PROTECT IP lowers the bar on what infringement is criminal. Put a video on Youtube with a copyrighted song in the background, get 10,000 views, and that is a criminal act under this law. Likewise if your website gets 10,000 views.
Actually, if I just made people reflect on the idea that copyright ISN'T capitalism, then I have done a good thing. In this context, it doesn't make sense to worry how the use of the term "socialism" might reflect negatively on solutions to healthcare, providing basic needs and education to the poor, etc. Besides, in the U.S. socialism ALWAYS refers to the benefits being paid to someone else. It is never their Medicare or Social Security check.
The Issue of getting people to understand the need for social solutions to particular social problems is an issue for another day.
The Issue for today is to make people understand that copyright isn't about competition to provide the best value to the consumer. It is about welfare to a relatively small industry (which is why I picked the term I did to describe it).
So you don't like the fact that I used the term "socialism". But on the other hand, how many people do you think have actually taken the time to TRY and understand what kind of economic system copyright fits into? That IP law in general fits into?
If we can expose the myth that patents and copyright are the foundations of capitalism, then something good has been done.
And people can sing anything they want on their Birthday as long as it isn't to the tune written by the Hill's sisters in the late 1800's... you know, "Happy Birthday to You!... Happy birt... [ BANG! THUD! ]
{sound of body being drug out of reality into the cloud. }
----- You can't have a new technology if there is any possible way Big Content can kill you. it. I mean it.
What you are implying is that no tech company should exist. Well, none that use modern technology anyway. I say this because no high tech product can be produced without infringing on *some* patent somewhere. And any company that produces a high tech product knows this, so by your sentiment, none of them should produce any products. Now, to keep us all in the stone age while companies produce products not infringing on any patent (i.e. exclusively 20 year old tech) companies would have to furiously patent any and everything they can think of. This would allow us to perpetually consume 20 year old tech and avoid any new idea in an actual consumer product....
The list wasn't provided with the intention to prove where the good guys and the bad guys stand on this fight. The list comes verbatim from the link provided. There are several notable organizations missing from the list, including the ACLU, EFF, and FSF, among others. I thought that was also interesting.
Okay, you win. This is capitalism assuming we don't give any significant portion of the copyright money to content creators.... And since they don't get more than a few percent of what is collected from copyright, I guess you win.
The comment was a troll, but aimed at those that might think this bill promotes capitalism. It does not, but rather copyright is about building artificial markets. Most Americans view socialism as the opposite of capitalism, and so I used the term loosely along those lines.
I understand that economic models are more complex than that, but hey! It was a post written on a whim!
I used the term as a troll. I can be honest and I can admit my faults. I haven't anything against socialism myself. But you have to understand that in the U.S. it is an awful insult to the Republicans among us. And if you look at the implementation of Copyright from a certain perspective, it is clear that this is a Government imposed right for a few being imposed upon the people. In the U.S. we usually call that socialism. It really isn't socialism, but that is what most people walking down the street would call it (when it is described in these terms).
But I haven't any problem with considering copyright as being fascist. I have no problem considering copyright as terrorism.
You know, you write a post and you take an angle and you go with it.
Right. Because the Media, the Lawyers and the Politicians have done **such*** a great job debating and selecting the policies we have now in this country!
Besides, what use is Math and Science when it comes to understanding the world anyway?
This law DOES put the enforcement of these laws in the hands of the copyright holder. And I will bet (if it passes) that I will be complaining about how Rich Corporations are abusing this bill by bullying small companies (small copyright holders).
My point is that (without changing any other part of this bill) Big Content should fund the bill if you are going to pass it. If they are not going to pay fees or taxes to cover the cost of implementation, then it is a gift to Big Content.
ORGS ENDORSING Graphic Artists Guild Independent Film & Television Alliance Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
ORGS OPPOSING American Association of Law Libraries American Library Association Association of Research Libraries Center for Democracy and Technology Demand Progress Don't Censor the Net! Fractured Atlas Public Knowledge Reporters Without Borders
The PROTECT IP act is a freebie given to Big Content because it is too expensive for them to police the use of their own content. Regardless of what anyone thinks about Copyright, this is a clear example of leveraging government to enforce artificial restrictions on the use of content in favor of the companies that seek to monetize said content.
