the patents retard widespread deployment of hybrid vehicles and chokes further development of the technology
That's debatable. Would Toyota have risked millions (billions?) on developing the technology in the first place if they weren't expecting a big reward if they succeeded. Without patents they would be the big losers now and those who dragged their feet and played it "safe" would be the big winners as they would copy the successful technology without having to risk a dime on developing it. I'm not saying that the current situation is ideal but when criticizing the patents, it's worth remembering the pros as well as the cons.
That's all beside the point. The damages awarded were statutory damages as set by the law. It is impossible for the plaintiff to prove the actual damages because there is no way to tell how many people downloaded those songs that she uploaded so the law sets a default amount. On the first glance it seems that $80K per song is too high but then I don't know the technical argument for it.
Tactically, I think she and her lawyers are making one mistake after another and she will eventually have to pay a lot more than she could have if she settled right away. Here is the part I don't understand: on one hand she is not "interested in discussing any deal that required her to admit guilt or pay any money" but on the other hand the main argument of the appeal is "that the damages are disproportionate to any actual harm." Doesn't it mean that she is admitting that harm occurred and only challenging the amount? It seems like her main argument is at odds with her unwillingness to accept any guilt or settle for any amount.
Let's say there is a car coming up directly behind the bike. Assuming this works as it should and for a moment it fools the driver into thinking it's a bike lane, his natural response might be to move to the left (or right in UK) to get off the bike lane. Given that the bike could be anywhere, including in the middle of the road, this could be a head on collision waiting to happen.
I should also point out that another book by the same author is not free ( http://www.dklevine.com/papers/contents.htm ) so I take the first sentence of my previous reply back: he is a hypocrite as well.
Oh, did I mention that the book is free to download?
It better be or the writers would have exposed themselves as hypocrites as well as fools. The arguments amount to three types, I'll label each with one word:
Partial (tempted to say Dishonest but ok) - there are other ways to make money even though you are giving the work itself for free - training for example. If you think of IP in terms of its purpose, which is to be an incentive for people to produce new things, then this is a very weak special case argument that doesn't cover even a fraction of the incentive that IP provides
Outdated - people did without IP before so they can do without it today. There were very few cases in the past where research and development expenses, and let's not forget the associated risk, were so hugely disproportionate to the copying cost as they are today in case of just about any advanced technology. Creating the first copy of the latest GTA game reportedly cost upwards of $100 million, while any further copies are essentially free to produce. Music, movies etc can be thought in the same terms as well.
Inadequate - A surprisingly large portion of the book is devoted to a string of examples where people did ok without IP, without giving any explanation why that was so. For example Italian drug industry did ok without patents before 1978 is simply stated without any meaningful elaboration as to how. Another example is listing problems with today's pharmaceutical industry (e.g. spending more on advertising than research) without clear discussion of the core of the problem: why would somebody risk in same cases close to $1 billion dollars on research of a new drug which may or may not work, without IP protection? If you can find a clear answer to that in this book, please point it out to me because I couldn't.
All you are saying is that the protection of property rights (of which IP is a special case) is an artificial thing and therefore should be done without. You might as well say having a shoe store lacks a natural business plan because without "artificial" legislative protection anybody can just walk into your store and steal the shoes. I don't think that's what you mean but that's what you argument amounts to.
Care to speculate on how artists, musicians, writers, etc. managed in a world that not only lacked IP law, but also lacked the ability to reach anything approaching the kind of widespread audience that's available to modern artists?
There were far far fewer of them and they tended to be people who are either independently wealthy or who managed to find a wealthy patron to support them (and put themselves in a demeaning position of dependence on another person's good will), or who starved while they were producing their art. While you might applaud their dedication I wouldn't want to limit the marketplace of ideas to a small number of people because everybody else is too busy making a living. Having at least a possibility to make a living from creating something new, be it art or any kind of invention is a powerful incentive for people to take risks and put in their time, effort and money required up front. For example, why bother researching a new technology if somebody can just copy your design? Every incentive is to sit and wait and search for fools who are investing in creating new inventions so that you can copy them as soon as they're done.
