Just an aside, IN THE U.S., a "monopolist" is one who has market power -- in other words, if you, acting alone, have the power to charge consumers higher prices than they would pay in a competitive marketplace, or have the power to drive competitors out of the marketplace, then you have "market power" and are subject to the antitrust laws.
While someone with 100% market share is certainly a monopoly, there are other cases where 90%, 80%, or even 65% market share is sufficient to find monopoly power.
This has an interesting effect that bad decisions setting precedents don't have much an impact on future cases. This gives both more powers to the judges. More because there's more latitude in the interpretation of the laws. Less because the decision of a particular case cannot be used as precedent.
It also has the effect of making the law less predictable, since you can't rely on what other judges have said to figure out what your judge is likely to say.
If RIAA ran Walmart it wouldn't have shoplifters prosecuted for theft, it would launch ridiculous civil suits against them.
Just FYI, but even in a criminal shoplifting case, WalMart or whoever can sue the shoplifter for the losses PLUS some percentage of the cost of providing security at that store, the idea being that they wouldn't need store security if it wasn't for shoplifters.
So a $10 t-shirt shoplifted could turn into several hundreds of dollars in civil liability. No, it's not the thousands or millions stated above, but it is certainly higher than just the cost of the shirt.
And that's in addition to any criminal fines or penalties.
I think this is touches on an important point. If the ci9vil court sees the need to punish the wrongdoer, why is the burden of proof not raised to the same level a criminal court? Seems somehow wrong.
Because the most punishment a civil court can dish out is a monetary fine. A criminal court can take away time or your life in some cases. Since you can presumably get the money back (if you work at it), and you can't get your lost time or life back if things go wrong, the burden is higher where the stakes are higher.
There are many instances throughout the law where things that can be fixed by money are treated differently from things that really can't. If you are forced to pay some punitive damages, and it later turns out that the punitives were wrong, then they can write you a check for what you paid out, plus interest, and you are essentially made "whole." But if you spend a year (or ten years) in prison, and you were put there wrongfully, then how do you get that time back? You can't.
So things that can be fixed with money get the "preponderance of the evidence" standard -- but things that can't be fixed by money get the higher "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard.
If I stole a magazine and then left it in a dentist's waiting room, would anybody think of sueing me for lost profits caused by people reading it?
In the U.S. at least, no. Once you purchase a copyrighted work, the "first sale" doctrine kicks in, and the copyright owner can no longer assert control over the redistribution of that particular instance of the copyrighted work. You could buy a CD and leave it for someone else to listen to, for example, or you could be like Blockbuster and rent out that copy, or you could be like a library and loan it out -- as long as you are not making copies, or creating derivative works, or publically performing the work, you are okay.
In the U.S., you can rent or loan out any copyrighted work you purchase, you just can't retain a copy for yourself if you do it -- so if you make a backup copy, you have to hand that over as well when you rent or loan out a copyrighted work. But there are no extra fees or licenses required -- under the "first sale" doctrine, the copyright holder loses the ability to control the redistribution of THAT PARTICULAR COPY of the copyrighted work.
If you get caught shoplifting at Wal-Mart. How much can Wal-Mart sue you for?
As another poster noted, you would get the cops involved. But WalMart CAN sue you for some percentage (differs depending on the state) of the total cost of security for that particular store. So, beyond the criminal penalties, you could get a civil penalty of several hundred dollars.
As far as the RIAA is concerned, the laws regarding civil and criminal liability for theft are different from those covring copyright infringement, so it makes little sense to compare the two. Unless you are admitting that copyright infringement is theft, that is...
You have no way to know when downloading something that it is has a copyright.
And that's simply not relevant. Copyright infringement is a quasi-strict liability offense; basically, if you did it, you are liable. It doesn't matter what your "intent" was, or even if you knew you were doing anything wrong. If you download a copyrighted work without permission, it doesn't matter whether or not you knew you were infringing -- you are still liable (there are a few exceptions, but not many).
