The degree of competition provided by the existing vendors doesn't generate enough consumer benefit to be worth preserving, it seems. The linux community might be better off with one or two really healthy companies than with ten sick ones.
M&A activity in the United States and elsewhere is pitting competition against efficiency. Only a perfectly competitive market is perfectly efficient. And yet competition requires duplication which is inefficient. Which is more important, competition or efficiency?
The concept of being rewarded for having an idea first and being rewarded first is essential to our progress as a species.
That's hogwash. Suppose I come up with a creative way of killing hundreds of thousands of people? Do you really want to REWARD me? Is THAT kind of creativity "essential to our progress as a species"? I'm not trying to be a luddite here, (ok, maybe I am) but intellectual property laws turn the relationship between civil society and the technocracy upside down. The whole reason that intellectual property exists (if you believe that the world's treaty and constitution framers were sincere) is to provide benefits to humanity that would otherwise not be produced. If, as is the case today, science and technology are driving the intellectual property process rather than the other way around, then IP laws have become obsolete. Worse still, the laws will provide protection to ideas that may threaten the stability of the ecosystem. This means that intellectual property law is now a defender of the corporate good rather than the public good. Perhaps what once made sense doesn't anymore.
if Mozart had not composed a particular piece of music, someone else would have written the exact same piece at a later date. His idea (given form through performance and/or publication is unique and not able to be duplicated by someone else.
If whatever I put down immediately becomes a copyright protection, and the idea behind it is still free to use, then I ought to be able to claim a faster version of "Blitzkrieg Rock" as my own composition. Or if I perform a polka version of a Limp Bizkit song, I ought not to have to pay because the performance has the stamp of my individuality upon it. I think this OUGHT to be considered non-infringing use of a work. But if it is, then copyright isn't really protecting a whole lot anyway, is it? We may as well just scrap it along with patents.
If we're going to place limits on copying, the only form of copying we should prevent is plagiarism and personation. If someone prints a copy of your manuscript and puts his name on it, you should have every right to force him to put your name on it. You just shouldn't have the right to prevent him from selling it.
If the "I got here first" chest-beating posture becomes irrelevant, so will the cachet of one 'stealing' the idea and 'claiming' that one 'got there first'.
This is such an important opinion. Once people realize this they will see that we really are living in the Matrix. We're fighting with each other over things that aren't even real.
The Jefferson quote (boy, that's a good one) is an excellent refutation of your outrageous claim. If that's not enough, please check out some of my posts from Friday and Saturday, as they're pretty lengthy and I have no desire to retype them again and again and again.
As I said in a reply to another respondent to my comment -- of course it was outrageous. I MEANT it to be so. My point is that people, especially in wealthy nations like the G7(8?) are lulled into a stupor by the stability of their own commerce system. The process by which we accumulate stuff which we can buy and sell as property is very complex. What is the history behind the land that your house stands on (if you have one)? It wasn't ordained by God that that particular 50 feet of frontage in Orange County had your name on it. Every inch of property in North America was paid for by blood at some point in its history. Once the blood has been spilled, however, ownership disputes can be exceedingly polite and civilized. A few hundred years of civility and politeness makes you forget where your "property" originated. It was originally given to humankind by fate or God or the cosmos or whatever you want to call whatever put this here. For unknown reasons we decided that shedding blood was necessary in order to possess land. Not everyone shares our ideas about property or is willing to die to defend it.
So even physical, tangible property has oddities lurking in the shadows. But to extend this already stretched metaphor of ownership to encompass imagination and speech is not at all a simple matter. My point was that we ought to be cautious when we are considering adding to the already top-heavy notion of property. Making flatulent generalizations like "Property is what is mine" as the original poster did does not help the cause of discovering the Good Life.
Unlike you I can't sing as well as the next guy. Nor do I want to hear the next guy sing. I want to hear Andrea Bocelli sing. Sounds like a good reason to get music from somewhere else.
