What are the real arguments regarding why intellectual property should be taken from the originator without consideration and be owned outright by the community? Why should only the people who work for material property be fed while the originators of the ideas that will keep us alive in this uncertain future and innovate every aspect of our lives not be fed? With present conditions of wealth polarization it is not unforeseeable that only a few individuals will soon own almost all the material wealth of the planet, but should they also have free access to the all people's ideas as well? In other words, why should a genius of a person who has, by their own gifts, constructed all the ideas required to protect this planet and guarantee a better future continue to volunteer their time only to plunge themselves into the lowest economic strata just because they dared to create a better world? Why should IP creators bother offering those ideas to the world - when what they can expect in return is for these ideas to be used oppressively back against themselves? Why should a genius who envisions and builds the best open source project be kept in a lower financial rank than a general menial laborer? This is what is happening isn't it? The people who own material wealth rule with few in touch, pragmatic, compassionate, reasonable, or brilliant ideas at their disposal and the geniuses are left to fend for themselves in reduced capacities - working through the night for the benefit of the world - only to be trespassed upon and further impoverished health wise, socially, and financially for the effort. Until we have strong intellectual property rights and stronger open source property right agreements we are doomed to be ruled by the most materialistic and meglomaniac of the bunch rather than those most innovative, giving, considerate, and gifted.
What I find most interesting when reading old newspaper articles is how much the news hasn't changed. It seems that society continually struggles with the same old arguments, the same old social problems, the same old quick-fix schemes that don't work, the same diversions, the same old same old. I remember thinking to myself that news changes so little (with only the faces and names changing) that after witnessing about a decade of news you have no real need for anymore.
Why not use the power of slashdot to create a new thread dedicated to coming up with the best name for the firefox browser? Certainly slashdotters will come up with something brilliant, yet not previously adopted.
Let's get this society back into the swing of things and open the floodgates of innovation once again before we stagnate into a purely legalistic quagmire.
1st lets change patent laws so that only individuals (real people) can own patents. This would force corporations to deal with human beings and support the really inventive ones.
2nd lets make short terms for patent protections without appeal. This would free up the the possibility for inventors to actually dream about inventing again without the immediate afterthought "but I will just get sued into bankrupcy if I dare attempt to actually do anything with my invention."
Maybe this is a technical question rather than a philosophical one. If a virtual community was setup with a moderated point system for each user depending on different categories of speech appropriateness and/or style and each user in turn could choose their own virtual experience to either omit or include their presence based on their own preferences then censorship would no longer belong to the general domain of virtual community as a whole but rather would enter the domain of censorship through the specific filtering preferences of each user. This would mean that each user would get a different set of virtual acquaintances based not on a dictated form of general censorship but through each user's own modifications and filter specifications. It would be like having a slashdot that was moderated separately for each user depending one what they were looking for and expecting regarding appropriateness of content.
Slashdot Mirror
There seems to be a difference between being outside on your own private property and being in public.
What are the real arguments regarding why intellectual property should be taken from the originator without consideration and be owned outright by the community? Why should only the people who work for material property be fed while the originators of the ideas that will keep us alive in this uncertain future and innovate every aspect of our lives not be fed? With present conditions of wealth polarization it is not unforeseeable that only a few individuals will soon own almost all the material wealth of the planet, but should they also have free access to the all people's ideas as well? In other words, why should a genius of a person who has, by their own gifts, constructed all the ideas required to protect this planet and guarantee a better future continue to volunteer their time only to plunge themselves into the lowest economic strata just because they dared to create a better world? Why should IP creators bother offering those ideas to the world - when what they can expect in return is for these ideas to be used oppressively back against themselves? Why should a genius who envisions and builds the best open source project be kept in a lower financial rank than a general menial laborer? This is what is happening isn't it? The people who own material wealth rule with few in touch, pragmatic, compassionate, reasonable, or brilliant ideas at their disposal and the geniuses are left to fend for themselves in reduced capacities - working through the night for the benefit of the world - only to be trespassed upon and further impoverished health wise, socially, and financially for the effort. Until we have strong intellectual property rights and stronger open source property right agreements we are doomed to be ruled by the most materialistic and meglomaniac of the bunch rather than those most innovative, giving, considerate, and gifted.
What I find most interesting when reading old newspaper articles is how much the news hasn't changed. It seems that society continually struggles with the same old arguments, the same old social problems, the same old quick-fix schemes that don't work, the same diversions, the same old same old. I remember thinking to myself that news changes so little (with only the faces and names changing) that after witnessing about a decade of news you have no real need for anymore.
Now if only Novell still had the wordperfect code to donate to OO - what a wonderful thing that would be!
At least we should send a probe to Europa before whatever lurks under Europa's ice sends one to us. Think of it as an interstellar space race!
Why not use the power of slashdot to create a new thread dedicated to coming up with the best name for the firefox browser? Certainly slashdotters will come up with something brilliant, yet not previously adopted.
Let's get this society back into the swing of things and open the floodgates of innovation once again before we stagnate into a purely legalistic quagmire. 1st lets change patent laws so that only individuals (real people) can own patents. This would force corporations to deal with human beings and support the really inventive ones. 2nd lets make short terms for patent protections without appeal. This would free up the the possibility for inventors to actually dream about inventing again without the immediate afterthought "but I will just get sued into bankrupcy if I dare attempt to actually do anything with my invention."
This could be another of Microsoft's classic blunders in PR foresight - it was the time they let their Jared (as in Subway) get away.
Out of a rocky start, Mike Rowe is off on honeymoon with Microsoft although that must not give consolation to his ex Wendy Owes.
Maybe this is a technical question rather than a philosophical one. If a virtual community was setup with a moderated point system for each user depending on different categories of speech appropriateness and/or style and each user in turn could choose their own virtual experience to either omit or include their presence based on their own preferences then censorship would no longer belong to the general domain of virtual community as a whole but rather would enter the domain of censorship through the specific filtering preferences of each user. This would mean that each user would get a different set of virtual acquaintances based not on a dictated form of general censorship but through each user's own modifications and filter specifications. It would be like having a slashdot that was moderated separately for each user depending one what they were looking for and expecting regarding appropriateness of content.
Quick send us over some intelligent lifeforms!
It sounds like it's time for a cease and deCSS order to be put in place.
Everybody knows in the sticks that when you get a worm in your apple it just means you are getting a little extra protein in your snack.
Let me guess they have spiral binding and come with their own pencil!
I can see it now, Apple making multiple jacks versions of I-Pod, there will be the romantic two jack wE-Pod and the six jack Party-Pod versions.