Think about it -- if your defense was "but I didn't know it was copyrighted" and that could get you off, what would the point of having copyright laws be? It's tough to prove what someone knew or didn't know.
"If someone writes a book, and then dies, who should get the royalty checks?
Under the current system, no-one."
But why not? Should your employer get to withhold your last paycheck from your family if you die before payday (at least, payment for days you actually worked)? If your answer is yes, then what's the difference? The royalty checks ARE the payday for the author -- why should the payment for the work he did disappear simply because he died?
Forget copyright -- what if, say, an actor dies after filming a movie -- should his family get to keep the royalty checks then?
"So, do you think people should be able to inherit anything? Sure. Anything the person actually owned before they died - property, money, investments, etc."
What about contractual obligations? Should the heirs be able to collect on a debt owed the deceased?
But fortunately we already have a wide range of laws and penalties to deal with murder.
And fortunately we have laws that allow the estate of a copyright holder to get paid, rather than just have the money go straight to the government, or otherwise be left over to enrich someone else other than the creative talent's family.
I don't understand the fascination with people and their families getting paid indefinitely even beyond death for a single work that they have done.
So, do you think people should be able to inherit anything? I mean, why should anybody get anything when someone dies? If someone writes a book, and then dies, who should get the royalty checks? Wouldn't it have been cheaper for the publisher to off Dan Brown after Da Vinci Code came out, rather than having to keep paying him royalties?
I agree, anthologies can be a good way to go, and many shorter works are better than longer ones. I haven't bought any anthologies in a while -- maybe it's time to go out and grab a couple...
There are a few authors I just love which just don't get the press these guys do, because they were just a bit older or more obscure
Would you mind listing them? I consider myself fairly well read when it comes to Sci Fi, but I know that there is stuff I am missing, and I if you've got some more obscure or less-famous stuff that I haven't read, I'll be all over it.
I have to admit, I'm pretty biased against OSC myself. Sure, I would put Ender's Game on any top-ten Sci-fi list, but I don't think any of the other Ender novels, or anything else he's written, really measures up to even Niven and Aldiss...
I don't know that Heinlein and Asimov, not to mention LeGuin, Clarke, Moorcock and Silverberg, really need to be slagged as a "crap set" of authors. Seriously, if you are looking at the late 60's and early 70's, which is the time frame he was talking about, which authors would you consider to be "not crap"? Sure, he left out Philip K. Dick and Frank Herbert and Fritz Leiber, and I'm not sure I would rank Niven or Aldiss equal to Asimov or Clarke or Heinlein, but honestly, who do you think should be on that list? I'm very interested.
We haven't, for many crimes. But most people are suprised at how many crimes don't have an "intent" factor. Most infractions, like speeding on the highway, are "strict liability" crimes -- it doesn't matter why you did it, it only matters whether or not you did it. The "why" part might influence the sentence, but it doesn't influence the guilt phase.
Generally, strict criminal liability is limited to crimes where the penalties are fairly low, like the traffic crimes mentioned above. However, there are a select few serious crimes where strict liability is the rule -- as I noted, sex crimes against minors are strict liability. Basically, for these crimes, society has determine that the need to protect children outweighs the "needs" or "rights" of people to have sexual relations with children -- that, and society has also determined that the "deterrence" effect of "strict liability" is more important than the rights of those people on the fringes of these laws who may be operating without intent, but get caught anyway. You can argue whether it is the right balance to strike or not, but that's the way it is in every state.
As I noted, there really aren't that many strict liability crimes, other than sexual crimes against children -- but one serious crime, not related to kids or sex that is strict liability is the unlicensed possession of a machine gun...
Hrm, if you've slept with someone whose willfully deceived you about their age, you're hard to convinct (if it's reasonable.)
Actually that's not true. Statutory rape and associated sex crimes against minors are "strict liability" crimes, which means that your intent or other mitigating circumstances are irrelevant -- if you did it, that's enough to convict. Even if they had a fake ID showing they were the proper age, if the DA decides to bring the charge, then there really isn't any excuse that will work for you -- you have to give the jusy reasonable doubt as to whether or not you actually did the deed.
