And to reply to myself, there's the ideals of copyright - and then there's what we've ended up with instead. The sad fact is, it may well be that any copyright system we create will be corrupted by avarice.
Copyright doesn't need to be rebuilt from scratch - we "merely" need to do a clean reinstall of one of the early 20th century versions, with pretty much a couple of tweaks and a single major addition:
Copyright, fourteen years, twenty years if you register your work by filing a copy with the public trustee, the rights of resale and fair use respected, AND the use by a copyright holder of any system that interferes with the public's rights under copyright revokes the protection of copyright for all of their works so encumbered.
I.e. pick one, Copyright or Strong DRM, because as ideals their goals are mutually incompatible.
Of course, if US corps hadn't systematically off-shored and mis-managed so much of the US economy, the US could still have that capability... bit of a vicious circle there....
I'm sorry. I felt your post was a technological argument about how useful and serious nuclear power is, while his post was a sociological argument about how profiteering and corner-cutting are too endemic/entrenched for us to trust the industry on a commercial scale.
I.e. from my POV, Dogtanian and SlippyToad are arguing apples and oranges. Does that make sense?
And I agree with you AND him. Nuclear power is a fantastic technology and I don't trust our society to deploy it safely.
Er... "SlippyToad" was in no way attempting to minimise the usefulness and seriousness of nuclear power.
I quote, "shoddy workmanship, sloppy maintenance, wilfully stupid cost-cutting and just general all-around stupid douchebaggery of the kind you get when you give too much power and responsibility unto the hands of those fatally unprepared for the responsibility part".
In that context, the phrase "boiling fucking water" refers to something that should be straightforward - until you add humans.
Nuclear power is indeed useful and serious. It's the latter part which makes me very leery of my species doing anything with it on a large-scale commercial basis.
No, notably, it covers *only* gestures that involve having your finger in continuous contact with your screen *and* having a GUI widget moving continuously under your finger.
So it's like having your finger in continuous contact with a physical sliding lock *and* having the physical slider widget moving continuously under your finger.
Screw the android comparisons, the prior art is a door. Apple got a patent for this? Bloody hell. And I thought humans were stupid before...
I'd support copyright, if it still existed: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
... Basically? You indeed should deserve the benefits of copyright - but you, me and a whole lot of other individuals, won't see those benefits for as long as copyright remains a twisted abomination of what it should be. The public's trust has been broken. That isn't something easily recovered.
So, eighty years ago, we knew about using imperfections in superconductors to pin them within a magnetic field as opposed to simply floating them above it?
GP: "Artists are doing just fine these days, despite all the "damage" piracy is doing". You: "sounds like copyright & the current system of payments works exactly as intended."
So if it's working exactly as intended, does that mean the laws are designed to be broken?
Hmm. So the premise is: facts are not copyrightable, arrangements and fictions are copyrightable.
Bob collects, arranges and publishes a book of what he claims are facts about the world for $19.95 a copy. Tom buys Bob's book, strips the arrangement, and inputs the facts into a public database of his own devising. Bob reveals he inserted fictional items in his book of "facts" and sues Tom for copyright infringement.
Is there a "no intent" defense available to Tom? Does Tom have a case for fraudulent misrepresentation by Bob? Can everyone who bought Bob's book also sue Bob?
And if someone got killed following one of Bob's fictional "facts", is Bob liable?
I think it's usually obvious when it is or isn't authorised (well, okay, some folks don't understand this newfangled internet thing, and others just aren't terribly bright, but I'd hazard a guess that you and I could tell the difference most of the time).
As for the executive being quoted, that's actually from one of the ISPs on the receiving end, not from the copytrolls. Given Aussie ISPs have traditionally tended to flip that mob the bird whenever they can, I'd be taking it as a heads-up.
Downloading copyright material is NOT illegal in Australia
I'm presuming you mean unauthorised downloading (since authorised downloading would obviously be illegal). Citation please?
a few ISP's will pass on the letter, no ISP will give out customer information (it's illegal to do so without a court order, good luck getting one)
What letter? Looks like this group's skipping the "letter" approach and going direct to the "subpeona" method. From the article:
Although Exetel’s Linton has not yet disclosed what his company’s approach to Movie Rights Group’s approach will be, in his blog post this week, the executive noted that his own company’s lawyer had accepted that it was “almost certainly the case under standard commercial Australian law” that Movie Rights Group could legally subpoena the users’ information it needs. “They will review the cited references but their opinion is that, subject to final validation, if a subpoena is issued then no company, Exetel or any other ISP has any option but to comply with it,” wrote Linton.
Er, this technique records directly from a person's visual cortex, it doesn't replay memories.
And even if it did, it's been amply demonstrated that for many of us our memories aren't nearly as accurate or incorruptible as we like to believe.
