As a Democrat Christian, I have several(well two main ones) objections to your Republican rant.
First, as so many others have pointed out, the Senator mentioned in this piece is a Democrat.
Second, the Republican party is NOT the 'political' wing of the Christian faith (although there are many people on both sides who believe it to be). Yes, Republicans are mostly Christians and Christians are mostly Republicans, but there are many Christians who are Democrats, and most Democrats are Christians. Thus, there are many Christians who are not social conservatives with respect to government; they don't think the government should legislate controversial morality. They recognize the value of Separation of Church and State; they don't want government in religion or vice versa.
As an aside(my objections are now done, wrt your post), this law, if passed, is likely to have very little effect? Aren't many, if not most, online pornography site hosted overseas? Plus, even so, this wouldn't affect online pornography where no money is changing hands, your inbox will still be filled with pornographic spam that links to 'samples'.
Problem is, people cry foul about so-called "activist judges" or judges "legislating from the bench" quite often when they disagree with certain decisions handed down by judges. Its not necessarily wrong to disagree with a judge's reasons for handing down a decision, but to say a judge is making law because you don't agree with the judge's interpretation of the law is a bit presumptuous. There is no such thing as a single correct interpretation of the law or our Constitution(at the very least, even if there were, we, as a people, do not agree on what that is). That's why we have the judicial branch, to judge how the law applies and what it means.
The fifth year you realize that you can hear (admittedly very little, but some) distortion even at the highest possible Vorbis quality you can get
Or you realize you are getting older, and all those years of going to rock concerts without earplugs and cranking up the volume on your stereo is starting to tell on your ears, and you can't really hear the difference between your 'better' encodings and the old 128 mp3s you used to listen to in the old days.
and despite all the Slashdot sensationalism about it, a lot of Windows users out there haven't been burned."
But a lot have been burned. In fact, almost every Windows user I know that uses IE has had problems with unwanted popups, spyware, etc. Its a good way to get them to try another browser, like Firefox. The merits of the browser will speak for themselves when they use it. If you just tell them how much 'nicer' their browsing experience will be when they switch, that won't convince as many to switch, they'll just think its too much trouble. However, point out some of the vulnerabilities that we see so frequently in IE, that could allow malicious person to run, say, a keystroke logger on their computer, or hijack it to support illegal activities(whether the owner of the hijacked computer would have any legal liability is a question that has not really been tested in courts, as far as I know).
IIRC, Apple generates more revenue from selling ipods than selling music on iTunes. It would seem to me that allowing competitors to hack the ipod so their formats can play on the ipod would only benefit sales of the ipod, and therefore be beneficial to Apple.
On a related note, one of the reasons I opted for Neuros over the ipod was the formats it supported by default.
The only thing I can think of is that they hope to lock people into iTunes with their ipods, and find some way to start turning more of a profit(milking the customers for more $$$ and/or cutting some costs) with actual iTunes sales once they reach some critical mass.
See, now, that is just silly. If you are trying to get capital back into the marketplace, would you rather send back $1200, or $18,750?
Umm, I think that the number of people who would be getting back something like $1200 in your example would be far greater than the number of people getting back something like $18,750. I would also claim that having $1200 reduction in taxes for a person making $20,000 per year improves that person's standard of living more than a $18,750 reduction in taxes for a person that makes $150,000 improves that person's standard of living(I think it is reasonable to weight affect on standard of living so that your money that addresses more basic needs has more impact on effective standard of living, ie., having one car rather than no car improves your standard of living more than having 3 cars rather than 2 cars). Also notice that this greater effect is applying to more people.
Efficiency and equity are two commonly competing goals in public policy. A flat tax would be more efficient than our progressive tax, but whatever percentage it would be, it would be a bigger effective burden on people who have to budget for basic needs. Hence the flat tax would not be very equitable. On the other hand, complete equity(wealth being distributed so that everyone has the same after the government is done) is extremely inefficient, to the point that such a system is not viable. The key is to find a good balance; when people on the left argue that its not progressive enough, or that the latest tax cut was weighted too heavily to the rich, it is not because of any lack of understanding how much is paid by whom or who benefits, it is because they believe that the equity that is gained is worthwhile, and outweighs or equals the loss in efficiency. When they feel that a certain increase in taxes on the rich decreases efficiency in a way that outweighs the gain in equity, then they won't support such increases.
