...that people keep trying to find legal solutions to technology problems.
We created this technology, and now that it does exactly what it was designed it to do, people try to make impose laws to restrict how it's used. I have a better idea, change email's design.
It reminds me of Singapore. A poor subway design allowed for a mischievious kid to shutdown the whole system with a stick of chewing gum. Their solution was to outlaw chewing gum. Sure it was wrong for the kids to act that way, sure they should have been punished, but seriously quit trying to create legal solutions to technology based problems.
What good are you to them if you are brilliant, but afraid to speak up?
If you are brilliant, and speak up at Microsoft - then you won't get hired because anybody who thinks is going to realise that the glorious "intellectual property" they tout over - is CRAP, and is a strategy that basicly relies upon restricting information just as our society enters the information age - not a good place to be in. Anyone who thinks is going to figure out that Linux is a more competitive paradigm, and will kick Microsoft's but in the long run. And they may also realise that Microsoft is an entrenched corporate bureauocracy where talent and achievement have little to do with success, where backstabbing and being in with the top will get you a lot further.
If I was a Microsoft investor, I would be damanding massive dividend payments about now - so I can get my money out and start investing in every viable Linux company I could find.
While the problems associated with copyrights might have been bearable 20 years ago when the biggist issue was Xerox machines, today we are entering into the information age where information is so easy to copy and manipulate that there can be no middle ground. Our society will either half to controll all of it or none of it. Our communications will either half to be monitored or free, our privacy to be either contunuiously probed or protected.
In that sense, copyrights are like a vine that will never stop growing to choke off our freedoms until we cut it off at the root. The DMCA, infinite extensions, billion dollar lawsiuts, are all just symptoms of a poor belief system - not the cause. So the efforts to find a "middle ground" on copyrights are a failure because they do not address the core issue. That contrary to copyrights, the right to copy and distribute creative works and knowledge is a right!
Like freedom of religion, and freedom of the press, the right to copy things is a right that exists above government. It is a moral right, it is an inherent right, it defines the very nature of the human condition. It is beyond politics and the petition of leaders.
In fact, the entire foundation of politics rests on the notion that it's better to fight wars with words than wars with bloodshed. But to copy things does not require coercion or viloence at all, the rules are not the same. We will not change the copyright situation by petitioning our leaders, or voteing to change the system. No it can only be changed by defiance.
Defiance by holding the belief that people have rights, even if those rights appear contrary to the popular mob or to the system. Defiance, by shedding off the guilt and shame that those who try to impose copyrights impose on us and understanding that they are the ones who should be guilty and shamefull. Defiance by copying and sharing creative works whenever we have acess to them. Defiance by using technologies that make it harder and harder for copyrights to be imposed upon us. And defiance by rejecting the little lies like.... copyrights "benefit" artists, people who copy are "pirates", copyrights are intellectual "property" and so on.
In my humble opinion, only then can we and our children enjoy the true prosperity that the information age has to offer.
If I said I didn't have an incentive to grow oranges uness I could plant a tree in your yard, or if I said I didn't have an incentive to grow cotton unless I could own slaves on the plantation, most people would see this is these as the worthless shallow arguments that they are. But if I said I didn't have an incentive to to make beneficial or creative works without a copyright monopoly, then all of a sudden people just take it on faith, they don't even question it, they just assume that society would fall apart without them. In my humble opinion, this is intellectually dishonest, especially considering that the entire Renassance happened without copyrights.
The simple fact is, there is no equivalency relationship between copyrights and property rights - incentive does not a right make. The moral and historical foundation of property derives from the fact that property has physical limits, while the foundation of copyrights dervives from kings who granted publishers monopolies in return for not publishing bad things about the monarchy. The history of Copyrights is not one of rights, but controll of sharing and restricting the open use of knowledge.
That is why people who copy are not criminals, thiefs, or akin to pirates who board ships and murder people. No, infact they are really victims of a cruel deception. A deception that copyrights somehow financially benefit artists and creators. The simple fact is, that for every artist that makes it "big" there are litterally thousands who copyrights haven't helped a bit, even hindered, or destroyed.
However, this is not the only failure of copyrights - it is just one in many issues related to copyrighrts that are just blown off ignored, or glossed over. Like the failures of Hollywood culture, the failures of big media to provide quality material, the failures to provide reasonably priced books to college students while tabloids are dirt cheap, and massive anti-trust behavior in the software industry to name a few.
While the problems associated with copyrights might have been bearable 20 years ago when the biggist issue was Xerox machines, today we are entering into the information age where information is so easy to copy and manipulate that there can be no middle ground. Our society will either half to controll all of it or none of it. Our communications will either half to be monitored or free, our privacy to be either contunuiously probed or protected.
