Well I'll be damned if it isn't Ayn Rand. Didn't anyone ever tell you that sex and capitalism don't mix?
First mover advantage? Not a chance. Read about it here.
Patent thickets? Just innovate around it. And read about it here.
Socialized medicine? A phrase coined by a PR group working for the AMA. Hear the full story. Health care is every man for himself here in the US. And don't forget the cost of patents in all health care innovations, including the time spent searching for patent databases, litigation and patent prosecution. I guess patenting genes is okay if you own the patent.
Oh, wait. You mean to say that patent monopolies have a place in a free market? Funny how conservatives love monopolies if they are the beneficiaries.
Go here and here for more info. I'm particularly interested in this survey commissioned by the Fed which shows that software patents showed a clear and strong tendency to substitute for R&D over the last 20 years.
I think you're on the right track with connection between the IP laws and basic research. We have what is essentially a giant patent thicket here. I think that either a serious weakening of or elimination of patents altogether would encourage innovation here.
Consider that most inventors really have little interest in IP and that what they love to do is tinker. I think that forcing them to consider the possibility that their research could infringe someone else's patents is huge deterrent to applying inventive talent to research. It's sort of like a survey I read about here on Slashdot regarding doctors. The survey found that 2/3's of all doctors would quit their job if they could line up something better to just because of the paperwork.
Take away the patents and people would be more free to innovate, more willing to invest in basic research.
I would be inclined to agree with you. However, all the arm twisting that went on with the OOXML adoption process at the ISO level suggests that Microsoft may be willing to go a lot farther.
Did you read about the smear campaign against Peter Quinn in Massachusetts? How about the stacking of the committee responsible for approving and working on the defects in the OOXML "standard"? Maybe these events show no crime, maybe not.
Yes, it's probably true that these meetings aren't collusion or a conspiracy. But it might also be equally true that to MS, it isn't illegal until they get caught. I guess I can say that I take a fairly pessimistic view of Microsoft in light of their history, and that we just happen to disagree on how to describe these meetings.
I agree with you about that. It seems obvious that Microsoft would rather try to bash their competitors and hold them down until they drown than to compete on the merits. But they can't do it by themselves.
A previous poster described this as collusion. Conspiracy might be a better word, but that might be construed as a "theory" rather than something that was actually documented.
Now if Microsoft is having meetings with their competitors to take down Google, I have to wonder just how cooperative Microsoft really is. Given the level of paranoia exhibited by MS, anyone MS deals with is a potential threat to them. The vast majority of partners and collaborators with Microsoft have wound up either dead or permanently handicapped. I wonder if all of the attendees at those meetings have considered that trend. To see the trend, go here.
That would make sense that at least one or two politicians (or their aids) would attend. But if they were to attend, would they be friend, foe or observer?
So far, you're talking conventional economics theory about what drives people to create. "Against Intellectual Monopoly" reviews conventional theory and compares it to history, finding that the history doesn't really match the theory very well, if at all. It also describes the creative climate in the past, with statistics to show the difference between a culture that places emphasis on copyrights England and Europe which for the most part, did not have music copyrights until after 1780. The following quote from the book gives a telling example of why copyrights can be a problem for the creative process:
"The evolution of copyright from an occasional grant of royal privilege to a formal and eventually widespread system of law should in principle have enhanced composers' income from publication. The evidence from our quantitative comparison of honoraria received by Beethoven, with no copyright law in his territory, and
Robert Schumann, benefiting from nearly universal
European copyright, provides at best questionable support for the hypothesis that copyright fundamentally changed composers' fortunes. From the qualitative evidence on Giuseppe Verdi, who was the first important composer to experience the new Italian copyright regime and devise
strategies to derive maximum advantage, it is clear that copyright could make a substantial difference. In the case of Verdi, greater remuneration through full exploitation of
the copyright system led perceptibly to a lessening of composing effort." Page 212, "Against Intellectual Monopoly".
This quote and the data behind make it clear that rent seeking behavior tended to substitute for creative activity and effort. The examples in this book and others that can be found on the Internet (the work of James Bessen is highly recommended reading), demonstrate pretty conclusively that IP tends to substitute for creative activity and effort in general. The general behavior is that people spend more time and effort engaged in rent seeking rather than creating, when presented with the reward of royalties. In the realm of software, one look at Microsoft should be enough to give anyone pause for thought about the value of copyrights vs. quality.