You can still hear good singers in your own community. I'm sure there are many who are good or great. Perhaps not as good as Andrea Bocelli (sorry, I don't know who that is) but very good nevertheless. And when you go out and find talent in your own community, you're not just doing something for yourself or for the corporate fart factories, you're doing something that will benefit everyone else in your community.
That's weird. I could have sworn there is this thing called the NSF and student loans.
What's your point? That culture leetches get fed by government as well as by guilt-ravaged CEO's? And what do student loans have to do with intellectual property? Having a well-educated labour force is a requirement for an economy to function at all. If we were all illiterate, there wouldn't even be a piece of the pie to fight over. We'd REALLY be living in the dark ages.
No one really needs manufactured culture anyways. The NSF, NEA and the like are irrelevant to modern culture. How many kids learned to play piano because the Canada Council sponsored Glenn Gould? None. If I really want music, I'll make it myself or with my friends. If the state wants to add to that for the sake of national pride, then let them do so. They are utterly dispensible.
I agree with you. But I think a lot of slashdoters are a bit confused.
The guy who you're agreeing with didn't understand my post. People who think that property is a simple concept just haven't thought about it enough. I was pointing out that it's just as easy to be simple minded on the side opposed to IP protection as it is for someone who advocates IP protection.
And IDEA CAN NOT be copyrightable.An implementation of thet idea SHOULD be though!
Here is what Justice Holmes says in Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing Co. (188 U.S. 239 (1903)) :
The copy is the personal reaction of an individual upon nature. Personality always contains something unique. It expresses its singularity even in handwriting, and a very modest grade of art has in it something irreducible, which is one man's alone. That something he may copyright unless there is a restriction in the words of the act.
He is talking about what makes an idea YOUR property. The particular expression that bears the stamp of your personality. That in itself is not an easy thing to distinguish from the subject matter or raw material from which your creative effort had to begin. On top of the subtleties of Holme's point, there were three dissenting justices in that case, who expressed concerns about the rationale for granting property rights in some intellectual artifact:
Judges Lurton, Day, and Severens, of the circuit court of appeals, concurred in affirming the judgment of the district court. Their views were thus expressed in an opinion delivered by Judge Lurton: 'What we hold is this: That if a chromo, lithograph, or other print, engraving, or picture has no other use than that of a mere advertisement, and no value aside from this function, it would not be promotive of the useful arts, within the meaning of the constitutional provision, to protect the 'author' in the exclusive use thereof, and the copyright statute should not be construed as including such a publication, if any other construction is admissible.
So you see, even if we consider court cases, we find the line between what is and isn't property gets very blurry. Especially in the case of IP, since the laws protecting creative works are meant to fulfill a public purpose, not a private one.
So something has to be physical to have an owner? That's BS if I've ever heard it.
Ha! You took the bait. I said (roughly): Hey, I can oversimplify things just like you are. I intended my comment to be a gross oversimplification so it's not surprising that you should call it BS. I would too.
But I would also call your statement that "I consider my property to be something that is mine" to be question-begging, circular, vacuous, and simple-minded. Think carefully about how we become owners of anything, and you will realize that the process is nowhere near as cut-and-dried as you make it out to be.
We've got to do better than making art disposable and hope some rich guy picks up the trash
Well put. I also like your idea about prompting users for voluntary contributions. At least it would give people the chance to do something.
I truly wonder if, after having broken down the current reward structure for IP with our shiny toys, we can't come up with anything better than returning to a centuries old model. Did patronage give listeners more choices? I don't know.
Why does music have to come from somewhere or someone else? In the days before recorded music, families in England would gather and sing their own madrigals for entertainment. THAT is music. We unquestioningly accept the opinion of the experts on who is a "professional" musician. We live in a culture of "professionalism" where the ability to be uncreative is rewarded. I don't need music from a source like that. I don't have to have ANY canned, recorded, packaged, or otherwise mutilated art. I can sing a song just as well as the next guy. We've got to put the music back in people's lives that the music industry stole.
Most bands only get 25 - 35 per CD that is sold. The other $15 - $20 goes to the store, distributor, record label, etc. With the exception of the handful of mega-bands like U2 & Pearl Jam, most bands make the bulk of their money from playing live.