The constitution isn't a tool for granting rights, but for acknowledging rights. I have a right to freedom of speech wether the constitution says so or not. I have a right to copy wether the constitution says so or not too. It's too bad that they didn't acknowledge that right too, but we'll just half to work with what we got. Either way, new technologies are going to force us to choose between copyrights and the bill of rights, we can already see it with the DMCA restricting communication about copyright circumvention, and these new laws forcing unreasonable search and seisure. That, sadly, is just the beginning.
So you are saying that creative works (books, music, movies, games, etc.) are fair game to copy because of free speech.
No, I'm saying that certain rights exist above governments. Freedom of speech is an example. To copy things is another - even though not so widely accepted.
The constitution guarantees anyone the right to profit from their creative works for a limited time to protect against illegal copying of works. Copyright is the right of the materials creator to designate who can copy and distribute a certain work.
Better question: where is the moral right to profit from my own creativity???
You have every right to profit from your creativity, but that is alot different that saying you have the right to impose a massive monopoly on copying to the 4 corners of the earth. If someone is that creative, then why can't they use that cretivity to figure out how to make a profit without it?
I am a filmmaker and my partner is a music producer. Not major label, but I'll tell you,we make a living creating material that people like to see and hear. P2P is going to kill us. It is not only the Corps who need these abilities to protect themselves from pirates like you, and so steal my work and I will use these and any other tools to protect my work.
Then I'm sure you're aware, that for every one like you that makes it - there are litterally thousands who copyrights haven't helped a bit, even restricted. Respect of copyrights has never earned it's support, and part of the problem is that copyrights cause alot of information to be valued by how much attention they get and not by how usefull or valuable it really is.
Just because someone told you that you have a right to restrict others ability to copy, does not mean that you do. Incentive does not a right make.
In a normal situation, when I have a problem with a law, I would suggest petitioning your congressman and seeking popular support. But IMHO, with copying things it's different, the only real way is with civil disobedience and defiance.
First, copying things is a moral right, like freedom of speech, that exists above government. If we try to petition our leaders to obtain this right - then it would imply that the right to copy derives from the powers that be, and that is intellectually dishonest.
Second, the main foundation behind politics is that it's better to fight wars of words than wars of bloodshed. But copying things doesn't require violence at all. It can be done with impunity, little risk, little fear of getting caught, and no violence initiated on our part. The old rules just don't apply.
Thrid, laws like the DMCA, infinite extensions, and suvere disproportionate punishments and the like are just symptions of trying to impose copying restrictions in the information age. The sooner we get the problem at the root, the sooner we will get the dogs off our back.
Fourth, we have a moral imperitave to hit the people behind this like the RIAA and the MPAA where it hurts - in their revenue streams, so as to thwart their advances on our rights. Defiance of copyrights is the only real way to do that. Does anyone really think we would get that thru legal petition.
Fith, these industries not only controll the media, they are the media. They have an unfair advantage, and incentive to lie about the nature of copyrights, and even call people dishonest names like "pirate" - this is the only real way of dealing with that.
...What we can change however, is how a society deals with free speech of its citizens, or the citizens' right to bear arms or any other right....
Yes you can, but what you cant change is the consequences of these social constructs.
...I'll stick with democracy for now, but it's not sacred.
I agree with you there. Democracy is not an end in itself, but a tool for protecting individual librties. And like any tool it can be abused too, the end in itself is really how effectively a government upholds individual rights and liberties.
visionaries vs reactionaries
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DMCA, Auf Deutsch
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· Score: 2, Insightful
As a historian once told me - history is a story of visionaries and reactionaries. The visionaries create the new future, and the reactionaries try to block those changes and keep the status quo. Here one might say, the USA is the visionary and old-Europe is the reactionary. The US is constantly changing, and growing, where Europe is trying to maintain the world super power status they once had. Another example, visionary currency traders figured out how to call a nations "bluff" (eg when when HK artifically peged their currency to the dollar) reactioaries grouped their currences together into a single large one (the Euro, but notice how the two strongest Euopean economies passed). When visionary leadership in the US went to route out a ruthless dictator who terrorists could possibly get deadly weapons from, reactionaries desperately tried to block it every step of the way. Visionary programmers figured out how to share music on the internet, reactionary media industries sought to counter it. Visionary companies figured out how to make money from free software, reactionaries are trying to impose the DMCA. Visionary students in the the US now consider it the norm to freely share music, reactionaries are suing for billions.
Sadly, I would say Euope multi-lateralism is more about being reactionary than not.
I like to think of rights like the laws of physics, or engineering. There are different way's people can go about building things, different syntaxes of the equasions the use to get there, differnent ways of observing them, some engineering is less rigorous than others, but there are still fundamental premises there that the universe follows certain rational rules and from that derives the practice. We are not at the pinnacle of science either, and there is a lot we have to learn, but that does not mean that existence is irrational. And even though buildings disappear, this does not mean that engineering, or the premisses behind it will.
