Why are artists so important that they should be granted residual property rights in their work, while extremely skilled auto workers must make do with measly hourly wage?
I think art and science and human creativity in general are good things, but not so good that they deserve to be in a special class of protected activities with special rights above and beyond those that you and I get.
Intellectual property laws reward creators who serve no interest but their own pecuniary gain. Since the whole intent of intellectual property law is to bring about a public good, we ought to make certain that there is a public benefit for every freedom we give up. Since in many cases there is no lasting public benefit, perhaps the laws are not serving the purpose they were enacted to serve. Perhaps it's time to give them a rest.
I don't care whether you or I admit that we are doing something illegal. We can argue till we're blue in the face about whether something is or is not actually against the law as it now stands. That serves no purpose here. Lawyers and judges do that for a living. What I want to know, and what I hope you want to know, is what is the best way to organize our laws and our society.
When we discuss and argue, we are arguing about what OUGHT to be legal or illegal. That is the only thing worth discussing in a public forum.
I agree, I thought it was stupid that you got marked as flamebait. We were just having an ordinary argument. Either both of us should have been marked as 'Offtopic' or 'Flamebait' or both should have been moderated up. The moderators are often utterly clueless.
First, and foremost: it costs money to record music.
I'm not denying that. I have two things to say about it:
Recorded music is not music.
The astronomical costs you mention are based on the spending that is driven by expectation of monopoly profits and mass-market sales revenue.
I have made recordings of my own band with a Fisher-Price Tape-n-Tote. The sound wasn't great, but it was dirt cheap and the tape recorder was tough enough to survive being dropped down the stairs. If instead I was an A&R person with EMI or some other big label, I would be anticipating the sale of 1,000,000 units at $20 each just in year one. Therefore I would be a fool not to spend lavishly on my protege. This is exactly how monopolies artificially inflate the economy. Everybody can just burn cash because they know that the gravy train won't stop until the copyright holder has been dead for 75 years. Gee, I can finally sing "Happy Birthday" to my daughter without sending in a royalty cheque.
If you don't like Georg Solti wannabees then go to church and sing with the choir. Or have a hootenany in your back yard. Stop thinking that music comes out of a can. That's SPAM, not music. No one forces you to wade through the jungle of MP3.com. Just get out there and have some fun and stop worrying about the megastars -- they can take care of themselves.
Other than the gifts of God and Nature, that which is free is free only because someone else has paid for it. What of the extraordinary gifts of software and whole operating systems of which we sometimes read?
Its funny that everyone on/. who comments on this quote seems to miss the fact that the guy is not only dismissing Open Source Software, but HE IS DISMISSING ALL OF CREATION. That seems a little more important than merely open source. Besides the gifts of God and Nature, there really isn't a whole lot.
The pirates need to understand who is paying for their content, and the economic system which promotes it, or they won't have any more music to steal.
Compare what you said to this quote from Bronfman:
What would the Internet be without "content?" It would be a valueless collection of silent machines with gray screens. It would be the electronic equivalent of a marine desert -- lovely elements, nice colours, no life. It would be nothing.
Don't the two comments seem eerily similar? This is hogwash, of course. What Bronfman really means is that the internet would have no corporate noise on it. He INTENDED to say that. You don't even seem aware that you are just bowing down to corporate power. Music doesn't have to be paid for to be good. Lots of great bands have day jobs or tour ferociously to support themselves. And people would start making their own music again instead of being told that music is what comes on a shiny silver disc. Where do you think THAT music comes from? You are like the naive child who thinks that food comes from grocery stores. People have to play music in order for there to be music. People do not have to sell music in order for there to be music.
One of the problems with transnational "diversified" companies is that they are virtually immune to boycotts. I got a fridge magnet from Adbusters the other day that shows all of these Kraft products and underneath the caption reads:
Why are you buying your food from a tobacco company?
How do you propose that the blacksmith, the stagecoach driver, the lamplighter, the town crier, or the milkman will pay for their food?
Simple. Get another job. Or make your living playing live gigs. I imagine that if the music industry were to shut its loud beak for a few moments, the demand for live gigs would be overwhelming. Think what a boon it would be to regional music everywhere!