I agree wholeheartedly. Another way I think musicians could make money is to get into the business of selling "custom mixes" and one-off live recordings to collectors and die-hard fans. They would be much more highly valued than ordinary, downloadable material.
No, intellectual property won't die thanks to the net. Unfortunately, I doubt the same could be said about freedom.
I think intellectual property will suffer the same fate as the "law of thumb" (you're allowed to beat your wife with anything smaller than your thumb) and other such anachronisms. And it's not just because of the influence of the net.
The games being played with intellectual property have reached a dangerous pitch. The patenting of organisms, gene sequences, plant species, etc. is a threat to life on the planet bacause it is being pursued for pecuniary gain and not with caution and forethought. The faster we remove the incentives that put acquisitiveness ahead of civic purpose, the faster human beings will regain some reasonable measure of control over transnational money-vacuums.
All of the participants in this debate (both sides, the pro and anti protection advocates) take for granted one point: that all creative genius, whether it be musical or literary or scientific, is worthy of protection. I take issue with that bald, unqualified approval. Genius is good, but we measure that good by taking stock of the conditions of life on our planet. Unfortunately, responding to the profit motive doesn't require one to also respond to one's conscience. If we remove the financial incentive, the priorities of creators would change -- they would tend to create what is necessary instead of what is most profitable.
I think intellectual property laws have their place in the historical development of humankind, the same way that affirmative action laws are intended as a temporary "pump priming" measure, and not as a "business-as-usual" type of arrangement. The protection and promotion of the Useful Sciences and Arts made sense in the 17th century, when the infrastructure to support the arts didn't exist. But three hundred years of hothouse growth threatens to choke the garden it was intended to help. We need to use a different strategy in today's world to optimise aggregate benefit. We need less television, fewer novels, fewer movies, fewer records, fewer uncontrolled technological advances, and fewer trademarks. Intellectual property laws are now working AGAINST the best interests of the public, and serve to weaken community and regional citizen activism by diverting people's attention away from human need.
No one (read much less people) will enter a field where the prospects of earning a decent living are substantially lower than in other fields.
Amen to that, brother! I say the fewer money-grubbing courtiers we have suckling the tit of royal patronage the healthier our practical Sciences and Arts will be.
I haven't taken my medication... the paranoia... it's coming back...
Here's how Power Grid Mind Control(tm) works.
First of all, you'll need the following:
Assembly:
Access to a large scale power generation or distribution system
A vocoder with a high quality microphone
A copy of the Communist Manifesto
Method:
Plug the vocoder into the device that regulates the frequency of the alternating current signal.
Read the Communist Manifesto into the microphone of the vocoder so that the signal of your voice blends seamlessly with the power output.
Voila! The unsuspecting citizens will hear your message subliminally, as part of the 60 Cycle Hum that pervades their environment 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Conclusion:
The power grid can be very useful in the hands of trained insurgents, but dangerous to the cause of liberation. Use with care!
Hmmm... there is a definite bias in the top 10 list.. Most of the top 10 are from the last 30 years and none are from before 1946. Maybe they should have called this list "the top 10 algorithms since the study of algorithms got really big". Hey, isn't that the year the thing at Area 51 happened? Maybe there's some connection...:-)
The internet, rather than providing a medium for studying issues in an attempt to come to an informed conclusion, has become a hive where groups of people of different persuasions flock to thier own little corners to work on hardening thier own biases and predjudices by studying cooked up "facts" arguments and ideas. Furthermore, because these individuals have already become bigoted by way of emotion, they give no thought to questioning the accuracy or rationality of what they are seeing.
Your post was very thoughtful.
The internet seems like an infinitely-many-sided coin. On the one hand it breaks social actors into tiny, politically inert factions whose only interest is mutual assured approval. (MAA... sounds like a sheep?)
On the other hand, the internet allows people to communicate in a manner which does not depend upon geography, race, religion, gender etc. Only what you say matters, not who you are. That is a very liberating feature of the internet.