And what hat did you pull that number out of? I think the copyright term will have to be an arbitrary number but just curious how did you come up with that and not 25 or 50 etc.At least the lifetime of the creator of the work (but not his/her children) would make slightly more sense to me than just picking a number.
And record companies can become simple hired press agents without no exclusivity and can get paid a small commission AFTER the creator gets paid.
They can but that's a matter of contracts between them and the artists which frankly is not any of your business to put arbitrary limitations on. I hope artists can get a better deal for themselves and increasing availability of channels apart from traditional record companies may give them a better negotiating position. Free market will take care of it.
Why pick on entertainment? There is nothing wrong with exchanging your work for money, I bet you do it every day. Why do you feel its ok for you to be paid for your work, but its somehow wrong for artists, musicians, writers etc to demand be paid for theirs?
Care to elaborate a bit on the world without IP laws? How will musicians, writers, movie studios, news organizations, software companies etc even approach covering the costs of producing their work if the first person who buys it can make infinite number of copies and share them with the whole world?
Num lock is still slightly useful in case of some laptop keyboards that have numeric keypad and don't have separate arrow buttons. If you want to get rid of keys, better start with Scr lock and Print screen. Both of those are used so rarely that they don't deserve a special button (never mind a status light).
I think you are missing the point. I have no problem with news organizations selling access to news. It is irrelevant whether the format is paper, on TV or the internet and if they can make access free and make money from selling ads even better. The problem is what to do with sites who copy those news and profit from them. Isn't it possible to imagine the point reached where gathering news stops being a profitable activity and therefore fewer and fewer people will be willing to do it, until, taken to extreme, it dies out altogether? Much like people who copy music, movies etc for profit, they seem to me like parasites who are slowly killing their host and therefore themselves as well.
Let's soundly reject this concept, right now, that it is the role of government to determine who wins and who loses in the business world.
No, but it is a role of the government to set and enforce the rules of play and the issue here is tweaking those rules. The conflict here is not between newspapers and online media but between those who gather the news and those who copy the news. The problem is not that "newspapers" are going out of business but that the news gathering is going out of business because news copying is eating into its profits to the point where it's not worth it.
Except that not voting is not a protest against having bad candidates, not voting is simply saying you guys (i.e the rest of the electorate) go ahead and pick someone, I'll go with whoever you pick. There must have been one that is at least slightly less bad than the others, and that's the one you should be voting for.
That does assume that you at least have a good idea who the candidates are and what policies they represent. I'd be in favor of making voting harder, such as you have to write in a name of the candidate you are voting for or something like that, and write an essay on why you are voting for them (just kidding about the essay...). If you can't write your candidate's name then you're not fit to vote. What purpose is served by people voting by checking a random box cause they have no clue about any of the candidates anyway and they are just voting because you are "supposed to", or maybe voting for one whose name seems a bit more familiar than the others. I bet a lot more people do than than we think, or dare admit.
In any case, I do agree with your point that making voting slightly easier will not make much difference and its not worth the risk. It won't be that much easier anyway, you still have to register online and deal with remembering passwords and dozen authentication questions and all that.
Do extra, voluntary action to cooperate with the police state in legitimizing the "papers please" nonsense, and get exactly what you deserve.
Huh? Your papers are checked at the airport security anyway. Once you fly your details are in a database that can be accessed by the government anyway. As far as I understand this service, the idea was to speed up the process that was already happening.
Being poor doesn't make you superior to somebody who is rich. It doesn't make you inferior either, except when you gloat over somebody's misfortune just because they have more money than you. Try to get over your envy, you'll be a happier person.
The problem with the biosphere project is that it only had one (well two really) shot at getting everything right. Of course there will be problems at the beginning and I would expect many other such attempts to fail until we get the balance just right but it doesn't seem like something like that is impossible in principle. A base on Mars can be resupplied from Earth as needed, and the system tweaked until all the issues are ironed out. I would not even think that it would be particularly difficult if major scientific brains with large resources (think Moon landing or the Manhattan project) would be put to work on it, as opposed to a handful of enthusiasts like with the biosphere project.
We haven't been able to build a self contained ecosystem on *this* planet where we have cheap access to soil, air, water, all manner of plants, animals, insects, etc.