Which is exactly why there is a problem in the U.S. In Canada and Europe, prices are high to begin with because of taxes; in the U.S., the tax burden on gar is relatively low. But that means that if gas goes up by $0.50 a gallon in the U.S., it should also go up by that much in Europe and Canada as well, if the price of gas is really driven purely by supply-and-demand economics. But it doesn't -- the U.S. gas prices have gone up much faster than the prices in Canada and Europe. Profits are high in the U.S. -- without price fixing, one of the oil companies would almost be certain to trade a few cents per gallon of profit for market share -- but it doesn't happen, they are keeping the prices high in order to keep profits high, and they are almost certainly working together to do so.
The argument could be made that gas is too cheap in the U.S. compared to other countries -- but at least in those other countries, higher gas prices mean more money to fix roads and stuff, rather than simply more money to pay the shareholders of the oil companies...
Not only that, but there are some works -- mostly works created in foreign countries -- that fell into the public domain in the 1965 - 1978 time frame, and were taken OUT of the public domain and given BACK rights retoractively...
At least most of the works simply never fell out of copyright protection...
First off, I appreciate the honest and non-abusive rebuttal -- seems like a rarity on these boards!
If their idea is more brilliant than they thought, then society reaps the rewards but the company doesn't. I'm not bothered by that.
Fair enough. I guess I just disagree. I don't really have a problem with corporations acting in their own self-interest, nor do I believe that corporations do, or should be required to, have a social contract with society as a whole. Personally, I prefer to deal with corporations or companys that do practice some social responsibility, but I don't believe that such a responsibility should be mandated by the government, any more than I feel that the government should mandate that I spend X hours per week performing work for the benefit of society as a whole, or whatever. I do volunteer time, but I don't want to have that mandated by law.
For employment, there will always be a "market value" for doing a certain kind of job.
Fiar enough. But the government already mandates how little you can make, and mandates (to some extent) other working conditions -- it seems a small step to also have the government mandate a maximum salary as well. So it's not as if the "market value" for your employment is really a "free" market value.
It is not a natural right to control how your ideas are used/commercialized by others.
Again, as pointed out elsewhere, this is kind of an overstatement -- copyright and patent laws do not protect ideas, only your particular expression of those ideas (for copyrights) and inventions that stem from those ideas (for patents). The foundational and/or fundamental underpinnings of your work (ideas) are not protected.
But even beyond that, there are all kinds of monopolys out there granted by the government -- whose to say which ones are "natural," and therefore okay, and which ones are not? Take ownership of real property, like your house -- that's also a government granted monopoly, although most people would consider it a "right." I bring this up just for the sake of discussion -- I don't really want to debate tangible v. intangible.
If a musician makes an album and asks for 10,000$ (and gets it) but it turns into a "best-seller," then he deserves accolades... but does he deserve endless royalties?
I think an argument could be made that he should -- seriously, if this is HIS creation, why shouldn't he be able to profit from other's use of HIS creation? In a sense, a copyright or patent IS a limit on how much the musician or inventor can make from his work.
I think musicians and other artists are actually a bad example to use to show how IP laws are bad. The problem is, with, say U2, there is only one U2. Nobody else other than U2 can write U2 songs and play U2 songs and make U2 records -- it's already a monopoly, and a natural one at that. The monopoly is not created by the copyright laws, it already exists -- copyright laws just provide this natural monopoly with some "market power." You can't have real competition in this market -- it doesn't matter if another record company "discovers" the U2 "formula" -- there is only 1 U2, period. Without IP laws, you have the one record company paying U2 to make records for them, and everyone else is a freeloader, who can undercut the original record company's price because they don't have the sunk costs of paying U2 to recover via sales.
Once the work passes into the public domain, U2 cannot make any more money off of the recordings sold in the marketplace, because everyone else can now legally freeload. While that may be good for people who want to buy cheap (or free) U2 CD's, is it really fair to U2? Who are we to say how much is "enough" for U2 to make from THEIR work?