: That's just an legal construct they : made up so they could make money off us.
Welcome to capitalism! What other reason would you try to sell something in a capitalistic society? You should be beat in the head with a clue.
But I would differentiate between GOOD legal constructs and BAD legal constructs. Since any kind of property right restricts our freedom, we ought to include in the concept of property only what we really need to survive. Intellectual artifacts, it can be argued, don't need to be protected property laws in order for a civil society to exist. Laws that are unnecessary are BAD laws because they restrict freedom without providing a benefit. Capitalism (or at least trade and commerce) existed long, long before intellectual property law. Intellectual property law may be just as much a drag on the market as it is a stimulant, since it is an artificial monopoly. Just to say "That's Capitalism, dude" is to miss the point.
Your family made its fortune running booze to the US during prohibition. Why all of a sudden have you decided to be a champion of legal rectitude?
Sometimes laws change. Technology changes. Empires rise and fall. The same thing is happening in the world of intellectual property law. You said
Each new technological advance inevitably requires new behaviors
and then cited examples that purport to show copyright "adapting" to these technological changes:
When tape recorders came along we grappled with the distinctions to be made between taping things for your own enjoyment and selling the tapes. When photocopiers came along, we had to deal with how much of something could be copied and under what circumstances without constituting theft.
Why do you choose to see this as adapting rather than grasping at straws? Copyright is finished. People can go back to treating ideas and language as a commons. No one ever needed a financial incentive to say something important or to tell a story or to sing a song. Those artists who need such an incentive shouldn't be encouraged by granting them perpetual (or nearly so) property rights in their work. With copyright gone, we'll be able to say the things that really matter without being coerced or seduced into filling up dead air with bullshit.
I think the very fact that you are called upon to DEFEND intellectual property rights is evidence that the whole castle-in-the-sky is crumbling. You don't hear top executives making desperate pleas in defense of tangible property rights, do you? That's because no one doubts the validity of real property ownership. No one contests its importance to democratic tradition. The same cannot be said for intellectual property rights.
Inherited wealth, whether it be a business empire, or ideas always gives the beneficiaries an inflated sense of entitlement. Only one who comes by his riches easily would have the audacity to dismiss the creation and the cosmos by saying
Other than the gifts of God and Nature, that which is free is free only because someone else has paid for it.
What hubris! I would think that someone such as yourself with his roots firmly in the Judeo-Christian tradition would have more humility. What IS there besides "the gifts of God and Nature"? If you see all of creation as your birthright, it is not surprising that you think of artists as being the Authors of their own Genius, entitled to every penny they can squeeze out of us lesser beings.
This is all an attack ad hominem which I regret, but it had to be pointed out.
Isn't there a law that says something that is designed for legal activities (the sharing of mp3's, which is not by raw nature illegal), cannot be made illegal on the part of someone using it for illegal (trading copyrighted/commercial music) purposes?
Disclaimer: Please consult your physician before starting an exercise program. IANAL = I Am Not A Liar
I think what you might be referring to is the fact that in the Universal v. Sony case IIRC Sony would have been liable for contributory infringement against Universal (i.e. use my Sony BetaMax to copy "Towering Inferno") ONLY if videotape recorders didn't have a signifcant non-infringing use. If we take that as our legal guideline, then yes, there is a "Dual Use" protection. But corporate slimeballs like Seagrams want to plug that loophole.
Edgar and his pals have been busy sucking cocks in Washington so that their secret weapon, the DMCA, would get passed. The DMCA does away with trivialities like fair use as seen in Universal v. Sony. It is no longer valid to say "Just because I can kill someone with a hammer doesn't mean I'm a criminal for possessing one, does it?". Under the DMCA, you are not allowed to own devices that can circumvent copy protection. It doesn't matter how many uses there are for your decoder, the mere possibility that it could be used to circumvent copy protection renders it illegal.
The U.S. actually started off as the biggest pirating nation in history. That was back before Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Twain etc i.e. before America really had a culture at all. They just "shared" with Europe and Britain. The pirating got so out of hand that Charles Dickens came to the US on a lecture tour to promote the idea of an international treaty on copyright. Dickens' works were among the most popular amongst the Yankee Pirates.
