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Intellectual Property Rights: The Quiet Killer of Rio+20
ericjones12398 writes "Richard Phillips, president of the Intellectual Property Owners Association, sent a powerful message to Washington the day before the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development regarding the U.S. intellectual property community's stance on sharing IPR with developing nations. Philips argued any language included in the Rio+20 final declaration compromising the existing IP regime would discourage investment and destroy trade secrets. 'Any references to technology transfer should be clearly qualified and conditioned to include only voluntary transfer of IPR on mutually agreed terms.' The IPO has no interest in helping developing countries transition to a more sustainable economy if it means sacrificing valuable IPR. And the IPO's chilly message set the tone for what many pundits and participants considered a disappointing Rio+20 conference yielding few substantive results."
The IPO has no interest in helping developing countries transition to a more sustainable economy if it means sacrificing valuable IPR.
In other stunning news, the rich still have it better than the poor, politicians don't have the best interests of their citizens at heart, and 2013 won't be the "Year of Linux."
Since when has anyone WITH that much valuable IP ever given it up freely? Oh sure, here and there, a token gesture. But does anyone really expect Monsanto or Intel to give up their *entire business model* and *everything that makes them money* tomorrow because some third-world country is poor? Not likely.
And to be brutally honest, how is it really fair to ask them to? If they paid for the R&D, why should someone else be entitled to it without paying a cent? Is it some first-world tech company's fault that your country is poor, that your government is too corrupt to invest in its infrastructure instead of padding El-Presidente's pockets, that your education system is a joke? Sure it would be a great charitable gesture for them to give it to you at a big discount, but that hardly gives you the right to *demand* it. You're certainly not entitled to it just because you're poor. And it probably wouldn't even do you any good, in the long term anyway, unless you deal with the underlying problems in your country that put you in poverty to begin with (El Presidente will just stuff his pockets deeper with any new money too).
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Fortunately, the laws that magically make "intellectual property" "exist" are national laws.
Any poor country can create such things, or not, as it chooses.
Monsanto and Intel don't really have any choice as to whether or not their monopoly rights exist in a given country.
That's up to the country.
Reading the MSM I got the impression I'm was the only person in the world expecting the conference to fail. I always assumed that was because MSM is stupid, but came-on, here too?
Why would anybody expect any agreement? Wasn't Kyoto enough to show that nobody wants to commit, and everybody wants everybody else to? There is no more easy stuff to do for the environment (like banning CFCs), nobody will reach an agreement on anything hard. Claiming the failure is due to any cause, but lack of commitment is a lie.
Rethinking email
Because of course industrialized nations don't rely at all on the resources from "third world hell holes", as you put it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The problem TFA specifically addresses is the problem of pollution and "green" technology. The developed world, understandably, has done most of the research in that field. What the IPO is basically saying is they don't give a shit if the developing world gets clean technology or not. That severely hampers the ability of developing nations to control pollution and CO2 emissions, even if they want to, which can have a global impact down the line on the entire planet. And that is frankly the problem, because it would mean the short-term selfishness of the corporations (in and of itself actually understandable and acceptable, in many ways: they're in it for the profit, after all) will, in the long term, do tremendous damage to the planet (which is not acceptable).
Not to mention it is in the best interest of the world for undeveloped countries to develop stably, not just for pollution concerns. An unsustainable but otherwise relatively developed country is a recipe for World War III, in the long run. Possibly even nuclear war, if they are developed enough and desperate enough.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
That's some mighty industrious reasoning you got there, son.
Would you like a slice of toast?
Not much more to say about it. Of course they don't wont a level playing field.
I just wish they would make an exception for pharmaceuticals, because access to affordable working medicines is a moral issue.
Any poor country can create such things, or not, as it chooses.
But just think - if a small third-world company started manufacturing, say drugs that the local people who live on a dollar a day need, earning perhaps a trivial profit, it would be the end of the 1st world countries!
As if the idea weren't already impeding the progress of the arts and useful sciences. Because a company like Apple would never use such a system to try to band the competition from the marketplace or anything...
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Requiring these companies to license their IP and/or forcing conditions on those licenses would amount to expropriation. The US government has been very harsh on regimes that expropriated assets of its citizens without fair compensation (and rightly so) so it would be strange if it forced this upon it's own companies. I doubt the lobbyists were really needed to get this point across.
Law of unintended consequences.
If they don't want the terminator gene to be widely deployed they will just have to pay up. There are technical solutions to national R&D freeloading.
That said even in the first world patents run for only 20 years. Companies could potentially keep secrets for longer.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
There is nothing stopping governments from doing the R&D themselves. But you can't very well let a private company foot the bill and then turn around, after the company spent all the money on the tech and are looking to sell products based on it, and tell them "We're taking it and giving it away." That's just glorified theft.
Again, the governments could pay for the research *themselves*, you know.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Capital must be free ... it will always seek out the highest ROI ... capital and capitalists are not slaves.
Big picture ideas, fail when details get in the way, and people are unable to find an appropriate compromise, and take your opponents view into account.
For Example... Lets simplify the US tax plan, and get rid of all those loopholes that the 1 percent use to get off tax free. ....
Well what about deductions for charity?
How about investing in your retirement?
Well you have kids?
You shortly find the simple idea of making the Tax Plan easy and fair quickly comes up with a lot of details that you find, that there are not easy answers too.
Or lets go to the right... Lets reduce government services, that keeps all our taxes high.
How about military, can we reduce that?
What about funding R&D?
Incubators for new business ideas?
Road, and Infrastructure....
Paraphrasing Douglas Adams. To summarize the summery of the summary; people are a problem.
With the exception of the people who grew up with a golden spoon in their mouth. Most of the successful people in the United States and the World usually got there with Hard Work, personal sacrifice, and taking risks. They choose a lot of personal trade offs to get in that position. They won't freely give it up.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
...that the the IPO’s "chilly message" set the tone for anything at Rio +20. It was doomed from the start and everyone involved knew it.
One look at the drafts of the ridiculous "The Future We Want" document is sufficient to explain the failure of Rio +20. No "chilly message" from IP owners is required.
