What chance is there for the small businessman whose product can be shared for nothing by thousands the day after release? I speak here of the indie games developer. Want to hurt them? I sure don't, but if filesharing gets totally legalised, people will think anything on the net is theres for the taking, which is *entirely* wrong.
If you offer nothing more than an unsupported copy of your product, then you probably aren't going to make money if freely sharing it is legal. Things you can offer to encourage people to pay:
- A statement that registration will pay for future development. (This is more or less the shareware software model, and wasn't very successful.)
- Support for your users. This is a way to make money, but you're making money from the support, not from the software development.
- A nicely packaged version in a box. People still buy games like snakes and ladders, when they come in a nice box, even though I'm sure you could download and print your own board.
- A version of your software that benefits from an online connection to your server, e.g. for a multiplayer game, or in some other way.
- A book about your software.
And so on. There are lots of ways to make money. Some of them benefit from having other people handle your distribution for you.
Remember that ways to make money change all the time. Just because something made money 20 years ago doesn't mean it's guaranteed to make money today.
It has been shown many times that the optimal security strategy is often the one that uses perfect randomness, since there is no defense against it (see Schneier's analysis [schneier.com] and this paper [firstmonday.org]).
Neither of those references claim that. They may point out that the current system of automatic profiling is worse than perfectly random selection, but they don't claim random selection is optimal. It's nearly useless at finding a rare individual. (If we randomly search 10% of passengers, a terrorist has a 90% chance of getting through.)
The second reference points out that you need to apply the same search criterion to everyone, and you need to make sure that individuals can't easily determine whether they were selected or not (so they can't predict whether they'll be selected next time, when they really are carrying a bomb). You can do that by using random selection, but you can do it better using some of the suggestions in that article.
Worse than that, if you take 70,000 completely random people in any public venue and search them, you'll probably get a few hundred minor drug posession, weapons, and outstanding warrants. So really this has 100% failure rate.
So what's your point? If public venues are that dangerous, everyone should be searched. You don't think you have a right to be secure against unreasonable searches, do you?
I think his main point was that it's not easy to control {Calories In} and {Calories Burned} simply by controlling exercise and fat intake. Exercising is likely to increase both, because it makes you hungry. Reducing fat intake may increase calories, because you'll substitute carbohydrates, and eat more calories that way. It's very easy to eat a huge number of calories in sugar or starch, but less easy to do so in fat or protein.
Bruce Schneier is brilliant, no question about it, but the man has terrorists on his brain, and ever since 9/11 they have been the perpetual example in Crypto-Gram.
Are there two Bruce Schneiers? The man you are describing is nothing like the one I read (other than being pretty smart, I guess). This is a typical recent example. His main message about terrorists has been to put the terrorist threat in perspective and not to overreact to it. (He was mentioned in the summary because another theme he pursues is cryptography.)
There are plenty of laptops that hold two batteries, and with those you can hot swap them one at a time. Often the second battery takes the place of a removable drive.
The article describes it as "a new report by the Urban Institute" with authors are listed as "Hal Salzman" and "Lindsay Lowell", but there's no link, and nothing on the Urban Institute's web page.
From what I've seen of their anti-terror tactics, I think they've got a better shot at curing heart disease.
It doesn't matter if they are effective if they are trying to prevent something that almost never happens. In the 5 years DHS has been in existence, there have been only two fatal terrorist incidents on US soil, and both of them (the San Francisco SUV killing in 2006 and the Virginia Tech massacre) are really questionable as to whether they were really "terrorist" acts, and not just regular crazy guys. So the DHS has a perfect record by that measure.
In the 5 years before they were created, there were the Beltway killings, the anthrax attacks, 9/11, and the Columbine massacre. A much worse record, so they must be successful.
It's my view that in any problem solving situation, you should seek to solve the worst problem first and the smallest problem last.
That's not a good strategy. You don't go for the biggest fruit first, you go for the low hanging fruit. (You can choose the worst problem among the easy ones if you like, but don't ignore the easy ones because they're not as bad as the hard ones.)
From the point of view of Homeland Security, they're much more likely to be successful at stopping terrorist attacks than they would be at curing heart disease. You're right that their measure of success is bizarre, but under that measure, what they're doing is working.
IP is not the same as physical property, but the concept of owning an abstract thing (the monopoly granted by the patent) is pretty closely related to the concept of owning a physical thing.
That similarity only exists in the legal system. In any practical sense, copyrights and patents are in no way similar to physical objects, and there's no reason that our legal system must treat them the same way.
In the practical sense that they can be legally bought and sold and owned, they are similar to physical objects. I agree that without the legal system they wouldn't be property, and that there could be a legal system that didn't treat them as property. But our legal system *does* treat them as property, so claiming that property rights have nothing to do with IP is just wrong.
The thing is that you cannot own ideas the same way as you own a physical object.