Patents are fundamentally different (as are non-creative copyrights, like for computer code), in the sense that potentially any invention could have been invented by someone else. In that case, patents are an artificial mon
You are assuming that there is an inherent right of authors to their works.
And you are assuming that there is an inherent right to public access of those works. Why is that right, if it exists, more important than the rights of the authors, if they exist?
And just FYI, the European countries, and most Berne signatories -- but not the U.S. -- DO recognize inherent rights of authors. They are called the "moral" rights of authors.
Society would then agree on an acceptable profit margin (which might vary from industry to industry).
Just curious, would you be comfortable if society were to agree on an acceptable salary for you to make? Seriously, what you've essentially described is a command economy, where the government essentially dictates how much you can sell a product for and how much you can make on the product.
Rather, each work is rewarded commensurate to the effort put into it.
Again, if we want to reward effort alone, then ditch diggers and other manual laborers should be at the top of the pay scale -- maybe they should be, I don't know, but I don't care what you do for a living, anytime you work in an air-conditioned building, you are basically by definition not putting in the same effort as people out in the sun laying asphalt.
We don't have a system that simply rewards effort -- if we did, the incentive would be to work as long and hard -- but inefficiently -- as possible. Our reward models are more complicated then that.
Plus, you've developed a system that could result in perpetual patents -- what if you never reach your predetermined profit margin -- does the patent never pass into the public domain?
A possible way to discourage inflation of this "desired profit margin" benchmark would be to require a licensing fee proportional to the requested final sum. One could even require the licensing agent to hand over a significant fraction of the desired profit sum (perhaps 10%), which would be held until such time that the desired profit margin had been reached. The interest accrued on this money would be used to fund the IP bureau (it would not be given back to the company).
So, you want to tax income BEFORE you get it?
would also allow fair prices to be set on works
Again, a command economy. Which doesn't appear to work, BTW.
This would force companies to accurately predict what the expected profits would be, to accurately assign a value to a given piece of IP.
So what happens when a company can't accurately forcast its expected profits? What about the inventors of DAT? They probably overestimated their expected profits -- should they be penalized because the public (with some help from the government) didn't embrace their technology? What about the inventors of the CD -- what if they underestimated how fast CD's would take off and how huge the market would be -- should they be penalized?
Not trying to be a troll, nor do I believe the current system is perfect (or even that good), but this type of heavily regulated and controlled economy would be a lot worse than the current system, that's for sure. At least under the currect system, the economy is still working -- I don't think there are any command economies around anymore.
I don't know about the patent question, but as far as the copyrights, read Justice Steven's dissent in Eldred v. Ashcroft -- he posted some interesting numbers, if I recall, it was like a 30 or 50 year copyright term is 99.4% equivalent to a perpetual copyright or something like that.
In my talkings with one IP laywer he basically said he works under the following mindset: Ask for the world in your patent. They will narrow it for you saying what you can and can't have.
This is maybe a bit off-topic, and is actually a very technical point, but if that's what your IP lawyer told you to do, I hope he said that a few years ago. Current caselaw (Festo in particular) would actually make your patent coverage NARROWER if you followed the above advice than if you had tried to get it right the first time. What your IP guy has described is certainly the way patents were written and prosecuted up until a couple of years ago, but the law now basically makes that approach sorta suicidal -- nowadays, if you have to amend your claims to get them issued, then you are only allowed to enforce EXACTLY what you claim, and no more -- you lose the advantage of what is called the "doctrine of equivalents."
Well, as an attorney in Silicon Valley, I express my thanks to the "geeks & nerds" for bringing common sense to corporate dress codes -- since we don't want to be too overdressed when we meet our techie clients, your dress code has had a "trickle-down" effect on our dress codes. Even though we are not allowed shorts at work -- common sense has not progressed THAT far -- at least we don't have to wear suits every freaking day -- only for court appearances, just like the rest of the perps!