In the end, it really comes down to accepting your creative talents as gifts and having faith that you will be sufficiently compensated for your efforts.
Ok, your points are well taken. I must admit that I don't know the solution to open source software without copyrights. The only thing I can think of is that proprietary software isn't really safe, either without copyrights or patents. Code can be decompiled, reverse engineered and reused from proprietary sources. That's the best answer. Yes it takes effort, yes it takes time. But the matter of trust will always be there. People who show their code will attract more trust than those who don't.
It is also worth pointing out that even if someone copied your code, they would still have to figure it out, and then find a practical application for it as well as a way to support it. People make money by supporting GPL code, not just writing it, and certainly not from the copyrights.
Now if you want a study that shows that the quality and benefits of life without copyrights, there are quite a few cited in chapter 2 of the book I referenced in my original post.
Most studies I've seen show that Intellectual Property tends to slow down the economy, innovation and artistic expression. Do musicians make music for the money or the sheer joy of it? Do inventors create an invention for the riches promised in the patent lottery? Or do they just like to tinker? Doesn't it seem like more than a coincidence that a very large economic downturn occurred after a period of serious intellectual property rights legislation that increases the reach of those rights?
Here's a book that provides statistical, historical and anecdotal evidence of the harms of IP. If you can find a study that shows that IP is good for the economy, I'd love to read it. Good luck.
James Bessen and Robert Hunt did some interesting research at the federal reserve. What they found is that software patents tend to substitute for R&D. The study shows that over a 20 year period, investment in R&D suffered a major decline, apparently to finance software patents, patent searches, litigation and the like.
That might be a better explanation for the decline in IT perceived by Siebel. Or, maybe Siebel isn't happy with his patent portfolio.
So true, but look at the Blackboard lawsuits. Even during the re-examination, they were still suing Desire2Learn. Now if D2L can go for damages for a frivolous lawsuit, that would be a deterrent.
So yes, I can see your point that doing a little reading can save a lot of money. But it may take more than a re-examination request to stop the sue-train from rolling.
it will take several lawsuits costing millions before the patent is examined. And I doubt if there anything non-obvious here. Say, didn't the USPTO review their guidelines with respect to KSR and Bilski?
How about shareholder lawsuits? Remember, the corporation must do everything in it's power to maintain or improve shareholder value. Of course, ethics is a lower priority.
I know, how about reversing this decision that allows corporations to be persons? Maybe after that, corporations will play nice.
According to the book "Against Intellectual Monopoly", p1, ch.1, "During the period of Watt's patents the U.K. added about 750 horsepower of steam engines per year. In the thirty years following Watt's patents, additional horsepower was added at a rate of more than 4,000 per year. Moreover, the fuel efficiency of steam engines changed little during the period of Watt's patent; while between 1810 and 1835 it is estimated to have increased by a factor of five." (emphasis mine)
The book makes reference to "Capital and Steam Power", by John Lord, London, 1923, and says that, "The history of the firm of Boulton & Watt is interesting for another reason. From 1775 to 1800 they possessed a monopoly of steam-engine construction, and, therefore, their output comprises practically all the engines that were erected in Great Britain before the year 1800." Lord provides detailed records as to the production of the steam engines in England during that time.
During the time of their monopoly, there couldn't have been that much innovation and production given the incredible burst in output following the expiration of the patents. In fact, other inventors were held back or holding back until the patents expired, see for example, the story of John Hornblower.
I agree with you that Watt didn't invent the steam engine, an error on the part of the education I received. However, I disagree that his contributions to the advancement to the steam engine were anywhere as great as you make them out to be. And I still maintain that he used his patents to hold down the competition and thus, innovation.
It's actually pretty well documented that patents retard progress. The extent of retardation depends on which studies you read. And a not so familiar example is James Watt. I say he was not so familiar because when I went to high school, he was painted as the hero who started the industrial revolution. What they didn't tell me in school was that Watt pretty much spent the entire 17 year life of the patent in litigation. Real advances in the steam engine weren't introduced until after the patent expired.