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
The content Mafia has invented a model, that allows them, to take the works of others (the actual creatives) via a adhesion contract, and make money on every worthless copy, without moving a single finger. It's fraud. Plain and simple.
And for those who don't fall for the bullshit, they have set up a racketeering scheme, where they scaremonger people into not going to court and paying money, because they know exactly that in court, they wouldn't stand a chance, because they have as much proof as that one "lawyer" in Idiocracy.
Not to forget, that this industry is ridiculously tiny, and only can keep up its ego through massive overinflated self-importance. (Comparison: The whole global music industry has the same revenue, as a single bankrupt German construction company [Holzwinkel]. The whole German music industry has one quarter of the revenue of the municipal transportation services of a 1 million people city. That's *nothing*!)
Yet they want to destroy our entire society to keep up their insane delusions. Even though their fantasies aren't even physically possible, unless you think putting DRM (you know: that thing that by definition can’t work) in every single brain and device is somehow realistically doable and would work too.
Come on guys! We have to push against a bunch of madmen with extreme (often drug-inflated) egos! We can't just push normally. We have to push *harder*!
it is a valid argument, to note, that the reason Germany got the Nazis was not the few crazies. It was the whole nation not doing much against it, and falling for the propaganda!
(Hell, I've seen loads of people even here already use their bullshit propaganda terms like "intellectual property", or even *defend* those criminals! That's *completely* and *utterly* unacceptable!)
The governments already pay for a lot of the research and then, especially in the US, allow private corporations to make profits from them.
When a company like Dow is able to deny information on exactly what was leaked at Bhopal to the medical authorities on the grounds of commercial confidentiality you just know that the world is being mismanaged for the benefit of the very, very few at the expense of the rest of us.
You have yo be deliberately dense to miss that point that AGW is simply another tool for third world nations, who usual have some tin pot dictator, a strong tendency towards Socialist agendas an not so thriving middle class (or, non at all) to line their pockets.
Except that when 3rd world countries don't do what they are told, they are hit with economic sanctions, their leaders are demonised in the world media, and in extreme cases they are invaded, bombed or both. The poverty in the third world is manufactured, not in the sense that it wasn't there before and someone created it, but in the sense that it would have naturally faded away by now if powerful rich nations weren't working their asses of to perpetuate it. Cuba is a nice example, they got the sanctions for having strong welfare, education and medical policies designed to bring them up to first world status. First they got crippling sanctions, and although these succeeded in keeping them poor, it didn't make them give up their system. Then they got the invasions.
You can 'widely deploy' terminator genes, but you just need a few fertile seeds to spread to undermine that. Seeds that don't reproduce are an evolutionary dead end.
Also, If they could reliably keep something secret for longer than 20 years in a certain instance, they wouldn't seek a patent on it, and right now, seeking patents is entirely voluntary.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Rio+20 failed bloviations have nothing to do with IP.
the expected business model of the have-nots is to steal and cheat their way into international economic solidity?
that's not fair! -- you're copying Wall Street bankers! quit it!
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
The myopia and greed really makes them no better than that other special interest group determined to crimincally enrich themselves at the expense of everybody and everything else: the bankers.
But just think - if a small third-world company started manufacturing, say drugs that the local people who live on a dollar a day need, earning perhaps a trivial profit, it would be the end of the 1st world countries!
I think YOU need to think that through a little more. Or at least be more clear about what you are trying to say. Work on writing skills.
AGW is the consensus view of an overwhelming number of climatologists and researchers in related fields. As I always say, the Universe doesn't give a fuck about the Third World, about your particular favorite socio-economic philosophical stance, about whether gas is cheap or expensive. If AGW is happening, your political leanings mean absolutely fucking nothing.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
What is "sustainable development" anyways, and why should the UN be concerned with it anyways? Most countries that need "development" are festering cesspools of corruption, nepotism and cronyism, and don't see how throwing a bunch of resources at the problem is going to do anything except give the leaders more to pillage from their countries.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Governments do pay for a lot of the research, the company chips in a pittance, gets the patent and gives a nominal royalty to the university that developed the technology. Even if a private company completely did all of the research, the patent they hold is agreement between themselves and the governments of nations that have agreed to give them patents for a temporary legal monopoly in exchange for having done the research and disclosure. Nations that have not agreed to give them patents have made no such agreement, and in no way need to be charitable to that particular corporation.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
2013 won't be the "Year of Linux"
I know that you're kidding an all that. But I should point out that 2013 doesn't need to be the year of Linux because 2011 was. Linux dominates the mobile space around the world now.
Romney? Is that you? You just summed up every brainwashed asshole who refuses to accept the reality that not every obscenely wealthy person worked hard to get there, or deserves to be so.
The thing is when we were a basically a 3rd world nation, right after we became a nation we ripped off everyone's IP.
Without that step you can never really get to a point at which you can create a workable economy.
While you may have a point about Cuba, I'm pretty sure the vast majority of third-world countries aren't under any economic sanctions from the the first-world.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
A man puts a gun in your face and demands your wallet.
Someone with "industrious" reasoning:
"This guy must be the product of a broken home, or maybe his mother smoked crack. Perhaps he could get into some program to teach him a skill or maybe get him on food stamps to he wouldn't have to hold up people at gun point."
You normal person:
"This fucker wants my money. "
Those third world fuckers want our money.
Not once they're part of the WTO...
Even in Iran the WIPO found an useful idiot who signed IP treatees and published an on-ed in the local newpaper that thanks to this signature there was now an expo about iranian art in the geneve office of the WIPO.
And the real reason all those people hang on to IP is because they very much remember how the fact that Europe let go, and let the americans do massive infringement was the main reason the US got a leg up (and of course our own stupidity in making two world wars, that helped too)
. . . 50,000+ delegates? That's just too many to get any real work done. Even G20 has too many wonks. And everyone wants to step up to the podium to get heard; even if they have nothing worth contributing anyway. And that in Rio. What you end up with is a wet & wild, boozy spring break mayhem.
Instead, get a small group (less than 10) of the most important developed and non-developed countries together to agree to a draft first. Hold it in Minsk, in the middle of winter, to keep all the hang around wonks and protesters away. Then try to haggle, horse trade and beat the rest of the world with iron fists to accept it.
