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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."
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.
Shh.
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 $15000 for performance of music by "Deep Purple" (http://russian-law.livejournal.com/44954.html)!
You see, there's a mandatory 'performance fee' in Russia which goes toward central agency which then distributes gathered money to artists (minus 15% commission). Also they receive 1% of sale price for all computing equipment. And about 0.1 cent from each square meter of hotel space. And also there's no practical way to opt-out out of this system for artists.
So Medvedev can talk all he wants, it won't change a thing.
I am Russian, and let me assure you that these talks are just that - talks to BS electorate for president elections this fall.
D.A. Medvedev is like Russian's Obama - he talks a lot but nothing is ever gets done -)
It's also understandable why US tried to fight for copyrights so much - that's basically the only thing they produce now.
Although I share your worry that the US will become an IP-based economy, there's still a long way to go before that happens.
Manufacturing and trade still dwarf other the information and entertainment sectors:
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/IBQTable?_bm=y&-filter=&-sortkey2=&-defOrder=N&-sortkey1=&-ds_name=EC0700A1&-sortkey0=-RCPTOT&-NAICS2007=00|21|22|23|31-33|42|44-45|48-49|51|52|53|54|55|56|61|62|71|72|81&-ib_type=NAICS2007&NAICS2007sector=*2&-geo_id=01000US&-dataitem=RCPTOT|GEO_ID$|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.)
Skype is too convoluted... Now I'm reverse-engineering the Kyoto Protocol.