"Other than the typical FUD about how society would turn into a conglomerate of raving lunatics who would eventually kill each other off... what's bad about it?"
As I said in my origional post - without government who would enforce contracts, correct monopolies, and provide pure public goods?
Another major function is government is solving prisoner's dilemma senerios, PDs being particular problem for anarchy. For example, people are fighting over a particular common resource that will be depleated unless an agreement is made and enforced. The parties may chafe under the enforced agreement, but the alternative is a depleated resource which would be worse for everyone.
Another problem with anarchy is that some individuals would form coalitions to take on and extort individuals not in their on coalition. The resulting group of forced coalitions, likely each with their own hierarchy, isn't really anarchy anymore, is it?
"Care to name any [pure public goods]?"
Any good that is nonrilverous (my use doesnt prevent you from using it) and nonexcludable (you cannot prevent me from enjoying the good) is a pure public good.
-National defense: (If national defense is provided and you want to charge people for it, you'd encounter many free riders who would allow others to foot the bill while they would enjoy the protection for free.)
-Cure for a disease: (If you develop a cure for an infectious disease any individual would benefit. However, unless this person is infected, you would likely encouter free riders who would let others pay for the development of the cure).
If you can't exclude people from enjoying the good how do you provide a market for it? Can't - only government though taxation can provide these goods. How much does the government tax and spend on pure public goods for the optimal ammount of wellbeing in society? Well, that's a good question and you can begin to see the complexity that gives economists jobs.
"And turning them into legal cartels. No real difference."
Who is to say why these officals don't see the harm done from cartels, or not dealing with monopolies. I'd recommend more economics courses for them if they could stand it:).
"Government cannot interfere in a free market - IN ANY WAY - without distorting it."
And 'distortion' is defacto bad? No. Monopoly is a distortion itself as it reduces quantity available to raise the price (harming the public in the process). Government can correct this harm.
There are also other times market failure can and does take place. The best, and perhaps only, way to fix many of these problems is by government intervention.
"There is no such thing as a 'pure public good' "
You have never heard of national defense? Perhaps public broadcasting? These goods are pure public good in that they are nonrivalrous and nonexcludable. How else, but from government, do you sell/provide a service that you cannot exclude people from enjoying?
"'Pure public goods' are a misnomer; they inevitably wind up "belonging" to a certain elite class at the continuing expense of the rest of the populace"
Your ignorance of the term is plain. If you knew what a pure public good was you would know they are nonexcludable, i.e. my use of the good does not prevent you from also enjoying it thus no one can 'own' or possess it. (If your still unsure, think of national defense, a cure for a disease, or the view of a mountain).
"Monopoly - total control of a particular industry - is a natural extension of regulation."
Thats an interesting definition, although not the usual one for monopoly. A monopoly is usually defined by how much monopoly power a firm possesses, i.e. the ability to set the price for a given good. How does one determine monopoly power? Usually by using a few tools a common being the Lerner Index (Price - Marginal Cost / Price). Since in perfect competition P = MC, the Lerner index would be 0. Monopoly is usually defined as being above a threshold, say 0.9, not 1 which would be your definition of 'total control'.
Another tool, which I am sure you know since you are an expert, is the Herfindahl Index - a measure of monopoly in an industry as a whole. 100% market share = 10,000 on the Index. Monopoly use usually defined by an index somewhat less then 10,000 which is in your definition 'total control'.
"You need a lesson or two in economics"
Thanks, I could always use another degree in economics. Perhaps it might be best to follow your own advice though by looking some of these definitions up before commenting - even armchair economics can be hard without some research before hand;).
I dont recall anyone ever saying that government has no place in a free market economy. Without government there would be anarchy, and that seems to be bad for business;).
Government does many things including provide for enforcement of contracts (legal system), provide pure public goods, ontop of busting up monopolies.
"Once there, you jettison the sale, or use it to fly around the star system."
Perhaps you'd like to explain how jettisoning a solar sail has enough force to
slow down the craft.
That sail would have to be pretty massive, like the mass of a planet, in order
to counteract years of acceleration so you could push it away from yourself to
slow down;).
That is the problem with getting somewhere in space. To get there the fastest
you have to accelerate continually there till the 1/2 way point, turn the ship
around around and use an equal force / fuel to decelerate. Reminds me of a
scene in Battle Star Galatica Crew Member: "Sir we've ran out of fuel", Admiral
"Come to a complete stop", The right reply: "But Sir, I said we ran out
of fuel".