The same is true with rights. For example, your government may not acknowledge the right to bear arms - but their society still manages to function because their citizens can still secure enough of their rights to function and be productive - their "building" still stands. However, I would assert that because they fail to assert that right, their "building" is built on less sound princaples and is therefore more likely to falter while others remain standing.
Also, if one beieves rights are granted by someone else or some government, then they are also likely to believe they can be taken away - and not take the risks necissary to secure them. History has shown that is really dangerous road to go down.
I disagree, and is is easy to see from the declaration of independence and the bill of rights....
...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness
From 1st amendment....
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Notice how is doesn't say we have the freedom of speech, it says that the congress shall not adbridge the freedom of speech. This was very intentionally worded because freedom of speech was considered to be a right above government. We might not know all the rights, but like gravity they are measurable, observable, and there inspite of government and opinions of men.
Well, good luck, and on behalf of all American's who are sick and tired of Microsoft and Disney shoving copyrights down everyones throat, I apologize. We don't like it here either.
I'm not from Europe, but Perhaps if we make the battle tough enough here it will do more to keep the dogs off your back over there. Perhaps that's what's already happening. LOL!
Actually, we all do have the same rights. People have a basic right for free speech, free religion, free press, property rights, right to assemble, right to bear arms, and a right to copy things, among others no matter who they are or where they live. While some governments acknowledge these rights, others do not - but they exist no matter what type of government you have, or no matter what type of laws you are under.
In countries that tend to acknowledge these rights, people tend to be more secure, successfull, and happy - in countries that don't, just the opposite. Societies that promote these rights tend to uplift the world, societies that don't tend to bring it down. That's the way it is.
They are irrelavent anyhow....
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DMCA, Auf Deutsch
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· Score: 4, Insightful
IMHO, the real battle is going on in the US. If we win here, than the other countries will fall like dominos - and ease copy restrictions across the board, if we loose here then there is no way in hell any other country is going to have the strength to hold out.
Therefore, if you are from outside the USA - I recommend paying attention to what goes on here 1st. Copyrights are very quickly becoming unenforceable without draconian measures, with trillions at stake, for each side, I wouldn't be supprised if all hell's about to break loose.
Does legacy free mean that they are free to use the latest and greatest uninhibited technology.... or does it mean that intel wants to get away from the old open standards and use latest patented technology that only they own?
MS didn't invent IP, they only abuse it. You should turn your wrath on your legislator and tell them what needs to be fixed.
I think we have about as likely a chance of that working as microsoft going GPL. At least this way, challenging the IP belief directly offers a chance to get the problem at the root.
Are copyrights moral, do they have any ethical realtionship to real property, is incentive really a moral foundation for a property right? do they really help artists and creators or just 1 out of a million? Is someone who coppies a pirate, like those who board ships and murder people, or a thief who deprives people of their limited resources?
...Oddly enough, there are many patented drugs for treating all of those diseases, and many others....
Oddly enough, most of these diseases are preventable with a good diet, protection, and exercise anyhow. So why in the hell should we let someone have grand monopolies in the name of their cure. Since these monopolies don't guarentee a cure anyhow, it sounds like bullshit to me.
Patents last for years, allowing the drug to be sold to a much larger audience than exists in any tiny time-frame. A person with cancer or heart disease may not live three years, least of all twenty. They also leverage financial risk from those willing to take it to produce results that those willing to take the financial risk of charities or co-ops clearly don't.
Then let the co-op be funded by insurence companies. Of course, the co-op isn't the point,
it's this attitude that the only way to a cure an illness is through massive imposed monopolies, and a huge amount of cash up front. bullshit.
Like what? Anything you mention, provide sources for.
If they're so simple and cheap, why don't you undercut the drug companies, that clearly don't find them economical? You've found an excellent business opportunity, right? Or maybe you can form a drug co-op to produce these cheap, simple solution to man's ills.
Actually, I'm glad you mentioned that. You're the one that's trying to support this massive restriction on what people can manufacture and copy - the burden of proof is on you. Proove that there aren't cheeper cures, proove that they can't be manufactured/found, and researched without a patent monopoly. Proove there are no alternatives. You want to put these massive restrictions on what people can manufacture and copy - and then claim the burden of proof is on everyone else to proove otherwise. bullshit.