I just love that. And now Edgar Bronfman CEO of Seagram's (and probably the richest guy in Canada) is arguing against Napster. Sheesh! And that from a guy whose family made its fortune bootlegging!! Ha ha ha!!!!
If you want to convince someone that their point of view is mistaken, don't argue about word definitions. Argue about right and wrong. If you think the law governing intellectual property is a bad law, then SAY SO. Dictionaries only cloud the issue.
Besides that, dictionaries only describe language use, they do not determine it.
The reason we have laws in the first place is to punish those who harm others. If you still have something that I stole from you, then I haven't really harmed you, have I?
I know what you'll say. You'll say "But you harmed Metallica by not buying their music. That means they have less money than they would have had otherwise, and that is substantial harm."
To which I would reply:
I may not have purchased the CD anyway because it had 12 songs on it that were crappy.
Since property is a restriction on freedom (by the responsibilities it places on the owner and the restrictions it places on everyone else with respect to that owner's "property"), we ought only to assign property rights where they are absolutely necessary. The right to own ideas is NOT critical to survival. Therefore, we ought not to have laws that treat ideas or information as property. Such laws would be (are) a threat to freedom.
Take that, D-Boy. Go on, knock the block off my shoulder... I dare ya!
The fact that it is a crime doesn't make it bad. Intellectual property laws are not necessary for the pursuit of happiness, nor are they even necessary for the creation of valuable works of Science and the Practical Arts. An uneccessary law is a bad law, and one that ought to be opposed. One way to oppose bad laws is to peacefully and thoughtfully break them.
I think people are starting to realize that the essence of liberal democracy is to have as FEW laws as are required to protect us from harm. The question then revolves around whether a musician is harmed by my downloading MP3's off of Napster or wherever. Since mass-marketed music is not generally seen as essential for the pursuit of happiness, it need not be protected as property. Therefore, I argue that musicians suffer no harm when I download their music for free, because they don't have legitimate title to it. Their claims of lost revenue are simply wrong because they are based on forged ownership papers.
I agree with you that we should try to remain calm and not resort to name calling. But I also agree with RMS, who sees the name game as important. Music industry spin-doctors make sure that people have the word "piracy" firmly embedded in their vocabulary. What other way is there to fight back?
RMS's choice of focus is unfortunate because it draws attention away from the issues. It was like feminists crying about using the word "Man" to refer to all of humanity. There are women getting abused, rendered homeless, being raped and tortured, etc. etc. but all the feminists can talk about is what words we use.
The feminists weren't altogether wrong to focus on language. Language is shaped by power relations in society and language in part determines what is "thinkable" in any situation. Adding to our vocabulary (such as "chairperson" for "chairman") increases the likelihood that we will consider possibilities that were previously unthinkable (such as "The chairperson has really nice legs, don't you think?").
Dictionaries DESCRIBE word usage. They don't DICTATE it. If they did we'd all be in mortal danger. Language would immediately suffer a coronary thrombosis. We'd wind up talking Newspeak in about 6 months.
Dictionary definitions are for grammar school. Especially where the law is concerned. We didn't pay millions of dollars for lawyers and judges and codification of laws just so that you can consult your damn dictionary to prove innocence or guilt.
Yes scamming MP3's is illegal. I fully admit it. I admit that I am causing harm to the copyright holder, but only in so far as the potential lost sales can be calculated. But what is really at issue is whether or not the recording of someone's song OUGHT to be considered property. If one thinks intellectual artifacts ought NOT to be treated in the same way as tangible artifacts vis-a-vis property rights, then stealing songs isn't something to be ashamed about. If the song never had a rightful owner, then stealing it isn't really harming the pretender-to-ownership because their revenue estimate was based on an error.
If on the other hand one believes, as you apparently do, that the property rights to intellectual "stuff" can legitimately be assigned to a person, using the word "pirate" discloses that you are affirming the status quo. It's not really an insult. It's just a disagreement about what should and shouldn't be categorized as property.