"There is nearly nothing in the way of verification on Wikipedia."
Are you joking?
First of all, people may not be generally smart but usually people are smart, very smart, at least one thing and usually it is because it is a topic they are interested in. Such people navigate to their topic of interest on Wikipedia and can can see easily if there are any factual problems. Second, there is nothing illegal about cross referencing a wikipedia article with other sources or encyclopedias to *verify* the facts - The only no-no is copying material directly. Third, there are many 'professionals', professors and other university graduates, who also contribute. There are probably more voulinteering for wikipedia then the total number working at other encyclopedias.
Plus if you think there are any factual errors you raise the point in the article discussion page, and within hours the issue probably has been reviewed by dozens of people. Believe me, from experience, if someone puts in nonsense or nonfactual information into an article people immediately engage discussion on the point. People, including me:), can really quite anal if they think someone is being blantly false.
Stem cells seem to know what to wire though. Putting stem cells near kidney cells turns them into kidney cells. The cells themselves must have known how to wire it in the first place (since we can see).
I think much more money should be spent in this kind of research. Immortality is just around the corner if successful brain transplants can take place. As well people inprisoned in quadriplegic bodies can be helped by this research along with many others with similiar neuron/motor neuron problems.
What benefit is it to society to have copyright so long that the great grandchildren of the authors have say over the work?
Copyright should end at death, and be at most 30 years in length. 30 years seems like a reasonable amount of time to get money out of the monopoly on the expression of an idea.
The U.S. should take a cue from Canada: long parlementary vacation periods.
When our 'leaders' aren't in session to fuck up the country with shit laws, everything runs more smoothly. Three - four month vacation periods here in Canada for parlement (provincial and federal) are not uncommon during a year, sometimes even more. Encourage your leaders to do the same.
Sneaking into a movie suggests that to drive there they likely would have paid but for going in the back for free.
Sneaking into the movie harms the owner in that you are taking up a seat, parking, the usher's time monitoring you, heating / lighting, the 2 hours property taxes you were there.
Downloading a copy does not necessarily result in any harm. Thats the key difference, and why copyright infrindgement different from stealing.
Going and seeing a movie for free necessarily harms the movie owner in that you are taking up a a seat, room, parking, the Usher's time monitoring you, the lighting etc.
Downloading information does not necessarily harm anyone.
I hope the difference is even clearer now:). With copyright infrindgement there is possible harm, with stealing there is always harm.
"CAM-copy distributed on the internet is no better than sneaking in the back door of the theater?"
When will people learn there is a difference between the copying of information that has an artifical barrier on it (i.e. copyright) and physically stealing?
To make the difference clearer: it is possible that a person downloading it off the internet would not have bothered to buy or rent the movie anyway. Going in the back door suggests highly a lost sale.
"Why? Although McD's produces a ton of greaseburgers, there simply won't be enough used oil to produce enough fuel for everyone."
I think they would grow more crops specifically *for* biodieasel. i.e. We don't have to wait for someone to put french fries in it before we can use it as fuel.
This would likely also make farmers more profitable and keep more of our lands for biomass instead of concrete and roads.
"People toss the term "monopoly" around quite inaccurately, I think."
Yes, people like you. I will correct your mistakes and misconceptions though.
"I mean, of course record companies have a "virtual monopoly" on making
records. But canned air makers have a "virtual monopoly" on canned air. Super
glue makers have a "virtual monopoly" on super glue. So what?"
Canned air makers do not have a monopoly since there is no barrier to entry,
i.e. I myself can can air right now. Super glue is also not a monopoly since
there are readily available alternatives.
In order for monopoly to exist you need: 1) Strong barriers to entry and no
close alternatives.
The RIAA is a a monopoly in that they exert monopoly power like a cartel (e.g.
OPEC). The blatent evidence is that the RIAA was recently fined for abusing
their monopoly to gouge consumers and were fined under US anti-trust laws.
"Microsoft is saying that they can shift their cost curve, customers will pay"
It isn't necessarily monopoly that allows Microsoft to shift their costs but the inelasticity of demand for the goods (Operating systems).
Necessary goods, like say gasoline, has a very vertical (inelastic) demand curve: i.e. a shift in price does not reduce quanity demanded much. If it is exactly vertical then any tax or extra fees are born entirely by the consumer.