Slashdot Mirror
Just an aside, IN THE U.S., a "monopolist" is one who has market power -- in other words, if you, acting alone, have the power to charge consumers higher prices than they would pay in a competitive marketplace, or have the power to drive competitors out of the marketplace, then you have "market power" and are subject to the antitrust laws.
While someone with 100% market share is certainly a monopoly, there are other cases where 90%, 80%, or even 65% market share is sufficient to find monopoly power.
This has an interesting effect that bad decisions setting precedents don't have much an impact on future cases. This gives both more powers to the judges. More because there's more latitude in the interpretation of the laws. Less because the decision of a particular case cannot be used as precedent.
It also has the effect of making the law less predictable, since you can't rely on what other judges have said to figure out what your judge is likely to say.
If RIAA ran Walmart it wouldn't have shoplifters prosecuted for theft, it would launch ridiculous civil suits against them.
Just FYI, but even in a criminal shoplifting case, WalMart or whoever can sue the shoplifter for the losses PLUS some percentage of the cost of providing security at that store, the idea being that they wouldn't need store security if it wasn't for shoplifters.
So a $10 t-shirt shoplifted could turn into several hundreds of dollars in civil liability. No, it's not the thousands or millions stated above, but it is certainly higher than just the cost of the shirt.
And that's in addition to any criminal fines or penalties.
I think this is touches on an important point. If the ci9vil court sees the need to punish the wrongdoer, why is the burden of proof not raised to the same level a criminal court? Seems somehow wrong.
Because the most punishment a civil court can dish out is a monetary fine. A criminal court can take away time or your life in some cases. Since you can presumably get the money back (if you work at it), and you can't get your lost time or life back if things go wrong, the burden is higher where the stakes are higher.
There are many instances throughout the law where things that can be fixed by money are treated differently from things that really can't. If you are forced to pay some punitive damages, and it later turns out that the punitives were wrong, then they can write you a check for what you paid out, plus interest, and you are essentially made "whole." But if you spend a year (or ten years) in prison, and you were put there wrongfully, then how do you get that time back? You can't.
So things that can be fixed with money get the "preponderance of the evidence" standard -- but things that can't be fixed by money get the higher "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard.
If I stole a magazine and then left it in a dentist's waiting room, would anybody think of sueing me for lost profits caused by people reading it?
In the U.S. at least, no. Once you purchase a copyrighted work, the "first sale" doctrine kicks in, and the copyright owner can no longer assert control over the redistribution of that particular instance of the copyrighted work. You could buy a CD and leave it for someone else to listen to, for example, or you could be like Blockbuster and rent out that copy, or you could be like a library and loan it out -- as long as you are not making copies, or creating derivative works, or publically performing the work, you are okay.
In the U.S., you can rent or loan out any copyrighted work you purchase, you just can't retain a copy for yourself if you do it -- so if you make a backup copy, you have to hand that over as well when you rent or loan out a copyrighted work. But there are no extra fees or licenses required -- under the "first sale" doctrine, the copyright holder loses the ability to control the redistribution of THAT PARTICULAR COPY of the copyrighted work.
If you get caught shoplifting at Wal-Mart. How much can Wal-Mart sue you for?
As another poster noted, you would get the cops involved. But WalMart CAN sue you for some percentage (differs depending on the state) of the total cost of security for that particular store. So, beyond the criminal penalties, you could get a civil penalty of several hundred dollars.
As far as the RIAA is concerned, the laws regarding civil and criminal liability for theft are different from those covring copyright infringement, so it makes little sense to compare the two. Unless you are admitting that copyright infringement is theft, that is...
You have no way to know when downloading something that it is has a copyright.
And that's simply not relevant. Copyright infringement is a quasi-strict liability offense; basically, if you did it, you are liable. It doesn't matter what your "intent" was, or even if you knew you were doing anything wrong. If you download a copyrighted work without permission, it doesn't matter whether or not you knew you were infringing -- you are still liable (there are a few exceptions, but not many).
Think about it -- if your defense was "but I didn't know it was copyrighted" and that could get you off, what would the point of having copyright laws be? It's tough to prove what someone knew or didn't know.