Copyright: Sharman Networks Ltd does not condone activities and actions that breach the rights of copyright owners. As a Kazaa Media Desktop user
you have agreed to abide by the End User License Agreement and it is your responsibility to obey all laws governing copyright in each country.
So Kazaa explicitly warns people to obey copyright laws of their jurisdictions. Kazaa does not induce infringement. It also, to its credit, has information for parents to protect their children from 'harmful' content, and everything concerning what information is shared, being a supernode, and how to enable/disable this stuff is explained on the site, so any claims of inducement by 'duping' customers into infringing copyrights should also be summarily rejected.
Still, I fear the 'reasonable person' standard will be too easy to prove, and that even Kazaa might be found guilty of inducing infringement under the new law. Somehow the fact that Sharman Networks benefits from infringement of its customers will be spun into a case that Sharman Networks 'induces' copyrights and lures children, despite explicit evidence to the contrary.
Hatch in his comments about the legislation, said the RIAA 'has to' have someone to sue, and since they couldn't prove inducement charges under current law, they need to lower the bar. Even if every company(in the US) that distributes P2P software is sued out of existence, the programs are still out there on people's computers; P2P networks will still work, and then there are P2P companies in other countries, who will not be affected by this law at all. All this will do is give the RIAA someone else to sue in addition to those they are already sueing(their customers).
Of course it is a solution, to pick a distro with a better or more convenient packaging system. I must also say, that with RPM systems like Redhat, you usually, pick your applications in the install process, and everything is handled for you. Heck, if you pick default install options, everything most users need is installed by default. Certainly convenient enough for a home user that surfs the web, checks email, listens to music, writes term papers, and maybe occasionally plays a game of Freecell. Some people will have applications that they really can only get for or use in Windows, but I bet for most people that think that its not really true(not that they don't have valid reasons for sticking with Windows, but reasons like, I can't use Word or Outlook are usually pretty weak, since there are equivalent and generally compatible alternatives).
But for a society to thrive and function, there must be a common ground defined, a shared ethical framework that is fair to everyone
I think that's called law, except that law != ethics. People's ethical systems and beliefs are different. Many(if not most) people don't find anything ethically or morally wrong with copying for one's own personal use a copyrighted work without paying for it or otherwise without permission. Fewer I would wager think it is ethical to turn around and share that work(because of the reasons you mentioned of denying other potential sales, even if you wouldn't have bought it anyway).
emusic.com tends to have less mainstream(ie, major record label) stuff, lots of variety, but you may or may not find what you are into. I've gotten into several new bands that I didn't know about before I became an emusic customer.
allofmp3 tends to have lots of mainstream stuff and probably is closer to what you find on iTunes, but with a lot of oddball things(a lot of overlap with emusic, actually) you won't find on iTunes(its been a while though since I browsed the iTunes store to see what they have).
emusic pricing averaging $0.22 per track(with premium subscription) for mostly high quality VBR mp3s(no DRM and platform restrictions).
allofmp3 pricing of about $.01 per megabyte downloaded(most albums will cost less than $0.99 unless you encode at very high rate) with your choice of compression formats and quality levels(again, no DRM or platform restrictions).
Not at all pointless. The paper trail is not going to be used for a recount in every district. The idea is that you only recount a couple(ie, enough to have reasonable statistical confidence in the machines not checked) of random districts or machines for each vendor, to verify that the machines are accurate. This is a means of quality control. There would be no doubt or delay in these checks because of things like hanging chads, no basis for wondering what the 'intent' the voter had, because they will be printed by a machine.
Note that the possibility of this kind of quality control by election officials will give voting machine vendors more incentive to be really sure things work and are accurate and secure.
Would you also think it's right to scan and reprint a magazine or book for a friend?
Actually, yes. I believe the standard for what qualifies as copyright infringement should be that it is commercial copying, done for the purpose of selling those copies in competition with the copyright holder. That is the only case where there is quantifiable($) demand for a work that is being diverted from the copyright holder. If it is not commercial infringement(ie, any kind of copying or sharing in which there is no exchange of money), it is very hard to make a case that the copyright holder is even being harmed.