We have laws already in place for companies to lodge complaints with websites when their content is being used without license. But the content companies complain that it is too hard for them to find unlicensed use of their content. The solution via this act is to take down content on **possible** unlicensed use by the government and by other companies on a simple complaint.
IF the PROTECT IP provided heavy penalties for false or inflated complaints, then okay. But it doesn't.
IF the PROTECT IP provided for possible criminal charges should it be used to violate free speech as opposed to taking down infringing content, then okay. But it doesn't.
IF the PROTECT IP provided fees and taxes on Big Content to cover the public expense of implementing the act, then okay. But it doesn't.
ANY Government granted system of monopolies granted out to privileged parties, where such monopolies do not and in fact cannot exist without Government intervention, this is socialism. It is bad enough that we have copyrights that last over a hundred years, and that we cannot upload birthday videos because a song written in the 1800's is (most would say falsely) under copyright. That we have extend copyright terms without compensation to the public.
But why should the public pick up the bill to enforce copyright?
Make Big Content to pay for it, and make Big Content liable for misuse of it, and throw anyone in jail if they use it to inhibit free speech, then okay.
But that won't fly. Because this is about making money, and Big Content can't make money if they are at risk, or have to pay for the enforcement of their own (supposed) rights.
Selling books has always been about selling the paper and the ink. (The ACTUAL payments to authors on a book have always been tiny.)
In today's world, we should be paying the lion share of the money to the AUTHORS. Copyright mostly insures that the lion share of the money on book sells goes to big Corporations, i.e. Big Content.
Now once upon a time, publishers actually bought value to the transaction, be they record labels, book publishers, music publishers, etc. Someone had to support the development of content, to print and distribute and advertise the content in its physical form, and stock the shelves of stores to sell the content. In other words, publishers handled the physical requirements of taking content from content producers and getting it to the consumer.
Increasingly, publishers bring no value to the transaction. Publishers are not as involved in supporting the production of content as they have been in the past, and there is nothing to print and distribute with digital content, and advertising of content does not require publishers to the same degree. No stores, nobody standing their being paid to sell the content. In other words, producers can now deliver their content directly to the consumer.
I don't have any problem with copyright for short periods to help artists leverage their popularity into deals to support themselves. I do have a problem with copyright that is effectively perpetual and denies the value of the public domain.
Oh? So nobody wrote anything worth reading prior to copyright?
Copyright ISN"T for the creators. That is what the PUBLISHERS want you to think, even though the very term is COPYright. Authors mostly assign their copyrights to various groups, who then profit. Sorry, but why should we support a system where most of the money involved in content goes to groups OTHER THAN creators.
Who really profits from copyright?
Take the "Happy Birthday song" as an example. Written and published first as "Good Morning to You" in the late 1800's by the Hill sisters, Warner Music Group pulls in about 2 million a year on license fees. Can you post a Birthday video on Youtube singing "Happy Birthday"? NO. Why not? Copyright. And that money does not go to creators. The Hill sisters are long dead. Nope, it goes to Corporations. Why? Copyright.
We are a small church, and don't have the budget to secure *broadcasting* rights to the music we use. This is the biggest problem. At the same time, many texts are used (prayers, responsive readings, etc.) which are almost all under copyright as well. Clearing all of this is too much, so we only podcast the message. To podcast the *service* requires too much work, and would be too expensive to do legally.
Every solution to every problem forces sacrifices. Funny though how nobody wants a solution that makes THEM sacrifice.
Every efficiency gain in technology sacrifices the products without that efficiency. Tech has seen it so much they take it for granted. Had the recording industry had to deal with the rise in value and the fall in revenue that technology companies have lived with, we would be buying whole libraries of music for use any way we would like to use it for a dollar and a quarter.
Yes, tech HAS seen orders of value for price paid go up by a factor of 1,000,000 or more. I bought a computer for 1000 dollars in the 80's with 4K of memory, and I use a laptop today I bought for 600 dollars with 6 Gig of memory.
