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Ask Slashdot: What If Intellectual Property Expired After Five Years?
New submitter ancientt writes "As a thought experiment, what if the constitution of the U.S. was amended so that no idea (with exceptions only for government use, like currency) could be protected from copy or use beyond January 1, 2035 for more than a five-year period. After a five-year span, any patent, software license, copyright, software NDA or other intellectual property agreement would expire. (This is not an entirely new idea, but would have had significant recent ramifications if it had been enacted in the past.) Specific terms are up for debate, but in this experiment businesses must have time to try to adjust to sell services and make the services good enough to compete with other businesses offering the same basic products. Microsoft can sell a five-year-old variant of OSX, Apple can sell Windows 2030. Cars, computers and phones would, or at least could, still be made, but manufacturers would be free to use any technology more than five years old or license new technology for a five-year competitive edge. Movie, TV and book budgets would have to adjust to the potential five-year profit span, although staggered episode or chapter releases would be legal. Play 'What if' with me. What would be the downsides? What would be the upsides?"
I think the time of the patent, software license, copyright, software NDA or other intellectual property should relate to it's "impact".
eg. Swipe to unlock. Length: About 10 secs. Hoverboard. Length: 10 years.
I would have suggested relating it to the cost of discovery, but there's some things that would not have cost much, but the impact would be huge. I'm sick of these "obvious" patents being awarded to companies, but make them last only a short period might reduce the companies from submitting silly patents.
How about letting patent examiners determine the duration instead of keeping a fixed time for everything? Pharmaceuticals with decade long trial periods would be protected for longer, software patents (like "slide to unlock") only for a few years.
I think that's a bad idea that just opens up for corruption and more lawyer work.
How about "15 years from filing or 5 years from licensing or first unit shipped, whichever comes first"?
I think it may have the effect of weeding out some of the bullshit pharmaceuticals. Especially if we don't allow unfinished (untested) products from being copyrighted/patented. I can't patent an unfinished invention, I can't copyright an unfinished book, they can't own vaporware. " It ain't done, till it's done."
Products like Mediator,or weight loss pills that undo your heart valves wouldn't make it to market let alone the patent office. Of course we would wait longer for medicine that worked and some would suffer and die. Surprise, we've waited this many thousand years for a cure/treatment, don't bring me shit that doesn't work or causes something worse. Not an issue.
Further, I think we could lead the world in this 5 year I.P. ownership. Some would say, the world would run us over with their laws, but we will either need to diplomatically get them to see the light and include it in treaties/agreements or just flat out quit recognizing their I.P. after 5 years and let them figure it out for themselves.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
I saw the title and was already afraid of how the post was going to be worded. Within reading the first 2 sentences of this article, I was cringing.
If you can't express yourself properly, nobody will take you seriously, and you won't win any intellectual argument.
Let's reword the title: What if Exclusive Intellectual Property Control Expired After 5 Years?
See the change? Intellectual property (or IP as everyone calls it) has existed, exists, and will exist forever. The exclusive control (with a few exceptions) over reproduction, distribution, etc is a limited monopoly granted by copyright and patent law, where the exclusive control lasts for a finite time. The authority to do any of this is in the US Constitution, but only in the simplest of terms. In order to change it, for all intents and purposes, one needs only to get (or buy) legislation--not amending the constitution itself--to change the rules of the game.
And, even this monopoly is a modern creation. Historically, most of all the worlds best music, paintings, etc were produced under patronage, where a wealthy person would pay the creator (which might include letting the person live on his estate, etc) to make a work for him. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage#Arts
Now, on to the real reason of your article: What if this exclusive control period was reduced to 5 years.
I have looked at this for a long time, and I have come to some conclusions myself. Let me share my conclusions.
My personal opinion: Patents have never had their duration period expanded. They are still 20 years. Why? Patents benefit companies/corporations for the short term for the original purpose -- to prevent a competitor from 'stealing' the idea and mass-producing it, reducing your rewards -- in the short term, but it is in their interest to get access to the IP in the long term. So, it's "naturally" limited in that sense. If one company got all patents lengthened to 100 years, they wouldn't be able to use a competitor's ideas either for 100 years.
But copyright is another matter. In this case, it's publishers (today) against the consumer. There is no "natural" limitation in the sense that to a publisher, the consumer is just another lowest common denominator revenue target, and not a competitor (that they want to 'limit') nor a high-value content producer that they can exploit. Once you see this, you see how they try to get copyrights extended to 'one day short of forever' (can't remember which liberal congressman said that recently, but one did) so they can abuse/extend their monopoly against 'us' if you will, with the content they already control.
For copyrights, there is no 'natural' competition to keep the game honest. So, will your 5-year period ever happen? Not without a revolution.
Now, as to your 5-year period. It's too short. It takes 3-6 years to get a product, like a new car model or a new CPU architecture, or a new DRAM standard, etc into production and into the market. With a 5-year exclusive period, it could be over before a company can make any money on their 'creativity' and a competitor could steal their thunder quite easily. For copyright as well, it could take 2-5 years to produce a movie, and they lose control of it in the same time as it took to make it? That makes it too short, as it could dissuade creative people from even trying to write/produce content.
But, the current 120-150 years is a joke. The US founding fathers struck a good balance: An initial 14-year copyright term, with an optional 14 years if the author is still alive and deemed it 'worth it' to pay the fees to extend it once more for another 14 years.
Since most books only have a single printing, the first term is long enough to motivate people to 'produce', while it's short enough that if it doesn't work out as the author intended, then the public can extend the idea on their own. It's the porridge is too cold/hot problem. There has to be a bal
Don't steal. The government hates competition.
You see, the world we live today is so fucked up, that if you invent something really brand new and you do not patent it, you just _might_ get sued !
In my mind this and the proliferation of, at best, highly questionable patents is the real problem. I don't see a huge problem with the duration of patents. In part because some really innovative technologies, medications for example, cost billions of dollars to develop and the time to recoup that investment is going to be longer than five years.
The duration of copyrights on the other hand are absolutely obscene. Even there five years is really short. I think the danger with such a short term would be that it would empower large corporations to some degree. After all other companies have the resources to go out there and compete head to head even if there is no copyright. The small content creator, without a major corporation behind him, is basically forced to try and compete in a wide open market. My guess is the small creator would just get crushed if anything he made caught the eye of a major company.
I think the real problem is that patents and copyrights have been corrupted. Both are good ideas and encourage people to invent and create things. The problem is they've both been corrupted to the benefit of a few entrenched interests. Copyrights in particular bear little resemblance to what they were supposed to be. I mean the whole point of them was to encourage people to create things so that the public domain would be enriched. Now they've become a tool for the virtual destruction of the public domain. Which is clearly not what was intended.