour's performance? A week's? A month's? A year's wages? Speaking as a musician, I think I'd feel ok about earning a year's wage for a rare performance/concert; seems fair. Otherwise... things get imbalanced. You don't want to have to produce 8 new songs per day, for instance, in order to end up with a weeks wages at the end of your week.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also understandable why US tried to fight for copyrights so much - that's basically the only thing they produce now.

Yeah, copyrights is basically the only thing USA produce. Unfortunately USA usually produce copyrights on works that is created elsewhere. Most Hollywood movies is based on foreign movies or books, Disney copy 99.9% of their content from prior works, created outside USA. The US music industry haven't been original since the 1950's and even then most of the new beats and styles was copied from South America or France, rather poor copies even, now the US music industry seem to steel pretty much every idea from Northern Europe, or rather Northern Europe in the 1980's and 1990's. Technical inventions is either stolen or bought from sources outside USA, or perhaps reinvented, 30-50 years late (20 years ago, you couldn't, at least not outside USA, claim patents or claim copyright on all that shit USA companies claim copyrights and patents for today), especially old inventions from the Eastern block is popular to steal, since the Eastern block didn't have any patent system at all and lacks thorough documentation of what inventions was made there. Pretty much every thought and design is stolen (it is stealing, not borrowing (borrowing is good), when you don't acknowledge the original creators and claim originality) from other cultures. Then US companies claim copyright and fuck up for everybody else that use, or even created, what they stolen.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Luckyo]

It is in fact widely regarded that at least 60-70% is real support for Putin/Medvedev combo among russian voters. I'm not sure where you get the "documented" part of falsification, other then normal "my boss forced me to vote" claims similar to what you get in rural areas everywhere and general anti-russian propaganda you see in the press. If you have ever actually been in Russia in last eight years or so, you'd know that popular support for those two is very much real.

In fact I haven't seen a single credible piece of evidence to contrary, and as far as I know most credible international pollster organisations such as Gallup largely agree on 60-70% number for support with around 20% for various opposition candidates total and around 10-20% undecided.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Pentium100]

I do not remember the amount, but for a performance for recording, it was not much (less than someone would earn in a month working in a factory 8 hours a day), but enough, I guess. They also got paid for performing on TV, be it a music show or a video clip.

Also, the more popular bands had a lot of concerts (sometimes 2-3 concerts per day and they all could be in different places), for those they earned more money.

This was for the performers, I do not know how much the songwriters/composers got paid, though they probably got paid for each song/text. The more popular composers and song writers had many songs created.

I found a wikipedia article on copyright in the USSR, it is quite interesting. For example, if the work was available in a form suitable for TV or radio, it could be used for free (that's why the artists only got paid for the recording), any personal use was OK.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[shutdown -p now]

It is in fact widely regarded that at least 60-70% is real support for Putin/Medvedev combo among russian voters.

71% is what Medvedev got in presidential elections in 2008.

It doesn't really make sense to talk about "support for Putin/Medvedev combo", because they don't behave as a team. Medvedev plays a softy liberal, Putin is "security and traditional values" macho guy. In the last year they have played out open confrontation over various issues (such as e.g. Libya). Generally people support either Putin or Medvedev, but not both at the same time.

Right now, the official polls show less than 60% for Putin, and less than 50% for Medvedev. And do bear in mind that there are no organizations performing such polls in Russia today that are completely independent from the government, so their ratings have to be taken with a grain of salt.

I'm not sure where you get the "documented" part of falsification, other then normal "my boss forced me to vote" claims similar to what you get in rural areas everywhere and general anti-russian propaganda you see in the press.

There is plenty of documentation from voting stations of cases such as suddenly disappearing bulletins with votes for opposition candidates; tampering with ballot boxes past the point where they are supposed to be sealed; etc. This isn't just hearsay, but actual photos and videos made by observers from the opposition (who normally get kicked out of voting stations as soon as they try to document this happening). This is all available in Russian internet for anyone who cares to look (but, of course, most materials are in Russian).

Then there are statistical discrepancies. For example, voting stations with automated ballot count (harder to tamper with) registered about 10% less votes for Medvedev than those where count was performed manually.

Even aside from that, there are official materials which show that e.g. a number of regions had 100% voting rate, which was never seen in preceding elections. Even more funny is that this happened in some of Caucasus regions, such as Dagestan and Ingushetia, where at least a few people on the electoral rolls are wanted criminals as they have joined the Islamist insurgency (the so-called "Caucasus emirate") - and yet, if we believe the Russian electoral commission, not only those guys came to vote, but they voted for Putin!

"My boss forced me to vote" was also common not just in rural areas, and for this I have first-hand knowledge - a sister of my wife (a university student) was forced to vote like that. Though this was to ensure high attendance rates, not votes for a specific candidate as such (i.e. they were forced to go to the voting booth, not to vote for some particular person).

Calling all this "anti-Russian propaganda" is pure bullshit, unless you're claiming that anyone opposing Putin & Medvedev is somehow not Russian, even inside the country. Some of their more avid supporters do make such overtones occasionally - hopefully you're not one of those, else it is a rather pointless discussion.

If you have ever actually been in Russia in last eight years or so, you'd know that popular support for those two is very much real.

I'm Russian, living abroad for the last 2.5 years (but my family is still in Russia, and I'm still a citizen). So, yes, I do have first-hand knowledge. Putin still has significant popular support; Medvedev, not so much recently. Neither has 70%. Generally speaking, the more developed a city is, the less support they have (i.e. it's lowest in Moscow and St Petersburg).

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

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Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[fyngyrz]

Thanks. Fascinating.

We're so buried here in the US in our own preconceptions about how much earning is appropriate, what copying means, etc., it's really illuminating to see it actually done differently (lots of ideas floating around, not so many actual working implementations.)

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Luckyo]

Point one: if you ever doubt that Putin and Medvedev are a combo, hit yourself. Hard. The extremely basic good cop/bad cop theme between the two is extremely obvious to anyone who looks. They have "disagreements" which are so theatrical, I always asked myself if there's someone who's actually buying that in addition to maybe low class people who really don't know any better.

Now I know...

Point two: there are multiple countries in the world, that count among the most democratic, that have MANDATORY voting. You don't go to vote, you get fined. Someone forcing you into the voting booth should be mandatory imho, so long as they don't tell you how to vote. Your need to cast your vote for democracy to work, even if you don't want to. I'd see that kind of forcing as a positive, and show of democracy, as nothing is as deadly to democracy as the lack of voter interest, which is what we're seeing across many of the biggest Western countries, sadly. It also seems to directly correlate with desire for switch of democracy to dictature (there was a very worrying poll on how 20% of all swedish youth want their country to become a dictature just a couple of weeks ago).

Point three: Anti-Russian propaganda is hard-wired into most major Western news outlets. Perhaps the best way to see this is to look at how demonstrations are reported. When a few hundred people show up for an opposition demonstration in Russia without permit and get dispersed, this is talked about as a very negative thing, hinting at uncalled violence, human rights violations and nice close-ups of police wrestling with demonstators - which as someone who has worked as seucrity guard and has training in the field I can state is a very good thing - wrestling with demonstrators means that enforcers are willing to forego their far more deadly and dehumanising means of crowd control.
When same happens in US, and dispersion is typically even more violent and dehumanising, (if you live in States, read up on laws on demonstrations without permits - they are frankly, frightening), you don't get anything beyond small note in local papers. As far as major media outlets are concerned, it didn't happen.

You can see similar bias in many other instances as well, such as Khodorovsky case - guy gets hundreds of millions in a couple of years, obvious criminal, gets jailed, Western media screams political victim. Yet when ECJ upheld russian persecution's case against Khodorovky's laywers and noted that there is no evidence of political aspect of the trial, this gets near zero attention in Western press.

Hell the entire thing is just a brilliant flashback to the USA. Chaotic financial period after collapse of USSR and privatization, many get rich fast through obvious financial crimes, only a few who don't get along with authorities get persecuted, rest walk free with the money (which is the main, and probably only political part of that trial if you don't count the fact that Khodorovsky was trying to sell Russian oil fields to American oil companies - of course if this happened the other way around the reaction would've been at least as bad - USA doesn't even allow selling of its ports to its allies, much less it strategic resources to its enemies).

Compare to USA, chaotic financial period, many get rich fast through obvious financial crimes during equity boom, only a few who don't get along with authorities get prosecuted, rest walk free with the money.

We didn't even get a showy trial for one major financial mastermind who was behind equity bubble except for the guy who robbed the rich. Anyone not worth at least millions didn't get any justice here, anyone who didn't try to sell off strategic resources to the enemy didn't get trial there.

Finally on Caucasus issue: as far as I know there are no names on poll ballots - it's anonymous. How can you tell who voted for who then?

P.S. Feel free to link materials in russian: it's one of several languages I'm fluent in.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Pentium100]

For some reason my link did not get posted the last time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_Soviet_Union
Is where you can read more about the copyright law in the USSR, it is quite interesting and in some cases logical (or at least seems logical to me).

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[shutdown -p now]

Point one: if you ever doubt that Putin and Medvedev are a combo, hit yourself. Hard. The extremely basic good cop/bad cop theme between the two is extremely obvious to anyone who looks.

Yes, that's how it is in practice, but, despite it being so obvious, many people actually buy into it. I've heard many rants about Medvedev from people who claim to support Putin. So it seems to be working well.

Point two: there are multiple countries in the world, that count among the most democratic, that have MANDATORY voting. You don't go to vote, you get fined.

I know about this. Nonetheless, in Russia voting is not mandatory by law, and forcing one to vote is illegal.

And mandatory voting is not always good. I don't object to it in principle, but only when access to the ballot is fair to all parties. In case of Russia, it is not. In 2008 elections, there were 4 candidates:

1) Medvedev.
2) Hardcore communist
3) A raving ultranationalist (if you saw any videos of Zhirinovsky, you know what I mean)
4) A supposedly democratic, opposition party leader.. except the guy was working in the electoral PR team of United Russia for over a year (already while running his "democratic" party!).

Russian elections also used to have an option for "none of the above", and back in 90s people actually used it for protest votes. It was handy because it wasn't entirely useless - if it got more votes than any candidate, elections would have to be restarted with different candidates. It never actually happened, but it was a distinct possibility. In my opinion, if you do mandatory voting, this has to be an option. They took it away under Putin.

The main reason why people were goaded into voting is because they wanted the elections to show a clear mandate for Medvedev - "over 2/3 of people voting, and over 2/3 voting for him". He does reference this fact every now and then when opposition raises some points.

Point three: Anti-Russian propaganda is hard-wired into most major Western news outlets. Perhaps the best way to see this is to look at how demonstrations are reported. When a few hundred people show up for an opposition demonstration in Russia without permit and get dispersed, this is talked about as a very negative thing, hinting at uncalled violence, human rights violations and nice close-ups of police wrestling with demonstators - which as someone who has worked as seucrity guard and has training in the field I can state is a very good thing - wrestling with demonstrators means that enforcers are willing to forego their far more deadly and dehumanising means of crowd control.

For the most part, I don't deal with Western news agencies. I do skim them every now and them, but the bulk of my sources - especially about my country - come from within it.

And here's the thing about those demonstrations. Do you know why they happen without permits? Because the local governments won't grant such permits. Whenever they try, there's always a new reason invented to deny them that. Alternatively, they're granted the permit, but relocated somewhere where no-one can actually see them.

You can see similar bias in many other instances as well, such as Khodorovsky case - guy gets hundreds of millions in a couple of years, obvious criminal, gets jailed,

I'm sorry, but is "making hundreds of millions in a couple of years" is equal to "obvious criminal"? Far greater fortunes have been made in early post-Soviet Russia - it was practically ripe for the taking, because it was wild west capitalism at its best (and worst).