Content just HAS to price its product to compete with reality, and the reality is that it doesn't cost as much to produce content, package content, and distribute content.
It costs orders of magnitude less (how many, I don't know) to make their product and sell their product. Yet we haven't seen orders of magnitude cut from the price of content.
It seems the only one allowed to sacrifice in the content game is the consumer.
...As capacity on networks and hard drives increase exponentially , sharing is going to expand.... exponentially.
Once upon a time, it would have been idiotic to claim that anyone that might hear a song as they walk down the street should pay a fee to do so. Content is increasingly moving through the population much faster/easier/pervasively than the sound of a performance. How the heck can anyone expect every transfer of content to result in a payment to multiple parties?
Oh, you would like EVERY SONG EVER RECORDED in the 1900's? Indexed? With reviews? Here, make a copy of this [ some future tech memory flavor ] card. You don't think that will be possible? You are not paying attention.
Copyright NEEDS to go away. It only exists to promote the production of content, and there isn't a shred of evidence that content is promoted by copyright today. There is every evidence that content is HINDERED by copyright.
I would like to podcast my Church's services. Can't, Copyright I would like to listen to any radio station in the world over the Internet. Can't, Copyright, Broadcast right I would like to toss my cable subscription in favor of streaming shows. Can't, Copyright and License restrictions. I would like to record the occasional HD broadcast (given I have to have cable). Can't, Copyright and License restrictions and broken DVR by AT&T I would like to listen to a book read to me while I drive from my Kindle. Can't Copyright
And even as I say I can't have all these things, really I can by just downloading what I want into the appropriate application. Today. Without any permission to do so from anyone.
And it is just going to get easier.
Content will be produced even without copyright, because content drives attention, and attention drives sells. Sells of what? Anything. Everything.
And people will ALWAYS pay modest amounts for packaged content. Because they are buying "ease of use", and "time". Why spend hours collecting and organizing pirated content when I can buy content already collected and organized? But mostly we CAN'T get our content packaged the way we want because of copyright. Because Big Content wants the past to continue. We pirate because we can't buy content at prices we can afford, and can't get it in the form we want to consume it in.
Big content wants to swallow the reductions in cost provided by the Internet (Little distribution costs, no manufacturing costs, no retail costs) but collect the same level of revenue on every sell. They want NOBODY else to make a dime. They want it all, mailed to them with a kiss, without providing any value to the consumer. Sorry, but that isn't the way it works.
Big content wants to make us all criminals by making content effectively illegal in the ways we want to consume content, unless we pay, and pay big. Higher prices even as the magnitude of available content explodes? How does that work with Supply and Demand? Oh wait! Copyright ISN'T about Supply and Demand, but how much Government Granted Monopolies can make the population pay for their content!
If you dig conspiracies, then Government wants the consumption of content illegal so they can be bigger, and can selectively put people in jail they don't like, and to suppress free speech, and as an excuse to exert more and more control over the population as a whole. If you don't care for conspiracies, then our politicians just want the contributions from Hollywood. Either way is bad for the common man.
We need to vastly cut back copyright, or accept that any of our children will have their future selectively demolished over copyright should they cross someone that doesn't like them. We need to cut back copyright unless we accept a desert of legal content in an ocean of available content. We need to cut back on copyright unless it is okay to censor the Internet and censor free speech and silence the citizens because some copyright might be infringed upon.
Do a search on "bombing security checkpoint". Terrorists world wide (outside the U.S.) bomb security checkpoints as a matter of course. Terrorists know to do this, and in the U.S. we line people up in dense groupings at our security checkpoints.
If we are going to be bombed, we are going to be bombed. However, ANY huge, predictable, static crowds of people outside security is just BEGGING for an attack. Maybe we need a swift surface security check before an intensive one. But whatever, what we are doing now is obviously stupid.
Toss the TSA, and go back to sane, "walk through the detector" security. Spend the money looking for suspicious behavior, and utilize non-intrusive technology like dogs and electronic bomb sniffers. X-Ray luggage. Follow up on intelligence.
