One thing that stikes me about the whole business is scale. People talk about the US being in danger from Bin Laden but even if Bin Laden managed a Sept. 11th class event every year it would still take about 100,000 years to kill everyone in the US. In 100,000 years people won't even be human.
But on to my main point. There were probably less than 100 people that knew about the Sept. 11th attacks before they happened. But the attacks ended up getting a country of 20 million attacked by a country of 300 million. The actual fighting was carried out by only about 20 thousand on each side. So only about one in a thousand people in Afganistan actually cared enough to do anything more than look out for themselves.
So this was a conflict where only an almost incomprehensibly small number of people actually cared enough to do anything more than sit around and watch. And that's probably why technology was so effective: because the actual humans didn't care, atleast not enough to get killed.
I've been wondering lately whether it would be possible to genetically engineer huge mats of seaweed to produce ethanol from photosynthesis that could be used in cars instead of gasoline.
IP law is about creating monopolies. Microsoft abused their IP monopoly so the remedy should be to take away their IP. Specifically, all their code implementing their interfaces should go into the public domain as "reference implementations".
"Kill the people, preserve the industry" becomes "Kill the people, preserve the land."
"Kill the industry, preserve the land." might be a more accurate reflection of military strategy as, in a war, people really aren't that important compared to technology. That's probably the reason the neutron bomb never became very popular: from the point of view of defeating the other side militarily it doesn't do you much good to only kill the people.
Because of their widespread availability CD's are one of best mediums for archiving personal (non-commercial) data. It would be unfortunate if the RIAA messed with that.
Although wandering around at 3 am puts one in a favorable position to commit a number of crimes, laws that make wandering around at 3 am illegal (curfews) are generally only invoked in very special circumstances for a limited time (ie. riots) when it is clear that the only reason to violate the curfew would be to commit certain serious crimes.
I think, by analogy, that it should only be illegal to develop copyright circumvention technology in special circumstances for limited times. Specifically, when it is clear that there is substantial harm from the circumvention technology and when there are no legitimate uses of the circumvention technology.
I think it's important to distinguish between "content" and "entertainment". Somewhat paradoxically, I am much more willing to pay for "entertainment" (ie. Britney Spears ring-tones) than I am to pay for true "content" (ie. the sequence of the human genome) even though the latter probably has more value.
The usual argument in favor of strong "intellectual property protection" is that all property is the same and that everything should be owned absolutely. The point being made by the discussion about limited "ownership" of people was that this argument is wrong. That is, different degrees of ownership are appropriate for different types of "property".
The factors that must be balanced to decide the appropriate level of ownership for "intellectual property" are extremely complex. My view is that the decision should be based on what is best for the general public which, at least in theory, is how tax levels are determined. In particular, neither total communism (100% tax) or total anarchy (0% tax) lead to optimum levels of economic progress. Similarly, the optimum level of intellectual property ownership is probably somewhere between absolute private ownership and absolute public ownership.
When an employee is hired by an employer, the employee is, essentially, renting themself to the employer. That is, in a very limited sense, the employee is owned by their employer. With this in mind, the main difference between a temp agency and a slave trading organization is that in the case of the temp agency the ownership is very limited (by law) but in the case of the slave trading organization the ownership is absolute.
So, when it comes to people, a little ownership is good (most people want jobs) but a lot of ownership is bad (most people don't want to be slaves). Owning "intellectual property" may be similar to owning people, a little ownership is good but a lot of ownership is bad. In particular, as with the need to balance tax levels between communism and anarchy there may be a need to balance private and public ownership of "intellectual property".
Prosecuting Microsoft for anti-trust violations is like prosecuting a slave trading organization for anti-trust violations. The real problem is
that over the years "intellectual property law" has evolved to allow absolute private ownership of "intellectual property". Microsoft can say that what they do is legal and profitable and provides a useful service but 150 years ago a slave trading organization could have said the same thing.
The prevailing view is that the solution to copyright problems is to extend copyright but it may be that the solution is to limit copyright. If a country were to really legalize small scale, non-comercial music copying that could be a real step forward.