I don't know how these different forces will play out. That would be a great topic for Ask Slashdot -- if it hasn't been done already.
Nah, it's not MS. They don't have anywhere near as much to lose as the movie industry and record industry combined. Just because Gill Bates has a bunch of insanely overvalued shares doesn't mean he rules the world. I think Michael Eisner is capable of much more totalitarian nonsense than BG. David Geffen and his cohorts are equally shifty.
7. It is recognized that the determinations flowing from the administrative procedure do not, as such, have the weight of binding precedent under national judicial systems.
I don't know anything about international law, but this seems somewhat toothless. It looks as if WIPO is just going to be an organ of corporate control. Corporations will be able to use WIPO's decisions to bully citizens of virtually any country, even though they have NO legal jurisdiction to do so.
I think the US is still very influential, and if not in the UN, at least with the technocrats at WIPO. The majority of the decision making gets made at the executive level, where the influence of fax-stuffing can be most effective. The strategy is to overwhelm the decision makers with so much policy analysis that they have no choice but to declare you the winner by acclamation.
Nothing could be more dangerous than a technocrat that wields power above the level of national governments. To whom do they answer? Where are these issues subjected to public debate? The WIPO is a front for RIAA and the MPAA. Who cares whether "big-name" stars or products get.com domains? What good does that do the average joe with kids to feed?
Let's WIPE OUT WIPO. That's my new slogan. Hey! I'm going right over to NSI's website to register wipeoutwipo.com!!
Making a statement of fact doesn't imply that the statement needs no argument in its defense. It merely implies that the arguments in its defense have been successfully presented;
You are blurring distinction between facts and normative statements. Facts are features of the world as it is. Normative statements are about the world as it OUGHT to be. The author, to my understanding, was making a normative claim and not a factual one.
You might reply to this by saying that the normative "truths" are facts just like any others. If this is your view you are stuck on the horns of a dillemna: If, on the one hand, you are lucky enough to possess the truth about morality, then you ought to be prepared to die to defend it. This view is a formula for holy wars and witch hunts. If on the other hand, you believe that moral truths will eventually be 'discovered' but that we just don't know which moral statements are true, then your belief doesn't really apply to most actual statements that we might be arguing about. You are making what amounts to a metaphysical claim.
Suppose for the sake of argument that I grant you the existence of "moral truths" some of which are espoused by people living today. Even if I accept this dubious claim about absolute moral facts, I can still dispute the claim you are making. The facts of the matter to which you refer are not so widely known or accepted as to make the presentation of opposing views unecessary. While some propositions admit of greater certainty than others, this particular issue has not reached the point at which opposing views need no longer be presented.
Also, the poster said nothing that indicated opposition to free speech. I have no idea where you're getting that from. The poster didn't say the opposition should be *CENSORED*, he said there is no need to *PRESENT* it. If you think those are the same thing... well, then I don't think discussion with you could ever yield much benefit.
I agree that not every alternative to the status quo needs to be given thorough public debate. But the original poster was arguing against the need to discuss an alternative that many consider reasonable. It is the apathy toward reasonable alternatives that reinforces the inertia of public opinion. That means that unless one actively encourages free debate about alternatives, our civic imaginations will die.
Slashdot Mirror
I need an example to clarify the practical distinction between effect and process. Don't they tend to blur a bit?
M&A activity in the United States and elsewhere is pitting competition against efficiency. Only a perfectly competitive market is perfectly efficient. And yet competition requires duplication which is inefficient. Which is more important, competition or efficiency?
Answer: Canadian Tax Law
That's hogwash. Suppose I come up with a creative way of killing hundreds of thousands of people? Do you really want to REWARD me? Is THAT kind of creativity "essential to our progress as a species"? I'm not trying to be a luddite here, (ok, maybe I am) but intellectual property laws turn the relationship between civil society and the technocracy upside down. The whole reason that intellectual property exists (if you believe that the world's treaty and constitution framers were sincere) is to provide benefits to humanity that would otherwise not be produced. If, as is the case today, science and technology are driving the intellectual property process rather than the other way around, then IP laws have become obsolete. Worse still, the laws will provide protection to ideas that may threaten the stability of the ecosystem. This means that intellectual property law is now a defender of the corporate good rather than the public good. Perhaps what once made sense doesn't anymore.
if Mozart had not composed a particular piece of music, someone else would have written the exact same piece at a later date. His idea (given form through performance and/or publication is unique and not able to be duplicated by someone else.