Similiarly if the demand curve is horizontal then the business bares all the cost of the tax.
"When you hear a song you want, go to the store or whatever source, and buy it."
And buy it each time the media its stored on goes out of date, and buy it each time you want to listen to it since the future of DRM is that you will only rent the information, and buy it each time anyone other then you wants to listen to it (i.e. your friends over for a party).
Why stop at music too? Every time you want to read something you'll have to 'buy it', no more Havens of Copyright Infrindgement and Free Information (A.K.A. libraries).
You may like this information consumerism future, but I don't and will fight against it.
"I just want to know when we're finally going to go nuclear (nuculer?) with the back and forth patent infringment suits "
You musn't have hard of MAD. It would not be in these companies' best interests to sue each other into dustruction, so they won't.
The problem is the open source community does not have many, if any, patents so all of the companies can sue them since they've no patents to use as deterrence.
"...and the result is an upset. As reported earlier, this election was conducted entirely through Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs)."
I see no reason why using EVMs would necessarily result in an 'upset', unless of course they are using closed source voting machines in which no one can review the code to see there isn't any hanky panky.
Things that should be open source: voting machines, encryption programs, anonymous p2p applications, the majority of things dealing with security.
"Advertising isn't intended to sell something to consumers"
One theory, by Marshall
McLuhan, is that commercials aren't meant for people to *buy* the product,
but simply to reassure people who did buy it to buy it again.
As for studies to indicate the effectivenss of advertising, it is somewhat easy to find this out. You take a group of people,
randomly split them into two, one gets to watch a blank screen for 30 seconds,
the other gets to watch a screen with pepsi on it (with probably some other
stimulus for both groups to hide what the experimenter is doing like maybe a
short film for both as well). Then you observe both groups to see if there
is any differences in behaviour when walking past a pepsi pop machine placed
outside the room.
"The news media do not directly and intentionally create the victims
they show. And the victims in violent movies are not actually victims."
The victim analogy is the argument against those that say that child
pornography promotes illegal activities (i.e. encourages pedophiles to commit
crimes) so violent movies must also be banned as they promote people to commit
violence (which is also illegal).
"'Child sexual behavior with others' is a peculiarly literal way to
describe reality of kiddie porn. Infants and young children used the way the
goat-sex guy uses animals would be closer to the truth."
Your comment about goat-sex guy, goatse.cx, is quit telling in that it
suggests you've haven't a clue. No animals were on that website, simply a man
showing his anus. If you mean another 'famous' goat-sex guy that has sex
with animals, you'll have to be more specific since I am not up to speed on the latest
internet bestiality trends.
Why was goatse.cx shut down, now that *is* another interesting question,
since I've yet, again, to see any compelling evidence that seeing such a picture
would constitute harm, at least harm enough to justify total censorship of
the website in question.
"Healthy sexuality, as defined in the modern, western, world begins with
informed consent, freedom from coercion and the expectation of privacy."
Healthy sexuality may very well start with consent, but this general
statement of yours is far from a compelling argument that sexuality in children
*always* constitutes harm, i.e. is never victimless.
"It is not by any stretch of the imagination a victimless crime."
I've yet to see strong arguments or studies that child sexual behaviour with
others is always necessarily harmful. (Few studies probably because anyone studying
this issue is strongly frowned upon, esp. if you present any scientific evidence
contrary to the mainstream perception that sexuality is harmful).
More to the point, if the standard of making images illegal is that there are
'victims' portrayed, then surely violent news and movies (or any other images of
illegal activities) with victims must similarly be outlawed in your opinion.
1) Like you said, F/OSS organizations should file for their own patents that are freely
available for all to use. I am unsure how this will be sponsored though
since filing for a patent is nontrivially expensive.
2) Support PubPat in looking for prior art
for the worse offending patents against free / open source software, and other
patents that are harmful to society. A
story
from Groklaw about PubPat.
3) Try to get patent reform done including disallowing software patents, and
have more patent examiners hired with actual experience so they can sniff out
bogus claims.
Slashdot Mirror
"Other than the typical FUD about how society would turn into a conglomerate of raving lunatics who would eventually kill each other off... what's bad about it?"
:).
As I said in my origional post - without government who would enforce contracts, correct monopolies, and provide pure public goods?