We haven't really tried though, for the very reasons you mention - we didn't need to. I can see the problems of course but I don't think your extreme pessimism is justified. We've done more difficult things than this when we really put our minds to it.
I didn't say it would be easy, but with a major commitment and a lot of money and willingness to take risks (for example if a major catastrophe was imminent) I think it could be done in the very near future. Food is fairly easy, after all it grows and reproduces itself once you have the initial seeds, soil, water and sunlight. Water and energy (sun) are available on Mars so they don't have to be produced. A nuclear reactor or two would be nice, at least initially even if the fuel cannot be replaced once it runs out - 10 years easy with existing designs but can be easily extended to several decades or even 100+ years. As for the rest, it can all be made with carefully thought out machinery brought initially from Earth and eventually metals can be mined and refined, and tools can be made. Universities? That's a bit of an overkill for a base of perhaps a few hundred people. The first generation can easily transfer knowledge to the next one in a small enough community with help of some books etc, you don't need large specialized institutions for that. There are plenty of people, including at NASA, who think it can be done. Check out Robert Zubrin's books for much better discussion of the issues involved http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Zubrin#Books
We would have to launch over 200,000 people a day into space each day just to keep up with the daily increase in the population
You are right, shipping people off to other planets without making other changes, such as reducing birthrate, is not going to reduce population of Earth. However, if your goal (among others, such as access to new resources) is to ensure the survival of the species should something horrible happen on Earth, then a long term plan to spread to one or two other worlds does make a lot of sense. A self sustaining base on Mars is not a fantasy, it is something that could possibly be achieved with today's technology if the will was there. In 50 years, just as the biological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction are getting within reach of even small groups of psychos, it will be no problem at all. You have to make a first step somewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
the patents retard widespread deployment of hybrid vehicles and chokes further development of the technology
That's debatable. Would Toyota have risked millions (billions?) on developing the technology in the first place if they weren't expecting a big reward if they succeeded. Without patents they would be the big losers now and those who dragged their feet and played it "safe" would be the big winners as they would copy the successful technology without having to risk a dime on developing it. I'm not saying that the current situation is ideal but when criticizing the patents, it's worth remembering the pros as well as the cons.
That's all beside the point. The damages awarded were statutory damages as set by the law. It is impossible for the plaintiff to prove the actual damages because there is no way to tell how many people downloaded those songs that she uploaded so the law sets a default amount. On the first glance it seems that $80K per song is too high but then I don't know the technical argument for it.
Tactically, I think she and her lawyers are making one mistake after another and she will eventually have to pay a lot more than she could have if she settled right away. Here is the part I don't understand: on one hand she is not "interested in discussing any deal that required her to admit guilt or pay any money" but on the other hand the main argument of the appeal is "that the damages are disproportionate to any actual harm." Doesn't it mean that she is admitting that harm occurred and only challenging the amount? It seems like her main argument is at odds with her unwillingness to accept any guilt or settle for any amount.
Feel free to mod me up.
Thanks, I will. Oops..
It does? I just checked and it most definitely doesn't ask me for the phone number. Maybe it depends on the country.
Let's say there is a car coming up directly behind the bike. Assuming this works as it should and for a moment it fools the driver into thinking it's a bike lane, his natural response might be to move to the left (or right in UK) to get off the bike lane. Given that the bike could be anywhere, including in the middle of the road, this could be a head on collision waiting to happen.
Oh, never mind, just found a video of it in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOU563OvpUY No chance of anyone thinking that's a bike lane..
I should also point out that another book by the same author is not free ( http://www.dklevine.com/papers/contents.htm ) so I take the first sentence of my previous reply back: he is a hypocrite as well.
Oh, did I mention that the book is free to download?
It better be or the writers would have exposed themselves as hypocrites as well as fools. The arguments amount to three types, I'll label each with one word:
Partial (tempted to say Dishonest but ok) - there are other ways to make money even though you are giving the work itself for free - training for example. If you think of IP in terms of its purpose, which is to be an incentive for people to produce new things, then this is a very weak special case argument that doesn't cover even a fraction of the incentive that IP provides
Outdated - people did without IP before so they can do without it today. There were very few cases in the past where research and development expenses, and let's not forget the associated risk, were so hugely disproportionate to the copying cost as they are today in case of just about any advanced technology. Creating the first copy of the latest GTA game reportedly cost upwards of $100 million, while any further copies are essentially free to produce. Music, movies etc can be thought in the same terms as well.