Given what I know now, I can't see how patents can be justified in a free market economy. It's government protection no matter how you slice it. Even free market Thomas Jefferson referred to patents as an "embarrassment".
It's not just easier, it takes far less time, too. Install Windows Vista with all the updates, drivers and service packs? 6-7 hours. Linux? Maybe 30 minutes with updates.
Ok, you might think I'm slow, but I try to be thorough.
Excuse me? No research by a plumber? Have you ever done any construction? A good plumber can fix things fast by years of experience. Trust me, when they start out, they get plenty of chances to lose money and customers. Any construction at all requires engineering and research for available parts with adequate capacity for the job. And then there's the permit process.
What I'm paying for with a plumber is his experience by the hour. More experience, means more money per hour. Construction is based on open standards, and there's no IP involved unless you want to claim copyrights on the prints. That eliminates discriminatory pricing and rent seeking. Prints are filed with the permit application and so are a public record. And guess what, there is a ton of money to be made in construction. I've known a few millionaires in the business, so I have firsthand evidence of that.
If you read my previous post about the book, "Against Intellectual Monopoly", then allow me to quote from that (Rudyard Kipling, from his book The Mary Gloster - out of copyright):
I knew-I knew what was coming, when we bid on the
Byfleet's keel-
They piddled and piffled with iron: I'd given my orders for steel!
Steel and the first expansions. It paid, I tell you, it paid,
When we came with our nine-knot freighters and collared the long-run trade!
And they asked me how I did it, and I gave 'em the
Scripture text,
"You keep your light so shining a little in front o' the next!"
They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind,
And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind.
That desire to stay ahead is what drives innovation. IP just lets first movers sit on their laurels and establish monopolies. And if you ask me, I'd say a good plumber is an artist, too. They not only get the job done, they make it look nice, too.
Then you missed an important part of the book. They weren't advocating giving away physical things. They were talking about the fact that ideas are free. Even ideas that take time to figure out. But profits can be made from physical things that express ideas.
You might even be familiar with this quote, the most relevant point being that:
"It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property."
Yes, the context is of patents, but I believe the same could be true of digital information. Such information is almost as ephemeral as an idea. The marginal costs associated with reproduction are indeed close to zero. But there are other ways to make money with it.
Another point I think you may have missed from the book is that the costs associated with intellectual property protection seem to have loomed far above the benefits of late. How many trees must die for this protection? Given the way copyrights and patents are treated, can we honestly say that Intellectual Property rights enforcement are consistent with ordinary property rights and freedom of expression?
I respectfully disagree with your position and suggest that a more careful reading would have given you the answers you seek.
Yes, I know. I go on daily walks and inevitably, I pass a dog confined behind a fence all day. The dog barks at me, as if to say, "Wait! Wait! You're the most exciting thing that's happened here all day! Hey! Where are you going? Come back here!"
What you describe is that one man's inconvenience is another man's treasure, so to speak. It's kind of like that.
Try the Against Monopoly website. I think technical discussions concerning circumvention are immediately useful, but the long term goal should be to have public discourse on the merits of the copyright system. It's clear from stories like these that the public benefits of a copyright system are significantly outweighed by their costs. The Against Monopoly website has, for me anyway, painted the clearest picture of what is so wrong with IP laws.
You wanted to know how artists are supposed to support themselves without copyrights? Consider that the "First Mover" advantage can be a serious money maker, even without copyright protection. Take the 9/11 Commission report. Before publication, several publishing houses angled for exclusive rights to be the *first* printer and distributor of the book. The text of the report is not copyrighted, yet someone could see the profits waiting for them as the first printer of the report.
To put it entirely differently, copyrights and patents create a tendency for artists, inventors and the corporations that support them, to sit on their laurels instead of finding ways to stay ahead of the pack with innovation. For a book that provides a lucid description of what life could be like without IP, check out "Against Intellectual Monopoly." It's an up to date analysis of how artists and inventors can still make money without intellectual property rights. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a way to entertain debate on this issue.
Oh, did I mention that the book is free to download?
Slashdot Mirror
Then you forget where your inspiration comes from as an individualist.
Well I'll be damned if it isn't Ayn Rand. Didn't anyone ever tell you that sex and capitalism don't mix?