Another major function is government is solving prisoner's dilemma senerios, PDs being particular problem for anarchy. For example, people are fighting over a particular common resource that will be depleated unless an agreement is made and enforced. The parties may chafe under the enforced agreement, but the alternative is a depleated resource which would be worse for everyone.
Another problem with anarchy is that some individuals would form coalitions to take on and extort individuals not in their on coalition. The resulting group of forced coalitions, likely each with their own hierarchy, isn't really anarchy anymore, is it?
"Care to name any [pure public goods]?"
Any good that is nonrilverous (my use doesnt prevent you from using it) and nonexcludable (you cannot prevent me from enjoying the good) is a pure public good.
-National defense: (If national defense is provided and you want to charge people for it, you'd encounter many free riders who would allow others to foot the bill while they would enjoy the protection for free.)
-Cure for a disease: (If you develop a cure for an infectious disease any individual would benefit. However, unless this person is infected, you would likely encouter free riders who would let others pay for the development of the cure).
If you can't exclude people from enjoying the good how do you provide a market for it? Can't - only government though taxation can provide these goods. How much does the government tax and spend on pure public goods for the optimal ammount of wellbeing in society? Well, that's a good question and you can begin to see the complexity that gives economists jobs.
"And turning them into legal cartels. No real difference."
Who is to say why these officals don't see the harm done from cartels, or not dealing with monopolies. I'd recommend more economics courses for them if they could stand it
"Government cannot interfere in a free market - IN ANY WAY - without distorting it."
;).
And 'distortion' is defacto bad? No. Monopoly is a distortion itself as it reduces quantity available to raise the price (harming the public in the process). Government can correct this harm.
There are also other times market failure can and does take place. The best, and perhaps only, way to fix many of these problems is by government intervention.
"There is no such thing as a 'pure public good' "
You have never heard of national defense? Perhaps public broadcasting? These goods are pure public good in that they are nonrivalrous and nonexcludable. How else, but from government, do you sell/provide a service that you cannot exclude people from enjoying?
"'Pure public goods' are a misnomer; they inevitably wind up "belonging" to a certain elite class at the continuing expense of the rest of the populace"
Your ignorance of the term is plain. If you knew what a pure public good was you would know they are nonexcludable, i.e. my use of the good does not prevent you from also enjoying it thus no one can 'own' or possess it. (If your still unsure, think of national defense, a cure for a disease, or the view of a mountain).
"Monopoly - total control of a particular industry - is a natural extension of regulation."
Thats an interesting definition, although not the usual one for monopoly. A monopoly is usually defined by how much monopoly power a firm possesses, i.e. the ability to set the price for a given good. How does one determine monopoly power? Usually by using a few tools a common being the Lerner Index (Price - Marginal Cost / Price). Since in perfect competition P = MC, the Lerner index would be 0. Monopoly is usually defined as being above a threshold, say 0.9, not 1 which would be your definition of 'total control'.
Another tool, which I am sure you know since you are an expert, is the Herfindahl Index - a measure of monopoly in an industry as a whole. 100% market share = 10,000 on the Index. Monopoly use usually defined by an index somewhat less then 10,000 which is in your definition 'total control'.
"You need a lesson or two in economics"
Thanks, I could always use another degree in economics. Perhaps it might be best to follow your own advice though by looking some of these definitions up before commenting - even armchair economics can be hard without some research before hand
I dont recall anyone ever saying that government has no place in a free market economy. Without government there would be anarchy, and that seems to be bad for business ;).
Government does many things including provide for enforcement of contracts (legal system), provide pure public goods, ontop of busting up monopolies.
"Once there, you jettison the sale, or use it to fly around the star system."
;).
Perhaps you'd like to explain how jettisoning a solar sail has enough force to slow down the craft.
That sail would have to be pretty massive, like the mass of a planet, in order to counteract years of acceleration so you could push it away from yourself to slow down
That is the problem with getting somewhere in space. To get there the fastest you have to accelerate continually there till the 1/2 way point, turn the ship around around and use an equal force / fuel to decelerate. Reminds me of a scene in Battle Star Galatica Crew Member: "Sir we've ran out of fuel", Admiral "Come to a complete stop", The right reply: "But Sir, I said we ran out of fuel".
"Hatch says such firms 'think that they can legally profit by inducing children to steal."
Thankfully I only use P2P programs that are GPL, and thus free as in beer, so little if any profit motivation there.
The best p2p applications are usually free / open source like eMule, Freenet, and how apparently even Shareza 2.0 is open sourced under the GPL.