Get rid of patents, and the quantity of quality researchers drops.... far fewer people making drugs for your the "public domain,"...Competing is hard...you can undercut the competition....No one is going to do anything unless they're compensated for it... Intellectual property is expensive to construct, and cheap the reproduce... You can either pay Pfizer over a period of decades, or they can demand the world pay them billions of dollars or they don't release the information about their treatment for a given disease....Real competition like free loaders. IP isn't like a shoe factory. That's why the laws were created, to balance between two broken scenarios: having to pre-pay for products you can't judge the quality of, and having skilless people force creative people into irrelevance.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, IBM said similar things when they sued Compaq who coppied their bios, Intel said similar things when AMD coppied their instruction sets. I've heard it all before, but the simple fact is that when they lost and the clone PC's hit the market - It benefited businesses more than it hurt them, it benefited engineers more than it harmed them, it benefited the public more than they benefited before. It is because of a simple truth, Patents are not free market - they are more a government regulation that interferes with competition and much of the evolution of tehcnology that was going to take place anyhow. They're not worth it, and they don't belong in a free society.
Freedom is freedom, taking away free speech isn't comparable to the disasters in WWII either, but watch how quickly things get there. Copyrights restrict freedom, and sooner or later they will either go away or grow out of controll and start ruining peoples lives. Lets see, DMCA, infinite extensions, prison terms worse than rape, fines over 90 billion, blow off the 4th amendment, blow off the 1st amendment, blow off the 8th amendment - yep, right on schedule.
And of course people can benefit from freedom even if they don't believe in it, and they can eat ripe fruit even if they don't water the tree that grew it. But, if someone doesn't appretiate or understand the "tree that feeds them" - they are really setting themselves up I would say.
...Looking on the title page to my copy of 'J.V. Stalin- Works Volume 7, 1925' I don't see a copyright there either. Just 'Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1954'. No copyright.
In a state where the government controlls all information, copyrights are irrelavent. The USSR did not allow people to own slaves either (they all belonged to the state), but slavery is certainly a loss of freedom.
During WWII, Charles Lindburg went over to germany, looked at their massive numbers of factories and aircraft, and concluded that the USA could never win the war. I suppose also, that in 1950's USSR, many people saw their huge building projects, factories, and the space program and concluded that the USA would never beat out the Soviets which at the time seemed more elloquent and "sophisticated" in their approach. But if you believed that people had inaliable rights as dignified human biengs, and believed that freedom was an end in itself - then there was only one way to go.
Well the same is true with Linux. Some Microsoft features may seem more "sophisticated", others may see Microsoft's huge amount of cash and never believe that they could loose to Linux. But if you believe that copying things is not a sin, but a human nature; and you believe that property rights derive from physical truths and not from artifical monopolies imposed by the government - like copyrights. Then there is only one way to go, and that way will free and benefit the people who believe in it over the long run, and destroy the people who don't.
I think the truth is that, in normal circumstance the FED would have raised the interest rate long before they did. Unfortunately, this time they couldn't because of the Asian financial chrises so instead they lowered and let a shitload of money flow into the economy causing a stock market bubble.
Of course, Greenspan couldn't say he was screwing over the US economey to save Asia's but, so instead he tried to ward off stocks as "irrational exuberance". Fine help that was.
ps - In my first post I said cut the interest rate - I ment raised, sorry.
So where is the co-op funded cure for AIDS? How about various cancers? How about heart disease?
So where's the patent funded cure for AIDS, cancer, and heart disease?
Do you think there's anything keeping those people with diseases from raising money for research? There isn't, it's done all of the time for all manner of ailments.
The quantity of money required for that research, is most often several times more than anyone with those ailments could possibly provide by themselves. If an ailment is particularly crippling, then they won't even able to earn further resources for contribution.
What! If it's more then they could possibly provide by themselves, then they wouldn't be able to afford/finance the purchase of durgs these patents "quote" produce.
So what do you do? You find people that already have money that may or may not have any direct motivation for your particular ailment. And of those, a large percentage will need some sort of self-interest for spending their resources on your particular endeavor. Afterall, there's a world full of disease, and even more so, there's a world full of things to spend money on. Why you? There's far more problems to solve than resources to solve them. So they'll likely want to be investors, and you'll need to make this worthwhile for them. IP is hard to produce and easy to copy, so they will want some reassurance that ten, twenty, or thirty years of funding research, if successful, will result in a benefit for them or their children. They're not giving away this money, they're not looking to maybe make back the enormous investment of their resources in a period of decades. They're not doing this to make anyone else money, and their interest in treating the disease, if any, will be tempered by the reality that there are limited resources in the world.
There ARE limited resources in the world, so why do so many potential simple and cheap cures/solutions get passed up while complicated expensive ones get pushed to the top of the list? Because a pharma company would far rather promote a complicated chemical with side effects that can be patented than a drug without that may already be in the public domain. Solution - get rid of patents and suddenly their best interests become the publics best interests. If they don't want to do it, then fine, at least their big guns won't be able to squeese out anyone else who wants to try.