Laws are not necessarily good. Copyright is bad. Patents are bad. Trademark law is bad. I disobey them in protest, not for personal gain.
I CAN come to terms with the fact that I am stealing because I know that it is only considered stealing according to laws which I believe are wrong.
Let's just let the cat out of the bag right now. By using the word "sharing" we are papering over the truth of the matter. If you are opposed to a law, then say so. Be a man and admit that what you are doing is a form of civil disobedience. This honesty puts pirating in a context which challenges the law rather than merely breaking it.
By calling the act of downloading MP3's civil disobedience, you immediately create a channel of public discourse which aligns itself with a long and respected liberal democratic tradition. Downloading music alone in your basement in the wee hours of the morning does nothing to bring discussion about intellectual property issues to the fore. That means that the agenda is always set by the mass media.
We have to tell people "Yes, I'm pirating MP3's and I'm damn proud of it." This sheepishness is the result of people ACTING like criminals. The word "piracy" is appropriate for people who sneak around the internet like thieves. Broadcast it! Tell the world you think it's wrong. Don't call it sharing. It defeats the purpose of protest.
How is building what is effectively a new species or sub-species of plant by cross-breeding existing varieties any different from using simple mechanisms that already exist in order to build patentable complex machines.
Well, in fact, I agree that they seem similar. Therefore we ought to view the patenting of complex machines with the same wary eye with which we view the patenting of virii.
Be careful what you wish for...
Sincerely,
:0)=
or the Artist formerly known as the Artist formerly known as Prince.
In Canada, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office has allowed the patenting of single cells that have been genetically modified. However, they refused to patent Harvard's OncoMouse. Does this seem like an arbitrary line to you? It does to me. The "slippery slope" just gets steeper and slicker from here on in.
One aspect of patent law that should be re-examined is the duration of patent protection. Why, for instance, do all patents remain in force for 20 years (or 17 years, if your jurisdiction hasn't caught up to it's WIPO treaty obligations). Some companies may need more time than that to make enough to make a product profitable (though it's hard to imagine). But many companies are laughing all the way to the bank. "Hah!" they say, "I've paid for my investment in the first year and the next nineteen are gravy."
Because there is no variation in the length of patent protection, those who anticipate patent-fattened revenue are forced to demand the maximum duration possible from legislators. No patent holding organization would argue to reduce the patent duration, so the only force exerted against political inertia is to force the patent term upwards.
If the object of patents is to secure a public good, then we should make some attempt to grant a length of time proportionate in some way to the benefit which the public receives. Inventions which are more beneficial (by some measure TBA) would receive longer patent terms.
Another possible attenuation of patent protection would be to evaluate the patent applicant's business plan the way a bank does, and set the patent term to be just long enough (no more and no less) to allow the R&D investment to be recouped plus a reasonable profit margin.
Do these suggestions seem like totally unrealistic pipe-dreams, or do they seem practical? Not being a patent lawyer or a drug manufacturer, I don't really have a sense of what would be possible.
I will definately agree with this. Hardware people are just as likely to go running off after 'Newest, Greatest, Spiffiest' when they should also be concentrating on making the stuff we have now WORK.
Intellectual property rights make tinkering with old ideas much less profitable than coming up with new ones. Laws like UCITA make the situation even worse for users of software and hardware.
Unless you reduce the premium paid for creative genius, the geniuses will always leave a trail of unfinished work in their wake. Bad software and hardware is the inevitable result of making ideas into property.
If by "God's Law" you mean simply moral standards, then I agree. The laws of man don't have meaning in the sense of being driven by desire for good, but they do have a purpose. They protect us from a life that would otherwise be "nasty, brutish and short" to use Thomas Hobbes' oft-quoted phrase.
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I think art and science and human creativity in general are good things, but not so good that they deserve to be in a special class of protected activities with special rights above and beyond those that you and I get.
Intellectual property laws reward creators who serve no interest but their own pecuniary gain. Since the whole intent of intellectual property law is to bring about a public good, we ought to make certain that there is a public benefit for every freedom we give up. Since in many cases there is no lasting public benefit, perhaps the laws are not serving the purpose they were enacted to serve. Perhaps it's time to give them a rest.