But can the hugely expensive, useless security theater.
Unfortunately, "obvious" has a particular meaning within the context of patents.
"Non-obviousness" is the term used in US patent law to describe one of the requirements that an invention must meet to qualify for patentability, codified in 35 U.S.C. 103. One of the main requirements of patentability is that the invention being patented is not obvious, meaning that a "person having ordinary skill in the art" would not know how to solve the problem at which the invention is directed by using exactly the same mechanism.
I should point out, from the beginning, my focus has been on Patents, and defining "invention" in terms of what can be covered by a patent. I re-read this entire thread, and I think your anger at me is misplaced. As I started this conversation, and set its topic, there isn't any reason to expect me to understand that you want to talk about a less objective definition of "invention" rather than continue the discussion under its original terms, where "invention" means something covered by a patent.
I never insulted the iPhone, and never discounted the mark the iPhone made on the market. But that doesn't mean that there is anything about the iPhone that is inventive in the sense that it can be or should be protected by a patent. Let's be clear, not all truly inventive products can be patented, and many truly inventive products can infringe on existing patents. It is the latter fact that corporations use to limit competition. No big company wants to have to press forward with new products and services when the existing ones are bringing in the cash. It is better to just patent new products out of the market place, and sue any competition than to innovate by putting new products into the market place that could change the game and reduce existing revenue streams.
Bottom line: The discussion is on Patents, and how Patents define invention. This isn't about what we think about the iPhone.
Slashdot Mirror
PROTECT IP lowers the bar on what infringement is criminal. Put a video on Youtube with a copyrighted song in the background, get 10,000 views, and that is a criminal act under this law. Likewise if your website gets 10,000 views.
Damn them libraries, the leeches! Always trying to get stuff for free!
Actually, if I just made people reflect on the idea that copyright ISN'T capitalism, then I have done a good thing. In this context, it doesn't make sense to worry how the use of the term "socialism" might reflect negatively on solutions to healthcare, providing basic needs and education to the poor, etc. Besides, in the U.S. socialism ALWAYS refers to the benefits being paid to someone else. It is never their Medicare or Social Security check.
The Issue of getting people to understand the need for social solutions to particular social problems is an issue for another day.
The Issue for today is to make people understand that copyright isn't about competition to provide the best value to the consumer. It is about welfare to a relatively small industry (which is why I picked the term I did to describe it).
So you don't like the fact that I used the term "socialism". But on the other hand, how many people do you think have actually taken the time to TRY and understand what kind of economic system copyright fits into? That IP law in general fits into?
If we can expose the myth that patents and copyright are the foundations of capitalism, then something good has been done.
... because.
Well, I mean, really!
The artists! Think of the artists!
Child Porn.
Old people. Abused in Nursing homes.
And people can sing anything they want on their Birthday as long as it isn't to the tune written by the Hill's sisters in the late 1800's ... you know, "Happy Birthday to You! ... Happy birt ... [ BANG! THUD! ]
{sound of body being drug out of reality into the cloud. }
----- You can't have a new technology if there is any possible way Big Content can kill you. it. I mean it.
"They shouldn't be breaking the law"
What you are implying is that no tech company should exist. Well, none that use modern technology anyway. I say this because no high tech product can be produced without infringing on *some* patent somewhere. And any company that produces a high tech product knows this, so by your sentiment, none of them should produce any products. Now, to keep us all in the stone age while companies produce products not infringing on any patent (i.e. exclusively 20 year old tech) companies would have to furiously patent any and everything they can think of. This would allow us to perpetually consume 20 year old tech and avoid any new idea in an actual consumer product....
All so that *nobody* breaks the law.
What a GREAT idea!
Okay, not socialism..... But copyright certainly isn't about competition either.
The list wasn't provided with the intention to prove where the good guys and the bad guys stand on this fight. The list comes verbatim from the link provided. There are several notable organizations missing from the list, including the ACLU, EFF, and FSF, among others. I thought that was also interesting.