First of all, yes. The RIAA's legal stance is that any downloading is copyright infringement, even if you own the CD
IANAL, but I'm pretty sure this stance is bunk, legally. Which is one of the reasons they are suing the people who are sharing the files(the other being that its easier to make a case for damages, because the 'I wouldn't have bought it anyway or I already owned it' defense would be irrelevant).
To be sure, there IS copyright infingement involved when you download something, but the infringement is by the person that was sharing the file. It's more effective to cut off the source than to stop every person who wants to download, at least in theory. In practice it cannot be done, stopping the distribution of their works on p2p networks. It would also make more business sense for record labels to take part in voluntary collective licensing. Instead, they choose to try to stop filesharing which according to some more recent studies, does not affect music sales to a statistically significant degree.
Aside from the fact that your link is about US law, and the article is about a patent infringement case in Canada(ie, assuming that the laws are substantially similar), the patent is on the gene and the process of putting it in a plant to confer Roundup resistance, not on the plant itself. According to the dissenting Justices, precedent exists in Canadian Law and some court decisions that indicates an entire plant is not patentable. Of course, IANACL (IANAL either).
The way I see it, Monsanto's patent protections are intended to protect against competitors who would use the same techniques to create Roundup resistant plants using the same gene.
Monsanto doesn't need (this paragraph about what Monsanto does or doesn't need is, I think, however,irrelevant to whether the plant is patentable, ie, if Roundup was sold by another company and Monsanto's sole revenue came from Roundup Ready Crops, my answer would be the same, even though diffusion of the plants would be bad for Monsanto then) protection of the plant to give incentive, because Monsanto sells Roundup, and the diffusion of Roundup Ready crops will make more farmers buy Roundup. Arguably, people that spread "Monsanto's" seed are indirectly benefitting Monsanto.
On a Windows based machine: Step 1: Click on file Step 1: Press Control-C Step 1: Press Control-V
IANAL, but I don't think copyright law has any bearing on doing something like that, if there is no distribution. However, if I were doing that to copy the files to a public ftp server or p2p share directory or something, then it copyright law would have bearing on this. It's all about context and what the effect of the copying is.
I don't think you are violating copyright law by using hymn, unless you distribute the songs to other people(ie, I think your fair use rights prevail here over your TOS). But regardless, currently, because of the DMCA, that is moot, you violated the DMCA by circumventing protections, and that will be the case until this bill is enacted(hopefully soon).
Patents aren't needed for software, period. Software is already covered by copyrights. As for algorithms, they should be open game. It is stifling to innovation if I cannot use that algorithm to create new programs or properly build on it if I have to be beholden to some patent holder.
Suppose I put...Suppose I invent
You are using hyperbole here. Maybe 'truly innovative' was a little strong though(I didn't mean to imply that you were in no way building on the work of others), so I will say 'innovative and non-obvious'. Without these requirements patents would be valid merely for being first to do something and filing the application.
If patents were removed from law today, capitalism as we know it would disintegrate.
I think your doomsday scenarios are pure speculation. Sure there would be some significant changes due to the removal of the patent system. I don't think its clear what would happen. Companies would have to adjust to remain competitive in a freer market since they wouldn't have the crutch of patents to maintain profitability, but OTOH, we would lose the inefficiencies(such as patent related litigation) associated with a government mandated monopoly. It's an open question whether such inefficiencies are worthwhile. I actually do think they are worthwhile in some cases, if, as I said above they are applying only to traditional patent scope(ie, no patents on software/algorithms/business processes/or anything that could qualify as Free Speech), and only to innovative and non-obvious inventions with NO prior art.
The only thing that would save the world's economic structure would be government intervention on a massive scale.
More speculation...
In other words, communism. But thats what you anti-patent types are shooting for, right?
which I presume was used to setup your communism/anti-patent strawman.
"Our business plan dictates that we not patent our product. Patents are for cowards....hey where are you going??"
This wouldn't be a problem if the patent system were reasonable and you couldn't patent things like software, algorithms, or business methods. We can argue about whether a well implemented patent system is just or whether such a patent system is even possible, but it is clear we do not have such a system now. Examples of valid patents(ones awarded for truly innovative, and non-obvious inventions with no prior art) that maybe help innovation do not prove that the system is not horribly broken, or even that we are not better off without such a system altogether.
Not a strawman at all. It is clearly an analogy, and not all that bad of one, IMHO. A strawman is a logical fallacy where you make up some kind of weak argument and portray it as the argument for the other side.