If whatever I put down immediately becomes a copyright protection, and the idea behind it is still free to use, then I ought to be able to claim a faster version of "Blitzkrieg Rock" as my own composition. Or if I perform a polka version of a Limp Bizkit song, I ought not to have to pay because the performance has the stamp of my individuality upon it. I think this OUGHT to be considered non-infringing use of a work. But if it is, then copyright isn't really protecting a whole lot anyway, is it? We may as well just scrap it along with patents.
If we're going to place limits on copying, the only form of copying we should prevent is plagiarism and personation. If someone prints a copy of your manuscript and puts his name on it, you should have every right to force him to put your name on it. You just shouldn't have the right to prevent him from selling it.
This is such an important opinion. Once people realize this they will see that we really are living in the Matrix. We're fighting with each other over things that aren't even real.
Thank you for that very astute correction. I was a bit hasty in posting my opinion.
As I said in a reply to another respondent to my comment -- of course it was outrageous. I MEANT it to be so. My point is that people, especially in wealthy nations like the G7(8?) are lulled into a stupor by the stability of their own commerce system. The process by which we accumulate stuff which we can buy and sell as property is very complex. What is the history behind the land that your house stands on (if you have one)? It wasn't ordained by God that that particular 50 feet of frontage in Orange County had your name on it. Every inch of property in North America was paid for by blood at some point in its history. Once the blood has been spilled, however, ownership disputes can be exceedingly polite and civilized. A few hundred years of civility and politeness makes you forget where your "property" originated. It was originally given to humankind by fate or God or the cosmos or whatever you want to call whatever put this here. For unknown reasons we decided that shedding blood was necessary in order to possess land. Not everyone shares our ideas about property or is willing to die to defend it.
So even physical, tangible property has oddities lurking in the shadows. But to extend this already stretched metaphor of ownership to encompass imagination and speech is not at all a simple matter. My point was that we ought to be cautious when we are considering adding to the already top-heavy notion of property. Making flatulent generalizations like "Property is what is mine" as the original poster did does not help the cause of discovering the Good Life.
You can still hear good singers in your own community. I'm sure there are many who are good or great. Perhaps not as good as Andrea Bocelli (sorry, I don't know who that is) but very good nevertheless. And when you go out and find talent in your own community, you're not just doing something for yourself or for the corporate fart factories, you're doing something that will benefit everyone else in your community.
What's your point? That culture leetches get fed by government as well as by guilt-ravaged CEO's? And what do student loans have to do with intellectual property? Having a well-educated labour force is a requirement for an economy to function at all. If we were all illiterate, there wouldn't even be a piece of the pie to fight over. We'd REALLY be living in the dark ages.
No one really needs manufactured culture anyways. The NSF, NEA and the like are irrelevant to modern culture. How many kids learned to play piano because the Canada Council sponsored Glenn Gould? None. If I really want music, I'll make it myself or with my friends. If the state wants to add to that for the sake of national pride, then let them do so. They are utterly dispensible.
The guy who you're agreeing with didn't understand my post. People who think that property is a simple concept just haven't thought about it enough. I was pointing out that it's just as easy to be simple minded on the side opposed to IP protection as it is for someone who advocates IP protection.
And IDEA CAN NOT be copyrightable.An implementation of thet idea SHOULD be though!
Here is what Justice Holmes says in Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing Co. (188 U.S. 239 (1903)) :
The copy is the personal reaction of an individual upon nature. Personality always contains something unique. It expresses its singularity even in handwriting, and a very modest grade of art has in it something irreducible, which is one man's alone. That something he may copyright unless there is a restriction in the words of the act.