First mover advantage? Not a chance. Read about it here.
Patent thickets? Just innovate around it. And read about it here.
Socialized medicine? A phrase coined by a PR group working for the AMA. Hear the full story. Health care is every man for himself here in the US. And don't forget the cost of patents in all health care innovations, including the time spent searching for patent databases, litigation and patent prosecution. I guess patenting genes is okay if you own the patent.
Oh, wait. You mean to say that patent monopolies have a place in a free market? Funny how conservatives love monopolies if they are the beneficiaries.
Look at the link on my signature for more info.
Go here and here for more info. I'm particularly interested in this survey commissioned by the Fed which shows that software patents showed a clear and strong tendency to substitute for R&D over the last 20 years.
I think you're on the right track with connection between the IP laws and basic research. We have what is essentially a giant patent thicket here. I think that either a serious weakening of or elimination of patents altogether would encourage innovation here.
Consider that most inventors really have little interest in IP and that what they love to do is tinker. I think that forcing them to consider the possibility that their research could infringe someone else's patents is huge deterrent to applying inventive talent to research. It's sort of like a survey I read about here on Slashdot regarding doctors. The survey found that 2/3's of all doctors would quit their job if they could line up something better to just because of the paperwork.
Take away the patents and people would be more free to innovate, more willing to invest in basic research.
I would be inclined to agree with you. However, all the arm twisting that went on with the OOXML adoption process at the ISO level suggests that Microsoft may be willing to go a lot farther.
Did you read about the smear campaign against Peter Quinn in Massachusetts? How about the stacking of the committee responsible for approving and working on the defects in the OOXML "standard"? Maybe these events show no crime, maybe not.
Yes, it's probably true that these meetings aren't collusion or a conspiracy. But it might also be equally true that to MS, it isn't illegal until they get caught. I guess I can say that I take a fairly pessimistic view of Microsoft in light of their history, and that we just happen to disagree on how to describe these meetings.
I agree with you about that. It seems obvious that Microsoft would rather try to bash their competitors and hold them down until they drown than to compete on the merits. But they can't do it by themselves.
A previous poster described this as collusion. Conspiracy might be a better word, but that might be construed as a "theory" rather than something that was actually documented.
Now if Microsoft is having meetings with their competitors to take down Google, I have to wonder just how cooperative Microsoft really is. Given the level of paranoia exhibited by MS, anyone MS deals with is a potential threat to them. The vast majority of partners and collaborators with Microsoft have wound up either dead or permanently handicapped. I wonder if all of the attendees at those meetings have considered that trend. To see the trend, go here.
That would make sense that at least one or two politicians (or their aids) would attend. But if they were to attend, would they be friend, foe or observer?
So far, you're talking conventional economics theory about what drives people to create. "Against Intellectual Monopoly" reviews conventional theory and compares it to history, finding that the history doesn't really match the theory very well, if at all. It also describes the creative climate in the past, with statistics to show the difference between a culture that places emphasis on copyrights England and Europe which for the most part, did not have music copyrights until after 1780. The following quote from the book gives a telling example of why copyrights can be a problem for the creative process:
"The evolution of copyright from an occasional grant of royal privilege to a formal and eventually widespread system of law should in principle have enhanced composers' income from publication. The evidence from our quantitative comparison of honoraria received by Beethoven, with no copyright law in his territory, and Robert Schumann, benefiting from nearly universal European copyright, provides at best questionable support for the hypothesis that copyright fundamentally changed composers' fortunes. From the qualitative evidence on Giuseppe Verdi, who was the first important composer to experience the new Italian copyright regime and devise strategies to derive maximum advantage, it is clear that copyright could make a substantial difference. In the case of Verdi, greater remuneration through full exploitation of the copyright system led perceptibly to a lessening of composing effort." Page 212, "Against Intellectual Monopoly".
This quote and the data behind make it clear that rent seeking behavior tended to substitute for creative activity and effort. The examples in this book and others that can be found on the Internet (the work of James Bessen is highly recommended reading), demonstrate pretty conclusively that IP tends to substitute for creative activity and effort in general. The general behavior is that people spend more time and effort engaged in rent seeking rather than creating, when presented with the reward of royalties. In the realm of software, one look at Microsoft should be enough to give anyone pause for thought about the value of copyrights vs. quality.