Originally, Khodorkovsky was jailed for "tax evasion", but if you dig into the supporting documents, this was indirectly defined as using legal (!) ways to minimize his tax base - supposedly, the intent to do so is somehow criminal. Then there were a couple of murder convictions slapped on top of that, with very s

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Luckyo]

Since we seem to start agreeing on or at least agree to disagree on many things, I'll just address major points of conflict:

1: And here's the thing about those demonstrations. Do you know why they happen without permits? Because the local governments won't grant such permits. Whenever they try, there's always a new reason invented to deny them that. Alternatively, they're granted the permit, but relocated somewhere where no-one can actually see them.

This is 1:1 western scenario. Visibility of demonstration is very important, and shoving demonstration into small side streets and surburbia where no one will care is a trick that russians copied from the West. It has been actively practised here for decades.

2. I'm sorry, but is "making hundreds of millions in a couple of years" is equal to "obvious criminal"? Far greater fortunes have been made in early post-Soviet Russia - it was practically ripe for the taking, because it was wild west capitalism at its best (and worst).

One foregone part: STARTING FROM ZERO. If that was possible without major criminal history, everyone would be a millionaire. And it's worth noting that no one except for some really hard core anti-russian folks or people with very deeply vested interests disagree - the period during which Khodorovski and his ilk got their huge riches was rife with crime, and if you weren't criminal and tried to get rich, you didn't make it. Not as in didn't make it rich - but as in didn't survive.

It's very doubtful that any of the current multi-millionaires and billionaires in Russia would survive a trial without going the way of Khodorovsky, be it fair or not.
Notably Russia of that age resembled USA of 1920s very much.

3. Do you mean ECHR? They have ruled that he failed to conclusively prove that his trial was politically motivated, yes. The main argument in favor of that is just timing - Khodorkovsky found himself in court once he started talking out against Putin, and no "faithful" oligarch has underwent similar treatment so far - but this is all conjecture, even if it correlates well with known facts, and the court rightly wanted "incontestable proof". However, that same ECHR has noted that his right to fair trial was violated, regardless of any purported political motivation.

Yes, wrong letter combination. European Court of Human Rights. Notably, same kinds of decisions are handed quite often to my home country - Finland. ECHJ counts "right to fair trial" to include very stringent procedural requirements, which many Western countries fail to fully meet as well, as we do.

4. You don't have to. You get an official paper for the voting district which says that 100% (literally, every single one) of citizens in that district voted, and all of them voted for United Russia [izbirkom.ru] (this one was from 2007 parliamentary election).

Aren't such cases generally disregarded or recounted? Also, are they statistically meaningful? Finally, there's a Western example for this as well: there are for example many bible belt communities in USA that vote 100% (literally, every single vote) republican with a very high (near 100%) participation. These are typically relatively small communities however and as a result, there is usually no investigation into things like forcing people to vote certain way (and granted there probably isn't all that much of it - it's far more about peer pressure).

Still, you show quite a few examples of the fact that Russia is not a 100% properly functioning representative democracy, and with this I fully agree. I'm still sticking to my original statement that Putin/Medvedev combo enjoys a significantly stronger mandate to power then leaders in most Western countries in spite of the fact that many of your claims do have merit.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[shutdown -p now]

Aren't such cases generally disregarded or recounted?

No. What you see is the official, publicly accessible government database that was tallied up to produce the election results. All numbers are final.

Also, are they statistically meaningful?

In a sense of whether this is an unusual occurrence? Well, I'm not aware of any other district where it was literally 100%, but if you poke around in the same database in various regions where local administration is more autocratic (pretty much all of Caucasus, but also Mordova, Mari El, Bashkortostan and a few more), you'll routinely see numbers in 95-99% range.

In Ingushetia, after those numbers came out, there was even a local campaign titled "I didn't vote!" ran by the opposition - the idea was to contest results by collecting signatures from people stating that they didn't vote in those elections at all, and matching them with 99% official turnout. If I remember correctly, they arrived at the figure of ~50% actual turnout in a bunch of districts as a result (assuming that all those who didn't sign did vote).

Finally, there's a Western example for this as well: there are for example many bible belt communities in USA that vote 100% (literally, every single vote) republican with a very high (near 100%) participation. These are typically relatively small communities however and as a result, there is usually no investigation into things like forcing people to vote certain way (and granted there probably isn't all that much of it - it's far more about peer pressure).

Yes, I've seen such places here (I'm in US), and you don't even need to get to the Bible Belt - plenty of small rural towns are like that.

In this case, this is, shall we say, highly unlikely, because we know that there is an ongoing discontent, occasionally surging into violent conflict, in practically all Caucasus republics (perhaps with the exception of North Ossetia, where such violence is imported from its neighbors). In such circumstances, 95%+ support votes for the party which is (rightly or wrongly) blamed for that state of affairs is highly improbable.

I'm still sticking to my original statement that Putin/Medvedev combo enjoys a significantly stronger mandate to power then leaders in most Western countries

That much I do not dispute. Medvedev doesn't really enter much into this as he's purely a decorative figure - real support is for Putin, or for Medvedev as Putin's protege. A few idealistic liberals might support Medvedev on his own merits, but it takes a particularly naive person to do so these days.

But popular mandate is not the end-all, be-all. Hitler enjoyed vast popular support when he came to power, and it continued even as he dismantled the democratic institutions and instigated pogroms. From Russia's own history, at the peak of his power, Stalin had millions of people literally willing they could give their life for him in exalted self-sacrifice.

It's what we call a cult of personality. Putin has one also - it is much more benign, of course, and more subtle (he's no "Glorious Leader" or "Genius of Carpathians"), but it's there. Early on it was driven by pragmatic achievements in economy, largely bolstered by smart use of profits from high oil prices. Of course, it's not a sustainable model long-term, so they have been slowly transitioning to nationalist us-against-the-hostile-world rhetoric, where country needs a "strong hand" at helm lest it fall prey to numerous malevolent outside forces bent on its total destruction, US/NATO being the usual culprit. At this point it's no longer rational, but mostly emotional. Same old story:

"... voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

(yes, I know that the same technique is also used to great effect in US this very moment)

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[syousef]

"Also it should be clear that their product is based on the Disney one but does not come from Disney"

We can't even get people to do not click on links for v14gr4.. you think they'll discern that derivative works aren't made by the original IP holder after XYZ corp makes a Mickey porn? If I'm Disney, I wouldn't bet on it...

The ones who want to will. The ones who don't won't care. As it should be.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[syousef]

What you need to do is divorce the right to control a work from the right to profit from it.

Beware the law of unintended consequences. This is exactly the kind of thing that enables things like patent trolling. Buy the rights to control something, wait for someone else to do the hard work and extract payment. We want less of that kind of thing, not more. Rather figure out a way to ensure that the right to control a work comes with the obligation to exercise good stewardship and a mandate to develop the work, not just the right to profit.

No, it's not the same at all. The work we're protecting in this case is the invention. Someone else picking it up and selling it as is should forward most of the money back to the parent company because they've invented nothing. If they add something original they should be paid for their part.

I've never seen anyone excercise good stewardship of their work rather than just profit. I can't see how that would be done either. You might as well mandate sunny weather or world peace. The best you can provide is incentives and what better incentive than someone else will beat you to it.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of all the movies that tank at the box office, but become "cult classics" years later. I think the people who put the work and sweat into making them should be able to profit off of that success.

Don't fret, Hollywood Accounting will ensure no one who actually put the work and sweat into creating anything will ever reap a dime, just ask Winston Groom.

Yeah, what I'm saying is your brave new vision for copyright reform doesn't mean shit if it doesn't address the corporate whoredom that is America. Pirate as long as you have lungs in your breath. Only once we convince everyone to stop creating can we effect change in creative industries.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[kestasjk]

That means no export of IP, that means you're getting all your IP elsewhere, that means you're relying on cheap labor / minerals / agriculture.

You could try only enforcing IP laws locally, but then you have trade wars and no export market for your IP. You could try sticking with cheap labor / minerals / agriculture, but then they run out and your economy goes nowhere.


Bear in mind also that patent lawsuits are a tiny fraction of the industry. A large chunk of it is tied up in writing software that helps business function efficiently; you really don't gain much by saying "we're not paying for Microsoft Office! screw having IP laws and writing our own software" when Microsoft Office is small potatoes compared to what having a bunch of smart Chinese software developers can do for Chinese businesses.

I'm not making a case for this for you, that would be pointless, I'm just pointing out why inevitably copyright laws will naturally be taken more seriously in developing countries for their own self-interest, and the GP was jerking off with the tired old anti-US / anti-IP line.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[mcgrew]

Well, that's an example of a completely differnt thing wrong with current copyright law -- music recordings are, by law, "works for hire" and the label actually holds the copyright, not the artist. A guy I know refused a record contract for that reason, he's written a lot of good songs and wasn't about to let a record label "own" them.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[pyrr]

Take it back several centuries before the USSR, many artists and performers had patrons, basically making them employees (one could really consider them skilled servants) of some wealthy individual. If the individual wanted to share with the public to boost popularity, they'd put on a public show or build a public edifice. "Pan et circuses" and all that.

One good thing about the way the USSR did things, which also ties-in to one of the worst things about it too (which you mention, the "appropriate for the ideology" part), is that the state realized the value in the arts, and selected individuals who excelled at artistic things, put them through education and sponsored their careers. How that system worked in practice, I'm not sure, but in theory it sounds great to make it easy for someone who has the aptitude to be able to pursue that ability through to a career. "Liberal Arts degrees" are the sorts of things that just don't garner much respect since they're not pragmatic, and it's an uphill fight for anyone who earned one to make a name for him or herself and find a career relevant to the field. But that's the situation when patrons of the arts and state-sponsored art are regarded largely things of the past. I can't really blame artists or other IP holders for feeling that they've paid their dues and now they want every last penny, even though I think that approach is detrimental to the advancement of civilization.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[Pentium100]

How that system worked in practice, I'm not sure, but in theory it sounds great to make it easy for someone who has the aptitude to be able to pursue that ability through to a career.

Well, there are quite a few skilled musicians who are still popular. Then again, there is no way to know what could have been if my country was not occupied by the USSR.

Re:Copyright is main US industry, while not others

[JBMcB]

Don't fret, Hollywood Accounting will ensure no one who actually put the work and sweat into creating anything will ever reap a dime, just ask Winston Groom.

I personally know actors who've gotten nice residual checks years after having been in a movie, after the cable networks pick them up and start playing them more regularly. Ironically it's usually the rank and file that *don't* get screwed in Hollywood, it's usually the people higher up the foodchain who get a higher percentage of the net as payment, which is often barely anything.

Leader

[digitaltraveller]

(See subject)

Finally!

[ThunderBird89]

A 'Soviet Russia' joke that's not disparaging of Russia: "In Russia, you reform copyright law. In America, copyright law reforms you..."

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent even further up!
+4 Insightful isn't nearly enough!

Re:Finally!

[Forty Two Tenfold]

"In Russia, you reform copyright law. In the United States of America, copyright law reforms you..."

FTFY

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia, you reform copyright law. In Capitalist US, copyright law reforms you!

FTFY

Re:Finally!

[Deus.1.01]

I can't speak for ThunderBird but i feel slightly insulted when i get modded insightful/informative every time i try to be funny.

well...I guess its better then being modded funny when vice versa.

Re:Finally!

[TapeCutter]

Read your own sig, Winston doesn't see anything that needs fixing.

Re:Finally!

[Forty Two Tenfold]

Read your own sig, Winston doesn't see anything that needs fixing.

He doesn't because he's dead. That doesn't make his mistake acceptable though.

Re:Finally!

[dkleinsc]

Communist alert! Communist alert! Smith, wiretap ThunderBird89's phone and internet connection immediately! Jones, make sure that he gets fired! Johnson, send out his name to the newspapers! Williams, make sure that the rest of his industry knows that he shouldn't be hired! Michaels, start investigating all his friends! And you, put the kettle on!

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't fix anything.

North America is a continent. South America is a continent. America refers to a country. It cannot be confused with a continent unless you wanted to just be vague about which continent you were referring to, in which case you're even more of an ass that no one should bother listening to. If you want to refer to both of the continents, then it is the Americas. The only territory that could be confused with "America" would be American Samoa.. which is.. a territory of America.