He is talking about what makes an idea YOUR property. The particular expression that bears the stamp of your personality. That in itself is not an easy thing to distinguish from the subject matter or raw material from which your creative effort had to begin. On top of the subtleties of Holme's point, there were three dissenting justices in that case, who expressed concerns about the rationale for granting property rights in some intellectual artifact:
Judges Lurton, Day, and Severens, of the circuit court of appeals, concurred in affirming the judgment of the district court. Their views were thus expressed in an opinion delivered by Judge Lurton: 'What we hold is this: That if a chromo, lithograph, or other print, engraving, or picture has no other use than that of a mere advertisement, and no value aside from this function, it would not be promotive of the useful arts, within the meaning of the constitutional provision, to protect the 'author' in the exclusive use thereof, and the copyright statute should not be construed as including such a publication, if any other construction is admissible.
So you see, even if we consider court cases, we find the line between what is and isn't property gets very blurry. Especially in the case of IP, since the laws protecting creative works are meant to fulfill a public purpose, not a private one.
Ha! You took the bait. I said (roughly): Hey, I can oversimplify things just like you are. I intended my comment to be a gross oversimplification so it's not surprising that you should call it BS. I would too.
But I would also call your statement that "I consider my property to be something that is mine" to be question-begging, circular, vacuous, and simple-minded. Think carefully about how we become owners of anything, and you will realize that the process is nowhere near as cut-and-dried as you make it out to be.
Well put. I also like your idea about prompting users for voluntary contributions. At least it would give people the chance to do something.
I truly wonder if, after having broken down the current reward structure for IP with our shiny toys, we can't come up with anything better than returning to a centuries old model. Did patronage give listeners more choices? I don't know.
Why does music have to come from somewhere or someone else? In the days before recorded music, families in England would gather and sing their own madrigals for entertainment. THAT is music. We unquestioningly accept the opinion of the experts on who is a "professional" musician. We live in a culture of "professionalism" where the ability to be uncreative is rewarded. I don't need music from a source like that. I don't have to have ANY canned, recorded, packaged, or otherwise mutilated art. I can sing a song just as well as the next guy. We've got to put the music back in people's lives that the music industry stole.
I agree wholeheartedly. Another way I think musicians could make money is to get into the business of selling "custom mixes" and one-off live recordings to collectors and die-hard fans. They would be much more highly valued than ordinary, downloadable material.
See, I can be as obtuse and simple-minded about property as you.
I think intellectual property will suffer the same fate as the "law of thumb" (you're allowed to beat your wife with anything smaller than your thumb) and other such anachronisms. And it's not just because of the influence of the net.
The games being played with intellectual property have reached a dangerous pitch. The patenting of organisms, gene sequences, plant species, etc. is a threat to life on the planet bacause it is being pursued for pecuniary gain and not with caution and forethought. The faster we remove the incentives that put acquisitiveness ahead of civic purpose, the faster human beings will regain some reasonable measure of control over transnational money-vacuums.
All of the participants in this debate (both sides, the pro and anti protection advocates) take for granted one point: that all creative genius, whether it be musical or literary or scientific, is worthy of protection. I take issue with that bald, unqualified approval. Genius is good, but we measure that good by taking stock of the conditions of life on our planet. Unfortunately, responding to the profit motive doesn't require one to also respond to one's conscience. If we remove the financial incentive, the priorities of creators would change -- they would tend to create what is necessary instead of what is most profitable.
I think intellectual property laws have their place in the historical development of humankind, the same way that affirmative action laws are intended as a temporary "pump priming" measure, and not as a "business-as-usual" type of arrangement. The protection and promotion of the Useful Sciences and Arts made sense in the 17th century, when the infrastructure to support the arts didn't exist. But three hundred years of hothouse growth threatens to choke the garden it was intended to help. We need to use a different strategy in today's world to optimise aggregate benefit. We need less television, fewer novels, fewer movies, fewer records, fewer uncontrolled technological advances, and fewer trademarks. Intellectual property laws are now working AGAINST the best interests of the public, and serve to weaken community and regional citizen activism by diverting people's attention away from human need.
http://www.wipo.org/eng/dgtext.htm
Amen to that, brother! I say the fewer money-grubbing courtiers we have suckling the tit of royal patronage the healthier our practical Sciences and Arts will be.