I don't care whether you or I admit that we are doing something illegal. We can argue till we're blue in the face about whether something is or is not actually against the law as it now stands. That serves no purpose here. Lawyers and judges do that for a living. What I want to know, and what I hope you want to know, is what is the best way to organize our laws and our society.
When we discuss and argue, we are arguing about what OUGHT to be legal or illegal. That is the only thing worth discussing in a public forum.
Just kidding about the D-boy stuff...
I'm not denying that. I have two things to say about it:
- Recorded music is not music.
- The astronomical costs you mention are based on the spending that is driven by expectation of monopoly profits and mass-market sales revenue.
I have made recordings of my own band with a Fisher-Price Tape-n-Tote. The sound wasn't great, but it was dirt cheap and the tape recorder was tough enough to survive being dropped down the stairs. If instead I was an A&R person with EMI or some other big label, I would be anticipating the sale of 1,000,000 units at $20 each just in year one. Therefore I would be a fool not to spend lavishly on my protege. This is exactly how monopolies artificially inflate the economy. Everybody can just burn cash because they know that the gravy train won't stop until the copyright holder has been dead for 75 years. Gee, I can finally sing "Happy Birthday" to my daughter without sending in a royalty cheque.If you don't like Georg Solti wannabees then go to church and sing with the choir. Or have a hootenany in your back yard. Stop thinking that music comes out of a can. That's SPAM, not music. No one forces you to wade through the jungle of MP3.com. Just get out there and have some fun and stop worrying about the megastars -- they can take care of themselves.
Its funny that everyone on /. who comments on this quote seems to miss the fact that the guy is not only dismissing Open Source Software, but HE IS DISMISSING ALL OF CREATION. That seems a little more important than merely open source. Besides the gifts of God and Nature, there really isn't a whole lot.
Just an observation.
Compare what you said to this quote from Bronfman:
What would the Internet be without "content?" It would be a valueless collection of silent machines with gray screens. It would be the electronic equivalent of a marine desert -- lovely elements, nice colours, no life. It would be nothing.
Don't the two comments seem eerily similar? This is hogwash, of course. What Bronfman really means is that the internet would have no corporate noise on it. He INTENDED to say that. You don't even seem aware that you are just bowing down to corporate power. Music doesn't have to be paid for to be good. Lots of great bands have day jobs or tour ferociously to support themselves. And people would start making their own music again instead of being told that music is what comes on a shiny silver disc. Where do you think THAT music comes from? You are like the naive child who thinks that food comes from grocery stores. People have to play music in order for there to be music. People do not have to sell music in order for there to be music.
Why are you buying your food from a tobacco company?
Which of course is a reference to the fact that Kraft is now owned by Philip Morris Companies, Inc.
Simple. Get another job. Or make your living playing live gigs. I imagine that if the music industry were to shut its loud beak for a few moments, the demand for live gigs would be overwhelming. Think what a boon it would be to regional music everywhere!
: That's just an legal construct they
: made up so they could make money off us.
Welcome to capitalism! What other reason would you try to sell something in a capitalistic society? You should be beat in the head with a clue.
But I would differentiate between GOOD legal constructs and BAD legal constructs. Since any kind of property right restricts our freedom, we ought to include in the concept of property only what we really need to survive. Intellectual artifacts, it can be argued, don't need to be protected property laws in order for a civil society to exist. Laws that are unnecessary are BAD laws because they restrict freedom without providing a benefit. Capitalism (or at least trade and commerce) existed long, long before intellectual property law. Intellectual property law may be just as much a drag on the market as it is a stimulant, since it is an artificial monopoly. Just to say "That's Capitalism, dude" is to miss the point.
What if I give copies away? That doesn't seem like something criminal.
Sometimes laws change. Technology changes. Empires rise and fall. The same thing is happening in the world of intellectual property law. You said
Each new technological advance inevitably requires new behaviors
and then cited examples that purport to show copyright "adapting" to these technological changes:
When tape recorders came along we grappled with the distinctions to be made between taping things for your own enjoyment and selling the tapes. When photocopiers came along, we had to deal with how much of something could be copied and under what circumstances without constituting theft.
