But it's easy to 'legally' inflate those costs. You could for example buy your equipment from a subsidiary for 1000% of what it's worth. The parent company is now deep in red on R&D, but has a healthy profit from the dividends it's subsidiary pays back. So they can now scream about how much R&D costs and demand more protection for their patents.
As for patenting ideas, what about small inventors that don't have the funds to make the product they imagine. If they reveal their ideas to potential investors, those investors can simply steal their idea, build it and patent it. So there should be a way to protect ideas. But at the same time the rules about what can be patented should be enforces - no more obvious inventions like round corners. Each patent should include enough information to actually build the idea being patented. So sure you can patent a warp drive, but only if you provide plans for it that don't include things like infinite energy sources that have not yet been invented.
As for preventing companies from using patents to block development of new things, they can already do that. They can make an invention, patent it, then put it in a closet for the next 20 years.
1. How would you define R&D costs? A company can easily inflate them to infinity using subsidiaries (Hollywood accounting). 2. Keep patents for ideas, just make sure they're not obvious ones. A patent for using anti-gravity (once someone develops it) to move things into orbit is obvious. The idea that 10000 tons of gold in one place produces anti-gravity isn't. So let the developer have a patent, so he can find someone to give him the gold so he can finish his invention without that person stealing the idea and patenting it once it's done. Just make sure that the patent doesn't suddenly expand to include the finished machine if it turns out that thousands of other things alongside the gold are needed. 3. Same as with pt.2, obvious patents shouldn't be granted. 4. Same as with pt.1, R&D costs are impossible to determine once it's profitable to inflate them.
But a market isn't the same as an ecosystem. In an ecosystem, the predator doesn't want to exterminate all other species, he just wants to eat them. And the equilibrium arises due to the fact that anything that causes it to break down goes extinct - a predator that reproduced too fast and hunted too well would soon find itself without prey and die out.
In a completely free market a company doesn't seek to destroy every other company. Just those that compete with it. So you'd end up with an equilibrium where a number of big companies divided up the market, destroying any new company that tried to compete. They might also decide to go after each other, from time to time, but that would just lead to even bigger companies.
Patents started out as a way to encourage the sharing of knowledge. Instead of each company hoarding the results of their research, patents enabled them to share knowledge without having to give it away - sure the person they share it with can share it further, but the original company will still be compensated whenever someone uses the knowledge to make something, But now patents are a way of stopping others from thinking things up. They no longer protect solutions, but problems.
But a small company won't be able to enforce it's patents anyway. They'd have to spend years in courts suing the big companies that 'steal' their patents and at the same time fight against all the counter-suits for the thousands held by the bigger company they'd be accused of violating.
Patents are virtually useless to a small company that wants to actually make a product - any product can likely be found to infringe hundreds of patents. They are only useful for big companies that can use them as deterrent, or to patent trolls that are immune to counter-suits due to not making anything.
Sure it's still excessive, but it's not much of a threat if you think about it. A penalty of $100K might scare people into not risking being the one in a million being hit with a lawsuit. $600 bucks won't scare anyone, and MAFIAA can't even use it to scare people into settling for thousands of dollars.
Except that $600 is not exactly head on a pike. Sure some of the US verdicts were insane, and could be used to intimidate people, even if they weren't worth it from a purely financial standpoint. But so much work for a measly 600 bucks?
Does it? It just stop them from encumbering them with state debt. But at the same time it makes it oh so easy to stop cutting free services.
Oh you want to go to school? Sorry, we've reached the debt limit, schools now cost a few million to attend, ditto for healthcare. And forget about ever getting that pension you've been paying for your entire life. It would be unconstitutional of us to give you and money you lazy bastard.
And since the economy is likely to shrink due to the global crisis combined with a cut in government spending, the debt will have to be lowered in the next budget, leading to even less money for actually running the state.
If that's what the site requires and it's clearly stated, sure. It would be just like publishing something in a journal that requires you to turn over copyright of anything you wish to publish.
But just a limit does not mean anything when you don't have the same people in charge of the budget all the time. One party can run up the deficit to 59.9%, then throw the election and laugh as the other guys have to make all the unpopular changes - then extort them to get the constitution changed, other wise they're going to 'stick to their principles' and tank the economy.