In the end, it really comes down to accepting your creative talents as gifts and having faith that you will be sufficiently compensated for your efforts.
Ok, your points are well taken. I must admit that I don't know the solution to open source software without copyrights. The only thing I can think of is that proprietary software isn't really safe, either without copyrights or patents. Code can be decompiled, reverse engineered and reused from proprietary sources. That's the best answer. Yes it takes effort, yes it takes time. But the matter of trust will always be there. People who show their code will attract more trust than those who don't.
It is also worth pointing out that even if someone copied your code, they would still have to figure it out, and then find a practical application for it as well as a way to support it. People make money by supporting GPL code, not just writing it, and certainly not from the copyrights.
Now if you want a study that shows that the quality and benefits of life without copyrights, there are quite a few cited in chapter 2 of the book I referenced in my original post.
Most studies I've seen show that Intellectual Property tends to slow down the economy, innovation and artistic expression. Do musicians make music for the money or the sheer joy of it? Do inventors create an invention for the riches promised in the patent lottery? Or do they just like to tinker? Doesn't it seem like more than a coincidence that a very large economic downturn occurred after a period of serious intellectual property rights legislation that increases the reach of those rights?
Here's a book that provides statistical, historical and anecdotal evidence of the harms of IP. If you can find a study that shows that IP is good for the economy, I'd love to read it. Good luck.
James Bessen and Robert Hunt did some interesting research at the federal reserve. What they found is that software patents tend to substitute for R&D. The study shows that over a 20 year period, investment in R&D suffered a major decline, apparently to finance software patents, patent searches, litigation and the like.
That might be a better explanation for the decline in IT perceived by Siebel. Or, maybe Siebel isn't happy with his patent portfolio.
You can find that study here.
You might enjoy reading this, too. BTW, if you can recommend another book along the same lines, I'm interested in reading it.
I'd say that Microsoft looks a lot like this. What else is there to say?
So true, but look at the Blackboard lawsuits. Even during the re-examination, they were still suing Desire2Learn. Now if D2L can go for damages for a frivolous lawsuit, that would be a deterrent.
So yes, I can see your point that doing a little reading can save a lot of money. But it may take more than a re-examination request to stop the sue-train from rolling.
it will take several lawsuits costing millions before the patent is examined. And I doubt if there anything non-obvious here. Say, didn't the USPTO review their guidelines with respect to KSR and Bilski?
How about shareholder lawsuits? Remember, the corporation must do everything in it's power to maintain or improve shareholder value. Of course, ethics is a lower priority.
I know, how about reversing this decision that allows corporations to be persons? Maybe after that, corporations will play nice.
According to the book "Against Intellectual Monopoly", p1, ch.1, "During the period of Watt's patents the U.K. added about 750 horsepower of steam engines per year. In the thirty years following Watt's patents, additional horsepower was added at a rate of more than 4,000 per year. Moreover, the fuel efficiency of steam engines changed little during the period of Watt's patent; while between 1810 and 1835 it is estimated to have increased by a factor of five." (emphasis mine)
The book makes reference to "Capital and Steam Power", by John Lord, London, 1923, and says that, "The history of the firm of Boulton & Watt is interesting for another reason. From 1775 to 1800 they possessed a monopoly of steam-engine construction, and, therefore, their output comprises practically all the engines that were erected in Great Britain before the year 1800." Lord provides detailed records as to the production of the steam engines in England during that time.
During the time of their monopoly, there couldn't have been that much innovation and production given the incredible burst in output following the expiration of the patents. In fact, other inventors were held back or holding back until the patents expired, see for example, the story of John Hornblower.
I agree with you that Watt didn't invent the steam engine, an error on the part of the education I received. However, I disagree that his contributions to the advancement to the steam engine were anywhere as great as you make them out to be. And I still maintain that he used his patents to hold down the competition and thus, innovation.
Creative Commons music for the people who tire of Pandora...
http://www.jamendo.com/en/
It's actually pretty well documented that patents retard progress. The extent of retardation depends on which studies you read. And a not so familiar example is James Watt. I say he was not so familiar because when I went to high school, he was painted as the hero who started the industrial revolution. What they didn't tell me in school was that Watt pretty much spent the entire 17 year life of the patent in litigation. Real advances in the steam engine weren't introduced until after the patent expired.