The only good thing about copyright is the incetive it provides to produce new works. Therefore, it should only apply to works that would not be produced in the absence of copyright (ie. not to email) and it should only prevent copying that prevents the copyright holder from large scale commercial distribution of the work (ie. large scale commercial distribution by someone else).
It should be remembered that when copyright was first put in place it the US it was much more limited: protection only applied to books and a couple other specific things, protection only lasted 14 years and there was a requirement to register and publish.
Because of the pressure to publish, most of what gets published is gargbage. One solution might be (free) curated databases of the few results that aren't garbage. Another might be a moderation system like Slashdot's.
Slashdot Mirror
But on to my main point. There were probably less than 100 people that knew about the Sept. 11th attacks before they happened. But the attacks ended up getting a country of 20 million attacked by a country of 300 million. The actual fighting was carried out by only about 20 thousand on each side. So only about one in a thousand people in Afganistan actually cared enough to do anything more than look out for themselves.
So this was a conflict where only an almost incomprehensibly small number of people actually cared enough to do anything more than sit around and watch. And that's probably why technology was so effective: because the actual humans didn't care, atleast not enough to get killed.
I've been wondering lately whether it would be possible to genetically engineer huge mats of seaweed to produce ethanol from photosynthesis that could be used in cars instead of gasoline.
IP law is about creating monopolies. Microsoft abused their IP monopoly so the remedy should be to take away their IP. Specifically, all their code implementing their interfaces should go into the public domain as "reference implementations".
"Kill the industry, preserve the land." might be a more accurate reflection of military strategy as, in a war, people really aren't that important compared to technology. That's probably the reason the neutron bomb never became very popular: from the point of view of defeating the other side militarily it doesn't do you much good to only kill the people.
Because of their widespread availability CD's are one of best mediums for archiving personal (non-commercial) data. It would be unfortunate if the RIAA messed with that.
I think, by analogy, that it should only be illegal to develop copyright circumvention technology in special circumstances for limited times. Specifically, when it is clear that there is substantial harm from the circumvention technology and when there are no legitimate uses of the circumvention technology.
I think it's important to distinguish between "content" and "entertainment". Somewhat paradoxically, I am much more willing to pay for "entertainment" (ie. Britney Spears ring-tones) than I am to pay for true "content" (ie. the sequence of the human genome) even though the latter probably has more value.
The factors that must be balanced to decide the appropriate level of ownership for "intellectual property" are extremely complex. My view is that the decision should be based on what is best for the general public which, at least in theory, is how tax levels are determined. In particular, neither total communism (100% tax) or total anarchy (0% tax) lead to optimum levels of economic progress. Similarly, the optimum level of intellectual property ownership is probably somewhere between absolute private ownership and absolute public ownership.
So, when it comes to people, a little ownership is good (most people want jobs) but a lot of ownership is bad (most people don't want to be slaves). Owning "intellectual property" may be similar to owning people, a little ownership is good but a lot of ownership is bad. In particular, as with the need to balance tax levels between communism and anarchy there may be a need to balance private and public ownership of "intellectual property".
Prosecuting Microsoft for anti-trust violations is like prosecuting a slave trading organization for anti-trust violations. The real problem is that over the years "intellectual property law" has evolved to allow absolute private ownership of "intellectual property". Microsoft can say that what they do is legal and profitable and provides a useful service but 150 years ago a slave trading organization could have said the same thing.
The only good thing about copyright is the incetive it provides to produce new works. Therefore, it should only apply to works that would not be produced in the absence of copyright (ie. not to email) and it should only prevent copying that prevents the copyright holder from large scale commercial distribution of the work (ie. large scale commercial distribution by someone else).
It should be remembered that when copyright was first put in place it the US it was much more limited: protection only applied to books and a couple other specific things, protection only lasted 14 years and there was a requirement to register and publish.
Because of the pressure to publish, most of what gets published is gargbage. One solution might be (free) curated databases of the few results that aren't garbage. Another might be a moderation system like Slashdot's.