Right, I agree. The idea isn't the IP, it's the patent or copyright that's the IP. It's the patent or copyright that is the "thing" you own. That's why I objected to the GP's claim that property rights have nothing to do with IP.
Patents can be bought and sold just like other items of property. They could be stolen (though the way you would steal a patent is quite different from the way you would steal a car: it would involve forging a new registration for it, or a bill of sale, or something like that).
People sometimes say that the ideas are their IP, and I'd say that's just sloppy speech. Ideas have value and may have originators who consider themselves to be owners, but I agree they're not property. IP in the form of patents, copyrights, etc. is a way to bridge the gap, to create a form of property based on something that isn't.
You must bank with Gringott's. With the banks I use, they don't actually keep my gold coins in a vault somewhere. The number on the statement is all there is.
You do realise that property rights have absolutely nothing to do with "intellectual property"?
That's a popular thing to say, but it's just not true. IP is not the same as physical property, but the concept of owning an abstract thing (the monopoly granted by the patent) is pretty closely related to the concept of owning a physical thing.
One says that you are not allowed to steal other people's things, the other says that you are not allowed to create certain things if someone else created it first.
IP corresponds to a "thing", not to a right. The IP "thing" is the monopoly. The property right is the ability to own that thing.
I'd argue that software patents should never have been created, but in countries where they were created, they are certainly things that act a lot like other kinds of abstract property. There are lots of other abstract properties, e.g. your bank balance. Would you argue that changing the number on your bank statement to zero doesn't take something from you?
Honestly any economist who doesn't recognize the value of creating and protecting intellectual property rights in an information economy is a POORLY trained economist.
As far as I can see, Maskin isn't against IP, only patents. His article says "copyright protection for software programs (which has gone through its own evolution over the last decade) may have achieved a better balance than patent protection." Copyright is IP too.
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What chance is there for the small businessman whose product can be shared for nothing by thousands the day after release? I speak here of the indie games developer. Want to hurt them? I sure don't, but if filesharing gets totally legalised, people will think anything on the net is theres for the taking, which is *entirely* wrong.
If you offer nothing more than an unsupported copy of your product, then you probably aren't going to make money if freely sharing it is legal. Things you can offer to encourage people to pay:
- A statement that registration will pay for future development. (This is more or less the shareware software model, and wasn't very successful.)
- Support for your users. This is a way to make money, but you're making money from the support, not from the software development.
- A nicely packaged version in a box. People still buy games like snakes and ladders, when they come in a nice box, even though I'm sure you could download and print your own board.
- A version of your software that benefits from an online connection to your server, e.g. for a multiplayer game, or in some other way.
- A book about your software.
And so on. There are lots of ways to make money. Some of them benefit from having other people handle your distribution for you.
Remember that ways to make money change all the time. Just because something made money 20 years ago doesn't mean it's guaranteed to make money today.
Too late --- we already missed the 100 megasecond party.
It has been shown many times that the optimal security strategy is often the one that uses perfect randomness, since there is no defense against it (see Schneier's analysis [schneier.com] and this paper [firstmonday.org]).
Neither of those references claim that. They may point out that the current system of automatic profiling is worse than perfectly random selection, but they don't claim random selection is optimal. It's nearly useless at finding a rare individual. (If we randomly search 10% of passengers, a terrorist has a 90% chance of getting through.)
The second reference points out that you need to apply the same search criterion to everyone, and you need to make sure that individuals can't easily determine whether they were selected or not (so they can't predict whether they'll be selected next time, when they really are carrying a bomb). You can do that by using random selection, but you can do it better using some of the suggestions in that article.
Worse than that, if you take 70,000 completely random people in any public venue and search them, you'll probably get a few hundred minor drug posession, weapons, and outstanding warrants. So really this has 100% failure rate.
So what's your point? If public venues are that dangerous, everyone should be searched. You don't think you have a right to be secure against unreasonable searches, do you?
I hope they think long and hard about this, before 50% of Americans decide not to fly because they might get busted for a parking ticket or the like.
You mean if they put this in place, the airports will only be half as crowded? Sounds great!
Just use 6 times as many CFLs, and put sunglasses on your dragon.
Some of the more outrageous requests were refused. The telecoms can say no, but they chose not to.
If they are granted immunity for their illegal acts this time, why wouldn't they expect the same treatment next time?
That graph was produced in Excel. I don't think Edward Tufte would like it.
Office apps that REQUIRE a working network/internet connection to function are something that any sane IT department would stay FAR FAR away from.
How is this worse than storing documents on a central file server? That's a pretty common model, with lots of advantages.
Modded interesting? I think "troll" is more appropriate for something this old.
I think his main point was that it's not easy to control {Calories In} and {Calories Burned} simply by controlling exercise and fat intake. Exercising is likely to increase both, because it makes you hungry. Reducing fat intake may increase calories, because you'll substitute carbohydrates, and eat more calories that way. It's very easy to eat a huge number of calories in sugar or starch, but less easy to do so in fat or protein.