"If someone writes a book, and then dies, who should get the royalty checks?
Under the current system, no-one."
But why not? Should your employer get to withhold your last paycheck from your family if you die before payday (at least, payment for days you actually worked)? If your answer is yes, then what's the difference? The royalty checks ARE the payday for the author -- why should the payment for the work he did disappear simply because he died?
Forget copyright -- what if, say, an actor dies after filming a movie -- should his family get to keep the royalty checks then?
"So, do you think people should be able to inherit anything?
Sure. Anything the person actually owned before they died - property, money, investments, etc."
What about contractual obligations? Should the heirs be able to collect on a debt owed the deceased?
But fortunately we already have a wide range of laws and penalties to deal with murder.
And fortunately we have laws that allow the estate of a copyright holder to get paid, rather than just have the money go straight to the government, or otherwise be left over to enrich someone else other than the creative talent's family.
I don't understand the fascination with people and their families getting paid indefinitely even beyond death for a single work that they have done.
So, do you think people should be able to inherit anything? I mean, why should anybody get anything when someone dies? If someone writes a book, and then dies, who should get the royalty checks? Wouldn't it have been cheaper for the publisher to off Dan Brown after Da Vinci Code came out, rather than having to keep paying him royalties?
Thanks.
I agree, anthologies can be a good way to go, and many shorter works are better than longer ones. I haven't bought any anthologies in a while -- maybe it's time to go out and grab a couple...
There are a few authors I just love which just don't get the press these guys do, because they were just a bit older or more obscure
Would you mind listing them? I consider myself fairly well read when it comes to Sci Fi, but I know that there is stuff I am missing, and I if you've got some more obscure or less-famous stuff that I haven't read, I'll be all over it.
Okay, I can agree with you now!
I have to admit, I'm pretty biased against OSC myself. Sure, I would put Ender's Game on any top-ten Sci-fi list, but I don't think any of the other Ender novels, or anything else he's written, really measures up to even Niven and Aldiss...
I don't know that Heinlein and Asimov, not to mention LeGuin, Clarke, Moorcock and Silverberg, really need to be slagged as a "crap set" of authors. Seriously, if you are looking at the late 60's and early 70's, which is the time frame he was talking about, which authors would you consider to be "not crap"? Sure, he left out Philip K. Dick and Frank Herbert and Fritz Leiber, and I'm not sure I would rank Niven or Aldiss equal to Asimov or Clarke or Heinlein, but honestly, who do you think should be on that list? I'm very interested.
When did you people abolish mens rea?
We haven't, for many crimes. But most people are suprised at how many crimes don't have an "intent" factor. Most infractions, like speeding on the highway, are "strict liability" crimes -- it doesn't matter why you did it, it only matters whether or not you did it. The "why" part might influence the sentence, but it doesn't influence the guilt phase.
Generally, strict criminal liability is limited to crimes where the penalties are fairly low, like the traffic crimes mentioned above. However, there are a select few serious crimes where strict liability is the rule -- as I noted, sex crimes against minors are strict liability. Basically, for these crimes, society has determine that the need to protect children outweighs the "needs" or "rights" of people to have sexual relations with children -- that, and society has also determined that the "deterrence" effect of "strict liability" is more important than the rights of those people on the fringes of these laws who may be operating without intent, but get caught anyway. You can argue whether it is the right balance to strike or not, but that's the way it is in every state.
As I noted, there really aren't that many strict liability crimes, other than sexual crimes against children -- but one serious crime, not related to kids or sex that is strict liability is the unlicensed possession of a machine gun...
Hrm, if you've slept with someone whose willfully deceived you about their age, you're hard to convinct (if it's reasonable.)
Actually that's not true. Statutory rape and associated sex crimes against minors are "strict liability" crimes, which means that your intent or other mitigating circumstances are irrelevant -- if you did it, that's enough to convict. Even if they had a fake ID showing they were the proper age, if the DA decides to bring the charge, then there really isn't any excuse that will work for you -- you have to give the jusy reasonable doubt as to whether or not you actually did the deed.