Why do you choose to see this as adapting rather than grasping at straws? Copyright is finished. People can go back to treating ideas and language as a commons. No one ever needed a financial incentive to say something important or to tell a story or to sing a song. Those artists who need such an incentive shouldn't be encouraged by granting them perpetual (or nearly so) property rights in their work. With copyright gone, we'll be able to say the things that really matter without being coerced or seduced into filling up dead air with bullshit.
I think the very fact that you are called upon to DEFEND intellectual property rights is evidence that the whole castle-in-the-sky is crumbling. You don't hear top executives making desperate pleas in defense of tangible property rights, do you? That's because no one doubts the validity of real property ownership. No one contests its importance to democratic tradition. The same cannot be said for intellectual property rights.
Inherited wealth, whether it be a business empire, or ideas always gives the beneficiaries an inflated sense of entitlement. Only one who comes by his riches easily would have the audacity to dismiss the creation and the cosmos by saying
Other than the gifts of God and Nature, that which is free is free only because someone else has paid for it.
What hubris! I would think that someone such as yourself with his roots firmly in the Judeo-Christian tradition would have more humility. What IS there besides "the gifts of God and Nature"? If you see all of creation as your birthright, it is not surprising that you think of artists as being the Authors of their own Genius, entitled to every penny they can squeeze out of us lesser beings.
This is all an attack ad hominem which I regret, but it had to be pointed out.
Disclaimer: Please consult your physician before starting an exercise program.
IANAL = I Am Not A Liar
I think what you might be referring to is the fact that in the Universal v. Sony case IIRC Sony would have been liable for contributory infringement against Universal (i.e. use my Sony BetaMax to copy "Towering Inferno") ONLY if videotape recorders didn't have a signifcant non-infringing use. If we take that as our legal guideline, then yes, there is a "Dual Use" protection. But corporate slimeballs like Seagrams want to plug that loophole.
Edgar and his pals have been busy sucking cocks in Washington so that their secret weapon, the DMCA, would get passed. The DMCA does away with trivialities like fair use as seen in Universal v. Sony. It is no longer valid to say "Just because I can kill someone with a hammer doesn't mean I'm a criminal for possessing one, does it?". Under the DMCA, you are not allowed to own devices that can circumvent copy protection. It doesn't matter how many uses there are for your decoder, the mere possibility that it could be used to circumvent copy protection renders it illegal.
For G-d's sake, don't give them any ideas...
I just love that. And now Edgar Bronfman CEO of Seagram's (and probably the richest guy in Canada) is arguing against Napster. Sheesh! And that from a guy whose family made its fortune bootlegging!! Ha ha ha!!!!
Besides that, dictionaries only describe language use, they do not determine it.
I know what you'll say. You'll say "But you harmed Metallica by not buying their music. That means they have less money than they would have had otherwise, and that is substantial harm."
To which I would reply:
- I may not have purchased the CD anyway because it had 12 songs on it that were crappy.
- Since property is a restriction on freedom (by the responsibilities it places on the owner and the restrictions it places on everyone else with respect to that owner's "property"), we ought only to assign property rights where they are absolutely necessary. The right to own ideas is NOT critical to survival. Therefore, we ought not to have laws that treat ideas or information as property. Such laws would be (are) a threat to freedom.
Take that, D-Boy. Go on, knock the block off my shoulder... I dare ya!The fact that it is a crime doesn't make it bad. Intellectual property laws are not necessary for the pursuit of happiness, nor are they even necessary for the creation of valuable works of Science and the Practical Arts. An uneccessary law is a bad law, and one that ought to be opposed. One way to oppose bad laws is to peacefully and thoughtfully break them.
I think people are starting to realize that the essence of liberal democracy is to have as FEW laws as are required to protect us from harm. The question then revolves around whether a musician is harmed by my downloading MP3's off of Napster or wherever. Since mass-marketed music is not generally seen as essential for the pursuit of happiness, it need not be protected as property. Therefore, I argue that musicians suffer no harm when I download their music for free, because they don't have legitimate title to it. Their claims of lost revenue are simply wrong because they are based on forged ownership papers.