"There is nearly nothing in the way of verification on Wikipedia."
:), can really quite anal if they think someone is being blantly false.
Are you joking?
First of all, people may not be generally smart but usually people are smart, very smart, at least one thing and usually it is because it is a topic they are interested in. Such people navigate to their topic of interest on Wikipedia and can can see easily if there are any factual problems. Second, there is nothing illegal about cross referencing a wikipedia article with other sources or encyclopedias to *verify* the facts - The only no-no is copying material directly. Third, there are many 'professionals', professors and other university graduates, who also contribute. There are probably more voulinteering for wikipedia then the total number working at other encyclopedias.
Plus if you think there are any factual errors you raise the point in the article discussion page, and within hours the issue probably has been reviewed by dozens of people. Believe me, from experience, if someone puts in nonsense or nonfactual information into an article people immediately engage discussion on the point. People, including me
Stem cells seem to know what to wire though. Putting stem cells near kidney cells turns them into kidney cells. The cells themselves must have known how to wire it in the first place (since we can see).
I think much more money should be spent in this kind of research. Immortality is just around the corner if successful brain transplants can take place. As well people inprisoned in quadriplegic bodies can be helped by this research along with many others with similiar neuron/motor neuron problems.
What benefit is it to society to have copyright so long that the great grandchildren of the authors have say over the work?
Copyright should end at death, and be at most 30 years in length. 30 years seems like a reasonable amount of time to get money out of the monopoly on the expression of an idea.
The U.S. should take a cue from Canada: long parlementary vacation periods.
When our 'leaders' aren't in session to fuck up the country with shit laws, everything runs more smoothly. Three - four month vacation periods here in Canada for parlement (provincial and federal) are not uncommon during a year, sometimes even more. Encourage your leaders to do the same.
Sneaking into a movie suggests that to drive there they likely would have paid but for going in the back for free.
Sneaking into the movie harms the owner in that you are taking up a seat, parking, the usher's time monitoring you, heating / lighting, the 2 hours property taxes you were there.
Downloading a copy does not necessarily result in any harm. Thats the key difference, and why copyright infrindgement different from stealing.
"I don't agree. Actually, I'd reverse it."
:). With copyright infrindgement there is possible harm, with stealing there is always harm.
Going and seeing a movie for free necessarily harms the movie owner in that you are taking up a a seat, room, parking, the Usher's time monitoring you, the lighting etc.
Downloading information does not necessarily harm anyone.
I hope the difference is even clearer now
"CAM-copy distributed on the internet is no better than sneaking in the back door of the theater?"
When will people learn there is a difference between the copying of information that has an artifical barrier on it (i.e. copyright) and physically stealing?
To make the difference clearer: it is possible that a person downloading it off the internet would not have bothered to buy or rent the movie anyway. Going in the back door suggests highly a lost sale.
"Why? Although McD's produces a ton of greaseburgers, there simply won't be enough used oil to produce enough fuel for everyone."
I think they would grow more crops specifically *for* biodieasel. i.e. We don't have to wait for someone to put french fries in it before we can use it as fuel.
This would likely also make farmers more profitable and keep more of our lands for biomass instead of concrete and roads.
"Nowhere in the Constitution is it written that freedom of speech implies that private organizations are obligated to provide a soapbox."
"their decision is not censorship"
What happens when 'private organizations' effectively own government?
Is 1984 any less 1984 if it turned out that Big Brother was a CEO instead of the president?
Disney's behaviour was directly motivated by political considerations. Censorship seems like an apt term.
"People toss the term "monopoly" around quite inaccurately, I think."
Yes, people like you. I will correct your mistakes and misconceptions though.
"I mean, of course record companies have a "virtual monopoly" on making records. But canned air makers have a "virtual monopoly" on canned air. Super glue makers have a "virtual monopoly" on super glue. So what?"
Canned air makers do not have a monopoly since there is no barrier to entry, i.e. I myself can can air right now. Super glue is also not a monopoly since there are readily available alternatives.
In order for monopoly to exist you need: 1) Strong barriers to entry and no close alternatives.
The RIAA is a a monopoly in that they exert monopoly power like a cartel (e.g. OPEC). The blatent evidence is that the RIAA was recently fined for abusing their monopoly to gouge consumers and were fined under US anti-trust laws.