Okay, you win. This is capitalism assuming we don't give any significant portion of the copyright money to content creators.... And since they don't get more than a few percent of what is collected from copyright, I guess you win.
Most likely because the polling site is self selecting for Internet Political Junkies.
The comment was a troll, but aimed at those that might think this bill promotes capitalism. It does not, but rather copyright is about building artificial markets. Most Americans view socialism as the opposite of capitalism, and so I used the term loosely along those lines.
I understand that economic models are more complex than that, but hey! It was a post written on a whim!
I used the term as a troll. I can be honest and I can admit my faults. I haven't anything against socialism myself. But you have to understand that in the U.S. it is an awful insult to the Republicans among us. And if you look at the implementation of Copyright from a certain perspective, it is clear that this is a Government imposed right for a few being imposed upon the people. In the U.S. we usually call that socialism. It really isn't socialism, but that is what most people walking down the street would call it (when it is described in these terms).
But I haven't any problem with considering copyright as being fascist. I have no problem considering copyright as terrorism.
You know, you write a post and you take an angle and you go with it.
Right. Because the Media, the Lawyers and the Politicians have done **such*** a great job debating and selecting the policies we have now in this country!
Besides, what use is Math and Science when it comes to understanding the world anyway?
This law DOES put the enforcement of these laws in the hands of the copyright holder. And I will bet (if it passes) that I will be complaining about how Rich Corporations are abusing this bill by bullying small companies (small copyright holders).
My point is that (without changing any other part of this bill) Big Content should fund the bill if you are going to pass it. If they are not going to pay fees or taxes to cover the cost of implementation, then it is a gift to Big Content.
ORGS ENDORSING
Graphic Artists Guild
Independent Film & Television Alliance
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
ORGS OPPOSING
American Association of Law Libraries
American Library Association
Association of Research Libraries
Center for Democracy and Technology
Demand Progress
Don't Censor the Net!
Fractured Atlas
Public Knowledge
Reporters Without Borders
https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/s968/report#nation
I know that U.S. Senator John Cornyn doesn't read Slashdot, but hey! it is interesting...
Nation: 90 percent oppose.
Texas: 98 oppose.
https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/s968/report#nation
The PROTECT IP act is a freebie given to Big Content because it is too expensive for them to police the use of their own content. Regardless of what anyone thinks about Copyright, this is a clear example of leveraging government to enforce artificial restrictions on the use of content in favor of the companies that seek to monetize said content.
We have laws already in place for companies to lodge complaints with websites when their content is being used without license. But the content companies complain that it is too hard for them to find unlicensed use of their content. The solution via this act is to take down content on **possible** unlicensed use by the government and by other companies on a simple complaint.
IF the PROTECT IP provided heavy penalties for false or inflated complaints, then okay. But it doesn't.
IF the PROTECT IP provided for possible criminal charges should it be used to violate free speech as opposed to taking down infringing content, then okay. But it doesn't.
IF the PROTECT IP provided fees and taxes on Big Content to cover the public expense of implementing the act, then okay. But it doesn't.
ANY Government granted system of monopolies granted out to privileged parties, where such monopolies do not and in fact cannot exist without Government intervention, this is socialism. It is bad enough that we have copyrights that last over a hundred years, and that we cannot upload birthday videos because a song written in the 1800's is (most would say falsely) under copyright. That we have extend copyright terms without compensation to the public.
But why should the public pick up the bill to enforce copyright?
Make Big Content to pay for it, and make Big Content liable for misuse of it, and throw anyone in jail if they use it to inhibit free speech, then okay.
But that won't fly. Because this is about making money, and Big Content can't make money if they are at risk, or have to pay for the enforcement of their own (supposed) rights.
Selling books has always been about selling the paper and the ink. (The ACTUAL payments to authors on a book have always been tiny.)
In today's world, we should be paying the lion share of the money to the AUTHORS. Copyright mostly insures that the lion share of the money on book sells goes to big Corporations, i.e. Big Content.
Now once upon a time, publishers actually bought value to the transaction, be they record labels, book publishers, music publishers, etc. Someone had to support the development of content, to print and distribute and advertise the content in its physical form, and stock the shelves of stores to sell the content. In other words, publishers handled the physical requirements of taking content from content producers and getting it to the consumer.