However, I can't even believe that the first step will succeed either.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
If they have paid for R&D......
IF, and only IF, ELSE what? Because, you know, it very rare for the big companies to actually invent something new. They do prefer to buy it. Look GOOGLE for example, except their search engine and gmail (which now is becoming more and more bloated), there is NOTHING else that they did invent. Literally. ZERO.
If AGW is happening, then your political leanings dictate if you get to live in a huge house next to Al Gore or in a green shanty designed lesson your impact on the environment.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
And when the value of patents falls more will just keep secrets, just like they did before patents were issued.
Like I said, unintended consequences.
I've asked this on this site many times. How do you make a Stradivarius? Losing knowledge like that is a cost of _not_ having patents.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Ah, ideology is always just a tall, cool drink of water, isn't it? Refreshing! New ideas!
They will be if they don't do enough to 'respect IP.' That's the purpose of the Special 301 report.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Governments do sponsor a lot of the development, either through contracts/loan support (like Solyndra) or through university research (which may be direct or simply letting them use the facilities cheaply). In any case, they aren't trying to "take it away", what they want is for them to sell the technology at below market prices. Realistically speaking, the companies will make back their research profits selling in developed countries anyways (or they would never have developed it in the first place). What the companies want is to be able to sell it at full market value in other countries as well. In fact, they could sell it for much less (ideally, whole-sale prices, but probably above that) and lose nothing or even make a small profit, but their greed prevents that. They view selling things for less than as much as they can a "loss." They don't want to make a small profit, they want to make all the profit (which ironically ends up making the less money, since they end up not selling in those countries at all).
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Finding out why might be a good idea.
Heck, giving them some of it might be a wise idea. It can be cheaper to spend a little on educating that criminal into a functional member of society than to let him continue to live this way.
Sustainable development is easy. My computer models show as much. For example, once you're done punching a tree to pieces, replant a few of the saplings that drop as the floating foliage evaporates. Potable water? A 2x2 well provides infinite buckets of it. Crops can be expanded indefinitely if you collect the seeds from your wheat harvests for replanting.
What is "sustainable development" anyways
I think Ron Bailey answered that question the best in one of his Reason articles (sorry, no URL, I'm at work and won't go to Reason from here) on the Rio fiasco:
It means whatever you want it to mean.
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
This is a complete falsehood.
I've got to love it. The deniers either deny there is a consensus, or use the consensus to claim a flaw.
Make no mistake. The vast majority of climatologists accept AGW, and the above poster is a lying sack of shit.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
We kept the rest of the third world impoverished by trading with them (or something).
We kept Cuba impoverished by not trading with them (or something).
When your axiom is 'The poverty in the third world is manufactured' you twist everything to support that view.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Forget about technology. People have been living without computers and gadgets for centuries. This will adversely impact the health of the developing and some underdeveloped nations because it will have a direct impact on the pharmaceutical and medicine field. One simple example would be the cure for AIDS. If some company found a cure for aids in the form of a $50,000 shot, then it is not going to help people in the poor countries where AIDS is more prevalent. Unless they wish to sell it for $10 or less, nobody can benefit from it. This has been true with many pharma companies in the past who don't collaborate or make a cheap recipe to be used in poor countries. So does that mean the people's lives in poor countries are less valuable than the people in developed and rich nations? This is what you get for being purely capitalistic. The age of "love thy neighbour and everyone deserves a chance" is gone. :(
...for now.
Governments don't pay for a fucking thing themselves. It's either taxes previously collected or taxes the will collect from your kids and grandkids being spent now.
What, like the USA is any different?
C|N>K
You make a Stradivarius the same way you make any other high quality violin, as shown by skilled musicians failing to distinguish them from modern replicas in blind tests.
the expected business model of the have-nots is to steal and cheat their way into international economic solidity?
that's not fair! -- you're copying Wall Street bankers! quit it!
Right; we own the monopoly on that particular activity.
Now, cut it out before we sick our fully-militarized police on you.
Ever yours,
the 0.04 Percent.
The national anthem of the US is actually a reworded English drinking song.
But you can't very well let a private company foot the bill and then turn around, after the company spent all the money on the tech and are looking to sell products based on it, and tell them "We're taking it and giving it away." That's just glorified theft.
In the U.S. you do that after twenty years. Society grants exclusive rights to encourage innovation which helps society. If you were to believe the IP fud of today it's a miracle anyone ever started a fire what with there being no incentive to monopolize the ability to do so.
Poorer countries gain little by respecting IP in richer country. Quite frankly the problem is that 3rd world countries pay any attention to IP laws in another country at all.
Human beings are the dominate species on this planet because we are capable of sharing information better than any other animal. I do not understand why some people think knowledge is useless unless money is being made off of it or that it is some kind of god-given right to exclude other from or that it won't happen without IP protection have no clue about the history of mankind for the last several dozen millennia (hint: On a logarithmic scale, knowledge has increased at the same rate for recorded history regardless of the laws and politics of any given time). Ben Franklin had it right with patents.
And that's bad how? Just because they try to keep secrets doesn't mean that they will actually manage to do so successfully. If they could, they would be idiots to seek patents. The argument that patents reduce trade secrets is an obvious joke. The decent rationalization is that it spurs on R&D funding, although that doesn't seem to hold up to scrutiny either.
You are assuming that the luthier would have ever disclosed this knowledge for a patent, when there's no evidence that he would have. It's also assuming that his patent would disclose the entire secret, instead of just the elements that would be easy to figure out and copy, such as the combination of woods used, without the juicy details that we still haven't reverse engineered.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Citation needed. I call bullshit.
We can see what is different about Stradivariuses (wood pores are wide open), but we don't know what varnishing process was used.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
As is the English national anthem. The same drinking song.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Poll after poll shows that the people have wised up to the alarmism. So there is no mileage in it for politicians any more.
In a way they did pay for R&D. The wealth accumulated by R&D is stored in the form of company and IP valuation, which Google did pay for. What you have said is similar to saying 'You didn't pay for your 100 year old house to be built, therefore you don't really own it.'
I agree with the parent. Rio was dead before it began.
It might, in some cases, be a wise idea to give a poor person/country some gold.