You don't have to like it, but it is hardly confusing or incorrect. Want to change it? Go start a rebellion somewhere, succeed, and name the country something with America in it. Good luck with that.

Re:Finally!

[pmontra]

Agreed, but the flaw in in /.'s mod system: it should allow for 5, Funny, Insightful scores.

Re:Finally!

[maxwell demon]

America refers to a country.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/america

You see, there are three definitions of "America", and only one fits what you claim to be the only one.

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy shit you're stupid. Learn to fucking read you smarmy, smug, idiot.

Re:Finally!

[ThunderBird89]

No you didn't. I was going by the original syntax: "In America, there's plenty of light beer, and you can always find a party. In Russia, Party always finds you..."
And if you want to start something, watch the original commercial first: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbP1DVeJCT0

Re:Finally!

[Forty Two Tenfold]

North America is a continent. South America is a continent. America refers to a country. It cannot be confused with a continent [...] If you want to refer to both of the continents, then it is the Americas

Very eloquently wrong.[1]

in which case you're even more of an ass that no one should bother listening to.

Fuck you too.

Re:Finally!

[Forty Two Tenfold]

I was going by the original syntax

You missed the point.

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

Winston is a blind retard.

Re:Finally!

[mcgrew]

Going for "funny" is hazardous to your karma; some folks have no sense of humor and will mod you flamebait, troll, or overrated. But in many cases, a comment can be both funny and insightful, as this one was.

Re:Finally!

[mcgrew]

The entire continent of North America is in pretty bad shape as far as copyright law is concerned. Besides, America is a country, North America and South America are continents.

Re:Finally!

[jd]

I thought it was: In Russia, Copyright copies GNU.

Re:Finally!

[steelfood]

Yeah, but it's contagious.

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you guys could stop arguing and insulting about stupid things. Using wikipedia as a source is fine, but I recommend you look deeper if you wish to prove an argument with it.

[1]It lists both as in use.
[2]Lists America as common usage.

In the end, it just comes down to what you are used to. Why get so riled up about it?

Well, he's right

[LordNacho]

IP rights seem to have gone to point where only lawyers benefit. As anyone who's ever been billed by one knows, it's friggin expensive. Probably a lot of the world's productive capacity is used on this kind of paperwork, and with questionable results (will Metallica really stop making music if they didn't have copyright? Are drug patents approved for the drugs people actually need? Etc, big can of worms...). Time for a cleanup. Not sure how, as any transition phase would be internationally fragmented and highly contentious, but we'd all benefit from a less complex system.

Re:Well, he's right

[Anonymous Coward]

will Metallica really stop making music if they didn't have copyright?

I can dream, can't I?

Re:Well, he's right

[Anonymous Coward]

will Metallica really stop making music if they didn't have copyright?

I can dream, can't I?

The question is... will they really stop making music if their chidrens' grand-children in the 22nd century won't have copyright? I mean, have you ever seen a character in Star Trek pull a sound recording out of a replicator unit? No. If (s)he tried, (s)he'd find him/herself being automatically teleported to the brig. Also holosuites/decks are all licensed. Part of an agreement between Starfleet and the Multimedia Association of the Federation and Independent Annexes (MAFIA).

On-topic:
It's about time that copyright terms (any and all, including neighbouring, etc) get reduced to the same length as patents. The only reason for excessive copyright terms is to prevent a large body works from entering the market priced at zero, competing with current "works". Trademark law will need to be liberated to ensure the free flow of works that have trademarks involved with them (I refer to this as Mickey's Last Stand but that might already have been coined somewhere else).

Re:Well, he's right

[GameboyRMH]

will Metallica really stop making music if they didn't have copyright?

At this point, nothing of value would be lost...

IP Cold War

[Anonymous Coward]

It's coming.

But!

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't someone think of the cronies!!!

No joke.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please save us russia.
Our corporations and goverment are screwing us harder every day to support obsolete industrys

In Soviet Russia...

[mangu]

Well, here's a story where things are actually reversed in Russia. So reversed that Russia isn't even Soviet anymore

Citation.

[headkase]

Just to support your comment a bit, see this story which just happens to be on CNN's front page: here.

From that:

"The increased difficulty in protecting data comes as the value of intellectual property is skyrocketing for companies. In 2009, 81% of the value of S&P 500 companies was "intangible assets" such as patented technology, proprietary data and market plans, according to an estimate by Ocean Tomo Intellectual Capital Equity. In 1985, only 68% of the S&P 500 market value was from intangibles, according to Ocean Tomo."

So, you're not far off the mark: The USA says it's wealthy because it is counting "intangibles" as wealth, or more accurately: things that do not suffer from scarcity. If your main assets do not suffer from scarcity, you have a problem because supply, once known, is infinite: and if supply is infinite then the real cost of it is zero.

Re:Citation.

[MoonBuggy]

The real scarcity isn't in the intangible 'products' themselves, it's in the people who create them. For now, the West has a great advantage in skills and education - China and India might be able to pump out generic copies for a pittance once the designs are leaked, but so far the latest and greatest designs are still coming largely from the US and Europe.

Of course, this will change, and is changing, in the same way that most companies wouldn't have been able to outsource their manufacturing to China fifty years ago. For now, though, it isn't so much an economy based on closely guarded ideas, it's an economy based on creating those ideas.

Re:Citation.

[Kagetsuki]

I'd bet many of the things you are assuming were designed in the US and Europe were designed in places like Japan and Taiwan. It's obvious you know nothing about Asia. Just go to about any Asian country and you'll be quick to find store shelves packed with products NOT designed or invented in the US or Europe, and the products from the US and Europe will be things that aren't really all that great - like garlic peelers, microfiber towels, and plastic containers you can use to cook pasta in the microwave...

Re:Citation.

[trum4n]

speaking of junk. i was logged in....what the hell Taco?

Re:Citation.

[JasterBobaMereel]

The first iPhone when launched in Japan was largely ignored as an underspecified poor copy of phones they already had ....

Re:Citation.

[MoonBuggy]

Perhaps it was an oversight to ignore Japan and Taiwan. I probably would've been better to refer to 'manufacturing economies' and 'IP economies' rather than talking about 'the West' - I had no intention of slighting Asia as a whole. Maybe it's media bias, I don't know, but I haven't really heard of any new designs coming from the manufacturing bases I mentioned, China an India, though.

Re:Citation.

[MoonBuggy]

I had no intention of implying that all products from India or China are cheap generics, I was simply saying that once the designs are out there, that's where the cheap generics will come from.

Re:Citation.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. Piracy is merely corrective market forces overcoming regulation.

Re:Citation.

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Japan. The iPhone is the king over here.

Japanese phones are laughably bad. It's like a weird zone over here. All they sell are flip-top phones that are locked down so hard they squeal if you try to phone a number.

Perhaps you meant Korea and Taiwan? The phone market in Japan is still stuck in the stone age.

Re:Citation.

[Anonymous Coward]

unless, of course, your product becomes obsolete in 5-10 years, which is often the case of software. Anyone still running a *legit* copy of Win98 anymore?

Re:Citation.

[zach_the_lizard]

You also forget Singapore and South Korea.

Re:Citation.

[slashqwerty]

Most proprietary data and market plans do not benefit from copyrights that last 95 years. In fact, most of that material will never be published. Actual published works such as movies, music, books, and news are a tiny fraction of the US economy. Of that tiny fraction, a very small portion is for works more than 14 years old.

Re:Citation.

[mrchaotica]

If you say "manufacturing economies" and "IP economies," then your argument becomes a tautology anyway.

Re:Citation.

[pmontra]

You're suggesting the possibility of an IP bubble? if you do you might be right. Furthermore there is another side to this issue. It's easy to trade atoms (i.e.: meat) for other atoms (i.e. water) but if you trade ideas for food well... you must be either very talented or very convincing. The second alternative scales better and many industries are indoctrinating us since we are born about video clip music, movies, smart phone apps, etc being so much important for our happiness and well being. However even if you manage to make the whole world believe that, there is a real risk that the time will come when your customers stop believing you or spend their money for more fundamental stuff and leave you with nothing in your hands.

Re:Citation.

[MoonBuggy]

Not really - the point was that manufacturing economies can't take over IP economies even if they get hold of the IP, because the true strength is the people who create the IP. It was an argument against the post way back up there that said "If your main assets do not suffer from scarcity, you have a problem because supply, once known, is infinite: and if supply is infinite then the real cost of it is zero.".

Re:Citation.

[somersault]

And if that time arrived, people would have very little new music, movies, smart phone apps, etc. It's not that we "believe" anything, it's that we enjoy things, and wish to reward the people who created those things, so that they make more cool things. I am going to keep on paying for my eBooks, at least until my local library has some nice eBook lending policy. I've already switched to subscription services for a lot of my music and movies.

Re:Citation.

[mcgrew]

Hogwash. There's no scarcity of creativity or artistry whatever. Hell, there are dozens of local bands here in my city of 100,000 who have CDs of original content, most of which is far superior to the dreck that comes from the RIAA. Have a listen to some of my friends' music. Those are live shows, they have studio CDs as well.

There's no shortage whatever. The "shortage" has always been because of the fact that recording and filming were incredibly expensive. Today recording is dirt cheap, and the price of making a movie is coming down fast -- Star Wreck only cost a few thousand bucks and is better than 90% of the multimillion dollar dreck that comes from Hollywood (it's also hilarious, every Star Trek and Babylon Five fan should see that movie).

Re:Citation.

[JAlexoi]

You underestimate how much of that "latest and greatest" is developed in China and India.

Re:Citation.

[mrchaotica]

Right, and that's a tautology: manufacturing economies aren't IP economies because you've defined them to be manufacturing economies!

The OP's argument was that getting a hold of the IP makes it much easier for those manufacturing economies to transform themselves into IP economies.

Re:Citation.

[Yvan256]

If you think the Japanese phone market is still stuck in the stone age, I hope you never visit Canada. Your cellular data monthly cap (if any) is probably 100 times bigger than our cable-provided internet, at 10 times the speed, for probably half the price.

I pay 25.00$CAD/month for 2Mbps cable with a 35GB upload+download monthly cap.

Re:Citation.

[cyn1c77]

Just go to about any Asian country and you'll be quick to find store shelves packed with products NOT designed or invented in the US or Europe, and the products from the US and Europe will be things that aren't really all that great - like garlic peelers, microfiber towels, and plastic containers you can use to cook pasta in the microwave...

You seem to be forgetting a few other inventions from the US and Europe like: automobiles, airplane, helicopters, computers, telephones, fiber optics, microwaves, the transistor, and nuclear power.

Your post (and general thought process) is playing into the GP's point. Many countries in Asia are fantastic at adapting existing technology into cost-effective products, but not so great at developing pioneering modern technology. Japan and Korea are leading the Asian pack, but they still have a long way to go before they can compete with Europe and the US on the groundbreaking discovery front.

I am not trying to be offensive to any culture. China had some amazingly novel inventions several thousand years ago like paper and gunpowder, but recent history speaks for itself.

Re:Citation.

[Anonymous Coward]

Complete opinion rubbish. Go write a music opinion column somewhere. Your input lacks subject matter completely.

Your parent is spot on inthat the West still dominates in tech creation. Japan should be added to the mix, but that is another thought. If you look at history, you'll see where China licenses/steals/obtains stuff from the West, then reverse engineers it and creates their own version. This goes for software as well as hardware. That isn't to say they don't do ANY tech from scratch, but by and large they don't. It is easier to do it like they do it (and smarter IMO).

Re:Citation.

[Anonymous Coward]

The article you're remembering, which claimed that, was later shown to be an utter fabrication. The author made some sales and cultural assumptions which weren't reflected by reality, and extrapolated from there.

Re:Citation.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're forgetting about guilds and other professional monopolies that exist to produce artificial scarcity in all sorts of tangible fields.

Re:Citation.

[Anonymous Coward]

What exactly has Singapore invented?

Re:Citation.