Patents exist for the betterment of the public welfare, and make more sense for drugs than many other things. They serve to encourage limited resources (people capable of doing effective research and people with capital) to make calculated risks, that if successful, will produce tremendous value for everyone in the form of a better life. This would be in comparison to people devoting their lives and finances to developing important drugs, simply to find themselves driven out of the market by the cheapest means of mass-producing the fruits of their labor. At which time they pack up their bags and find things that benefit them more than doing all of that funding and research for factories.
The notion that nobody is going to do anything new or innovative unless they can restrict comptetition is false. In fact just the opposite is true, when you have real competition then you have real motivation to get the edge, get the markets first, be more efficient. A dollars worth of research from a million researchers who share and cooperate will get you a lot further than a million dollars worth of research from one that doesn't! Patents force the latter, and the value of sharing/cooperation is a fact beared out by the truth that we even have companies at all.
The dot com bubble was caused by a sharp cutback in interest rates, too much loose capital, and an obsessive delusion that economic wealth centers arround intellectual property instead of service and need. The first two have taken care of themselves, if they've gotten over the third, then things will be fine.
Slashdot Mirror
...that people keep trying to find legal solutions to technology problems.
We created this technology, and now that it does exactly what it was designed it to do, people try to make impose laws to restrict how it's used. I have a better idea, change email's design.
It reminds me of Singapore. A poor subway design allowed for a mischievious kid to shutdown the whole system with a stick of chewing gum. Their solution was to outlaw chewing gum. Sure it was wrong for the kids to act that way, sure they should have been punished, but seriously quit trying to create legal solutions to technology based problems.
What good are you to them if you are brilliant, but afraid to speak up?
If you are brilliant, and speak up at Microsoft - then you won't get hired because anybody who thinks is going to realise that the glorious "intellectual property" they tout over - is CRAP, and is a strategy that basicly relies upon restricting information just as our society enters the information age - not a good place to be in. Anyone who thinks is going to figure out that Linux is a more competitive paradigm, and will kick Microsoft's but in the long run. And they may also realise that Microsoft is an entrenched corporate bureauocracy where talent and achievement have little to do with success, where backstabbing and being in with the top will get you a lot further.
If I was a Microsoft investor, I would be damanding massive dividend payments about now - so I can get my money out and start investing in every viable Linux company I could find.
I was tired last night, so let me continue....
.... copyrights "benefit" artists, people who copy are "pirates", copyrights are intellectual "property" and so on.
While the problems associated with copyrights might have been bearable 20 years ago when the biggist issue was Xerox machines, today we are entering into the information age where information is so easy to copy and manipulate that there can be no middle ground. Our society will either half to controll all of it or none of it. Our communications will either half to be monitored or free, our privacy to be either contunuiously probed or protected.
In that sense, copyrights are like a vine that will never stop growing to choke off our freedoms until we cut it off at the root. The DMCA, infinite extensions, billion dollar lawsiuts, are all just symptoms of a poor belief system - not the cause. So the efforts to find a "middle ground" on copyrights are a failure because they do not address the core issue. That contrary to copyrights, the right to copy and distribute creative works and knowledge is a right!
Like freedom of religion, and freedom of the press, the right to copy things is a right that exists above government. It is a moral right, it is an inherent right, it defines the very nature of the human condition. It is beyond politics and the petition of leaders.
In fact, the entire foundation of politics rests on the notion that it's better to fight wars with words than wars with bloodshed. But to copy things does not require coercion or viloence at all, the rules are not the same. We will not change the copyright situation by petitioning our leaders, or voteing to change the system. No it can only be changed by defiance.
Defiance by holding the belief that people have rights, even if those rights appear contrary to the popular mob or to the system. Defiance, by shedding off the guilt and shame that those who try to impose copyrights impose on us and understanding that they are the ones who should be guilty and shamefull. Defiance by copying and sharing creative works whenever we have acess to them. Defiance by using technologies that make it harder and harder for copyrights to be imposed upon us. And defiance by rejecting the little lies like
In my humble opinion, only then can we and our children enjoy the true prosperity that the information age has to offer.
If I said I didn't have an incentive to grow oranges uness I could plant a tree in your yard, or if I said I didn't have an incentive to grow cotton unless I could own slaves on the plantation, most people would see this is these as the worthless shallow arguments that they are. But if I said I didn't have an incentive to to make beneficial or creative works without a copyright monopoly, then all of a sudden people just take it on faith, they don't even question it, they just assume that society would fall apart without them. In my humble opinion, this is intellectually dishonest, especially considering that the entire Renassance happened without copyrights.
The simple fact is, there is no equivalency relationship between copyrights and property rights - incentive does not a right make. The moral and historical foundation of property derives from the fact that property has physical limits, while the foundation of copyrights dervives from kings who granted publishers monopolies in return for not publishing bad things about the monarchy. The history of Copyrights is not one of rights, but controll of sharing and restricting the open use of knowledge.