"Microsoft is saying that they can shift their cost curve, customers will pay"
It isn't necessarily monopoly that allows Microsoft to shift their costs but the inelasticity of demand for the goods (Operating systems).
Necessary goods, like say gasoline, has a very vertical (inelastic) demand curve: i.e. a shift in price does not reduce quanity demanded much. If it is exactly vertical then any tax or extra fees are born entirely by the consumer.
Similiarly if the demand curve is horizontal then the business bares all the cost of the tax.
"When you hear a song you want, go to the store or whatever source, and buy it."
And buy it each time the media its stored on goes out of date, and buy it each time you want to listen to it since the future of DRM is that you will only rent the information, and buy it each time anyone other then you wants to listen to it (i.e. your friends over for a party).
Why stop at music too? Every time you want to read something you'll have to 'buy it', no more Havens of Copyright Infrindgement and Free Information (A.K.A. libraries).
You may like this information consumerism future, but I don't and will fight against it.
"I just want to know when we're finally going to go nuclear (nuculer?) with the back and forth patent infringment suits "
You musn't have hard of MAD. It would not be in these companies' best interests to sue each other into dustruction, so they won't.
The problem is the open source community does not have many, if any, patents so all of the companies can sue them since they've no patents to use as deterrence.
Ah the results the upset, i understand now :).
Don't change my message though, I look forward to more EVM's in the future if they are done correctly.
"...and the result is an upset. As reported earlier, this election was conducted entirely through Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs)."
I see no reason why using EVMs would necessarily result in an 'upset', unless of course they are using closed source voting machines in which no one can review the code to see there isn't any hanky panky.
Things that should be open source: voting machines, encryption programs, anonymous p2p applications, the majority of things dealing with security.
"Advertising isn't intended to sell something to consumers"
One theory, by Marshall McLuhan, is that commercials aren't meant for people to *buy* the product, but simply to reassure people who did buy it to buy it again.
As for studies to indicate the effectivenss of advertising, it is somewhat easy to find this out. You take a group of people, randomly split them into two, one gets to watch a blank screen for 30 seconds, the other gets to watch a screen with pepsi on it (with probably some other stimulus for both groups to hide what the experimenter is doing like maybe a short film for both as well). Then you observe both groups to see if there is any differences in behaviour when walking past a pepsi pop machine placed outside the room.
"The news media do not directly and intentionally create the victims they show. And the victims in violent movies are not actually victims."
The victim analogy is the argument against those that say that child pornography promotes illegal activities (i.e. encourages pedophiles to commit crimes) so violent movies must also be banned as they promote people to commit violence (which is also illegal).
"'Child sexual behavior with others' is a peculiarly literal way to describe reality of kiddie porn. Infants and young children used the way the goat-sex guy uses animals would be closer to the truth."
Your comment about goat-sex guy, goatse.cx, is quit telling in that it suggests you've haven't a clue. No animals were on that website, simply a man showing his anus. If you mean another 'famous' goat-sex guy that has sex with animals, you'll have to be more specific since I am not up to speed on the latest internet bestiality trends.
Why was goatse.cx shut down, now that *is* another interesting question, since I've yet, again, to see any compelling evidence that seeing such a picture would constitute harm, at least harm enough to justify total censorship of the website in question.
"Healthy sexuality, as defined in the modern, western, world begins with informed consent, freedom from coercion and the expectation of privacy."
Healthy sexuality may very well start with consent, but this general statement of yours is far from a compelling argument that sexuality in children *always* constitutes harm, i.e. is never victimless.
"It is not by any stretch of the imagination a victimless crime."
I've yet to see strong arguments or studies that child sexual behaviour with others is always necessarily harmful. (Few studies probably because anyone studying this issue is strongly frowned upon, esp. if you present any scientific evidence contrary to the mainstream perception that sexuality is harmful).
More to the point, if the standard of making images illegal is that there are 'victims' portrayed, then surely violent news and movies (or any other images of illegal activities) with victims must similarly be outlawed in your opinion.
The plan should be:
1) Like you said, F/OSS organizations should file for their own patents that are freely available for all to use. I am unsure how this will be sponsored though since filing for a patent is nontrivially expensive.
2) Support PubPat in looking for prior art for the worse offending patents against free / open source software, and other patents that are harmful to society. A story from Groklaw about PubPat.
3) Try to get patent reform done including disallowing software patents, and have more patent examiners hired with actual experience so they can sniff out bogus claims.