Increasingly, publishers bring no value to the transaction. Publishers are not as involved in supporting the production of content as they have been in the past, and there is nothing to print and distribute with digital content, and advertising of content does not require publishers to the same degree. No stores, nobody standing their being paid to sell the content. In other words, producers can now deliver their content directly to the consumer.
I don't have any problem with copyright for short periods to help artists leverage their popularity into deals to support themselves. I do have a problem with copyright that is effectively perpetual and denies the value of the public domain.
So small government is socialism?
Copyright REQUIRES government. No copyright, smaller government
Oh? So nobody wrote anything worth reading prior to copyright?
Copyright ISN"T for the creators. That is what the PUBLISHERS want you to think, even though the very term is COPYright. Authors mostly assign their copyrights to various groups, who then profit. Sorry, but why should we support a system where most of the money involved in content goes to groups OTHER THAN creators.
Who really profits from copyright?
Take the "Happy Birthday song" as an example. Written and published first as "Good Morning to You" in the late 1800's by the Hill sisters, Warner Music Group pulls in about 2 million a year on license fees. Can you post a Birthday video on Youtube singing "Happy Birthday"? NO. Why not? Copyright. And that money does not go to creators. The Hill sisters are long dead. Nope, it goes to Corporations. Why? Copyright.
But I guess Corporations are people too.
We are a small church, and don't have the budget to secure *broadcasting* rights to the music we use. This is the biggest problem. At the same time, many texts are used (prayers, responsive readings, etc.) which are almost all under copyright as well. Clearing all of this is too much, so we only podcast the message. To podcast the *service* requires too much work, and would be too expensive to do legally.
Every solution to every problem forces sacrifices. Funny though how nobody wants a solution that makes THEM sacrifice.
Every efficiency gain in technology sacrifices the products without that efficiency. Tech has seen it so much they take it for granted. Had the recording industry had to deal with the rise in value and the fall in revenue that technology companies have lived with, we would be buying whole libraries of music for use any way we would like to use it for a dollar and a quarter.
Yes, tech HAS seen orders of value for price paid go up by a factor of 1,000,000 or more. I bought a computer for 1000 dollars in the 80's with 4K of memory, and I use a laptop today I bought for 600 dollars with 6 Gig of memory.
Content just HAS to price its product to compete with reality, and the reality is that it doesn't cost as much to produce content, package content, and distribute content.
It costs orders of magnitude less (how many, I don't know) to make their product and sell their product. Yet we haven't seen orders of magnitude cut from the price of content.
It seems the only one allowed to sacrifice in the content game is the consumer.
...As capacity on networks and hard drives increase exponentially , sharing is going to expand.... exponentially.
Once upon a time, it would have been idiotic to claim that anyone that might hear a song as they walk down the street should pay a fee to do so. Content is increasingly moving through the population much faster/easier/pervasively than the sound of a performance. How the heck can anyone expect every transfer of content to result in a payment to multiple parties?
Oh, you would like EVERY SONG EVER RECORDED in the 1900's? Indexed? With reviews? Here, make a copy of this [ some future tech memory flavor ] card. You don't think that will be possible? You are not paying attention.
Copyright NEEDS to go away. It only exists to promote the production of content, and there isn't a shred of evidence that content is promoted by copyright today. There is every evidence that content is HINDERED by copyright.
I would like to podcast my Church's services. Can't, Copyright
I would like to listen to any radio station in the world over the Internet. Can't, Copyright, Broadcast right
I would like to toss my cable subscription in favor of streaming shows. Can't, Copyright and License restrictions.
I would like to record the occasional HD broadcast (given I have to have cable). Can't, Copyright and License restrictions and broken DVR by AT&T
I would like to listen to a book read to me while I drive from my Kindle. Can't Copyright
And even as I say I can't have all these things, really I can by just downloading what I want into the appropriate application. Today. Without any permission to do so from anyone.
And it is just going to get easier.