Imagine if you had to share a single credit card with your (crazy) neighbor. You each get to use it one week and you also get some money each time you get the card, which you can choose to either spend or put toward repaying the bill. The card hes a certain limit, which can only be raised if both of you agree. You don't trust your neighbor and you don't particularly like him ever since he complained about you setting his car on fire after he skinned your dog. So what do you do when it's your turn to use the card? Do you carefully spend as little as possible, buying just enough food to get you through the week and using the rest of the money to reduce the debt, or do you spend every last cent you can, then demand your neighbor give you his house in exchange for increasing the limit enough that he can feed his starving children.
So the end result would be worse then not having that clause in the constitution - the debt would still exceed 60%, the economy would be weakened and you'd have a political crisis.
It's a gamble - lose one ship or potentially hundreds of ships, while possibly also taking out a large chunk of the enemy fleet. If they knew the result in advance, they may have chosen to just let the guy die (or not, perhaps the balance of power is now more in their favor then it was before).
Unless they changed it, real money only allows you to buy vanity items and sell game time to other players. So you can buy in-game money, not items directly.
You have to take something else into account when converting ship costs into real money - putting real money into the game won't 'create' new ships, just enable you to buy them from the players that manufacture them (with possible intermediaries that buy your plex for ISK).
Well the US government discriminated against one business in favor of another. I guess they can now tax the casinos some more and use that money to compensate the copyright holders.
Well since the companies will charge you the same for a replacement copy as for something new, I guess the value of the copyright itself is about 0. So that's an infinite number of copies.
No, but the foreigners shouldn't be chosen just because they are willing to work for less. What they should be required to do is offer the new worker the same pay as the highest paid job in the company (including benefits, bonuses). If they are unable to find a worker that will work for that, they should be required to offer the same deal to an H-1B candidate. After all, if his skills are in such short supply he must be worth at least as much as a CEO.
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And how do you define 'healthy'? Wanting to exile everyone different from you seems pretty unhealthy to me.
But it's easy to 'legally' inflate those costs. You could for example buy your equipment from a subsidiary for 1000% of what it's worth.
The parent company is now deep in red on R&D, but has a healthy profit from the dividends it's subsidiary pays back. So they can now scream about how much R&D costs and demand more protection for their patents.
As for patenting ideas, what about small inventors that don't have the funds to make the product they imagine. If they reveal their ideas to potential investors, those investors can simply steal their idea, build it and patent it. So there should be a way to protect ideas. But at the same time the rules about what can be patented should be enforces - no more obvious inventions like round corners. Each patent should include enough information to actually build the idea being patented. So sure you can patent a warp drive, but only if you provide plans for it that don't include things like infinite energy sources that have not yet been invented.
As for preventing companies from using patents to block development of new things, they can already do that. They can make an invention, patent it, then put it in a closet for the next 20 years.
Well lack of money sure does.
1. How would you define R&D costs? A company can easily inflate them to infinity using subsidiaries (Hollywood accounting).
2. Keep patents for ideas, just make sure they're not obvious ones. A patent for using anti-gravity (once someone develops it) to move things into orbit is obvious. The idea that 10000 tons of gold in one place produces anti-gravity isn't. So let the developer have a patent, so he can find someone to give him the gold so he can finish his invention without that person stealing the idea and patenting it once it's done. Just make sure that the patent doesn't suddenly expand to include the finished machine if it turns out that thousands of other things alongside the gold are needed.
3. Same as with pt.2, obvious patents shouldn't be granted.
4. Same as with pt.1, R&D costs are impossible to determine once it's profitable to inflate them.
It might not be free market (since the monopoly holder has enough power to change the rules of the market), but it's certainly Capitalism.
But a market isn't the same as an ecosystem. In an ecosystem, the predator doesn't want to exterminate all other species, he just wants to eat them. And the equilibrium arises due to the fact that anything that causes it to break down goes extinct - a predator that reproduced too fast and hunted too well would soon find itself without prey and die out.
In a completely free market a company doesn't seek to destroy every other company. Just those that compete with it. So you'd end up with an equilibrium where a number of big companies divided up the market, destroying any new company that tried to compete. They might also decide to go after each other, from time to time, but that would just lead to even bigger companies.
Patents started out as a way to encourage the sharing of knowledge. Instead of each company hoarding the results of their research, patents enabled them to share knowledge without having to give it away - sure the person they share it with can share it further, but the original company will still be compensated whenever someone uses the knowledge to make something,
But now patents are a way of stopping others from thinking things up. They no longer protect solutions, but problems.