Which is exactly why there is a problem in the U.S. In Canada and Europe, prices are high to begin with because of taxes; in the U.S., the tax burden on gar is relatively low. But that means that if gas goes up by $0.50 a gallon in the U.S., it should also go up by that much in Europe and Canada as well, if the price of gas is really driven purely by supply-and-demand economics. But it doesn't -- the U.S. gas prices have gone up much faster than the prices in Canada and Europe. Profits are high in the U.S. -- without price fixing, one of the oil companies would almost be certain to trade a few cents per gallon of profit for market share -- but it doesn't happen, they are keeping the prices high in order to keep profits high, and they are almost certainly working together to do so.
The argument could be made that gas is too cheap in the U.S. compared to other countries -- but at least in those other countries, higher gas prices mean more money to fix roads and stuff, rather than simply more money to pay the shareholders of the oil companies...
Not only that, but there are some works -- mostly works created in foreign countries -- that fell into the public domain in the 1965 - 1978 time frame, and were taken OUT of the public domain and given BACK rights retoractively...
At least most of the works simply never fell out of copyright protection...
First off, I appreciate the honest and non-abusive rebuttal -- seems like a rarity on these boards!
If their idea is more brilliant than they thought, then society reaps the rewards but the company doesn't. I'm not bothered by that.
Fair enough. I guess I just disagree. I don't really have a problem with corporations acting in their own self-interest, nor do I believe that corporations do, or should be required to, have a social contract with society as a whole. Personally, I prefer to deal with corporations or companys that do practice some social responsibility, but I don't believe that such a responsibility should be mandated by the government, any more than I feel that the government should mandate that I spend X hours per week performing work for the benefit of society as a whole, or whatever. I do volunteer time, but I don't want to have that mandated by law.
For employment, there will always be a "market value" for doing a certain kind of job.
Fiar enough. But the government already mandates how little you can make, and mandates (to some extent) other working conditions -- it seems a small step to also have the government mandate a maximum salary as well. So it's not as if the "market value" for your employment is really a "free" market value.
It is not a natural right to control how your ideas are used/commercialized by others.
Again, as pointed out elsewhere, this is kind of an overstatement -- copyright and patent laws do not protect ideas, only your particular expression of those ideas (for copyrights) and inventions that stem from those ideas (for patents). The foundational and/or fundamental underpinnings of your work (ideas) are not protected.
But even beyond that, there are all kinds of monopolys out there granted by the government -- whose to say which ones are "natural," and therefore okay, and which ones are not? Take ownership of real property, like your house -- that's also a government granted monopoly, although most people would consider it a "right." I bring this up just for the sake of discussion -- I don't really want to debate tangible v. intangible.
If a musician makes an album and asks for 10,000$ (and gets it) but it turns into a "best-seller," then he deserves accolades... but does he deserve endless royalties?
I think an argument could be made that he should -- seriously, if this is HIS creation, why shouldn't he be able to profit from other's use of HIS creation? In a sense, a copyright or patent IS a limit on how much the musician or inventor can make from his work.
I think musicians and other artists are actually a bad example to use to show how IP laws are bad. The problem is, with, say U2, there is only one U2. Nobody else other than U2 can write U2 songs and play U2 songs and make U2 records -- it's already a monopoly, and a natural one at that. The monopoly is not created by the copyright laws, it already exists -- copyright laws just provide this natural monopoly with some "market power." You can't have real competition in this market -- it doesn't matter if another record company "discovers" the U2 "formula" -- there is only 1 U2, period. Without IP laws, you have the one record company paying U2 to make records for them, and everyone else is a freeloader, who can undercut the original record company's price because they don't have the sunk costs of paying U2 to recover via sales.
Once the work passes into the public domain, U2 cannot make any more money off of the recordings sold in the marketplace, because everyone else can now legally freeload. While that may be good for people who want to buy cheap (or free) U2 CD's, is it really fair to U2? Who are we to say how much is "enough" for U2 to make from THEIR work?