It is never a wise idea to give someone threatening you gold, give them high velocity copper jacketed led. If you must, throw them a nickle then shoot them when they bend to get it.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
"It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong." (Jeremy Bentham)
<quote> And to be brutally honest, how is it really fair to ask them to? If they paid for the R&D, why should someone else be entitled to it without paying a cent? Is it some first-world tech company's fault that your country is poor, that your government is too corrupt to invest in its infrastructure instead of padding El-Presidente's pockets, that your education system is a joke? </quote>
To be brutally honest: yes it is. Corruption works both ways, and both are equally guilty, the one being corrupted *and* the one who corrupts. Companies do not only pay for R&D, they pay for monopoly, they pay to get others out of competition, they pay to keep entire countries in misery and poverty. So, honestly, blame the system or whatever, they take part on keeping it the way it is, it is their fault.
The problem is, it is destroying the environment. People will have to be living in bubbles if nobody takes action, and companies do not care if they have to commit suicide to make money. Environmental concerns are calculated, into their revenues, to maximizes profit.
Lots of tests have been done, here's a good one:
http://www.pnas.org/content/109/3/760
See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stradivarius#Comparisons_in_sound_quality
You market the hell out of a name and make them expensive enough that only really good players can get one.
Look it up yourself, there is nothing magic about those violins.
I have said it many times and will again, people will not stop creating for lack of protection, they did before.
Lots of tests have been done. There is nothing special about those violins.
I just wanted to add here: Something that most people are also forgetting is:
VERY FEW PATENTS ON THE BOOKS ACTUALLY EXPLAIN THE DEVICE OR PROCESS NECESSARY TO REPLICATE IT.
What does this mean? It means future generations are being screwed out of the ability to replicate necessary techniques that WE'RE LETTING THEM PROFIT WITH.
What's the point of intellectual property rights if after a suitable amount of time they are not returned in whole to the public interest?
That's where my gripe is on all this bullshit. How much digital archeology has been lost because source code and development processes weren't logged during the early days of hardware/software development? What about movies? Manuscripts? Original masters of music? Etc. The list goes on. And they're recieving exclusivity of sale of the finished product for a lifetime/indefinitely (in the case of copyright) with nothing in return being given back to society as a whole.
What then was the point of giving them these PRIVILEGES in the first place. That's perhaps the most infuriating part. It's all being treated as PROPERTY which is generally considered an indefinite form of control rather than a time-limited PRIVILEGE, which is what it was actually enshrined as.
Anyways someone more eloquent than me should probably rephrase and consolidate this so more people will bring it up during future topics like this.
No, it wouldn't be the end of patent holders, as long as those developing countries help their local people and do not export any of their production. For example http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/03/13/1716206/indian-govt-uses-special-powers-to-slash-cancer-drug-price-by-97 would work if India keeps all production inside their borders.
What the IP holders fear (and rightly so) is that these countries will use the technology not only to help their people, but to supplant their benefactors in the future. I think a balance can be worked out with technology transfers based on a period of export restriction for the recipient country.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
They are "taking" nothing. The R&D is still there, was still done. The developing world just wants FRAND licensing at rates below what anyone wants to offer. And if FRAND isn't offered, then their only other option to use that tech is to use it unlicensed. And the IPO has said they'd rather deal with that than be seen as being weak by issuing FRAND licenses for their tech.
Learn to love Alaska
Cuba is a bad example since the reason for their sanctions has absolutely nothing to do with what you said.
The reason for the sanctions is that the US paid for a revolution and then the people of Cuba had the gall to go communist.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
If a bunch of fascist oligarchs and a bunch of communists destroy eachother at some pretentious UN conference where you're not invited, is it really all bad? I'll pop the popcorn.
Cuba was sanctioned for having strong welfare, education and medical policies designed to bring them up to first world status.
I thought it was because they were aligned with the Soviet Union, and also because they nationalized billions worth of US assets.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Sustainable development is an oxymoron used by politicians to show the $green lobby that they care about $green stuff. It's almost as funny as when they say "sustainable growth", or as when you show them an exponential function. If you find a semi-educated one, try explaining to him/her that the laws of thermodynamics say we can't sustain global growth for more than ~100 years no matter what magic technology we invent. Please youtube the resulting facial expression.
for i in `facebook friends "=bday" 2>/dev/null | cut -d " " -f 3-`; do facebook wallpost $i "Happy birthday!"; done
Score:10, Truth
They shouldn't give it up for free. First world countries should give up their tech as long as the recipients guarantee cuts of pollution in return. This is the system every global ecological problam should be handled: for example, instead of blaming the poor Brasilians because of deforestation, the Western world (that has already cut down most of its forests) should hire the forest areas giving third world countries an income and incentive to preserve. This is how Kyoto is supposed to work, unfortunately the CO2 quota exchange was terribly implemented because politics got in the way.
the reality that not every obscenely wealthy person worked hard to get there, or deserves to be so.
The corollary to that is also that not every poor person is a victim of circumstance, or can be helped if just given more money, or even deserves to be helped.
Is there a logical fallacy for arguing like a talking head? Because you just committed it.
The poverty in the third world is manufactured, not in the sense that it wasn't there before and someone created it, but in the sense that it would have naturally faded away by now if powerful rich nations weren't working their asses of to perpetuate it. Cuba is a nice example, they got the sanctions for having strong welfare, education and medical policies designed to bring them up to first world status.
Bullshit.
Poverty in the third world is manufactured by the corrupt, miserable leadership of the third world.
To name some examples of countries that *rapidly* transitioned (or are on an incredible upswing) from the third world to the first world in the 20th century: Japan, China, Singapore, Spain, South Korea, South Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Chile, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, and Brazil.
That's just off the top of my head.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
I did not suggest paying them off. I suggested fixing the underlying problems.
Imperialist! They need to fix _their_ problems. The other approach has been tried.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
No, but there is a logical fallacy for using pejoratives such as "denier." It's called ad hominem. Go look it up.
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
this is bullshit.
You don't need a patent to make software.
Patent for a stradivarious is for making a physical product.
Let's not strawman this shit into oblivion, please.
When a software patent expires, the knowledge doesn't "magically disappear" people just start doing what they could have done the last X years that the patent existed. It's a monopoly, not a benefit.