[pnewhook]

I pay 25.00$CAD/month for 2Mbps cable with a 35GB upload+download monthly cap.

Mines way better than that. Don't subscribe to a cheap carrier then generalize your poor performance to the entire country.

Re:Citation.

[pnewhook]

You seem to be forgetting a few other inventions from the US and Europe like: automobiles, airplane, helicopters, computers, telephones, fiber optics, microwaves, the transistor, and nuclear power.

Bringing this back on topic... the US invented (or discovered) powered flight, and subsequently tried to patent it which essentially shut down any further innovations in the field. Europe however basically ignored the patent and as a result within a few years had far better planes due to the number of companies pursuing active development.

Things got so bad that by the time WWI started, the US had to buy planes from Europe since they were so much better than the US ones.

It is clear patent law does nothing to protect the inventor and has a massive negative impact on creativity and progress. It's time for a massive patent overhaul.

Re:Citation.

[Yvan256]

You say that like I have any choice of ISP.

Re:Citation.

[pnewhook]

Regardless, your situation does not apply to the rest of Canada.

Re:Citation.

[BZ]

There are different kinds of intangibles.

There's no scarcity of people capable of creating music.

There's a comparative scarcity of people capable of designing a new lithography process or new device architecture or new algorithm.

Re:Citation.

[Jibekn]

It does apply to most though, its worse in the GVRD, 60/ month, 3G Speeds, 2GB/Month Limit.

Re:Citation.

[Anonymous Coward]

automobiles, airplane, helicopters, computers, telephones, fiber optics, microwaves, the transistor, and nuclear power.

decades past called, they want thier inventions back.

Re:Citation.

[hitmark]

This echoes a similar move of USA after the revolution, where it ignored UK patents. This allowed a much quicker industrialization of the nation then would have happened if license fees was payed on every machine deployed.

Re:Citation.

[hitmark]

The question is if a manufacturing economy will remain that or transition to a IP economy given time (and law). There is likely a lot of people in Chinese factories that with a grasp of electronics and such can pull a Woz, stripping a design of redundant parts (a lot of what Woz did on the Apple I and II designs was finding ways to use a single chip for multiple tasks).

Re:Citation.

[marnues]

There is a scarcity of talented musicians with free-time. Not all music is created equal. I don't support the current copyright laws, but let's not pretend good music is an infinite commodity.

Re:Citation.

[BZ]

I actually do think that good music is quite a bit harder to come by than people usually claim. But I think that other sorts of IP are even harder to come by.

Re:Citation.

[Yvan256]

And regardless, your situation does not apply to the rest of Canada either.

I'd like to see the numbers for all ISP choices that Canadians have where they live. Just because there's 20+ ISPs doesn't mean they cover all areas simultaneously.

From my point of view, only people in the big cities have ISP choices.

Re:Citation.

[suutar]

and, iirc, where Hollywood ignored Edison's patents.

Re:Citation.

[CapnStank]

Majority of Saskatchewan (~90% of population):
- 5Mbps @ $30/month, no cap
- 25Mbps @ $65/month, no cap

Re:Citation.

[Anonymous Coward]

We is sooo smart! The US has traditionally had a lot of money, could educate reasonably well, and had opportunities for those well educated people. Not anymore. Science education is lacking in the US. Go ahead and point to all the PhD's in the universities, and I will point to all the brown skinned people with those PhD's. And they have green cards. And they leave when the green card is up. The go back to India and China and they take their smarts with them, and get good jobs and progress the fields they are trained in. The US higher education system has had a generation of lawyers and money analysts. And thats it. No one else gets paid. The money people in the US sent jobs offshore, they refuse to pay taxes of any kind, they cut domestic workers wages and they pay no consideration to the country they are in. Their loyalty is with money of any color. Rome burns and they play the fiddle. Now it appears that Russia will not dance to their tune. You can bet that a very large number of Middle Eastern, Asian, and Eastern European Countries will follow suit, leaving Western Countries eying what the rest are doing. There is not a chance that the US can dictate terms to China on this. If they try, the Yuan will drop by 5% for about 10 minutes, followed by a rumor, just a rumor, that China will no longer finance US debt. BANG! All this crazy talk of intellectual property will disappear like a fart in the wind.

Re:Citation.

[tragedy]

You would be a bit more convincing if there were any inventions on your list invented less than 63 years ago:
Automobiles: At least 136 years ago if you only count internal combustion engines, 242 years ago if you count steam powered, and 500+ years for spring powered.
Airplane: At least 107 years ago for sure, with earlier accounts of working models.
Helicopters: There were string operated toy helicopters 500+ years ago (in China, however which I should note is in Asia), and of course Da Vinci drew some, but no working passenger models until 103 years ago and then nothing that could really be used as a vehicle until 86 years ago.
Computers: If Babbage counts, then it's about 162 years ago, if only working models count rather than working concepts, then 75 years.
Telephones: Who knows. It's at least 135 years ago, but may be as much as 167 years or more.
Fiber Optics: About 130 years ago for illumination, and 115 years ago for data transmission
Microwaves (I assume you mean the cooking appliance): About 64 years ago
The transistor: Most recent invention at 63 years ago.
Nuclear Power: Reactor invented around 69 years ago, although not developed into a working model for a while after.

So, we're looking at an average age of at least (136+107+86+75+135+115+64+63+69)/9 = 94 years for the inventions you've listed if you only give credit to the most recent inventor. The most recent is still 63 years ago, meaning that the percentage of people in the population right now who were even alive at the time is tiny. John Bardeen, who was the last of the credited transistor inventors to die has been dead for 20 years. There were certainly more people involved in developing the concept and maybe some of them are alive now, but it's not very likely that they were younger than mid twenties at the time, so their chances of being alive today are slim. Too many people were involved in the invention of nuclear power to say for sure if any of them are alive, but they're almost certainly past their prime inventing years. Ditto on Microwave ovens. No-one who originally invented the computer is still alive. Everyone else involved in inventing the other inventions you mentioned is long dead, unless their side work in alchemy paid off and we just haven't heard about it. Only 2 of these inventions are younger than my parents, but they're still old enough that my parents will have grown up with those inventions being relatively commonplace items that they took for granted. Although I do know that they never had a microwave oven until about 22 years ago and I think my father was the first of them to actually use a computer at university.

So, I'd have to say you've hardly proven your point about how the West invents everything and Asians are just devilish copiers in the "recent history" that you say "speaks for itself". Maybe you can prove your point, but you'd better use some examples that aren't three or more human generations old.

Re:Citation.

[HiThere]

I haven't been following what's invented where, but it seems to me we could do with a few definitions:

Manufacturing Economics: The costs & profits involved in the manipulation of materials to turn an existing design into a physical object.

IP economics: When contrasted to Manufacturing Economics this means the costs & profits involved in the manipulation of ideas to turn into designs from products that do not already exist even as designs.

So having the designs doesn't enable you to improve your IP economics, but it certainly helps the Manufacturing Economics. What helps the IP economics are good schools of engineering, design, etc. (and, of course, having jobs for those students who graduate).

The US, at least, is very busy destroying it's foundation of IP economics without improving it's Manufacturing Economics. Asia is doing great at Manufacturing Economics, but I haven't heard much to indicate that they are doing particularly well at IP economics. (Asian universities have the reputation for turning out excellent production engineers, but few good designers, and those have trouble getting hired.)

Now I need to backtrack a bit. Design means too many different things. A polished elegance isn't what I mean by design so much as something that can do something that hasn't been done before. The design of theories one might say, as opposed to the design of efficiency or elegance, both of which the Asian cultures tend to excel in (in various differing ways). As for Japan, it's from Japan that the slogan "The nail that protrudes will be struck down." comes from.

But *is* there anywhere that's improving their "IP economics" as defined above? I don't know of anywhere, but that doesn't mean it's not happening. Generally early signs of "IP economics" will be either ignored or dismissed as silly. In this way it's rather like basic science.

Re:Citation.

[TheoMurpse]

I think the guy you're responding to is pretty obviously referring to patent-related scarcity, not copyright-related scarcity.

Re:Citation.

[Kagetsuki]

It's obvious you either have absolutely no idea how many things were invented in Japan, Korea, and even China or are just in complete denial.

Re:Citation.

[cbiltcliffe]

At least 136 years ago if you only count internal combustion engines, 242 years ago if you count steam powered, and 500+ years for spring powered.

Don't get so hung up on the age. I'm pretty sure those are still making money, because all the patents must surely still be in force, right? :-/

Re:Citation.

[Anonymous Coward]

SaskTel is a Crown Corporation, owned by the people of Saskatchewan and by corporate charter mandated to the sole obligation to provide telecommunications to the people of the Province of Saskatchewan. This differentiates them from every other telecommunications provider in Canada who have a sole obligation to provide profit to their shareholders. I repeat, SaskTel is not governed by the profit-motive. It may spend vast sums of money investing in infrastructure over decades (which is exactly what it did) without this investment generating an immediate profit if it is deemed to be in the best interests of the people and their future. Holding up SaskTel as an embodiment of Canadian telecomm is highly misinformed at best, and grossly negligent at worst. I agree SaskTel is the ideal model for telecomm in Canada, but it is definitely not representative of the industry we currently have. Most of Canada has piss-poor service compared to every other industrialized nation, and pays at least twice for it.

Re:Citation.

[mcgrew]

True, but we're talking about art, not engineering.

Re:Citation.

[mcgrew]

If so then he's offtopic; the topic is copyright, not patents.

Re:Citation.

[pyrr]

It also helped that folks like Jefferson and Franklin believed in inventing fantastic things for the common good, rather than personal enrichment.

Re:Citation.

[TheoMurpse]

No. The topic subtly became all intellectual property when his /.-parent or -grandparent started talking about the US economy being based on "intangibles." I doubt that copyright so outright dominates the calculation of intangibles that patents were not impliedly brought up by headkase or the poster above headkase in the tree.

Re:Citation.

[BZ]

Are we? The "intangible assets" stuff for the Fortune 500 that this discussion sub-thread is about was "patented technology, proprietary data, and market plans". That's not art.

The original article is about art, of course. But most of the Fortune 500 don't make their living off art-related IP.

Pres. Medvedev is a great troll!

[Cyberax]

Pres. Medvedev is a great troll! Unfortunately, he doesn't decide anything in Russia - Putin does.

For example, quite recently "Deep Purple" was forced to pay $15000 for performance of music by "Deep Purple" (http://russian-law.livejournal.com/44954.html)!

You see, there's a mandatory 'performance fee' in Russia which goes toward central agency which then distributes gathered money to artists (minus 15% commission). Also they receive 1% of sale price for all computing equipment. And about 0.1 cent from each square meter of hotel space. And also there's no practical way to opt-out out of this system for artists.

So Medvedev can talk all he wants, it won't change a thing.

Re:Pres. Medvedev is a great troll!

[jovius]

Where's the topic?

Besides the concert organizer skipped the payment (and paid). Deep Purple didn't pay anything.

Right societies around the world demand compensation from concert promoters for the music performed. The artist is paid first for the performance (promoter pays) and for the music they play (promoter pays, 10% taken by rights society). The payment for the rights society (of which artists are members) is for their services of tracking the usage of artists' music worldwide - the societies' mission is to protect the artist, so in this case they demanded the promoter to pay so that Deep Purple is rightfully compensated.

That's what the article you linked says too.

The situation in Russia may be a bit underdeveloped (and one should follow if the society forwards the money to Deep Purple) but it's not that different from the rest of the world.

Re:Pres. Medvedev is a great troll!

[Anonymous Coward]

You see, there's a mandatory 'performance fee' in Russia which goes toward central agency which then distributes gathered money to artists (minus 15% commission).

Sounds like the GEMA in Germany; same scam.

Re:Pres. Medvedev is a great troll!

[Xest]

"Pres. Medvedev is a great troll! Unfortunately, he doesn't decide anything in Russia - Putin does."