That is why people who copy are not criminals, thiefs, or akin to pirates who board ships and murder people. No, infact they are really victims of a cruel deception. A deception that copyrights somehow financially benefit artists and creators. The simple fact is, that for every artist that makes it "big" there are litterally thousands who copyrights haven't helped a bit, even hindered, or destroyed.
However, this is not the only failure of copyrights - it is just one in many issues related to copyrighrts that are just blown off ignored, or glossed over. Like the failures of Hollywood culture, the failures of big media to provide quality material, the failures to provide reasonably priced books to college students while tabloids are dirt cheap, and massive anti-trust behavior in the software industry to name a few.
While the problems associated with copyrights might have been bearable 20 years ago when the biggist issue was Xerox machines, today we are entering into the information age where information is so easy to copy and manipulate that there can be no middle ground. Our society will either half to controll all of it or none of it. Our communications will either half to be monitored or free, our privacy to be either contunuiously probed or protected.
The constitution isn't a tool for granting rights, but for acknowledging rights. I have a right to freedom of speech wether the constitution says so or not. I have a right to copy wether the constitution says so or not too. It's too bad that they didn't acknowledge that right too, but we'll just half to work with what we got. Either way, new technologies are going to force us to choose between copyrights and the bill of rights, we can already see it with the DMCA restricting communication about copyright circumvention, and these new laws forcing unreasonable search and seisure. That, sadly, is just the beginning.
So you are saying that creative works (books, music, movies, games, etc.) are fair game to copy because of free speech.
No, I'm saying that certain rights exist above governments. Freedom of speech is an example. To copy things is another - even though not so widely accepted.
The constitution guarantees anyone the right to profit from their creative works for a limited time to protect against illegal copying of works. Copyright is the right of the materials creator to designate who can copy and distribute a certain work.
Better question: where is the moral right to profit from my own creativity???
You have every right to profit from your creativity, but that is alot different that saying you have the right to impose a massive monopoly on copying to the 4 corners of the earth. If someone is that creative, then why can't they use that cretivity to figure out how to make a profit without it?
I am a filmmaker and my partner is a music producer. Not major label, but I'll tell you,we make a living creating material that people like to see and hear. P2P is going to kill us. It is not only the Corps who need these abilities to protect themselves from pirates like you, and so steal my work and I will use these and any other tools to protect my work.
Then I'm sure you're aware, that for every one like you that makes it - there are litterally thousands who copyrights haven't helped a bit, even restricted. Respect of copyrights has never earned it's support, and part of the problem is that copyrights cause alot of information to be valued by how much attention they get and not by how usefull or valuable it really is.
Just because someone told you that you have a right to restrict others ability to copy, does not mean that you do. Incentive does not a right make.
In a normal situation, when I have a problem with a law, I would suggest petitioning your congressman and seeking popular support. But IMHO, with copying things it's different, the only real way is with civil disobedience and defiance.
First, copying things is a moral right, like freedom of speech, that exists above government. If we try to petition our leaders to obtain this right - then it would imply that the right to copy derives from the powers that be, and that is intellectually dishonest.
Second, the main foundation behind politics is that it's better to fight wars of words than wars of bloodshed. But copying things doesn't require violence at all. It can be done with impunity, little risk, little fear of getting caught, and no violence initiated on our part. The old rules just don't apply.
Thrid, laws like the DMCA, infinite extensions, and suvere disproportionate punishments and the like are just symptions of trying to impose copying restrictions in the information age. The sooner we get the problem at the root, the sooner we will get the dogs off our back.
Fourth, we have a moral imperitave to hit the people behind this like the RIAA and the MPAA where it hurts - in their revenue streams, so as to thwart their advances on our rights. Defiance of copyrights is the only real way to do that. Does anyone really think we would get that thru legal petition.
Fith, these industries not only controll the media, they are the media. They have an unfair advantage, and incentive to lie about the nature of copyrights, and even call people dishonest names like "pirate" - this is the only real way of dealing with that.
Yes you can, but what you cant change is the consequences of these social constructs.
I agree with you there. Democracy is not an end in itself, but a tool for protecting individual librties. And like any tool it can be abused too, the end in itself is really how effectively a government upholds individual rights and liberties.