Obama? Is that you? You summed up every loser on this site.
Rush? Is that you? You summed up every dittohead who thinks they understand the topic they have an opinion on.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Ok nutcase, I did not mean go in and do it.
I mean assist in fixing the issues. I mean not standing in their way as we currently do by sanctioning nations if they dare make their own drugs. Never mind that we founded our nation by ripping off IP.
My Country 'Tis of Thee (tune of "God Save the King/Queen") isn't the U.S. national anthem...
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
Google Search was originally developed and hosted by Stanford University. Google benefited from a Federal grant and was allowed to maintain the rights (via licensing from Stanford) to the intellectual property, but only because the Bayh-Dole Act made an allowance for this. Without Bayh-Dole, this wouldn't have been possible, as the intellectual property created by the grant would have been property of the Federal government. So as for the Google example, Google Inc., in actuality, never really invented anything. Ever.
So much for the GOP argument that only private enterprise can successfully raise capital and develop new innovations. On the contrary, most of the technology we take for granted today would have never been funded if left to free markets alone.
Denier is a descriptive term. The fact that you take it as a pejorative is very telling.
I can't tell if you are trying to be funny or not, but the US national anthem is the "Star Spangled Banner." The lyrics are from a poem by Francis Scott Key. These lyrics, written during the War of 1812, were eventually matched to the English drinking song "To Anacreon in Heaven."
On the other hand the English (UK) don't have an official national anthem. "God Save the King/Queen" is probably the closest approximation. While the origin of the lyrics and tune are not known, it probably dates back to the 17th century and is likely based on church music of the time. The tune is the same as that used in "America" (i.e. the song beginning "My country, 'tis of thee..."), which may explain your apparent confusion.
Rhapsody in Numbers
The governments already pay for a lot of the research
So rather than glorified theft from a private company, it would be glorified theft from tax payers. This is more acceptable, how?
This is very very wrong. You're confusing a couple of separate issues.
The tune of the USA's national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner" comes from "To Anacreon in Heaven"--an English drinking song.
The tune of "American the Beautiful" comes from "God Save the Queen", and that tune's origin is obscure.
Ok, Mr. Economic Genius, explain to us why profit-maximizing corporations would choose to sell zero of their product to a country and make zero money, than sell some of their product at a price that is lower than they receive in other countries, but still high enough to increase their profits over what it would be otherwise?
You need a valium man. I'm serious. Or at least a beer or 4.
The lunatics run the asylum now.
What you rail aginst.... They are the majority. By a wide margin.
Logic and common sense can't win.
So you might as well relax, sit back and enjoy the ride. We're not driving and we have no say in where we are going.
We don't trade with them as much as bribe their leaders to allow western companies to shuttle natural resources out of the country for ridiculously low prices. When leaders try to nationalize oil/banana/ore production, they are suddenly branded dictators/communists (see Venezuela, Guatemala, Congo, etc).
...for the open source community to step in and say they're happy to help.
And there I was thinking that all of these companies got so big and powerful in order to make a difference, or teach the world to sing...
In other news, America wonders why so many people would like to see it bombed back to the stone age.
and 2013 won't be the "Year of Linux."
News flash for you. "Year of Linux" quietly came and went. You're just too smug to have noticed. The fact is, not only does Microsoft disagree with you, so does Valve, more and more game companies, game engine companies, and Apple.
Its not like its a secret or anything. The only requirement is you stop eating the bullshit fed to you by trolls and bother to actually see what the market is saying. The fact is, the market has been saying for several years now Linux has arrived on the desktop and this year, it finally reached a tipping point whereby on the most clueless haven't noticed. Basically, if the "Year of Linux" hasn't arrived, Apple is dead. If you don't know what that means, it means you have no fucking clue what the desktop market looks like these days.
Oddly enough, I can't help but notice that the "most clueless" has been moderated +5 insightful on slashdot. Pretty telling just how far slashdot has fallen. Sad.
And then you will have polarization to China and other non aligned powers. Please do try to do that with Brazil, for example. You won't like the results, I guarantee.
Cuba is a horrible example. If you can't give a better example than that, then you probably don't know what you are talking about.
Which is probably the case. 3rd world countries never get invaded or bombed for intellectual property violations.
Also, "third-world" is an outdated term now. It makes you sound like an aged cold-warrior.
Am I the only one who sees the similarities between IPO's stranglehold on progress now and the catholic church's stranglehold on progress back in the day?
Cease and desist from spreading ideas, your enforced ignorance is valuable to us!
Yes, a "descriptive term" -- that just happens to "describe" someone as an admirer of...
...the subject of Godwin's Law.
As I said, thanks for playing.
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
I think you mean PageRank, which is a part, but not the entirety of Google's search algorithm. And without Bayh-Dole, it wouldn't be property at all, which is how things should be. Google would still be free to implement PageRank into their search, but so would Yahoo, Bing, AltaVista, etc. That said, it would seem like a difficult patent to enforce anyway, given that the interal functions of a search engine are not visible to the public.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Fortunately, the laws that magically make "intellectual property" "exist" are national laws. Any poor country can create such things, or not, as it chooses.
Apparently, you've never heard of the IMF and how they operate on global trade.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
They make more money than me. Therefore, they are too rich and their wealth should be re-distributed, preferably to groups that include me.
This sounds so much like the slogan of the "Rio+20 Summit", your post should probably be modded Redundant.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Thank you. That is very well said. As a previous poster mentioned - there is a difference between giving something away out of charity and being forced to give up what you worked so hard creating.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Finding out why might be a good idea.
Heck, giving them some of it might be a wise idea. It can be cheaper to spend a little on educating that criminal into a functional member of society than to let him continue to live this way.
Education? "Use a gun when you want money" is your idea of educating?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
"....are festering cesspools of corruption, nepotism and cronyism, and don't see how throwing a bunch of resources at the problem is going to do anything except give the leaders more to pillage from their countries."
What, like the USA is any different?