RMS's choice of focus is unfortunate because it draws attention away from the issues. It was like feminists crying about using the word "Man" to refer to all of humanity. There are women getting abused, rendered homeless, being raped and tortured, etc. etc. but all the feminists can talk about is what words we use.
The feminists weren't altogether wrong to focus on language. Language is shaped by power relations in society and language in part determines what is "thinkable" in any situation. Adding to our vocabulary (such as "chairperson" for "chairman") increases the likelihood that we will consider possibilities that were previously unthinkable (such as "The chairperson has really nice legs, don't you think?").
Dictionary definitions are for grammar school. Especially where the law is concerned. We didn't pay millions of dollars for lawyers and judges and codification of laws just so that you can consult your damn dictionary to prove innocence or guilt.
If on the other hand one believes, as you apparently do, that the property rights to intellectual "stuff" can legitimately be assigned to a person, using the word "pirate" discloses that you are affirming the status quo. It's not really an insult. It's just a disagreement about what should and shouldn't be categorized as property.
Laws are not necessarily good. Copyright is bad. Patents are bad. Trademark law is bad. I disobey them in protest, not for personal gain.
I CAN come to terms with the fact that I am stealing because I know that it is only considered stealing according to laws which I believe are wrong.
By calling the act of downloading MP3's civil disobedience, you immediately create a channel of public discourse which aligns itself with a long and respected liberal democratic tradition. Downloading music alone in your basement in the wee hours of the morning does nothing to bring discussion about intellectual property issues to the fore. That means that the agenda is always set by the mass media.
We have to tell people "Yes, I'm pirating MP3's and I'm damn proud of it." This sheepishness is the result of people ACTING like criminals. The word "piracy" is appropriate for people who sneak around the internet like thieves. Broadcast it! Tell the world you think it's wrong. Don't call it sharing. It defeats the purpose of protest.
Well, in fact, I agree that they seem similar. Therefore we ought to view the patenting of complex machines with the same wary eye with which we view the patenting of virii.
Be careful what you wish for...
Sincerely,
or the Artist formerly known as the Artist formerly known as Prince.
One aspect of patent law that should be re-examined is the duration of patent protection. Why, for instance, do all patents remain in force for 20 years (or 17 years, if your jurisdiction hasn't caught up to it's WIPO treaty obligations). Some companies may need more time than that to make enough to make a product profitable (though it's hard to imagine). But many companies are laughing all the way to the bank. "Hah!" they say, "I've paid for my investment in the first year and the next nineteen are gravy."
Because there is no variation in the length of patent protection, those who anticipate patent-fattened revenue are forced to demand the maximum duration possible from legislators. No patent holding organization would argue to reduce the patent duration, so the only force exerted against political inertia is to force the patent term upwards.
If the object of patents is to secure a public good, then we should make some attempt to grant a length of time proportionate in some way to the benefit which the public receives. Inventions which are more beneficial (by some measure TBA) would receive longer patent terms.
Another possible attenuation of patent protection would be to evaluate the patent applicant's business plan the way a bank does, and set the patent term to be just long enough (no more and no less) to allow the R&D investment to be recouped plus a reasonable profit margin.
Do these suggestions seem like totally unrealistic pipe-dreams, or do they seem practical? Not being a patent lawyer or a drug manufacturer, I don't really have a sense of what would be possible.
Intellectual property rights make tinkering with old ideas much less profitable than coming up with new ones. Laws like UCITA make the situation even worse for users of software and hardware.
Unless you reduce the premium paid for creative genius, the geniuses will always leave a trail of unfinished work in their wake. Bad software and hardware is the inevitable result of making ideas into property.
If by "God's Law" you mean simply moral standards, then I agree. The laws of man don't have meaning in the sense of being driven by desire for good, but they do have a purpose. They protect us from a life that would otherwise be "nasty, brutish and short" to use Thomas Hobbes' oft-quoted phrase.