As a historian once told me - history is a story of visionaries and reactionaries. The visionaries create the new future, and the reactionaries try to block those changes and keep the status quo. Here one might say, the USA is the visionary and old-Europe is the reactionary. The US is constantly changing, and growing, where Europe is trying to maintain the world super power status they once had. Another example, visionary currency traders figured out how to call a nations "bluff" (eg when when HK artifically peged their currency to the dollar) reactioaries grouped their currences together into a single large one (the Euro, but notice how the two strongest Euopean economies passed). When visionary leadership in the US went to route out a ruthless dictator who terrorists could possibly get deadly weapons from, reactionaries desperately tried to block it every step of the way. Visionary programmers figured out how to share music on the internet, reactionary media industries sought to counter it. Visionary companies figured out how to make money from free software, reactionaries are trying to impose the DMCA. Visionary students in the the US now consider it the norm to freely share music, reactionaries are suing for billions.
Sadly, I would say Euope multi-lateralism is more about being reactionary than not.
I like to think of rights like the laws of physics, or engineering. There are different way's people can go about building things, different syntaxes of the equasions the use to get there, differnent ways of observing them, some engineering is less rigorous than others, but there are still fundamental premises there that the universe follows certain rational rules and from that derives the practice. We are not at the pinnacle of science either, and there is a lot we have to learn, but that does not mean that existence is irrational. And even though buildings disappear, this does not mean that engineering, or the premisses behind it will.
The same is true with rights. For example, your government may not acknowledge the right to bear arms - but their society still manages to function because their citizens can still secure enough of their rights to function and be productive - their "building" still stands. However, I would assert that because they fail to assert that right, their "building" is built on less sound princaples and is therefore more likely to falter while others remain standing.
Also, if one beieves rights are granted by someone else or some government, then they are also likely to believe they can be taken away - and not take the risks necissary to secure them. History has shown that is really dangerous road to go down.
I disagree, and is is easy to see from the declaration of independence and the bill of rights ....
...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness
From 1st amendment ....
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Notice how is doesn't say we have the freedom of speech, it says that the congress shall not adbridge the freedom of speech. This was very intentionally worded because freedom of speech was considered to be a right above government. We might not know all the rights, but like gravity they are measurable, observable, and there inspite of government and opinions of men.
Well, good luck, and on behalf of all American's who are sick and tired of Microsoft and Disney shoving copyrights down everyones throat, I apologize. We don't like it here either.
I'm not from Europe, but Perhaps if we make the battle tough enough here it will do more to keep the dogs off your back over there. Perhaps that's what's already happening. LOL!
Actually, we all do have the same rights. People have a basic right for free speech, free religion, free press, property rights, right to assemble, right to bear arms, and a right to copy things, among others no matter who they are or where they live. While some governments acknowledge these rights, others do not - but they exist no matter what type of government you have, or no matter what type of laws you are under.
In countries that tend to acknowledge these rights, people tend to be more secure, successfull, and happy - in countries that don't, just the opposite. Societies that promote these rights tend to uplift the world, societies that don't tend to bring it down. That's the way it is.
IMHO, the real battle is going on in the US. If we win here, than the other countries will fall like dominos - and ease copy restrictions across the board, if we loose here then there is no way in hell any other country is going to have the strength to hold out.
Therefore, if you are from outside the USA - I recommend paying attention to what goes on here 1st. Copyrights are very quickly becoming unenforceable without draconian measures, with trillions at stake, for each side, I wouldn't be supprised if all hell's about to break loose.
Does legacy free mean that they are free to use the latest and greatest uninhibited technology
MS didn't invent IP, they only abuse it. You should turn your wrath on your legislator and tell them what needs to be fixed.
I think we have about as likely a chance of that working as microsoft going GPL. At least this way, challenging the IP belief directly offers a chance to get the problem at the root.
Are copyrights moral, do they have any ethical realtionship to real property, is incentive really a moral foundation for a property right? do they really help artists and creators or just 1 out of a million? Is someone who coppies a pirate, like those who board ships and murder people, or a thief who deprives people of their limited resources?
They should GPL their software and quit ramming this intellectual property garbage down everyones throat.
Oddly enough, most of these diseases are preventable with a good diet, protection, and exercise anyhow. So why in the hell should we let someone have grand monopolies in the name of their cure. Since these monopolies don't guarentee a cure anyhow, it sounds like bullshit to me.
Patents last for years, allowing the drug to be sold to a much larger audience than exists in any tiny time-frame. A person with cancer or heart disease may not live three years, least of all twenty. They also leverage financial risk from those willing to take it to produce results that those willing to take the financial risk of charities or co-ops clearly don't.
Then let the co-op be funded by insurence companies. Of course, the co-op isn't the point, it's this attitude that the only way to a cure an illness is through massive imposed monopolies, and a huge amount of cash up front. bullshit.
Like what? Anything you mention, provide sources for. If they're so simple and cheap, why don't you undercut the drug companies, that clearly don't find them economical? You've found an excellent business opportunity, right? Or maybe you can form a drug co-op to produce these cheap, simple solution to man's ills.