Good example. What's the the result of throwing more resources at it? More corruption, more tyranny, and more asking for more resources. Obviously, that method is not just a complete failure, but is proven to exacerbate the problem.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
An here I thought (according to the Marxist "under-development" theory that "peripheral" countries were poor because of trade with wealthy countries. Lenin (the founder of said theory in Imperialism, the Last Stage of Capitalism) thought that trade with poor countries always left the poor country worse off. If that's the case then NOT trading with poor countries is the way to go. (And by the way lots of 3rd world countries imposed huge tariffs for just that reason). How did that work out? Not so good. Cuba - if underdevelopment theory is correct should be doing better because of the American boycott.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Uhm, what "benefactors" would that be, pray tell? The only real IP is close held between the ears. Otherwise it is public and the argument is really over whether one can be bullied into paying someone else for using public knowledge. You want to look up the silly number of patents that cover ceramic electrical insulators for household electricity. Hundreds of subtle differences in design, no functional changes and they are all knobs and tubes when you kick the tires.
In the fight: Good Intentions vs. Greedy Bastardism, Greedy Bastardism wins every time. Even if giving a bit of technology away to help a bit and grow new markets, the "Its MINE!, Mine, my preciousssss" view of the arbitrary monopoly and the paid politicians that support it are what holds sway. Note that the problem that 99% of Americans allowed to fester is now affecting people in other places. The real danger is that they are pressing for 'in perpetuity' legislation. The US constitution forbids it, but they aren't opposed to ripping that old thing up, (greed has no bounds), and ten trillion millenia isn't forever, its just a really long time. The words 'spirit of the law' have been sliced and diced to bits too, and the high minded idealism of US founding fathers was replaced while the ink was still wet with backroom deals. Rome *had to burn*! There was nothing left that Caesar could do. The senate was intractable. The words were falling on deaf ears. One side was as radical as the other. Polar opposites unwilling to compromise creates 'kill politics'. Democracy was dead. The entire land had to suffer and be ripped apart before people got a reality check. Everything had been taken for granted for far too long. Everyone was gaming the system. Rome *had to burn*! People look at Caesar like he was an idiot, but he knew even calling the fire department would lead to a stalemate with people asking where the money to pay them came from before they applied the first drop of water. Fire purges the rich and poor equally. Caesar played his fiddle and watched the fire spread. History repeats.
The governments already pay for a lot of the research
So rather than glorified theft from a private company, it would be glorified theft from tax payers. This is more acceptable, how?
Because tax money is FREE! Duh.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
It's not as common as Basloroth makes it sound, but there is a real way for it to happen, and not just for cases where the profit is trivial by comparison with the main market. The corporation simply does a marketability study, and never even looks at the possibility of selling below a certain thereshold, a threshold set high enough there's points below it where they stand to mae only a few cents per unit, but sell enough units that there could be a serious profit on very high volume. If you don't think that happens, just consider all the DVDs that are not made for all of the 7 Region encodings.If companies think there is absolutely zero worthwhile interest in a product over an entire one of the seven regions, it's a pretty safe bet they are not really following the steps to maximize profits.
Who is John Cabal?
Making a high quality violin is not a matter of some secret sauce, not even varnish. It's a matter if high quality wood and high quality workmanship. There are plenty of studies of "what makes a Stradivarius special?" and lots of experimentation to produce equal quality new instruments. General trend of studies: excellent wood choices (right species doesn't guarantee good results), careful, fine tuned construction from properly seasoned wood (again - skill not secrets), Those two traits define and differentiate a high quality violin from a mediocre one. The best being made now are, based on blind tests with professional musicians, indistinguishable in tonal quality and brightness from a Strad.
As they have illustrated with the PSN.
Don't they know big business has already counted the third world population in their profit projections?
You're dramaticly oversimplifying Cuba. It had a long phase as a US colony. Then it was a quasi-independant republic run by mobsters. Then it went communist. The sanctions were put in place as part of the proxy war with the USSR. They are kept in place due to the political will of a deeply entrenched immigrant community lobby who had their property confiscated by the communists. The US is the only country that does this, because we're held captive to that lobby. Everybody else smokes fine cigars and gets on with their lives. Most people in the US who aren't a part of the Cuban immigrant lobby see it for the silliness that it is. If "constructive engagement" was good for our relationship with China (maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but that's beside the point) then why wasn't it good for our relationship with Cuba? Rhetorical question of course. It's a boldly inconsistant policy, and everybody knows what drives it. If that one little community in Miami would just give it up already, Cuba would be one fine vacation spot for Americans, and their communism would probably be morphing into something like a peaceful Swedish style socialism. But NooooO. The US policy in the Americas is "do our hard-right bidding or else". As a result, since ANY move to the left is perceived as a threat, other countries in the Americas have no choice but to be hard-right or hard-left. Hugo Chavez and the Castro dynasty are entirely a result of this dysfunctional US foreign policy. End rant.
A few million in sugar plantations, certainly not 'billions' (at least not in 1957 dollars), even if you were to include the Mafia's casinos. Almost everything that was nationalized belonged to rich Cubanos (many of whom already lived in Miami). While the initial sactions may have been because they were godless commies, by the time of Ronnie Raygun the reason had changed to a fear that if Cuba was allowed to survive and succeed they would provide a "bad" example to the Central American banana republics. Since the bloodbath of the 1980s ensured that freedom and actual self-rule would never be allowed in Central America, today the only reason seems to be inertia.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
The key to the Stradivarius is the material, not the design. The design is the same as every other violin, or it wouldn't be a violin.
You've never traveled outside the US, except maybe on a cruise ship, have you?
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Don't think for a moment that technology given to the Third World will only be used to clean the air. It will be used to make factories more efficient and will then be packaged up and sold back to the West, undercutting the people who developed it.
I really think that in MANY instances, this is pretty much the description of the self-annointed "ruling elite".
any language included ... compromising the existing IP regime would ... destroy trade secrets.
Just the opposite.
The requirement to publicly disclose invention details is what destroys trade secrets.
If there were no patents, there would be no need for public disclosure -- and hence -- there would be maximum protection of trade secrets.
(This kind of "black is white" thinking is very common among strong IP advocates. For example, they believe that patents promote free markets, when -- in fact -- patents exist for the sole purpose of stopping free markets.)