Content will be produced even without copyright, because content drives attention, and attention drives sells. Sells of what? Anything. Everything.
And people will ALWAYS pay modest amounts for packaged content. Because they are buying "ease of use", and "time". Why spend hours collecting and organizing pirated content when I can buy content already collected and organized? But mostly we CAN'T get our content packaged the way we want because of copyright. Because Big Content wants the past to continue. We pirate because we can't buy content at prices we can afford, and can't get it in the form we want to consume it in.
Big content wants to swallow the reductions in cost provided by the Internet (Little distribution costs, no manufacturing costs, no retail costs) but collect the same level of revenue on every sell. They want NOBODY else to make a dime. They want it all, mailed to them with a kiss, without providing any value to the consumer. Sorry, but that isn't the way it works.
Big content wants to make us all criminals by making content effectively illegal in the ways we want to consume content, unless we pay, and pay big. Higher prices even as the magnitude of available content explodes? How does that work with Supply and Demand? Oh wait! Copyright ISN'T about Supply and Demand, but how much Government Granted Monopolies can make the population pay for their content!
If you dig conspiracies, then Government wants the consumption of content illegal so they can be bigger, and can selectively put people in jail they don't like, and to suppress free speech, and as an excuse to exert more and more control over the population as a whole. If you don't care for conspiracies, then our politicians just want the contributions from Hollywood. Either way is bad for the common man.
We need to vastly cut back copyright, or accept that any of our children will have their future selectively demolished over copyright should they cross someone that doesn't like them. We need to cut back copyright unless we accept a desert of legal content in an ocean of available content. We need to cut back on copyright unless it is okay to censor the Internet and censor free speech and silence the citizens because some copyright might be infringed upon.
This is a rant. Yes, but it is also the truth.
... They blow up security checkpoints.
Do a search on "bombing security checkpoint". Terrorists world wide (outside the U.S.) bomb security checkpoints as a matter of course. Terrorists know to do this, and in the U.S. we line people up in dense groupings at our security checkpoints.
If we are going to be bombed, we are going to be bombed. However, ANY huge, predictable, static crowds of people outside security is just BEGGING for an attack. Maybe we need a swift surface security check before an intensive one. But whatever, what we are doing now is obviously stupid.
Toss the TSA, and go back to sane, "walk through the detector" security. Spend the money looking for suspicious behavior, and utilize non-intrusive technology like dogs and electronic bomb sniffers. X-Ray luggage. Follow up on intelligence.
But can the hugely expensive, useless security theater.
Unfortunately, "obvious" has a particular meaning within the context of patents.
"Non-obviousness" is the term used in US patent law to describe one of the requirements that an invention must meet to qualify for patentability, codified in 35 U.S.C. 103. One of the main requirements of patentability is that the invention being patented is not obvious, meaning that a "person having ordinary skill in the art" would not know how to solve the problem at which the invention is directed by using exactly the same mechanism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventive_step_and_non-obviousness#United_States
Thus when I say there is little in the iPhone that isn't "obvious".... I mean that there little to the device that can or should be patented.
I never meant what you thought I meant.
I should point out, from the beginning, my focus has been on Patents, and defining "invention" in terms of what can be covered by a patent. I re-read this entire thread, and I think your anger at me is misplaced. As I started this conversation, and set its topic, there isn't any reason to expect me to understand that you want to talk about a less objective definition of "invention" rather than continue the discussion under its original terms, where "invention" means something covered by a patent.
I never insulted the iPhone, and never discounted the mark the iPhone made on the market. But that doesn't mean that there is anything about the iPhone that is inventive in the sense that it can be or should be protected by a patent. Let's be clear, not all truly inventive products can be patented, and many truly inventive products can infringe on existing patents. It is the latter fact that corporations use to limit competition. No big company wants to have to press forward with new products and services when the existing ones are bringing in the cash. It is better to just patent new products out of the market place, and sue any competition than to innovate by putting new products into the market place that could change the game and reduce existing revenue streams.
Bottom line: The discussion is on Patents, and how Patents define invention. This isn't about what we think about the iPhone.