Uhuh. That was the initial view of him when he became PM from a position of relative obscurity. Unfortunately times change, I guess you don't watch the news:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12810566

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-31/medvedev-tests-limits-of-power-with-plan-to-oust-putin-allies.html

http://www.euractiv.com/en/global-europe/medvedev-putin-tensions-grow-2012-elections-get-closer-analysis-504662

Similarly look at Medvedev's history on justice, human rights and so forth. Without a doubt, Medvedev is a much more positive force than Putin and he's never been afraid to express that in his position as PM.

"You see, there's a mandatory 'performance fee' in Russia which goes toward central agency which then distributes gathered money to artists (minus 15% commission)"

Sounds like the PRS in the UK, or GEMA in Germany, or any number of other rights collection agencies that exist in pretty much every country.

What, you thought that kind of thing only happened in Russia?

"So Medvedev can talk all he wants, it won't change a thing."

Unless of course he beats Putin to the presidency next year, severely denting Putin's ability to control anything anymore.

Re:Pres. Medvedev is a great troll!

[shutdown -p now]

Similarly look at Medvedev's history on justice, human rights and so forth. Without a doubt, Medvedev is a much more positive force than Putin and he's never been afraid to express that in his position as PM.

It's exactly as GP said. Medvedev sure talks a lot, but when it comes to actually getting things done, his track record so far is practically non-existing. Russia still has routine violations of human rights, still has political prisoners, and still represses journalists critical of the regime.

Unless of course he beats Putin to the presidency next year, severely denting Putin's ability to control anything anymore.

Russia being a presidential republic, and Medvedev its president, he could have dismissed Putin tomorrow if he wanted to "dent his ability to control anything". Sure, any new appointment of the prime minister would have to be confirmed by the parliament; but president can refuse to bulge if they don't approve his choice, and if it goes back and forth three times, then parliament is dissolved, and new elections take place.

Heck, Yeltsin actually threated to do just that, more than once, and he had a much more unruly parliament (commies had plurality!) to deal with. And yet back in the day he had spine enough to force his choices, even as bad as they were. Medvedev? Not so much as a squeak about removing Putin. Just shows how much of a puppet he really is.

Re:Pres. Medvedev is a great troll!

[Peeteriz]

In addition, very often the 'music rights' money should not go to the performing group even if they are performing their own songs. Typically one or two members are the songwriters, so they get these funds, not the whole band; also, it's quite likely that on their setlist they can have some songs that were part-written by some band member which is no longer 'in the band', but deserves a share of that money.

Re:Pres. Medvedev is a great troll!

[Cyberax]

It's worse in Russia. RAO gets 1% cut from _every_ sale of computing devices (including video cards, hard drives, flash dongles, etc.).

For example, if I buy a pre-assembled computer here I might end up paying 2-3% of its value to RAO.

Re:Pres. Medvedev is a great troll!

[Xest]

"It's exactly as GP said. Medvedev sure talks a lot, but when it comes to actually getting things done, his track record so far is practically non-existing. Russia still has routine violations of human rights, still has political prisoners, and still represses journalists critical of the regime."

Absolutely, but you can't change things overnight, especially in a country like Russia. Russia has many competing factions- ex-KGB/current FSB, the Mafia, the Russian Orthodox Church, the communists, the intellectuals, the military and so on. For some time it is of course the spies that have held the power.

You have to realise that in Yeltsin's era things were quite different, the country was in an era of turmoil as the whole USSR had fallen, and those factions were finding their feet in the new Russia, just as Russia was trying to find it's feet in the world again. Since Yeltsin's departure, the FSB has had over 10 years to install puppets throughout government, public, and private sector institutions. Not only that but Putin has instilled the idea of himself as a hero in the minds of many of the Russian public over the same period. Those aren't the sorts of things you can take down over night, it requires a prolonged period of chipping away at both the installed puppets across the country and the image Putin has built for himself.

The instances I linked are clear actions by Medvedev that work towards this goal. There's a very difficult balance involved in that if he moves too fast to dismantle the work Putin has done to cement his authority he risks having it all rallied against him and losing power before he's done any good. In contrast, if he moves too slowly, he wont be able to chip away enough of Putin's support in time for elections.

But note this, importantly, the polls, and interim local elections show clearly that Putin's support is waning.

You may be right, but I wouldn't write off Medvedev just yet, he's made some bold moves recently that without a doubt weaken the standing of Putin, the FSB, and it's allies as a political force in Russia.

idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

medvedev cant talk anything that the ruling group behind him and putin does not support. in retrospect, he cant talk anything that putin does not support. in short, if he is saying something, then it means putin supports it. he is putin's right arm.

Re:idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

medvedev cant talk anything that the ruling group behind him and putin does not support. in retrospect, he cant talk anything that putin does not support. in short, if he is saying something, then it means putin supports it. he is putin's right arm.

puppet, really, not a right arm.

Re:idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

The moment they can kill the current copyright laws, a lot of money will stop pouring out of the country and stay there. Which should be the goal of every leader worth his salt. Of course what happens to the money afterwards, is completely irrelevant, if you know what I mean.

Re:idiot

[DarenN]

And we know now where Putin's right arm is...

Re:idiot

[Opportunist]

Actually Putin's right arm is way up... Well, I won't say where, I just wanna say, for the sake of Medvedev that he used at least a bit of lube.

We'll see

[TubeSteak]

Medvedev's days may be numbered.
Putin doesn't like the reformist bent that Medvedev has taken and will probably run for President in 2012.

Re:We'll see

[Anonymous Coward]

Medvedev's days may be numbered.
Putin doesn't like the reformist bent that Medvedev has taken and will probably run for President in 2012.

Why do you think he's taken this reformist bent all of a sudden? Putin needs to have someone to stand against so he can then say "Look Comrades, here are all the ideas and words which are ruining our country. Vote Putin for a Russia we can Truly believe in!"

Don't think for a second that Putin isn't the one calling all the shots here, including what Medvedev is up to right now.

Pink glasses off!

[Anonymous Coward]

Reaction here is straight opposite to opinions on russian tech-related sites.
CC-like licence is just to not use the original CC. Original CC will become outlaw. If you want to use CC or GPL licensed product - make sure it is registered in a new "CC-like" government registry. What do you mean "I don't know if Linus and all his thousand of developers signed all the documents to apply to this brand new CC-like license?" Not licensed - not legit. Go back home poor opensource boy.

Re:Pink glasses off!

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who read this in a Russian accent?

Ethical Morals

[TemperedAlchemist]

The copyright laws [url=http://www.law.northwestern.edu/colloquium/ip/documents/gordon.pdf]are morally inconsistent[/url]. We should all strive to not support them.

Re:Ethical Morals

[jd]

Sorry, BBS codes aren't valid here. Slashdot uses Real HTML. :)

Re:Ethical Morals

[TemperedAlchemist]

Realized that after I posted it. Was like QQ

Re:Ethical Morals

[Anonymous Coward]

pwnt.

Taking it with a grain of salt

[bhmit1]

In a statement released on the Kremlin's website on Thursday, Medvedev instructed the country's communications ministry to draw up amendments "aimed at allowing authors to let an unlimited number of people use their content on the basis of free licensing."

So before they didn't allow authors to use free licenses?

And as much as I'd hope that Russia is relaxing copyright for the greater benefit, I'm pretty sure this is the same as it's always been for nations that are below the top. Mainly, those on top try to stay there with strict IP laws, and all the other nations have lax enforcement and laws to make it cheaper to compete and catch up. The US did it while we were a developing nation, China and India do it today, so it's no surprise if Russia goes this direction if they see themselves falling behind.

Re:Taking it with a grain of salt

[shutdown -p now]

So before they didn't allow authors to use free licenses?

Ironically, you're hit at exactly the right question.

Yes, under the Russian law as it stands, there is some doubt among lawyers whether CC licenses have legal standing. It's not about whether the authors are allowed to say that such-and-such is licensed under CC, it's about whether the license is valid; in particular, whether the author can actually sign away his rights like that. The problem is with interpretation of licenses, or rather contracts, in Russian law. For considerable time, you couldn't have a license contract where one side didn't get any material compensation - it always had to be tit-for-tat (even if the pay could be entirely symbolic, like 1 rouble) - that ruled out all FOSS & CC licenses.

This was changed in 2008, but there's one other problem - Russian law does not permit the author to sign away his exclusive rights to intellectual property easily; it has to be made in a written contract, and every such contract must be registered with the government. This requirement is still in place, and, technically, means that most FOSS & CC licenses are not valid, and for any works released under them, normal copyright regime applies (which does not give permission to redistribute or modify).

This is what Medvedev is talking about reforming. It's not at all about shorter copyright terms, nor decriminalizing personal sharing.

Nothing to see here, move along.

I am not supporting piracy but

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Russia is moving to the right direction. Current copyright legislations simply cannot keep pace with what's actually happening around the world.
There are so many companies of which the main business is to patent as many generic things as possible and hope other companies will fall into the trap in the future.
The giants are busy window shopping for different patents around the globe and use them as roadblocks to prevent anyone from getting into the business.
Say a small company has a great idea to make a special mobile phone. You will think once they get the investment somewhere, it's good to go. What it doesn't realize is that it's heading to a landmine field of patents. Those holding patents for mobile phones, technology, design or whatever remotely related (or not) may fire lawsuits at it whenever they want, before the phone is made, or after it's launched into the market.

Rejoice for Mother Russia!

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally something positive from Mother Russia, our "dear" neighbour.

From TFA " I mean the USTR's annual Special 301 report as evidence as to why Russia doesn't "respect" copyright law enough."
Now this gives me the following train of thought:

I believe Russia has been along with China one of the areas where IP has been very poorly appreciated even at the governmental level. You can't really sell software in Russia since everyone just pirates it anyway. So they'll change the laws to make what everyone in the country does, legal. That is how laws should work. What is the common de facto standard should be made into law, and not try to change the standard to fit the law.

- AC from Finland

Re:Rejoice for Mother Russia!

[Opportunist]

Well, you have to admit, they have experience with the attempt to shape human to match a legal system instead of doing the sensible thing and adjusting the legal system to the humans shaping it. Took them 70 years, but they learned that.

Any law can only survive in the long run if it represents the will of the majority. Why have the "generally implemented laws" (against murder, stealing, mugging...) been so successful all over the globe? Because in most societies such acts are received poorly and the person doing something like this is seen as a "bad" person. I doubt there will ever be much discussion whether stealing something should be illegal. There will probably be a discussion about the definition of "stealing", but the moment someone agrees that an act is "stealing", there is rather little support for it. Hence laws against stealing will be backed by the majority of the people.

Laws lacking such supports are not only useless, they are dangerous. Again, something Russia learned painfully. If people see too many unjust laws, laws they cannot support and do not want to support, in their legal system, they will start to question the legal system altogether. They will start to wonder if being a criminal is actually "bad", because in an unjust legal system being a criminal actually means "fighting" (or at least, not heeding) a bad system, which in turn could be seen as "good".

In a nutshell, it can (and, again citing Russia, did) lead to the people actively or passively questioning or even opposing the state and its rule, which in turn destabilizes the whole country.

Progress?

[aaaaaaargh!]

That's the first positive news I've heard from Putin Medvedev---ever.

Against Intellectual Property

[trout007]

Here is a great book http://mises.org/books/against.pdf against intellectual property laws.

I am a believer in natural law theory. This basically means there are laws that govern how humans interact with each other just like those that we describe with physics. The goal of human law should be to work with those laws.

There is a natural intellectual monopoly that goes with any discovery. When a new product is first created it isn't obvious if it will be successful. It is only after it is successful do others want to copy it. This gives the creator a natural monopoly in which they can be the only seller. Also what is interesting is that unlike our legal monopoly the natural one adjusts based on how advanced the discovery is. Something that is obvious like the one click buy button can be instantly copied. But a new piece of hardware that is a generation more advanced might take competitors years to reverse engineer and gear up for fabrication

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[sifi]

“Against Intellectual Property” first appeared as part of the symposium Applications of Libertarian Legal Theory, published in the Journal of Libertarian Studies 15, no. 2 (Spring 2001). Copyright © 2008 Ludwig von Mises Institute

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[StormReaver]

There is a natural intellectual monopoly that goes with any discovery...a new piece of hardware that is a generation more advanced might take competitors years to reverse engineer and gear up for fabrication

Or a competitor can offer a higher salary to key employees of the company that makes the initial discovery, thereby reducing or eliminating the "natural intellectual monopoly". At this point, there are two choices:

1) Allow it to happen, which would invalidate the "natural law" monopoly you spoke of.