Thank you, master teacher! You have bestowed upon us poors the light of your first world wisdom! Let us hurry, and fix our country. We will tell El Presidente to stop being a dictator. And we will tell our politicians to be honest. And then we shall renew by sprinkling 1000s of public schools accross the country. Alas, the dawn of the new world is here!
-With utmost respect for the holy IPO, Poor_Man_12000001
P.S. In fear that your 1st world education will not allow you to see my point: You have been planted into prosperity, and are no more responsible for it than the guy in the 3rd world. And if you are, it's only because you pay El Presidente to be able to exploit the resources of the poor countries. Now meditate on the eye of the needle, camel.
TL;DR: The Rich are Blind
GE makes much more than a few green energy products. If a country population is aware of a benevolent corporation like GE that places solar panels in every home, for cheap, the people will know. GE could then sell their vast catalog easier, because of brand recognition and customer loyalty. Nah, why bother with benevolent capitalism, let the poor people rot.
Bullshit.
Poverty in the third world is manufactured by the corrupt, miserable leadership of the third world.
False dichotomy. Corrupt, miserable leadership exists in many parts of the world. Italy and Greece are two examples off the top of my head. The corruption and miserable leadership - in my part of the developing world, at least - is assisted in no small part by wealthy business people and corporations from the developed world who are willing to grease palms in order to gain easier access to resources, to ignore workplace safety requirements, to hire at substandard wages and sometimes to commit acts of violence against the people whose land has been expropriated in order for the resource extraction to go ahead.
These corrupt governments did not spring sui generis from the developing world, and they are not unique to those countries. In many, if not most, cases, fledgling democracies were subverted by outside interests looking to avoid the encumbrances and obstacles that a healthy democracy would have placed in their path.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
People ofter preface the IP (Intellectual Property) acronym with the word "valuable", like they are on some propaganda mission.
Is all IP valuable, or only some of it, or is it invaluable (and is it really property) ?
In any case, this guy goes to the next level, hes not saying the IP is valuable, he is saying its the RIGHTS that are valuable.
Hes not concerned about reality, just its effect.
Congratulations, /.
We have just proved to his next target that this guy has the power to stymie a conference of nations with a letter. Whether or not his previous statement was "powerful", his next one will be.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
There's one problem with this boilerplate righteous rant:
Nobody is forced to sign anything. People - the 'actual creatives' - clamour and rush and beg to be signed up to these exploitative contracts with the Mafiaa.
And the reason for that is because they do add value. They have the marketing and distribution channels, without which no-one would ever hear of your masterpiece. If you can crack that nut, then you can do away with the Mafiaa. But until then, they will continue to rule the industry.
If all Warner Music did was provide a studio and print the physical media, they'd have been out of business these 15 years or more. But they also do a little something called 'marketing', and that's a hell of a lot more work than you seem to think it is.
(And anyone who mentions YouTube or Amazon in this context fails economics forever.)
Some countries set themselves up as "tax havens" to reap the benefits of having international corporations headquarter there. Corporations escape tax, yet they still expect the other countries to to enforce the laws beneficial to them.
Other countries set themselves up as "data havens", and all hell breaks loose.
No wonder we have such a mess.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
The term 3rd world does not apply before 1947. If you want to extend the terminology before then, the US (and the colonies before that) would still be 1st world (e.g. aligned with capitalism).
There was also no rip off. Same as today, patents only apply where the inventor has applied for them. If there is no patent, it's not a rip off. Since few people apply for patents in, say Chad, it's not a rip off to make and sell all sorts of things there. In other words, you can't rip of Intellectual Property where it isn't property.
Trade secrets are just that: secrets. It is the responsibility of the trade secret holder to keep it a secret. Which is why patents are useful. The US made use of all sorts of acquired technology. But if it wasn't kept secret, then it wasn't a trade secret.
Lastly, most of history consists of nations with workable economies that never ripped off any IP. They might only be agrarian, but they didn't have to rip off any IP to get a workable economy.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Look, the bottom line is this. The basis of civilization is not IP or economics or even freedom of speech or civil rights or even basic personal freedom. The basis of civilization is survival.
Anything that threatens survival, like society's inability to move to sustainable solutions, of which this clown and his organization are a part, is going to die. There is no other way to put that.
. No person, organization , politician, ruler or nation can- where "can" means "is able", and not "should" - put themselves and their individual greed above our collective need to go on living.Society and the legitimate governments they form will kill them to defend themselves and insure their continued survival.
There are effectively now two kinds of people in the world - those that get it, get where we are as a species in history, and those like this fucking grunting pig, who don't.
He shouldn't be worrying about whether his slice bread is going to be larded to his liking; he should be expending his ingenuity to find new ways to disseminate sustainable practices, know-how and technology as widely as possible to everyone everywhere and doing everything he possibly can to avert the ecological disaster that is now hurtling towards our fragile, inter-dependent world.
The age of greed, exploitation, despoilation and fuck-youism is over. Those who try to maintain that mindset in the face of an increasing desperate populace will get what's coming to them courtesy of the duly elected governments of the world.
Since when has anyone WITH that much valuable IP ever given it up freely?
This is not about owner giving their IP property, this is about setting up a legal framework to take their IP property in some particular situations, where the general interest is at stake.
Property is not a natural law, this is just something society enforces because it serves a general interest, and it can be revoked for just the same reason.
I saw that article and took the "test." I picked out the Strad right away - the performer couldn't make the lower passages on the G string sound as consistent and strong. I doubt they had many classically trained violinists listen to the excerpts (a bassoonist or percussionist probably doesn't spend much time listening to solo violin music.) I'm sure not all strads are up to the same quality, but there are real reasons Strads and Guaneri violins are in such demand - not just because they're not being replaced, and not just because of the prestige.
Although I'm not a violinist, what I've been told by classical violinists who've had the opportunity to play a strad: it's hard to make a bad sound on the instrument - tone production is easier.
Believe it or not, a lower quality instrument (violin or otherwise) may not suitable for playing certain pieces. Violins and pianos are great examples of this. I overheard a couple of violinists playing the opening page of the Scherzo from Schumann's second symphony (recording and sheet music ). Both violinists played it on a $30k violin and $40k violin. Neither was able to get the passage clear (at full tempo) on the $30k violin, but both could play it easily on the $40k violin. Both violinists were conservatory trained and about equal skill level. That's not to say that instruments are all priced perfectly, but there is something to higher quality instruments being easier to play. Who knows about the luthiers of today? I certainly hope some are producing the strads of tomorrow, but it might not be clear for a century or two.