On the other hand, if we gene-modded humanity so we all had perfect recall, and developed the parallel of this technique for memory, and had multiple independent witnesses, then we might have something the courts could consider "definitively" reliable. Maybe.
I suspect sousveillance and surveillance technologies will cascade into near-ubiquity first, anyway. "Google, show me last night's fire." "There are eleven thousand, four hundred, sixty-three camera angles available. Do you feel lucky?"
The possibility of a magnetic shield seems to break some thermodynamic laws, unless I am misunderstanding something.
The laws of conservation indicate the energy input to separate the two fields will meet or exceed the energy output from trying to pull perpetual motion shenanigans.
And after RTFA, it's a materials-based cloak; you can't simply toggle it on/off, and moving the materials generates energy transfers which obey the conservation laws.:)
When you consider the way the cosmos is set up, building an actual working perpetual motion machine might well involve safety warnings along the lines of "Please do not operate within inhabited continuum" or "Warning: no (n<5)-dimensionally serviceable parts inside".:p
Tough for you, because #1 it's harder to even begin to profit unless you share, and #2 if you sit on it humanity has reached sufficient economies of scale in the creativity department that someone else will figure it out soon enough (and if they can't, you deserve the extra profits).
Bleh. That last bit in parentheses should have been tied in to the consequences for trade secrets, with a possible workaround of allowing patents to be filed privately, with mandated disclosure to the public after x years, under certain conditions. Sorry.
But the commercial value in an idea is in its exclusivity, and, by definition, that cannot be shared simultaneously amongst many, and will be destroyed if it is. And this is analogous to property - my lawn isn't destroyed if you're on it against my will, but my exclusive possession of it is destroyed.
The difference (as I see it) is that the lawn is naturally exclusive, while ideas are only as exclusive as one can artificially enforce.
Well, except it's not just "if you and I arrive at the same idea," but rather, "you and I arrive at the same idea, and I go through additional steps of publicly disclosing the idea, publicly registering my first possession of it, etc." And then yes, if you haven't actually gone through any steps to disclose your idea to the public, why should the public protect your ownership of it? It is the act of a good and just society to encourage public disclosure.
Yes, it is - but if both of us went through those additional steps of publicly disclosing the idea? Should I have to suddenly pay you or close shop simply because someone notices that you and I have arrived at the same idea but you had paid the "monopoly" money to the king and I had not? Is that good and just?
Then you'll have to go back almost 600 years to before the first patent and limited monopoly was granted, grudgingly, to Brunelleschi in exchange for him teaching the other merchants of Florence how he was able to unload his vessels so quickly: he refused to do so unless his selfish greed was rewarded with that monopoly. And y'know, I think society has done pretty well over the past 600 years.
Notwithstanding Brunelleschi's accomplishments, I quote (random google) from the Fall 1993 issue of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston "Regional Review", "The Italian Renaissance city-states, locked in a struggle for wealth and power, habitually gave monopolies to those who would build a needed bridge or mill, or who introduced some useful craft or industry."
Seems to me Brunelleschi wasn't the only one feeling greedy. Also, to quote the patent itself, "That no person alive [...] shall dare or presume, within three years [...] except such ship or machine or instrument as they may have used until now for similar operations [...] any such new or newly shaped machine, etc. shall be burned". So not just derivatives of B's machine, but any innovation, at all. Chilling effect, much?
As for how well society has done over the past 600 years, are you using the term "society" to include all of humanity, or just those of us lucky enough to live in the right parts at the right times? Sadly however I must grant that, given the ruthless nature of many of humanity's rulers for much of history, patents may well have had their place as an effective mechanism for distributing knowledge. My contention is that even if so, this is no longer the case (at least for patents in their current form).
Not sure I understand your idea - can you rephrase? I think you're saying that a patent should need to be filed for every item that's manufactured, and the manufacturer gets no exclusivity out of that effort. That seems horribly wasteful and expensive, so it's probably not what you meant.
The current situation is already - or is rapidly approaching - where a patent needs to be filed for every item that is manufactured lest you risk being sued by someone claiming infringement of their own patent. E.g. "patent chests" and "patent thickets", which to me themselves seem horribly wasteful and expensive. The trouble (as I see it) is that we have (at least) two "societal overheads" in a feedback loop - patents and lawyers. The latter are more essential to society, and in any case I dislike "legislating away" people, so...
My idea is that patents be changed from negative, monopo
The first to possess something has ownership of it, regardless of the fact that the second person "worked really hard".
The trouble with applying property law concepts to ideas is that while any given physical object cannot be shared simultaneously amongst many, and through use will wear out, ideas have no such restriction. Countless people can simultaneously possess and act upon a singular idea, and that idea does not thereby fade.
It's not a reward for hard work. It's a monopoly right, grudgingly paid for a limited time in exchange for public disclosure. As a result, "the fruits of your labors" are irrelevant - the important point is whether you disclosed those labors.