Well get more women to become scientists. There is nothing stopping them.
But a small company won't be able to enforce it's patents anyway. They'd have to spend years in courts suing the big companies that 'steal' their patents and at the same time fight against all the counter-suits for the thousands held by the bigger company they'd be accused of violating.
Patents are virtually useless to a small company that wants to actually make a product - any product can likely be found to infringe hundreds of patents. They are only useful for big companies that can use them as deterrent, or to patent trolls that are immune to counter-suits due to not making anything.
Sure it's still excessive, but it's not much of a threat if you think about it. A penalty of $100K might scare people into not risking being the one in a million being hit with a lawsuit. $600 bucks won't scare anyone, and MAFIAA can't even use it to scare people into settling for thousands of dollars.
Except that $600 is not exactly head on a pike. Sure some of the US verdicts were insane, and could be used to intimidate people, even if they weren't worth it from a purely financial standpoint. But so much work for a measly 600 bucks?
What if you buy a physical copy that still requires steam to work?
Does it? It just stop them from encumbering them with state debt. But at the same time it makes it oh so easy to stop cutting free services.
Oh you want to go to school? Sorry, we've reached the debt limit, schools now cost a few million to attend, ditto for healthcare. And forget about ever getting that pension you've been paying for your entire life. It would be unconstitutional of us to give you and money you lazy bastard.
And since the economy is likely to shrink due to the global crisis combined with a cut in government spending, the debt will have to be lowered in the next budget, leading to even less money for actually running the state.
If that's what the site requires and it's clearly stated, sure. It would be just like publishing something in a journal that requires you to turn over copyright of anything you wish to publish.
But just a limit does not mean anything when you don't have the same people in charge of the budget all the time.
One party can run up the deficit to 59.9%, then throw the election and laugh as the other guys have to make all the unpopular changes - then extort them to get the constitution changed, other wise they're going to 'stick to their principles' and tank the economy.
Imagine if you had to share a single credit card with your (crazy) neighbor. You each get to use it one week and you also get some money each time you get the card, which you can choose to either spend or put toward repaying the bill. The card hes a certain limit, which can only be raised if both of you agree. You don't trust your neighbor and you don't particularly like him ever since he complained about you setting his car on fire after he skinned your dog.
So what do you do when it's your turn to use the card? Do you carefully spend as little as possible, buying just enough food to get you through the week and using the rest of the money to reduce the debt, or do you spend every last cent you can, then demand your neighbor give you his house in exchange for increasing the limit enough that he can feed his starving children.
So the end result would be worse then not having that clause in the constitution - the debt would still exceed 60%, the economy would be weakened and you'd have a political crisis.
Why is capping the debt such a good thing? What happens when the country reaches that cap? Does it stop paying it's employees? Repaying it's debts?
It's a gamble - lose one ship or potentially hundreds of ships, while possibly also taking out a large chunk of the enemy fleet.
If they knew the result in advance, they may have chosen to just let the guy die (or not, perhaps the balance of power is now more in their favor then it was before).
Unless they changed it, real money only allows you to buy vanity items and sell game time to other players. So you can buy in-game money, not items directly.
You have to take something else into account when converting ship costs into real money - putting real money into the game won't 'create' new ships, just enable you to buy them from the players that manufacture them (with possible intermediaries that buy your plex for ISK).
But seizing money would chase away future business. This way they can get their money from people that they don't care if they offend.
Well the US government discriminated against one business in favor of another. I guess they can now tax the casinos some more and use that money to compensate the copyright holders.
Well since the companies will charge you the same for a replacement copy as for something new, I guess the value of the copyright itself is about 0. So that's an infinite number of copies.
The only thing a prosecutor should be allowed to offer is a recommendation to the judge for a lower sentence. The crime charged should never change.
No, you want to still be employed. That way they have to give you a golden parachute when they fire you.
You go to the pirate bay and get windows 7.
No, but the foreigners shouldn't be chosen just because they are willing to work for less. What they should be required to do is offer the new worker the same pay as the highest paid job in the company (including benefits, bonuses). If they are unable to find a worker that will work for that, they should be required to offer the same deal to an H-1B candidate. After all, if his skills are in such short supply he must be worth at least as much as a CEO.