Given what I know now, I can't see how patents can be justified in a free market economy. It's government protection no matter how you slice it. Even free market Thomas Jefferson referred to patents as an "embarrassment".
It's not just easier, it takes far less time, too. Install Windows Vista with all the updates, drivers and service packs? 6-7 hours. Linux? Maybe 30 minutes with updates. Ok, you might think I'm slow, but I try to be thorough.
Excuse me? No research by a plumber? Have you ever done any construction? A good plumber can fix things fast by years of experience. Trust me, when they start out, they get plenty of chances to lose money and customers. Any construction at all requires engineering and research for available parts with adequate capacity for the job. And then there's the permit process.
What I'm paying for with a plumber is his experience by the hour. More experience, means more money per hour. Construction is based on open standards, and there's no IP involved unless you want to claim copyrights on the prints. That eliminates discriminatory pricing and rent seeking. Prints are filed with the permit application and so are a public record. And guess what, there is a ton of money to be made in construction. I've known a few millionaires in the business, so I have firsthand evidence of that.
If you read my previous post about the book, "Against Intellectual Monopoly", then allow me to quote from that (Rudyard Kipling, from his book The Mary Gloster - out of copyright):
I knew-I knew what was coming, when we bid on the Byfleet's keel-
They piddled and piffled with iron: I'd given my orders for steel!
Steel and the first expansions. It paid, I tell you, it paid,
When we came with our nine-knot freighters and collared the long-run trade!
And they asked me how I did it, and I gave 'em the Scripture text,
"You keep your light so shining a little in front o' the next!"
They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind,
And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind.
That desire to stay ahead is what drives innovation. IP just lets first movers sit on their laurels and establish monopolies. And if you ask me, I'd say a good plumber is an artist, too. They not only get the job done, they make it look nice, too.
Then you missed an important part of the book. They weren't advocating giving away physical things. They were talking about the fact that ideas are free. Even ideas that take time to figure out. But profits can be made from physical things that express ideas.
You might even be familiar with this quote, the most relevant point being that:
"It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property."
Yes, the context is of patents, but I believe the same could be true of digital information. Such information is almost as ephemeral as an idea. The marginal costs associated with reproduction are indeed close to zero. But there are other ways to make money with it.
Another point I think you may have missed from the book is that the costs associated with intellectual property protection seem to have loomed far above the benefits of late. How many trees must die for this protection? Given the way copyrights and patents are treated, can we honestly say that Intellectual Property rights enforcement are consistent with ordinary property rights and freedom of expression?
I respectfully disagree with your position and suggest that a more careful reading would have given you the answers you seek.
Yes, I know. I go on daily walks and inevitably, I pass a dog confined behind a fence all day. The dog barks at me, as if to say, "Wait! Wait! You're the most exciting thing that's happened here all day! Hey! Where are you going? Come back here!"
What you describe is that one man's inconvenience is another man's treasure, so to speak. It's kind of like that.
Try the Against Monopoly website. I think technical discussions concerning circumvention are immediately useful, but the long term goal should be to have public discourse on the merits of the copyright system. It's clear from stories like these that the public benefits of a copyright system are significantly outweighed by their costs. The Against Monopoly website has, for me anyway, painted the clearest picture of what is so wrong with IP laws.
You wanted to know how artists are supposed to support themselves without copyrights? Consider that the "First Mover" advantage can be a serious money maker, even without copyright protection. Take the 9/11 Commission report. Before publication, several publishing houses angled for exclusive rights to be the *first* printer and distributor of the book. The text of the report is not copyrighted, yet someone could see the profits waiting for them as the first printer of the report.
To put it entirely differently, copyrights and patents create a tendency for artists, inventors and the corporations that support them, to sit on their laurels instead of finding ways to stay ahead of the pack with innovation. For a book that provides a lucid description of what life could be like without IP, check out "Against Intellectual Monopoly." It's an up to date analysis of how artists and inventors can still make money without intellectual property rights. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a way to entertain debate on this issue.
Oh, did I mention that the book is free to download?