2) Forbid it from happening, which would lead to the copyright/patent/trade secret mess we have now.

There is nothing wrong with protecting the intellectual product of a person/company. There are many, many things horribly wrong with the way our governments are going about doing it.

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[QuasiSteve]

But a new piece of hardware that is a generation more advanced might take competitors years to reverse engineer and gear up for fabrication

Imagine I spend the better part of 10 years and $50M to create a viable material to act as a lensing system for X-Rays, thus making it possible to create highly portable X-Ray machines and increasing x-ray resolution, by attempting thousands of different combinations of substrate elements, doping elements, etc.

You're saying that because a competitor can just buy such a machine, take a chunk of the material, toss that into their spectrometer/etc. to figure out what the material is, and replicate it within a week for $100K, my 'monopoly' - my chance to ever make back that $50M - should also be limited to that one week?

And knowing that this is the case, why would my potential customers buy a machine from me at a price that would allow me to recoup that $50M, when they can wait a week and get it from the competitor who only has to recoup $100K and can thus underprice me by a significant amount?

The whole "natural intellectual monopoly" idea is based on the assumption that something which is takes little resources (time/money/whatever) to reverse engineer must have taken little resources to engineer. An assumption that is increasingly incorrect.

There is a balance to be found between public interests and IP holders' interests, but this 'natural intellectual monopoly' does not provide said balance.

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[Anonymous Coward]

It sure doesn't take years if they come over to your offices and steal the product plans.

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[trout007]

If you have the time please read the book. These are some of the things discussed. One of the major roles for governments in libertarian thought is to enforce contracts. There are some solutions that don't lead back to an IP rights situation. An employer and employee can have a legal contract that can help prevent this. But if the employee leaves it is the employee that is breech of contract not the company that paid for the information. If the first company finds out about the offer in time it could get a restraining order against the employee to enforce the contract.But if the information gets out then it is public and cannot be protected.

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[trout007]

If you just found a use for existing material you are right.

Lets say I somehow designed an iPad with all of the hardware associated with in the 1980's. I built all of the infrastructure to create all of the chips and displays ect. I could release that on the market and it would take 5 or 10 years for copies to be available. But today those chips and displays are readily available. Apple just designed a nicer interface and package than anyone else. Once they did it is was easily copied. And yet they still have a large market share even though cheaper alternatives are available because they provide some service others can't in the market.

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[Anonymous Coward]

I cant believe this Mises tripe gets modded insightful. I dont have time for a proper reply but Jesus Christ those guys disparage statistics for not mattering. You obviously also just picked the two extreme versions of *patent* IP, while IP encompasses *many* other forms of work, including creative, software, and so much more. And all this stuff you left out is where copying is trivial but the work itself was far from trivial to create (eg art/music/software). Hardware almost doesnt fall into the realm of needing IP protection and 1 click is clearly a good example of how out of control IP law has become. But there IS a middle ground and we will NEVER reach it if people keep arguing to abolish IP. People like you do a disservice to the debate. There is no natural monopoly to a song in the age of bittorrent. IP laws are out of control but they can be a USEFUL tool if brought back to a realistic middle ground and used to encourage innovation. Neither of the extremes can accomplish this encouragement.

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[trout007]

That is already a crime and would be punishable under normal law. A court could put a restraint order to prevent the public release of those plans with a penalty of prison time. But one those plans were made public other people could use them freely.

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[trout007]

We can always have a debate. Besides if you couldn't tell by the world we live in you are winning easily.

You are a bit confused about the difference between recordings, the ideas behind the songs (music/lyrics), and the creator. The recordings did enjoy a natural monopoly. Recordings were first very capital intensive and it took a while to get to this point where the cost of reproduction is next to nil. The ideas behind the song IMHO do not deserve any protection at all. When you argue there is no natural monopoly you missed it. We have always had singers and song writers for all of human history. It was the invention of recording that allowed them to reach huge audiences and made them insanely wealthy. That natural monopoly is over so they can no longer become super wealthy on recordings alone unless they use the force of government to restrict peoples freedom. The question is how does the creator get compensated? By working like everyone else. Perform concerts and create value for your customers. It is always harder to make a buck once your monopoly is over because you have to compete.

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[Paul Fernhout]

Why should people in any country have to subsidize a broken business model based on "artificial scarcity" in the 21st century? There are plenty of other ways research can be funded -- foundation, governments, private individuals, a basic income.

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[trout007]

I assume you are trying to say they are hypocritical because they Copyrighted a book against IP. Just because you argue for a different set of laws doesn't mean you can ignore the ones that exist. Copyright exists the moment you create it. See http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html

If you go to mises.org all of their books are free to download. They registered the copyright for the sole purpose of preventing someone else from copyrighting the works and trying to prevent the free dissemination. This is similar to the creative commons license. It sounds crazy but if you want to make something freely available so people can copy it you have to do this with a copyright. They are just working within the system.

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[QuasiSteve]

Well it's funny that you should mention the iPad - given that Apple will come down incredibly hard on anybody who were to manufacture an competing product that...

A. included Apple's connector design, so that the competing product can be used with one of hundreds (and growing) peripherals.
B. included an operating system compatible with iOS, so that the competing product can make use of iOS application.
C. looks too much like an iPad (see recent story re: Samsung).

In other words, the copy is not actually a copy. It may be a similar device.

To bring that concept back to my example.. if the competing company just saw the end-result of my research and said to themselves "let's see if we can do the same, start your research!" and came up with a rather different material or method to achieve the same, and still only spent a week on it and $100k, I wouldn't particularly think I'd have anything to complain about. That, after all, is in part how patents are actually supposed to work.

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[QuasiSteve]

Why should people in any country have to subsidize a broken business model based on "artificial scarcity" in the 21st century? There are plenty of other ways research can be funded -- foundation, governments, private individuals, a basic income.

Did you read what you wrote? I only ask because of the following:

In the first sentence you say, essentially, that people shouldn't have to subsidize a broken business model.
I don't see how the purchase of a product is considered a subsidy.

Then you go on to mention alternatives among which "governments". Wouldn't a government funding the research actually be a subsidy? Moreover, wouldn't that quite directly mean that even people who would never have purchased the product or made use of the services it enables would also be paying for it? In essence, you'd make every taxpayer 'subsidize' the research.

As for your other examples, in order of least viability:
basic income: Say I make $150k a year by sitting on my ass thus leaving all my time available for the research. $10M / $150k/year ~= 67 years. I'm guessing I'll be dead long before then.

Private individuals and foundations (pretty much the same thing). If they are feeling a bit on the philanthropist side, then yes. Oddly enough, there aren't very many of those around and even those around limit their funding of research in a given time period. I.e. the Gates Foundation has plenty of cash to go around, and they still have plenty of cash to go around the next year. If they were 100% philanthropist, that cash wouldn't have been there the next year because it would already have been spent on the thousands of worthwhile research causes this year.

While it's nice to think that all things magically get paid for by essentially generous donations, it's not very realistic - and it won't be as long as there's a very real scarcity of a particular good: money.
Until such a time that this is no longer true, there will be businesses funding research, and businesses will want to recoup that funding in one way or another, and thus be proponents of any system that helps them do so - including 'artificial scarcity'.

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[trout007]

That is exactly why I mentioned the iPad. Where did I say that Apple didn't support IP rights? I was saying what I think the laws should be.

Back to your example. Suppose you are really motivated but very stupid. You spend 10 years and $50 million on the one click buy button. Something that would take a smart person 20 minutes and $5 to do. As long as you can convince someone at the patent office to give you a patent you can sit there preventing other people from doing something obvious or charge them licensing fees.

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[Anonymous Coward]

I think too much "research" gets conflated with actually revolutionary research that largely comes from the public and academic institutions (historically.) Non profits probably also out perform the private sector - which labels anything "innovative" and it constantly trying to split hairs with their competition.

Recent times has put more burden on the private side while harming the quantity, quality, and expense of the results. Many "innovators" in the private sector today completely ignore all the support they relied upon to get there most of which is not IP protected. Similar short sightedness exists with businesses who fail to realize they use more public resources and should pay for it (like the roads that give them customers and supplies.)

Copyright, trademarks, and patents are all different beasts and one must realize that a lot of people lump them together.

Trademarks for example have been made too vague and are ridiculous -- to the point where phrases can be owned and not the symbol containing the phrase. "Freedom of Expression" the phrase is trademarked, not the logo - and was done to illustrate how stupid we've become.

Copyright is crazy and enforcement is where it is worst - heading towards the war on drugs; it likely will get worse too. Funny thing with it is that it never was needed until perhaps modern times. Culture continued without it and while we'd have less content produced -- its all been done before so its not likely going to add a whole lot. I frankly would be fine without pop mills.

Patents are now harming research and industry- becoming a product and "industry" itself producing NOTHING but training the real economy. Similar to the investing markets which all about gambling and not serving their intended purpose-- providing capital for the real economy. Quite simply, there is a LIMIT to how much one can invest in a patent and expect a return on it; even in today's broken system which arguably protects larger investments but IS BROKEN; therefore, we have gone too far and need to pull back which naturally means that the amount worth investing will go down but everything else will benefit by that tradeoff.

I don't think there is anything that won't eventually be discovered if it is worth discovering and simply spending more money on R&D does not translate into faster discoveries just more expensive ones. This is also why I'm against going to Mars. When the time is right, there will be a more advanced knowledge and that will make it cheaper and easier to go to Mars so we can do something WASTEFUL like that; possibly some company will do it for the PR (and again take credit for all the giants it merely stands upon.) Yes, mars is frivolous fellow nerd; you'll see it too when you stop geeking out over the idea. You can inspire kids without doing it; if not, then you have much bigger issues to deal with. I don't think its worth bothering until we can terraform it; until that time, robots will always be superior.

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[trout007]

Very good post. I see trademarks as the least offensive IP category when it is used for the sole purpose of registering a logo (mark) that represents a company. The sole purpose being to inform the consumer who made the product. A violation of that would be fraud where you claim to be someone you are not. The "victim" of the fraud however is the consumer and the criminal is the seller. The company that owns the trademark or registered business name is not a party to this and deserves no compensation.

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[Anonymous Coward]

Interestingly enough, the book is copyrighted (page 3).

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[trout007]

I wrote this above but I'll copy it for you.

I assume you are trying to say they are hypocritical because they Copyrighted a book against IP. Just because you argue for a different set of laws doesn't mean you can ignore the ones that exist. Copyright exists the moment you create it. See http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html [copyright.gov]

If you go to mises.org all of their books are free to download. They registered the copyright for the sole purpose of preventing someone else from copyrighting the works and trying to prevent the free dissemination. This is similar to the creative commons license. It sounds crazy but if you want to make something freely available so people can copy it you have to do this with a copyright. They are just working within the system.

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[king neckbeard]

It's like a subsidy because you get more money than you would get in a purely competitive market. Because you are protected from certain kinds of competition, you can collect additional money. The difference is that the subsidy is in the public's liberties instead of the public's cash.

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[king neckbeard]

Even if we assume that SOME degree of protection is ideal, I still think abolitionists can still be useful. The abolition option can help keep things in perspective and acts as a good reference point, and can smack the copyright lobby with a dose of reality in regards to what we can choose to do.

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[Hognoxious]

I am a believer in natural law theory.

The version with fairies or without?

Re:Against Intellectual Property

[QuasiSteve]

Old post is old, I know - the HexBright story pushed my old comments down and I'm not entirely used to the Slashdot interface for registered users yet. (As an AC, I simply bookmarked my replies and would revisit them every few days or so).