Good riddance to career culture leeches.
Here's how Power Grid Mind Control(tm) works.
First of all, you'll need the following:
Assembly:
Method:
Conclusion:
The power grid can be very useful in the hands of trained insurgents, but dangerous to the cause of liberation. Use with care!
Hmmm... there is a definite bias in the top 10 list.. Most of the top 10 are from the last 30 years and none are from before 1946. Maybe they should have called this list "the top 10 algorithms since the study of algorithms got really big". Hey, isn't that the year the thing at Area 51 happened? Maybe there's some connection... :-)
Your post was very thoughtful.
The internet seems like an infinitely-many-sided coin. On the one hand it breaks social actors into tiny, politically inert factions whose only interest is mutual assured approval. (MAA... sounds like a sheep?)
On the other hand, the internet allows people to communicate in a manner which does not depend upon geography, race, religion, gender etc. Only what you say matters, not who you are. That is a very liberating feature of the internet.
I don't know how these different forces will play out. That would be a great topic for Ask Slashdot -- if it hasn't been done already.
Nah, it's not MS. They don't have anywhere near as much to lose as the movie industry and record industry combined. Just because Gill Bates has a bunch of insanely overvalued shares doesn't mean he rules the world. I think Michael Eisner is capable of much more totalitarian nonsense than BG. David Geffen and his cohorts are equally shifty.
http://ecommerce.w ipo.int/domains/process/eng/final/annex04.html
It says:
7. It is recognized that the determinations flowing from the administrative procedure do not, as such, have the weight of binding precedent under national judicial systems.
I don't know anything about international law, but this seems somewhat toothless. It looks as if WIPO is just going to be an organ of corporate control. Corporations will be able to use WIPO's decisions to bully citizens of virtually any country, even though they have NO legal jurisdiction to do so.
I think the US is still very influential, and if not in the UN, at least with the technocrats at WIPO. The majority of the decision making gets made at the executive level, where the influence of fax-stuffing can be most effective. The strategy is to overwhelm the decision makers with so much policy analysis that they have no choice but to declare you the winner by acclamation.
Let's WIPE OUT WIPO. That's my new slogan. Hey! I'm going right over to NSI's website to register wipeoutwipo.com!!
You are blurring distinction between facts and normative statements. Facts are features of the world as it is. Normative statements are about the world as it OUGHT to be. The author, to my understanding, was making a normative claim and not a factual one.
You might reply to this by saying that the normative "truths" are facts just like any others. If this is your view you are stuck on the horns of a dillemna: If, on the one hand, you are lucky enough to possess the truth about morality, then you ought to be prepared to die to defend it. This view is a formula for holy wars and witch hunts. If on the other hand, you believe that moral truths will eventually be 'discovered' but that we just don't know which moral statements are true, then your belief doesn't really apply to most actual statements that we might be arguing about. You are making what amounts to a metaphysical claim.
Suppose for the sake of argument that I grant you the existence of "moral truths" some of which are espoused by people living today. Even if I accept this dubious claim about absolute moral facts, I can still dispute the claim you are making. The facts of the matter to which you refer are not so widely known or accepted as to make the presentation of opposing views unecessary. While some propositions admit of greater certainty than others, this particular issue has not reached the point at which opposing views need no longer be presented.
Also, the poster said nothing that indicated opposition to free speech. I have no idea where you're getting that from. The poster didn't say the opposition should be *CENSORED*, he said there is no need to *PRESENT* it. If you think those are the same thing... well, then I don't think discussion with you could ever yield much benefit.
I agree that not every alternative to the status quo needs to be given thorough public debate. But the original poster was arguing against the need to discuss an alternative that many consider reasonable. It is the apathy toward reasonable alternatives that reinforces the inertia of public opinion. That means that unless one actively encourages free debate about alternatives, our civic imaginations will die.