Inadequate - A surprisingly large portion of the book is devoted to a string of examples where people did ok without IP, without giving any explanation why that was so. For example Italian drug industry did ok without patents before 1978 is simply stated without any meaningful elaboration as to how. Another example is listing problems with today's pharmaceutical industry (e.g. spending more on advertising than research) without clear discussion of the core of the problem: why would somebody risk in same cases close to $1 billion dollars on research of a new drug which may or may not work, without IP protection? If you can find a clear answer to that in this book, please point it out to me because I couldn't.
All you are saying is that the protection of property rights (of which IP is a special case) is an artificial thing and therefore should be done without. You might as well say having a shoe store lacks a natural business plan because without "artificial" legislative protection anybody can just walk into your store and steal the shoes. I don't think that's what you mean but that's what you argument amounts to.
Care to speculate on how artists, musicians, writers, etc. managed in a world that not only lacked IP law, but also lacked the ability to reach anything approaching the kind of widespread audience that's available to modern artists?
There were far far fewer of them and they tended to be people who are either independently wealthy or who managed to find a wealthy patron to support them (and put themselves in a demeaning position of dependence on another person's good will), or who starved while they were producing their art. While you might applaud their dedication I wouldn't want to limit the marketplace of ideas to a small number of people because everybody else is too busy making a living. Having at least a possibility to make a living from creating something new, be it art or any kind of invention is a powerful incentive for people to take risks and put in their time, effort and money required up front. For example, why bother researching a new technology if somebody can just copy your design? Every incentive is to sit and wait and search for fools who are investing in creating new inventions so that you can copy them as soon as they're done.
That's right! 18 years..max!
And what hat did you pull that number out of? I think the copyright term will have to be an arbitrary number but just curious how did you come up with that and not 25 or 50 etc.At least the lifetime of the creator of the work (but not his/her children) would make slightly more sense to me than just picking a number.
And record companies can become simple hired press agents without no exclusivity and can get paid a small commission AFTER the creator gets paid.
They can but that's a matter of contracts between them and the artists which frankly is not any of your business to put arbitrary limitations on. I hope artists can get a better deal for themselves and increasing availability of channels apart from traditional record companies may give them a better negotiating position. Free market will take care of it.
Entertainment shouldn't be an industry.
Why pick on entertainment? There is nothing wrong with exchanging your work for money, I bet you do it every day. Why do you feel its ok for you to be paid for your work, but its somehow wrong for artists, musicians, writers etc to demand be paid for theirs?
Care to elaborate a bit on the world without IP laws? How will musicians, writers, movie studios, news organizations, software companies etc even approach covering the costs of producing their work if the first person who buys it can make infinite number of copies and share them with the whole world?
Num lock is still slightly useful in case of some laptop keyboards that have numeric keypad and don't have separate arrow buttons. If you want to get rid of keys, better start with Scr lock and Print screen. Both of those are used so rarely that they don't deserve a special button (never mind a status light).
It's bad enough listening to people talk on their cell phones, I don't need to listen to them talking to their laptops too.
I don't think he wants to get around hope.
I think you are missing the point. I have no problem with news organizations selling access to news. It is irrelevant whether the format is paper, on TV or the internet and if they can make access free and make money from selling ads even better. The problem is what to do with sites who copy those news and profit from them. Isn't it possible to imagine the point reached where gathering news stops being a profitable activity and therefore fewer and fewer people will be willing to do it, until, taken to extreme, it dies out altogether? Much like people who copy music, movies etc for profit, they seem to me like parasites who are slowly killing their host and therefore themselves as well.
Let's soundly reject this concept, right now, that it is the role of government to determine who wins and who loses in the business world.