Anyway, just to address what you mention... note that your example cites a case in which the invention that 'a smart person' could easily replicate. In those cases, I agree - in fact, patent law would seem to agree (the whole 'obviousness' clause), but the patent office(s) like ignoring it a whole lot.

My example, however, was of an invention that was non-obvious, but relatively simple to reverse-engineer. I.e. not something that 'a smart person' could replicate with far less effort than that spent by the inventor, but if given the invention, could take it apart, and build a replica in no time with little investment. That's what one of the (grand)parent posters was suggesting - that in such cases, the patent shouldn't hold either as the 'natural' process of reverse engineering applies; the only worthwhile inventions in terms of a 'natural' monopoly no it would rely on how hard it would be to reverse-engineer them. A notion I find both absurd and dangerous - after all, we're already seeing the effects of people trying to prevent reverse-engineering by means of DRM in software and potting (component encapsulation) in hardware - neither of which are desirable by end users.

Re:Russian prez doesn't believe in private propert

[Deus.1.01]

"Russian prez doesn't believe in intangible private property?"

FTFY

he's just signaling Disney

[obarthelemy]

that he didn't get his payoff. This will blow over.

Look a little further

[Anonymous Coward]

The business of government has seen immense gains from IP absurdity, in terms of both revenue and power over the people. The pyramid of government is a more lucrative business today than ever before, thanks in no small part to IP law and the billions in spending justified by it, along with expanded powers that can be leveraged for yet even more revenue. The elite at the top are, after all, the original architects and proponents of IP law -- there's a reason they are vehemently in favor of it, and it's not because they honestly see it as "justice".

You like this

[fastformation]

http://tinyurl.com/4yn3fuq

Re:You like this

[Anonymous Coward]

Spam Spam Spam !!!

It makes sense

[Aceticon]

Copyright rules designed to create/protect monopolies and cartels in intellectual property business areas and more in general give them a huge first mover advantage only make sense for countries which already have large and well-established "creative" (not just media but also product design) multinational corporations.

If a country's companies have already been out staking claims in the "ideas territory" and charging for access to it for a long time, it makes all sense for that country to try and protect those claims and revenue sources.

(It's not by chance that countries such as the UK and the US that have the biggest and oldest media industries are the ones pushing hardest for international rules that create artificial scarcity and establish/protect monopolies in the ideas space).

If however you are a country without big creative companies and/or whose companies are late entrants, the kind of copyright protections pushed by first-mover nations serves only to hinder your own company's progression and increase their costs in that space, something that the companies that went there first did not have to face.

Pretty much all BRICs are in the position of being tol-payers rather than tol-owners in the ideas space, thus it makes all sense for them to be against copyright as pushed by the likes of the US and the UK.

Meet the New Boss

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a welcome call for needed legal reform by a nation notorious for making law up as it goes along.

As much as I applaud Medved's points, copyright is a means by those with property to protect, keep, and expand their property lines. Russia speaks of reforming how to get a copyright - which might work over decades. But if the Russian mob ever starts to earn copyright money, instead of selling / pirating, I wouldn't give his reforms many minutes to live. As quickly as the USA extends copyright, Russia can extend it horizontally.

for spite?

[Gravis Zero]

i like the new policy but i think there is more to this than just reform. i fear that Vladimir Putin may have had a hand in this simply as a way to strike at the US. he has significant influence on policy and to an extent, is a puppeteer. i know it sounds paranoid but Putin acts like the Cold War is still on.

i would love to be wrong and really hope i am.

Re:for spite?

[Yvan256]

That's okay, the Cold War was cancelled out by Global Warming.

Re:for spite?

[Opportunist]

But shouldn't in a cold war szenario the US be the ones that demand more freedom and less control? Did I fall through a hole into Bizarro world?

Copyright is major US export

[AliasMarlowe]

I am Russian, and let me assure you that these talks are just that - talks to BS electorate for president elections this fall. D.A. Medvedev is like Russian's Obama - he talks a lot but nothing is ever gets done -)

At least he's talking in a better direction than his Western counterparts, thus bringing an alternative viewpoint into the public eye. Then again, as you mentioned, the talk doesn't always translate into action after the election (example: Obama).

Re:Copyright is major US export

[somersault]

then again, as you mentioned, the talk doesn't always translate into action after the election (example: politicans).

FTFY.

Re:Copyright is major US export

[Blymie]

I'm Canadian, but I pay attention to US politics from time to time.

I don't think it's quite fair to state that Obama didn't take action. He did. However, the first *big* change he advocated during the election, Health Care Reform, was quite effectively blocked. He's spent years on that, and years fighting to prevent a reversal for the meager changes he could push through.

It isn't like Obama can wave a magic wand, and make change. It isn't like any president can. He did what he could, he brought forward the idea of change. He spearheaded change. Many attempted to block that change, including many Democrats.

I'm all for pointing out flaws, but at least point at the right flaws.

An alternative example, was during first few weeks of a Conservative government up here. They canceled the national day care program. Many people were upset by this, which is fine, but people claimed Harper was a 'bad leader' for doing so.

Ur, bad leader? He *campaigned" on abolishment of that program, and was democratically elected. If he *hadn't* canceled that program, he'd have been a bad leader! He'd have *lied*.

So, I guess what I'm saying is -- is sounds to me like health care reform was an attempt at massive change -- that failed through no fault of Obama's. So, what are you blaming him for, exactly?

Re:Copyright is major US export

[CrimsonAvenger]

So, what are you blaming him for, exactly?

We're still in Iraq.

We're still in Afghanistan.

We're in Libya.

For all that he spent a couple trillion dollars (that we couldn't afford) to "fix the economy", unemployment has hardly budged (shades of FDR, who did the same thing, with the same result).

Guantanamo is still open (admittedly, I never thought he had a chance in hell of actually closing that, since noone wanted the inhabitants of same in their country (including us), and the only other way to close it would have been to kill all the people held there).

Health Care Reform. If Obama had been serious about healthcare reform, all he had to do was lower the age of eligibility of Medicare to zero. Alternatively, he could do the same thing gradually by lowering the age of eligibility by one or two years every year till it was zero. Plus increase Medicare taxes to match the extra load on the system

Instead, he tells the Congress to do the work, provides them no guidelines whatsoever, and signs off on the first thing they come up with. Which was almost guaranteed to be bad, since Congress is far more interested in changing laws to encourage campaign contributions (or threatening to change laws to encourage campaign contributions) than in "fixing" healthcare.

Note that a good marker to how good "Obamacare" is is the number of waivers that have been granted for it already. If it were really a good thing, then there'd not be much need for waivers for every group that campaigned in favour of the bill....

Re:Copyright is major US export

[Anonymous Coward]

He promised to get us out of Iraq and he promised to shut down GitMo. As commander in chief, he literally can wave his hand and accomplish those two things...congress has no say or ability to block him in those matters. At a minimum, he can be blamed for that.

Re:Copyright is major US export

[n dot l]

I'm Canadian too, but apparently I pay more attention to US politics than you do. If your measure of a leader's success is whether he lives up to his campaign promises, then Obama should strike you as worse than Bush.

The cleanup is the Internet

[transporter_ii]

The cleanup is the Internet combined with the plethora of free licenses to choose from, and an large number of people willing to do work and give it away for free. Nobody is putting a gun to anyone's head, but the people paying the patent and copyright lawyers...their products have to compete with the free stuff, which is getting increasingly more sophisticated.

In the past, someone could make free chairs and stick them by the side of the road, but it didn't cut into Wal-Mart's chair sales that much. With the Internet, free has global reach and the products produced are getting very similar in quality. Back in the day, MP3.com had a lot of crap on it, but it also had some really great music sitting there for free, and it wasn't even a copyright violation.

The big guys can waste a lot of money on patent lawyers to fight free, but that just raises the price of their products.

Re:The cleanup is the Internet

[LordNacho]

Actually, looking at some of the fine software that's available for free, I tend to agree. The minimum standard for copyrighted software is raised by having free stuff that works pretty well.

Now, that works for software but what about other technologies? Eg. I don't really have a problem with extremely poor people getting copycat AIDS drugs. It's not obvious they would have paid for it, and it doesn't reduce the supply of the critical piece of information (the recipe). And what are pharmas developing, anyway? Drugs for dudes who don't exercise and can't get a hardon.

Great

[Hojima]

Not that I'm unhappy with the decision, but now when people in the US propose it, they can say "*gasp*! That's communism! Just look, Russia is doing it!" And of course, any attempt to point out that it's been a capitalist country will be in vain.

Re:Great

[MBGMorden]

You have to understand the mentality (that term used generously) of a lot of the idiots here. To many, they don't really know what Communism means. At all. They really have no clue except that it's identified with Russia and China. It's just become a generic adjective meaning "bad" to them.

One guy was arguing a while back (can't even remember the person, or what he was proposed anymore) that some particular political figure was supported anarchy and communism. Doesn't matter that though both might be viewed as negative, they are pretty much complete opposites of each other. He was just stringing together a list of words that were "bad".

Re:Great

[hitmark]

Hell, this is spreading to other parts of the world as well.

I ran into posting on a Norwegian forum that compared a law change (that basically would favor corporations) with communism, even tho writing laws that favor corporations would be closer to fascism.

Communism seems to have become a internet shorthand for government "over-regulation" in the eyes of the commenter using the world.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you a racist?

Re:Great

[Belial6]

My favorite was an actual live conversation with a woman I worked with a number of years ago. She came into my office to chat, and started a convesation about a new idea she had. When was pondering why we needed money. After several questions to get what exactly she meant, her thought boiled down to the fact that she thought we should all just work to our ability and receive what we need. She thought money just got in the way of that. When I said, "Oh, your a communist then?" She got offended, said "No, YOU are a communist and stormed off.

Re:Against Intellectual Monopoly

[glodime]

There's no need to subscribe to natural law theory to support the liberalization or eliminating of intellectual property laws. Against Intellectual Monopoly by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine takes a pragmatic approach to evaluating intellectual property. They argue through empirical study that eliminating intellectual property laws would actually improve innovation and creation.

Golgafrinchans

[mcgrew]

Your comment made me think of HHGTG.

TFA says the writer doesn't understand why CC should be baked into copyright, well, I'm no lawyer and I don't speak Russian, but perhaps he's doing what I've suggested all along -- that no noncommercial copying be deemed "infringing". You're no more going to stop P2P file sharers than you're going to stop potheads from smoking, or stop people from drinking back in the 1920s.

Noncommercial "infringement" doesn't harm anyone, and studies show that "piracy" actually increases sales. Music pirates spend more money of music than non-pirates. A book publisher commissioned a study a couple of years ago to find out how much piracy hurt sales, and was flabbergasted to find that there was a second sales "spike" when the pirate version hit the web.

The RIAA is at war with their competetion, the indies. The indies rely on P2P and the web, while the RIAA has radio. If there were no such thing as radio, the RIAA would embrace file sharing. Hell, back in the 1950s there was a "payola" scandal where RIAA labels would PAY to have their songs on the radio.

As Cory Doctorow (who gives his ebooks away for free on boingboing) says, nobody ever went broke from piracy, but many artists have starved from obscurity.

Re:Golgafrinchans

[Dachannien]

Noncommercial "infringement" doesn't harm anyone, and studies show that "piracy" actually increases sales.

Of course, this is in an environment where noncommercial infringement is still infringement, and where people generally have the notion that artists should be paid for what they do. Compare this to developing countries where pirated music and movies are the norm, are rarely punished, and are sometimes tacitly encouraged by governments who see themselves as being in competition with the West; and consider: if noncommercial infringement in the developed world were considered "okay", would anyone pay for music or movies?

I'm not trying to be a copyright whore or a shill for the ??AA. In fact, I only buy/listen to indie music because the RIAA is a bunch of douchebags. I'm just pointing out that copyright does serve a purpose, and the problems we have today with copyright are more a matter of degrees rather than a problem with the basic premise.

Re:Golgafrinchans

[Pentium100]

if noncommercial infringement in the developed world were considered "okay", would anyone pay for music or movies?