Given the choice, do you think the average developer would rather work on a netbook or a high end laptop? Both could probably get the job done, but compiling would take longer and everything else would likely take longer.
No they're really not. What they're saying is they don't want to be forced to give away their technology. They're perfectly willing to help on mutually beneficial terms - they just don't want anyone putting a gun to their head and forcing them to. Can't really blame them there.
I know several people at IPO, and more at the companies they represent. They aren't evil industrialists, swirling brandy in their mansions while snickering at the unwashed masses. They know climate change is a global problem and want to help. They'll forego profits and even donate resources in most developing nations to do so. But not if it means their tech is copied by hundreds of Chinese knock-offs eating into their first-world profits. Would you give a homeless man a gun for protection if he used it to break into your house and steal your stuff?
For example, GE is one of the biggest owners of green tech / climate change IP (patents). And they're also investing heavily in developing countries like Brazil and India. They know they need to get involved there, both to address the problem globally and because if they don't their competitors will.
They're not worried about IP rights in those places. With few exceptions, they don't even have IP rights in most developing countries in South America, Africa, SE Asia. They're worried about their technology (a combination of IP rights, trade secrets, technical know-how) being forcibly handed to low-bid manufacturers to churn out limitless cheap copies for developing nations at cost, some of which ultimately find their way back to the U.S., Europe, Japan, etc to compete against their own products. It's a basic free-rider problem - the knock-off manufacturers don't have to recoup any of the development cost. IP rights were created precisely to avoid this very situation.
I don't work for IPO or GE, or even in the industry. I just understand where they're coming from. This issue is much more complicated than it appears on Slashdot.
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch.
Well, first of all, thank you for the lesson about third world countries. I never knew they were all kleptocracies, much less that they are the only ones.
And based on the wages your first-world tech companies pay abroad, yes, it is partly their fault that some countries are so poor.
As far as the education systems are concerned, you should start worrying about yours, otherwise we will have more people like you around. How many times was El Presidente planted in power by your very POTUS? That is like me punching you in the face and telling you to deal with the underlying problems that caused your nose to be broken in the first place.
Yes, we do. It's just non-trivial to get enough blood from only the firstborn baby of a family.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
If they paid for the R&D, why should someone else be entitled to it without paying a cent?
Because it's the new paradigm in economics or maybe just the new white man's burden.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
The cites are below - but to be honest you've got it the wrong way around. You need to provide the extraordinary evidence for such an extraordinary claim.
A better example would've been Damascus Steel - the original method has been lost for centuries. But lets assume that it had been kept via patents - what guarantee would we have that the lay-person would actually have access to the information? IF they did have the information, whats to stop from hoarding all of the that we need for this process and still stopping us.
I guess my question is - why do I care if that process is lost, compared to still being known, but kept so far out of reach that it might as well be lost for me and the rest of the general population?
The answer is: I don't.
I'm all for the idea of keeping knowledge - but I'm dead against it being done in this way. Apparently I'm not the only one.
Denier is a pejorative term - or at the very least a loaded term. It would be as descriptive as calling AGW proponents 'believers'.
The last 'big issue' (although with a lot less dissenters globally) to use the word 'deniers' was Holocaust Deniers - it's not a coincidence that parallel was subtlety drawn :P
Less loaded - though less catchy - terms include:
Dissenters
Opponents
Disputants
Wasn't the year of Linux the year Linux was installed on the vast majority of smartphones in use around the world?
I.E. When Android became big,
Or maybe this is yet another in a laundry list of massive reasons why "imaginary" ***property*** is a broken concept altogether and should not be honored by anyone, anywhere, ever.
Go Pirates! Go!! ;-)
Cuba is a terrible example. It has almost nothing in common with the majority of 3rd world countries, and the sanctions against it have NOTHING to do with it's welfare, education or medical polices. Many European countries have the same or similar polices (especially the ones with socialist governments) and you don't see the US placing sanctions against them. And Cuba wasn't a 3rd world country before the Communist takeover and the sanctions. The Cuban Issue is strictly a political one.
You want a 'typical' 3rd world nation, how about Burma, or Uzbekistan, or half the nations in Africa. How are the "powerful rich nations" perpetuating poverty in these nations? What sanctions have they placed on them to keep them down?
Or maybe this is yet another in a laundry list of massive reasons why "imaginary" ***property*** is a broken concept altogether and should not be honored by anyone, anywhere, ever.
Could not have said it simpler myself, mod that up!
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
The IPO has no interest in helping developing countries transition to a more sustainable economy if it means sacrificing valuable IPR.
In other stunning news, the rich still have it better than the poor, politicians don't have the best interests of their citizens at heart, and 2013 won't be the "Year of Linux."
Since when has anyone WITH that much valuable IP ever given it up freely? Oh sure, here and there, a token gesture. But does anyone really expect Monsanto or Intel to give up their *entire business model* and *everything that makes them money* tomorrow because some third-world country is poor? Not likely.
And to be brutally honest, how is it really fair to ask them to? If they paid for the R&D, why should someone else be entitled to it without paying a cent?
To be brutally honest, I don't care a flying fsck what would happen to Imaginary Property Rights of multinational companies perfectly capable of making profit without any (more) help from starving 3rd world countries who's last concern should be if some superpowers have granted companies the "right" for something not property to be treated like property.
In fact, how is it fair to expect them to ask (beg, like a good poor person should) for "rights" to Imaginary Property.
Is it some first-world tech company's fault that your country is poor, that your government is too corrupt to invest in its infrastructure instead of padding El-Presidente's pockets, that your education system is a joke? Sure it would be a great charitable gesture for them to give it to you at a big discount, but that hardly gives you the right to *demand* it. You're certainly not entitled to it just because you're poor. And it probably wouldn't even do you any good, in the long term anyway, unless you deal with the underlying problems in your country that put you in poverty to begin with (El Presidente will just stuff his pockets deeper with any new money too).
Over simplifying ignorance much here?
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.