Actually, I'm glad you mentioned that. You're the one that's trying to support this massive restriction on what people can manufacture and copy - the burden of proof is on you. Proove that there aren't cheeper cures, proove that they can't be manufactured/found, and researched without a patent monopoly. Proove there are no alternatives. You want to put these massive restrictions on what people can manufacture and copy - and then claim the burden of proof is on everyone else to proove otherwise. bullshit.
Get rid of patents, and the quantity of quality researchers drops .... far fewer people making drugs for your the "public domain," ...Competing is hard...you can undercut the competition....No one is going to do anything unless they're compensated for it... Intellectual property is expensive to construct, and cheap the reproduce... You can either pay Pfizer over a period of decades, or they can demand the world pay them billions of dollars or they don't release the information about their treatment for a given disease....Real competition like free loaders. IP isn't like a shoe factory. That's why the laws were created, to balance between two broken scenarios: having to pre-pay for products you can't judge the quality of, and having skilless people force creative people into irrelevance.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, IBM said similar things when they sued Compaq who coppied their bios, Intel said similar things when AMD coppied their instruction sets. I've heard it all before, but the simple fact is that when they lost and the clone PC's hit the market - It benefited businesses more than it hurt them, it benefited engineers more than it harmed them, it benefited the public more than they benefited before. It is because of a simple truth, Patents are not free market - they are more a government regulation that interferes with competition and much of the evolution of tehcnology that was going to take place anyhow. They're not worth it, and they don't belong in a free society.
Freedom is freedom, taking away free speech isn't comparable to the disasters in WWII either, but watch how quickly things get there. Copyrights restrict freedom, and sooner or later they will either go away or grow out of controll and start ruining peoples lives. Lets see, DMCA, infinite extensions, prison terms worse than rape, fines over 90 billion, blow off the 4th amendment, blow off the 1st amendment, blow off the 8th amendment - yep, right on schedule.
And of course people can benefit from freedom even if they don't believe in it, and they can eat ripe fruit even if they don't water the tree that grew it. But, if someone doesn't appretiate or understand the "tree that feeds them" - they are really setting themselves up I would say.
In a state where the government controlls all information, copyrights are irrelavent. The USSR did not allow people to own slaves either (they all belonged to the state), but slavery is certainly a loss of freedom.
During WWII, Charles Lindburg went over to germany, looked at their massive numbers of factories and aircraft, and concluded that the USA could never win the war. I suppose also, that in 1950's USSR, many people saw their huge building projects, factories, and the space program and concluded that the USA would never beat out the Soviets which at the time seemed more elloquent and "sophisticated" in their approach. But if you believed that people had inaliable rights as dignified human biengs, and believed that freedom was an end in itself - then there was only one way to go.
Well the same is true with Linux. Some Microsoft features may seem more "sophisticated", others may see Microsoft's huge amount of cash and never believe that they could loose to Linux. But if you believe that copying things is not a sin, but a human nature; and you believe that property rights derive from physical truths and not from artifical monopolies imposed by the government - like copyrights. Then there is only one way to go, and that way will free and benefit the people who believe in it over the long run, and destroy the people who don't.
I think the truth is that, in normal circumstance the FED would have raised the interest rate long before they did. Unfortunately, this time they couldn't because of the Asian financial chrises so instead they lowered and let a shitload of money flow into the economy causing a stock market bubble.
Of course, Greenspan couldn't say he was screwing over the US economey to save Asia's but, so instead he tried to ward off stocks as "irrational exuberance". Fine help that was.
ps - In my first post I said cut the interest rate - I ment raised, sorry.
So where's the patent funded cure for AIDS, cancer, and heart disease?
What! If it's more then they could possibly provide by themselves, then they wouldn't be able to afford/finance the purchase of durgs these patents "quote" produce.
There ARE limited resources in the world, so why do so many potential simple and cheap cures/solutions get passed up while complicated expensive ones get pushed to the top of the list? Because a pharma company would far rather promote a complicated chemical with side effects that can be patented than a drug without that may already be in the public domain. Solution - get rid of patents and suddenly their best interests become the publics best interests. If they don't want to do it, then fine, at least their big guns won't be able to squeese out anyone else who wants to try.
The notion that nobody is going to do anything new or innovative unless they can restrict comptetition is false. In fact just the opposite is true, when you have real competition then you have real motivation to get the edge, get the markets first, be more efficient. A dollars worth of research from a million researchers who share and cooperate will get you a lot further than a million dollars worth of research from one that doesn't! Patents force the latter, and the value of sharing/cooperation is a fact beared out by the truth that we even have companies at all.
The dot com bubble was caused by a sharp cutback in interest rates, too much loose capital, and an obsessive delusion that economic wealth centers arround intellectual property instead of service and need. The first two have taken care of themselves, if they've gotten over the third, then things will be fine.