People would still most likely go to concerts and cinemas.

Re:Golgafrinchans

[Hodr]

People might pay for a performance (much the way that I will pay to go to the movie theater, but rarely buy DVDs). They might pay for a tangible product (a produced CD/DVD in a nice case is "worth" a couple of bucks). They just may not be willing to pay as much as they have in the past for something whose value is wholly tied to legislated scarcity.

The simple fact is, things of intrinsic value will always have that value.

We had musicians before recorded music and we had actors before films. Artistic creation is not and argue should not be soley tied to remuneration.

Re:Golgafrinchans

[mcgrew]

I'm not arguing against copyright itself; copyright protects me, too. I think people who sell knockoff CDs and DVDs and books should be prosecuted. But you ask "if noncommercial infringement in the developed world were considered 'okay', would anyone pay for music or movies?" The answer is yes, they would, or Cory Doctorow would not be on the NYT best seller list. He publishes his books under a noncommercial CC license, gives his ebooks away for free on his website and encourages his readers to share them.

The only people who aren't helped by noncommercial infringement are talentless hacks. If you give shitty books and music away, nobody will buy it, but give quality away and it will sell. Would you buy a CD of an artist you've never heard before?

As to "artists should be paid for what they do", it depends on how good they are. If you invest time and money on a brick and mortar business selling tangible goods that nobody wants, you're not going to be paid for your work. Like art, it's a crapshoot.

So sayeth the anonymous coward...

[Anonymous Coward]

I myself am from Mars. iPhone is king here too.

Re:Against Intellectual Monopoly

[trout007]

Very true. I was just letting you know where I was coming from.

Re:modded insightful every time I try to be funny

[TaoPhoenix]

That's because the best humor is viciously insightful.

Abandonware

[Joe_Dragon]

There needs to be away to fix the abandonware issues like it you are not selling it then it's should be free. There are lots of old games and movies where there is no official way to buy it. (well some time you can find old stuff in a bargain bin) but that is hit or miss. Also E-bay used copy's do not count.

Re:Abandonware

[Opportunist]

There is a very, very simple fix for that: Limit copyright to a sensible period of time.

Back when copyright was invented, the means of distribution and the time it took to get from writing something to having it published and in stores meant that those few years you had actually meant you had to hurry if you wanted to reap the rewards for your work before anyone could copy it freely. Today, with near instant publishing, we have longer copyright periods than ever before. This is backwards in the extreme.

The original (IIRC) 7 years are already an incredibly long time in our age where a world wide instant publication, advertising and distribution is the reality, not the pipe dream it would have been back at the first draft of the Berne Convention. Considering how fast paced content is turned over, how quickly "hot and fresh" turns into "dated and faded", and how games and movies from 3 years ago are already found in the bargain bin for 5 bucks a game, 7 years copyright do not seem like it would be a bad compromise, where the creating side can reap the rewards and gain a ROI while derivative works could finally become a reality again.

Re:Abandonware

[Anonymous Coward]

The current copyright terms are not primarily used to protect revenue from selling movies/music/software/books from the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s (with of course a FEW exceptions which affirm the rule). It's used to prevent these works from competing (at price zero) with current offerings.

This is very, very effective. For commercially-released books there is project Gutenberg, but try find something similar for sound recordings.

Re:Abandonware

[Opportunist]

And you don't think that's sad? That music from 50 years ago is still considered to be "good enough" to be milked? Don't we have any newer music that people would prefer?

Aside of that, where is the sense in this? Something created half a century ago should still benefit its maker? Try to argue this to a bricklayer, and why he shouldn't still get money for all the houses he built, after all, they, too, are still being used.

Exactly.

[headkase]

I was observing the core of the issue. Unfortunately I didn't give the implied conclusion: Copyright in specific and intellectual property in general is about adding scarcity to things that do not inherently suffer from it. Especially in the Information Age.

Now, with that said: there is a future problem for content industries. Technology and content are becoming commoditized. Rendering technologies, places like Pixar, are becoming more and more realistic. And those technologies will eventually have Free implementations. Also, Free content, right now predominately in operating systems, is beginning to spread to other areas: props, character models, textures, sounds, music, and scripts: anything imaginable to make a story whether interactive or not. Eventually, using nothing more than creative commons material and lots of computer rendering power any individual or small group of individuals will be able to match the creative quality of today's Hollywood. There will be a collapse eventually for movies, fictional books, and music. It can only be held off.

Until then, I also will continue to buy all my games, and books - I don't really buy any new music nowadays: for that I'm satisfied. And the reason I will: because in the now I want to enjoy quality entertainment - if not for the current work then as you say for the next. But above all that: I do see the end for for-profit content approaching unless giving away your effort is made illegal for everyone.

Re:Exactly.

[somersault]

You're right about free content and libraries, and I see this as a good thing - but it will still take skill and imagination to put it all together in new, interesting and worthwhile ways. It will always be worth paying creative people to create new content, at least until open sourced AIs get advanced enough to do it - then anyone will be able to generate fun stories and game worlds for free.. but that's a long way off!

Re:Exactly.

[c0d3g33k]

Now, with that said: there is a future problem for content industries. Technology and content are becoming commoditized. Rendering technologies, places like Pixar, are becoming more and more realistic. And those technologies will eventually have Free implementations. Also, Free content, right now predominately in operating systems, is beginning to spread to other areas: props, character models, textures, sounds, music, and scripts: anything imaginable to make a story whether interactive or not. Eventually, using nothing more than creative commons material and lots of computer rendering power any individual or small group of individuals will be able to match the creative quality of today's Hollywood. There will be a collapse eventually for movies, fictional books, and music. It can only be held off.

1. That's why the next weapon in the IP arsenal after copyright to be rolled out in a big way will be patents, most likely. Recent lawsuits are a hint that this has already begun. Free/libre implementations of valuable technologies will likely be quashed by a flurry of patent suits, particularly if one tries to build a business of any kind using such tools (either selling or prominently using them). You don't have to eliminate free technology to gain an advantage, just suppress it by making everyone afraid of having to deal with patent suits.

2. Free content won't make commercial content creation industries collapse, though they might contract somewhat. Free/libre content will likely be labeled as crass/common/kitsch/whatever via prominent advertising campaigns and the like. Just as today people spend big money for jeans with a little red tag on the hip pocket or a cheap t-shirt with a the french word for 'airmail' on it rather than buying less expensive 'generic' versions, so people will likely spend big bucks to consume "brand name" content. Social networks will probably help tremendously in manipulating the weak-minded to shun free/libre content in favor of lucrative branded versions.

Re:Exactly.

[Optic7]

Now, with that said: there is a future problem for content industries. Technology and content are becoming commoditized. Rendering technologies, places like Pixar, are becoming more and more realistic. And those technologies will eventually have Free implementations. Also, Free content, right now predominately in operating systems, is beginning to spread to other areas: props, character models, textures, sounds, music, and scripts: anything imaginable to make a story whether interactive or not. Eventually, using nothing more than creative commons material and lots of computer rendering power any individual or small group of individuals will be able to match the creative quality of today's Hollywood. There will be a collapse eventually for movies, fictional books, and music. It can only be held off.

Sorry, but only a person who is not very familiar with creating feature film quality computer graphics could say something like this. It currently takes years of work by an army of people to create a two-hour movie like Pixar does. Enthusiasts will not be able to replicate that with current technology or libraries - not without charging for it. Maybe some day if the productivity of the technology becomes exponentially higher than it is now it will be possible, but by then the work of the commercial production companies will be even further along.

Now, what may happen instead is that we will see a continuous decline in the level of all productions if they can't make a reasonable return on the work they put in. I know this is probably not a popular view here, but I believe it to be true.

Medvedev talks to Russian WWW experts

[egork]

Here an example of a constructive lobbing (google translation) that certainly had influence on the process http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kremlin.ru%2Fnews%2F11115&act=url
I must admit Medvedev has a talent of staying on topic and making insightful comments from a country governance perspective. The discussion gives a nice insight into the problems law makers have in contemporary Russia.

Oh my.

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia's looking kind of cool right now.

Lots of good discussion! Thank You!

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright laws suck. Today copyright is not used to protect "art", which is what it was originally designed for. Today copyright protects intellectual property the way that patent law was intended to. The reason patent law is short term, 20 years, is to maintain competition and encourage development of new technology. Protecting new technology development with long term copyright law pretty much insures that the society will stagnate technologically. In fact that is exactly what is happening to the United States today. Ten more years of this and the US will be a second world nation blaming the decline on everything except reality.

hi

[formation]

Check to see if your Company name is available http://bit.ly/m2IHF4

Re:modded insightful every time I try to be funny

[GooberToo]

Or the ignorance of those laughing.

fix your sig dumbass

[Anonymous Coward]

there is one "l" in insightful, you morron

Re:Russian prez doesn't believe in private propert

[mcgrew]

Copyrighted works are not private property. They belong to the public; the copyright holder merely holds a "limited time" monopoly on its publication. When the lease ends, the work goes to the public domain where it belongs. WE ALL OWN THE ART.

If you're going to shill for the MAFIAA you might want to register an account so your comment won't be so invisible.

Who would have thought?

[Opportunist]

An idea concerning liberty of expression coming from Russia.

Tell that to someone 30 years ago and he'll stare at you and consider you a lunatic.

This is not about liberalizing copyright!

[shutdown -p now]

This is not about what Slashdot usually means by "copyright reform" - i.e. shorter terms, decriminalizing private sharing, reducing statutory damages etc.

This is strictly about removing some idiosyncrasies in Russian copyright law, which, as it currently stands, are widely thought to make any license that lets one waive one's exclusive author rights for no direct compensation (as is the case with all FOSS licenses and most interesting CC licenses) invalid. It simply is not a valid contract under the existing law, and so, technically, anyone copying GPL'd software in Russia today is infringing, because the only thing that grants him the right to copy - GPL itself - is not actually allowed to do so. For such a license contract to be valid, it must be done in writing (i.e. it's got to have the signature of person to whom you transfer the rights), and it must be registered with the government contract registry - not a workable model for any license which you agree to simply by virtue of doing something that it alone permits.

(Note: there's no complete agreement on the interpretation of Russian law with respect to such licenses, but the above seems to be the consensus among government lawyers.)

This topic has been drawing a lot of attention in Russian IT circles for obvious reasons, and there have been some petitions to the government to fix this. Which is precisely what they are (claiming to be) doing.

Agreed

[Benfea]

The vast majority of movies produced by Hollywood is complete and utter crap, and are different from movies from other countries only in that they have more expensive special effects budgets and much larger marketing budgets. That's not to say other countries don't produce their own share of crap, but I look forward to the day when movies are cheaper to make because by then, I as a consumer will have more producers to choose from.

As for the music industry, I look forward to the day when I mostly buy my music digitally directly from the actual musicians and the overpaid corporate leeches have been removed from the equation entirely. The music industry now makes most of its money suing customers, which pretty well proves they aren't adding much of value to the product (otherwise their primary income would be from, you know, selling the products they use as a centerpiece of all those lawsuits).

Re:Agreed

[mcgrew]

At one time the record labels were actually useful. Recording studios were incredibly expensive to build and maintain, and the pressing factories likewise. These days the most expensive part of making a professional recording is the musical instrument. The record labels are as obsolete as buggy whips.

as requested:

[fyngyrz]

What exactly has Singapore invented?

I believe it was the sling.

Translation: Russan to RealSpeak

[Anonymous Coward]

Russian Speak: Time To Reform Copyright

RealSpeak Translation: It is time we starting getting our cut. Selling off nuclear materials to Islam can only last so long.

In Soviet Russia...

[KraZy-KaT]

...Copyright respects YOU!

Re:Citation. Skills and education

[lsatenstein]

Somehow India and China have skipped a generation. I would say that their skills and education far exceed what is the average in the USA, when comparing quantities of graduates and quality of graduates. The USA exported their knowledge to other countries and as a consequence, they started from that level. The USA in 15 years will be the poor country, as the others leapfrog in knowledge and output.