No, but it is a role of the government to set and enforce the rules of play and the issue here is tweaking those rules. The conflict here is not between newspapers and online media but between those who gather the news and those who copy the news. The problem is not that "newspapers" are going out of business but that the news gathering is going out of business because news copying is eating into its profits to the point where it's not worth it.
Except that not voting is not a protest against having bad candidates, not voting is simply saying you guys (i.e the rest of the electorate) go ahead and pick someone, I'll go with whoever you pick. There must have been one that is at least slightly less bad than the others, and that's the one you should be voting for.
That does assume that you at least have a good idea who the candidates are and what policies they represent. I'd be in favor of making voting harder, such as you have to write in a name of the candidate you are voting for or something like that, and write an essay on why you are voting for them (just kidding about the essay...). If you can't write your candidate's name then you're not fit to vote. What purpose is served by people voting by checking a random box cause they have no clue about any of the candidates anyway and they are just voting because you are "supposed to", or maybe voting for one whose name seems a bit more familiar than the others. I bet a lot more people do than than we think, or dare admit.
In any case, I do agree with your point that making voting slightly easier will not make much difference and its not worth the risk. It won't be that much easier anyway, you still have to register online and deal with remembering passwords and dozen authentication questions and all that.
Do extra, voluntary action to cooperate with the police state in legitimizing the "papers please" nonsense, and get exactly what you deserve.
Huh? Your papers are checked at the airport security anyway. Once you fly your details are in a database that can be accessed by the government anyway. As far as I understand this service, the idea was to speed up the process that was already happening.
Being poor doesn't make you superior to somebody who is rich. It doesn't make you inferior either, except when you gloat over somebody's misfortune just because they have more money than you. Try to get over your envy, you'll be a happier person.
The problem with the biosphere project is that it only had one (well two really) shot at getting everything right. Of course there will be problems at the beginning and I would expect many other such attempts to fail until we get the balance just right but it doesn't seem like something like that is impossible in principle. A base on Mars can be resupplied from Earth as needed, and the system tweaked until all the issues are ironed out. I would not even think that it would be particularly difficult if major scientific brains with large resources (think Moon landing or the Manhattan project) would be put to work on it, as opposed to a handful of enthusiasts like with the biosphere project.
We haven't been able to build a self contained ecosystem on *this* planet where we have cheap access to soil, air, water, all manner of plants, animals, insects, etc.
We haven't really tried though, for the very reasons you mention - we didn't need to. I can see the problems of course but I don't think your extreme pessimism is justified. We've done more difficult things than this when we really put our minds to it.
I didn't say it would be easy, but with a major commitment and a lot of money and willingness to take risks (for example if a major catastrophe was imminent) I think it could be done in the very near future. Food is fairly easy, after all it grows and reproduces itself once you have the initial seeds, soil, water and sunlight. Water and energy (sun) are available on Mars so they don't have to be produced. A nuclear reactor or two would be nice, at least initially even if the fuel cannot be replaced once it runs out - 10 years easy with existing designs but can be easily extended to several decades or even 100+ years. As for the rest, it can all be made with carefully thought out machinery brought initially from Earth and eventually metals can be mined and refined, and tools can be made. Universities? That's a bit of an overkill for a base of perhaps a few hundred people. The first generation can easily transfer knowledge to the next one in a small enough community with help of some books etc, you don't need large specialized institutions for that. There are plenty of people, including at NASA, who think it can be done. Check out Robert Zubrin's books for much better discussion of the issues involved http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Zubrin#Books
We would have to launch over 200,000 people a day into space each day just to keep up with the daily increase in the population
You are right, shipping people off to other planets without making other changes, such as reducing birthrate, is not going to reduce population of Earth. However, if your goal (among others, such as access to new resources) is to ensure the survival of the species should something horrible happen on Earth, then a long term plan to spread to one or two other worlds does make a lot of sense. A self sustaining base on Mars is not a fantasy, it is something that could possibly be achieved with today's technology if the will was there. In 50 years, just as the biological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction are getting within reach of even small groups of psychos, it will be no problem at all. You have to make a first step somewhere.
Get Oracle to buy them. They are pretty thorough.
It's a shame those newspapers don't have any means of getting this kind of information out to the public.
Well that's kind of the point, nobody's reading them.