I do understand that the patent system is not a reward for hard work. Indeed, if one is not "first", such hard work is actually punished. Yes, "we" may benefit, but the patent system is still an overhead, with all that entails in any economic system.
As for the "fruits of your labors", I apologise if I was unclear. To clarify: if you and I arrive at the same idea, is it a good and just act by you to pay another man to threaten me if I try to sell the fruits of that idea? Is it the act of a good and just society to legalise your ability to do so?
The true benefit of patents is that they encourage - or rather, require - that documentation of the specifics of the idea. The grant of exclusivity is because otherwise, many inventors would keep their ideas secret.
So patents are basically an appeal to - and encouragement of - selfish greed? I for one do not want society built on that principle.
As I said, it's not necessary to grant exclusivity. You appear to agree that the documentation is the key benefit of patents to society. Therefore, instead, require a patent be filed before commercial manufacture with intent to distribute by any party can occur, with no grant of exclusivity, with the filing made public upon the first retail sale of goods.
Slashdot Mirror
Could you explain how my suggestion is inadequate for software? An EULA is a form of DRM for software, after all.
And to reply to myself, there's the ideals of copyright - and then there's what we've ended up with instead. The sad fact is, it may well be that any copyright system we create will be corrupted by avarice.
Copyright doesn't need to be rebuilt from scratch - we "merely" need to do a clean reinstall of one of the early 20th century versions, with pretty much a couple of tweaks and a single major addition:
Copyright, fourteen years, twenty years if you register your work by filing a copy with the public trustee, the rights of resale and fair use respected, AND the use by a copyright holder of any system that interferes with the public's rights under copyright revokes the protection of copyright for all of their works so encumbered.
I.e. pick one, Copyright or Strong DRM, because as ideals their goals are mutually incompatible.
No, the source for your worst case scenario of a 6 degree rise.
Of course, if US corps hadn't systematically off-shored and mis-managed so much of the US economy, the US could still have that capability... bit of a vicious circle there....
I'm sorry. I felt your post was a technological argument about how useful and serious nuclear power is, while his post was a sociological argument about how profiteering and corner-cutting are too endemic/entrenched for us to trust the industry on a commercial scale.
I.e. from my POV, Dogtanian and SlippyToad are arguing apples and oranges. Does that make sense?
And I agree with you AND him. Nuclear power is a fantastic technology and I don't trust our society to deploy it safely.
Er... "SlippyToad" was in no way attempting to minimise the usefulness and seriousness of nuclear power.
I quote, "shoddy workmanship, sloppy maintenance, wilfully stupid cost-cutting and just general all-around stupid douchebaggery of the kind you get when you give too much power and responsibility unto the hands of those fatally unprepared for the responsibility part".
In that context, the phrase "boiling fucking water" refers to something that should be straightforward - until you add humans.
Nuclear power is indeed useful and serious. It's the latter part which makes me very leery of my species doing anything with it on a large-scale commercial basis.
So it's like having your finger in continuous contact with a physical sliding lock *and* having the physical slider widget moving continuously under your finger.
Screw the android comparisons, the prior art is a door. Apple got a patent for this? Bloody hell. And I thought humans were stupid before...
I'd support copyright, if it still existed: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
... Basically? You indeed should deserve the benefits of copyright - but you, me and a whole lot of other individuals, won't see those benefits for as long as copyright remains a twisted abomination of what it should be. The public's trust has been broken. That isn't something easily recovered.
So, eighty years ago, we knew about using imperfections in superconductors to pin them within a magnetic field as opposed to simply floating them above it?
Why fast forward through the boring parts when you can play in Infinite Fun Space instead?
Just as a data point, when I run it on my iphone, the dot is a block away, and the circle covers maybe forty houses.
Er, what?
GP: "Artists are doing just fine these days, despite all the "damage" piracy is doing".
You: "sounds like copyright & the current system of payments works exactly as intended."
So if it's working exactly as intended, does that mean the laws are designed to be broken?
Hmm. So the premise is: facts are not copyrightable, arrangements and fictions are copyrightable.
Bob collects, arranges and publishes a book of what he claims are facts about the world for $19.95 a copy. Tom buys Bob's book, strips the arrangement, and inputs the facts into a public database of his own devising. Bob reveals he inserted fictional items in his book of "facts" and sues Tom for copyright infringement.
Is there a "no intent" defense available to Tom? Does Tom have a case for fraudulent misrepresentation by Bob? Can everyone who bought Bob's book also sue Bob?
And if someone got killed following one of Bob's fictional "facts", is Bob liable?
I think it's usually obvious when it is or isn't authorised (well, okay, some folks don't understand this newfangled internet thing, and others just aren't terribly bright, but I'd hazard a guess that you and I could tell the difference most of the time).