Patents are fundamentally different (as are non-creative copyrights, like for computer code), in the sense that potentially any invention could have been invented by someone else. In that case, patents are an artificial mon
You are assuming that there is an inherent right of authors to their works.
And you are assuming that there is an inherent right to public access of those works. Why is that right, if it exists, more important than the rights of the authors, if they exist?
And just FYI, the European countries, and most Berne signatories -- but not the U.S. -- DO recognize inherent rights of authors. They are called the "moral" rights of authors.
Good point. And not only that, a lot of these "draconian" copyright laws were forced on the U.S. by the Europeans, via the Berne Convention...
Society would then agree on an acceptable profit margin (which might vary from industry to industry).
Just curious, would you be comfortable if society were to agree on an acceptable salary for you to make? Seriously, what you've essentially described is a command economy, where the government essentially dictates how much you can sell a product for and how much you can make on the product.
Rather, each work is rewarded commensurate to the effort put into it.
Again, if we want to reward effort alone, then ditch diggers and other manual laborers should be at the top of the pay scale -- maybe they should be, I don't know, but I don't care what you do for a living, anytime you work in an air-conditioned building, you are basically by definition not putting in the same effort as people out in the sun laying asphalt.
We don't have a system that simply rewards effort -- if we did, the incentive would be to work as long and hard -- but inefficiently -- as possible. Our reward models are more complicated then that.
Plus, you've developed a system that could result in perpetual patents -- what if you never reach your predetermined profit margin -- does the patent never pass into the public domain?
A possible way to discourage inflation of this "desired profit margin" benchmark would be to require a licensing fee proportional to the requested final sum. One could even require the licensing agent to hand over a significant fraction of the desired profit sum (perhaps 10%), which would be held until such time that the desired profit margin had been reached. The interest accrued on this money would be used to fund the IP bureau (it would not be given back to the company).
So, you want to tax income BEFORE you get it?
would also allow fair prices to be set on works
Again, a command economy. Which doesn't appear to work, BTW.
This would force companies to accurately predict what the expected profits would be, to accurately assign a value to a given piece of IP.
So what happens when a company can't accurately forcast its expected profits? What about the inventors of DAT? They probably overestimated their expected profits -- should they be penalized because the public (with some help from the government) didn't embrace their technology? What about the inventors of the CD -- what if they underestimated how fast CD's would take off and how huge the market would be -- should they be penalized?
Not trying to be a troll, nor do I believe the current system is perfect (or even that good), but this type of heavily regulated and controlled economy would be a lot worse than the current system, that's for sure. At least under the currect system, the economy is still working -- I don't think there are any command economies around anymore.
I don't know about the patent question, but as far as the copyrights, read Justice Steven's dissent in Eldred v. Ashcroft -- he posted some interesting numbers, if I recall, it was like a 30 or 50 year copyright term is 99.4% equivalent to a perpetual copyright or something like that.
In my talkings with one IP laywer he basically said he works under the following mindset: Ask for the world in your patent. They will narrow it for you saying what you can and can't have.
This is maybe a bit off-topic, and is actually a very technical point, but if that's what your IP lawyer told you to do, I hope he said that a few years ago. Current caselaw (Festo in particular) would actually make your patent coverage NARROWER if you followed the above advice than if you had tried to get it right the first time. What your IP guy has described is certainly the way patents were written and prosecuted up until a couple of years ago, but the law now basically makes that approach sorta suicidal -- nowadays, if you have to amend your claims to get them issued, then you are only allowed to enforce EXACTLY what you claim, and no more -- you lose the advantage of what is called the "doctrine of equivalents."
Well, as an attorney in Silicon Valley, I express my thanks to the "geeks & nerds" for bringing common sense to corporate dress codes -- since we don't want to be too overdressed when we meet our techie clients, your dress code has had a "trickle-down" effect on our dress codes. Even though we are not allowed shorts at work -- common sense has not progressed THAT far -- at least we don't have to wear suits every freaking day -- only for court appearances, just like the rest of the perps!