Bruce Schneier is brilliant, no question about it, but the man has terrorists on his brain, and ever since 9/11 they have been the perpetual example in Crypto-Gram.
Are there two Bruce Schneiers? The man you are describing is nothing like the one I read (other than being pretty smart, I guess). This is a typical recent example. His main message about terrorists has been to put the terrorist threat in perspective and not to overreact to it. (He was mentioned in the summary because another theme he pursues is cryptography.)
When do we get the actual Terminators and Tie Fighters?
Pretty soon, although Skynet is having launch problems.
There are plenty of laptops that hold two batteries, and with those you can hot swap them one at a time. Often the second battery takes the place of a removable drive.
I would be overjoyed if they simply quadrupled the size of the (existing technology)battery and gave me 4 times the capacity.
Some people are easy to please: buy 3 spares.
I asked, and have seen a copy of the report. As far as I know it hasn't been published yet.
The article describes it as "a new report by the Urban Institute" with authors are listed as "Hal Salzman" and "Lindsay Lowell", but there's no link, and nothing on the Urban Institute's web page.
From what I've seen of their anti-terror tactics, I think they've got a better shot at curing heart disease.
It doesn't matter if they are effective if they are trying to prevent something that almost never happens. In the 5 years DHS has been in existence, there have been only two fatal terrorist incidents on US soil, and both of them (the San Francisco SUV killing in 2006 and the Virginia Tech massacre) are really questionable as to whether they were really "terrorist" acts, and not just regular crazy guys. So the DHS has a perfect record by that measure.
In the 5 years before they were created, there were the Beltway killings, the anthrax attacks, 9/11, and the Columbine massacre. A much worse record, so they must be successful.
It's my view that in any problem solving situation, you should seek to solve the worst problem first and the smallest problem last.
That's not a good strategy. You don't go for the biggest fruit first, you go for the low hanging fruit. (You can choose the worst problem among the easy ones if you like, but don't ignore the easy ones because they're not as bad as the hard ones.)
From the point of view of Homeland Security, they're much more likely to be successful at stopping terrorist attacks than they would be at curing heart disease. You're right that their measure of success is bizarre, but under that measure, what they're doing is working.
You are not allowed to carry with you the basics required for an overnight stay.
I just carried with me the basics for a 3 night stay (the whole trip, so nothing checked).
You should simplify your needs.
IP is not the same as physical property, but the concept of owning an abstract thing (the monopoly granted by the patent) is pretty closely related to the concept of owning a physical thing.
That similarity only exists in the legal system. In any practical sense, copyrights and patents are in no way similar to physical objects, and there's no reason that our legal system must treat them the same way.
In the practical sense that they can be legally bought and sold and owned, they are similar to physical objects. I agree that without the legal system they wouldn't be property, and that there could be a legal system that didn't treat them as property. But our legal system *does* treat them as property, so claiming that property rights have nothing to do with IP is just wrong.
The thing is that you cannot own ideas the same way as you own a physical object.
Right, I agree. The idea isn't the IP, it's the patent or copyright that's the IP. It's the patent or copyright that is the "thing" you own. That's why I objected to the GP's claim that property rights have nothing to do with IP.
Patents can be bought and sold just like other items of property. They could be stolen (though the way you would steal a patent is quite different from the way you would steal a car: it would involve forging a new registration for it, or a bill of sale, or something like that).
People sometimes say that the ideas are their IP, and I'd say that's just sloppy speech. Ideas have value and may have originators who consider themselves to be owners, but I agree they're not property. IP in the form of patents, copyrights, etc. is a way to bridge the gap, to create a form of property based on something that isn't.
You must bank with Gringott's. With the banks I use, they don't actually keep my gold coins in a vault somewhere. The number on the statement is all there is.
You do realise that property rights have absolutely nothing to do with "intellectual property"?
That's a popular thing to say, but it's just not true. IP is not the same as physical property, but the concept of owning an abstract thing (the monopoly granted by the patent) is pretty closely related to the concept of owning a physical thing.
One says that you are not allowed to steal other people's things, the other says that you are not allowed to create certain things if someone else created it first.
IP corresponds to a "thing", not to a right. The IP "thing" is the monopoly. The property right is the ability to own that thing.
I'd argue that software patents should never have been created, but in countries where they were created, they are certainly things that act a lot like other kinds of abstract property. There are lots of other abstract properties, e.g. your bank balance. Would you argue that changing the number on your bank statement to zero doesn't take something from you?
Honestly any economist who doesn't recognize the value of creating and protecting intellectual property rights in an information economy is a POORLY trained economist.
As far as I can see, Maskin isn't against IP, only patents. His article says "copyright protection for software programs (which has gone through its own evolution over the last decade) may have achieved a better balance than patent protection." Copyright is IP too.