While reference to great Greek scholars awaken vivid pictures of great and noble men, making advocates of intellectual property seem greedy in comparison, this vision ignores essential economic differences between Greek societies and today. The great scientists back then did not have to depend on their discoveries/inventions financially. Today we do. Then (and now in Mathematics, to the best of my knowledge) large corperations were not doing research. Today they are.
Yes, my statement that scientists would not share their information is too general, but surely you are not so naieve as to believe that scientists would be as eager to announce their new discoveries? Even assuming that all scientists are wonderfully generous and choose to publicize their discoveries, consider the overwhelming amount of research done by private companies. Where is the motivation for them to share discoveries if there are no patent laws?
Incidentally, I am an engineer, so my thoughts tend to be more applicable to tangible products, and less to the more abstract field like mathematics.
As a scientist, I can't let this pass without comment.
I think the important thing that the author has not done is consider the benefits of property laws. The key here is that without some kind of regulation on intellectual property, no one is going to want to share!!
The author gives the example of a levitation device which could prevent you from being eaten by tigers. He gives the scenario that you have learned about the device at a seminar he gave, but can not build the device to save yourself since he has a patent. There are some problems with this argument:
First, and most importantly, in the absence of patent laws, he, being a stingy bastard, would not have ever given a seminar. More likely, he would hoard his information.
Second, there is a reason that the death penalty does not apply to patent law violations. Under the circumstances where violating a patent law would save your life, I would hope you'd be clever enough to value your life over the fines you may be charged.
Third, suppose you made a levitation device and saved your own life, then quickly destroyed that device. It is not likely that even a stingy bastard would go to the trouble of taking you to court, and, if he did, not likely that a jury would choose a large penalty. Even if the laws are not perfect, our legal system is developed so that every case can be considered individually.
My conclusion? Considered only in and of themselves, patent laws can easily be made out to be un-constitutional. To understand why they are necessary and fair, one must be willing to pursue the concept deeper than the surface that this article skims.
How much, if at all, will computer gaming be affected by what is sure to be the growing purchase of and trading for virtual characters by the hordes of relatively affluent middle-class gamers thundering online?
One issue that I think we've not discussed that I'd like to hear other thoughts on is the implication of players of low level ability suddenly leaping into a game with tons of goodies.
In the past, those who have had the best toys were also those who put in lots of time and, presumably, got to be pretty good players. If espicially skilled players start selling their "virtual property", there could be an overturning of that hierarchy. In short, the skilled players could be playing with low-level characters and weapons while the amatures could be out there with the best available goods.
Does anyone else forsee a "purist" gaming world where virtual property is not allowed developing parallel to the mainstream world of virtual property?
Another thing is reliability. It takes millions of dollars to run [reliability] tests. It takes expensive people, expensive labs, expensive [electric] bills, racks and racks of hardware, and really boring, hard, grubby work. It isn't stuff that people do for fun at home with volunteers.
Isn't the whole point of Linux that we WILL do it for fun? What reliability test is more reliable than the consumers themselves?
the only important issue here
on
ShutUp Software
·
· Score: 1
It really doesn't matter if you do or do not want your information filtered. We could argue about that forever and get nowhere - we'd be missing the most (only) important issue. What matters here is your ability to choose whether or not you can see everything that is posted. The one thing we must prevent are sites that do not allow visitors the option, whether or not anyone takes it, of reading every post.
As someone pointed out above, free speech is totally independent of whether of not anyone is listening. But we've missed the distinction between listening and hearing. If no one can hear you, you are essentially not speaking. If no one is listening, that's okay. It is our responsiblity to allow everyone to be heard, that is the right guaranteed by free speech and the one that we must protect.
Slashdot Mirror
While reference to great Greek scholars awaken vivid pictures of great and noble men, making advocates of intellectual property seem greedy in comparison, this vision ignores essential economic differences between Greek societies and today. The great scientists back then did not have to depend on their discoveries/inventions financially. Today we do. Then (and now in Mathematics, to the best of my knowledge) large corperations were not doing research. Today they are.
Yes, my statement that scientists would not share their information is too general, but surely you are not so naieve as to believe that scientists would be as eager to announce their new discoveries? Even assuming that all scientists are wonderfully generous and choose to publicize their discoveries, consider the overwhelming amount of research done by private companies. Where is the motivation for them to share discoveries if there are no patent laws?
Incidentally, I am an engineer, so my thoughts tend to be more applicable to tangible products, and less to the more abstract field like mathematics.
I think the important thing that the author has not done is consider the benefits of property laws. The key here is that without some kind of regulation on intellectual property, no one is going to want to share!!
The author gives the example of a levitation device which could prevent you from being eaten by tigers. He gives the scenario that you have learned about the device at a seminar he gave, but can not build the device to save yourself since he has a patent. There are some problems with this argument:
My conclusion? Considered only in and of themselves, patent laws can easily be made out to be un-constitutional. To understand why they are necessary and fair, one must be willing to pursue the concept deeper than the surface that this article skims.
the ultimate lesson in optimism under duress:
i'm being eaten by a boa constrictor (oh no! it's up to my toe!)
http://www.ezy.net/~quix/shel.html
How much, if at all, will computer gaming be affected by what is sure to be the growing purchase of and
trading for virtual characters by the hordes of relatively affluent middle-class gamers thundering online?
One issue that I think we've not discussed that I'd like to hear other thoughts on is the implication of players of low level ability suddenly leaping into a game with tons of goodies.
In the past, those who have had the best toys were also those who put in lots of time and, presumably, got to be pretty good players. If espicially skilled players start selling their "virtual property", there could be an overturning of that hierarchy. In short, the skilled players could be playing with low-level characters and weapons while the amatures could be out there with the best available goods.
Does anyone else forsee a "purist" gaming world where virtual property is not allowed developing parallel to the mainstream world of virtual property?
Another thing is reliability. It takes millions of dollars to run [reliability] tests. It takes expensive people, expensive labs, expensive [electric] bills, racks and racks of hardware, and really boring, hard, grubby work. It isn't stuff that people do for fun at home with volunteers.
Isn't the whole point of Linux that we WILL do it for fun? What reliability test is more reliable than the consumers themselves?
It really doesn't matter if you do or do not want your information filtered. We could argue about that forever and get nowhere - we'd be missing the most (only) important issue. What matters here is your ability to choose whether or not you can see everything that is posted. The one thing we must prevent are sites that do not allow visitors the option, whether or not anyone takes it, of reading every post.
As someone pointed out above, free speech is totally independent of whether of not anyone is listening. But we've missed the distinction between listening and hearing. If no one can hear you, you are essentially not speaking. If no one is listening, that's okay. It is our responsiblity to allow everyone to be heard, that is the right guaranteed by free speech and the one that we must protect.
Microsoft = Big Brother
like i don't waste enough time watching movies already.
Seems like with computer guru Al Gore hanging around the white house they shouldn't have these problems. After all, he did invent the internet, right?
did i miss the point of the pigs? IS THERE a point to the pigs?