As for the executive being quoted, that's actually from one of the ISPs on the receiving end, not from the copytrolls. Given Aussie ISPs have traditionally tended to flip that mob the bird whenever they can, I'd be taking it as a heads-up.
Sigh. Never sleep and post. I meant to say, since authorised downloading would obviously be legal.
Don't want to be a downer, but:
I'm presuming you mean unauthorised downloading (since authorised downloading would obviously be illegal). Citation please?
What letter? Looks like this group's skipping the "letter" approach and going direct to the "subpeona" method. From the article:
Er, this technique records directly from a person's visual cortex, it doesn't replay memories.
And even if it did, it's been amply demonstrated that for many of us our memories aren't nearly as accurate or incorruptible as we like to believe.
On the other hand, if we gene-modded humanity so we all had perfect recall, and developed the parallel of this technique for memory, and had multiple independent witnesses, then we might have something the courts could consider "definitively" reliable. Maybe.
I suspect sousveillance and surveillance technologies will cascade into near-ubiquity first, anyway. "Google, show me last night's fire." "There are eleven thousand, four hundred, sixty-three camera angles available. Do you feel lucky?"
The laws of conservation indicate the energy input to separate the two fields will meet or exceed the energy output from trying to pull perpetual motion shenanigans.
And after RTFA, it's a materials-based cloak; you can't simply toggle it on/off, and moving the materials generates energy transfers which obey the conservation laws. :)
When you consider the way the cosmos is set up, building an actual working perpetual motion machine might well involve safety warnings along the lines of "Please do not operate within inhabited continuum" or "Warning: no (n<5)-dimensionally serviceable parts inside". :p
Trivial just for you, or trivial for most end-users?
Bleh. That last bit in parentheses should have been tied in to the consequences for trade secrets, with a possible workaround of allowing patents to be filed privately, with mandated disclosure to the public after x years, under certain conditions. Sorry.
(sorry for the verbosity)
The difference (as I see it) is that the lawn is naturally exclusive, while ideas are only as exclusive as one can artificially enforce.
Yes, it is - but if both of us went through those additional steps of publicly disclosing the idea? Should I have to suddenly pay you or close shop simply because someone notices that you and I have arrived at the same idea but you had paid the "monopoly" money to the king and I had not? Is that good and just?
Notwithstanding Brunelleschi's accomplishments, I quote (random google) from the Fall 1993 issue of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston "Regional Review", "The Italian Renaissance city-states, locked in a struggle for wealth and power, habitually gave monopolies to those who would build a needed bridge or mill, or who introduced some useful craft or industry."
Seems to me Brunelleschi wasn't the only one feeling greedy. Also, to quote the patent itself, "That no person alive [...] shall dare or presume, within three years [...] except such ship or machine or instrument as they may have used until now for similar operations [...] any such new or newly shaped machine, etc. shall be burned". So not just derivatives of B's machine, but any innovation, at all. Chilling effect, much?
As for how well society has done over the past 600 years, are you using the term "society" to include all of humanity, or just those of us lucky enough to live in the right parts at the right times? Sadly however I must grant that, given the ruthless nature of many of humanity's rulers for much of history, patents may well have had their place as an effective mechanism for distributing knowledge. My contention is that even if so, this is no longer the case (at least for patents in their current form).
The current situation is already - or is rapidly approaching - where a patent needs to be filed for every item that is manufactured lest you risk being sued by someone claiming infringement of their own patent. E.g. "patent chests" and "patent thickets", which to me themselves seem horribly wasteful and expensive. The trouble (as I see it) is that we have (at least) two "societal overheads" in a feedback loop - patents and lawyers. The latter are more essential to society, and in any case I dislike "legislating away" people, so...
My idea is that patents be changed from negative, monopo
In part? Because not all societies started on an equal footing, and it has been to the (believed) advantage of certain societies to keep it that way.
The trouble with applying property law concepts to ideas is that while any given physical object cannot be shared simultaneously amongst many, and through use will wear out, ideas have no such restriction. Countless people can simultaneously possess and act upon a singular idea, and that idea does not thereby fade.
I do understand that the patent system is not a reward for hard work. Indeed, if one is not "first", such hard work is actually punished. Yes, "we" may benefit, but the patent system is still an overhead, with all that entails in any economic system.
As for the "fruits of your labors", I apologise if I was unclear. To clarify: if you and I arrive at the same idea, is it a good and just act by you to pay another man to threaten me if I try to sell the fruits of that idea? Is it the act of a good and just society to legalise your ability to do so?
So patents are basically an appeal to - and encouragement of - selfish greed? I for one do not want society built on that principle.
As I said, it's not necessary to grant exclusivity. You appear to agree that the documentation is the key benefit of patents to society. Therefore, instead, require a patent be filed before commercial manufacture with intent to distribute by any party can occur, with no grant of exclusivity, with the filing made public upon the first retail sale of goods.