But note: if the goal is to "legitimize" p2p so that artists get paid, how would you do it?
The EFF has come up with a solution called Voluntary Collective Licensing that would allow artists to be paid for filesharing that is going to occur anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
As a Democrat Christian, I have several(well two main ones) objections to your Republican rant.
First, as so many others have pointed out, the Senator mentioned in this piece is a Democrat.
Second, the Republican party is NOT the 'political' wing of the Christian faith (although there are many people on both sides who believe it to be). Yes, Republicans are mostly Christians and Christians are mostly Republicans, but there are many Christians who are Democrats, and most Democrats are Christians. Thus, there are many Christians who are not social conservatives with respect to government; they don't think the government should legislate controversial morality. They recognize the value of Separation of Church and State; they don't want government in religion or vice versa.
As an aside(my objections are now done, wrt your post), this law, if passed, is likely to have very little effect? Aren't many, if not most, online pornography site hosted overseas? Plus, even so, this wouldn't affect online pornography where no money is changing hands, your inbox will still be filled with pornographic spam that links to 'samples'.
Problem is, people cry foul about so-called "activist judges" or judges "legislating from the bench" quite often when they disagree with certain decisions handed down by judges. Its not necessarily wrong to disagree with a judge's reasons for handing down a decision, but to say a judge is making law because you don't agree with the judge's interpretation of the law is a bit presumptuous. There is no such thing as a single correct interpretation of the law or our Constitution(at the very least, even if there were, we, as a people, do not agree on what that is). That's why we have the judicial branch, to judge how the law applies and what it means.
The fifth year you realize that you can hear (admittedly very little, but some) distortion even at the highest possible Vorbis quality you can get
Or you realize you are getting older, and all those years of going to rock concerts without earplugs and cranking up the volume on your stereo is starting to tell on your ears, and you can't really hear the difference between your 'better' encodings and the old 128 mp3s you used to listen to in the old days.
1) 5%
2) 40%
3) 1%
4) 50%
5) 4%
Doesn't "customer" imply a purchase of some sort? I mean, maybe I'm just splitting hairs here, but if you steal something you're not really buying it.
Yeah, because people who use filesharing networks to try out stuff or find new interests *never* buy anything. ^^)
the EFF - I'm serious, both are proposing the solution to P2P is a compulsory broadband tax
Huh? Where did you see this? I assume you are incorrectly remembering this, which is totally different.
and despite all the Slashdot sensationalism about it, a lot of Windows users out there haven't been burned."
But a lot have been burned. In fact, almost every Windows user I know that uses IE has had problems with unwanted popups, spyware, etc. Its a good way to get them to try another browser, like Firefox. The merits of the browser will speak for themselves when they use it. If you just tell them how much 'nicer' their browsing experience will be when they switch, that won't convince as many to switch, they'll just think its too much trouble. However, point out some of the vulnerabilities that we see so frequently in IE, that could allow malicious person to run, say, a keystroke logger on their computer, or hijack it to support illegal activities(whether the owner of the hijacked computer would have any legal liability is a question that has not really been tested in courts, as far as I know).
Your progress bar has a bug(missing less-than sign on line 2). Guess its not such a trivial invention after all, is it? ;)
IIRC, Apple generates more revenue from selling ipods than selling music on iTunes. It would seem to me that allowing competitors to hack the ipod so their formats can play on the ipod would only benefit sales of the ipod, and therefore be beneficial to Apple.
On a related note, one of the reasons I opted for Neuros over the ipod was the formats it supported by default.
The only thing I can think of is that they hope to lock people into iTunes with their ipods, and find some way to start turning more of a profit(milking the customers for more $$$ and/or cutting some costs) with actual iTunes sales once they reach some critical mass.
See, now, that is just silly. If you are trying to get capital back into the marketplace, would you rather send back $1200, or $18,750?
Umm, I think that the number of people who would be getting back something like $1200 in your example would be far greater than the number of people getting back something like $18,750. I would also claim that having $1200 reduction in taxes for a person making $20,000 per year improves that person's standard of living more than a $18,750 reduction in taxes for a person that makes $150,000 improves that person's standard of living(I think it is reasonable to weight affect on standard of living so that your money that addresses more basic needs has more impact on effective standard of living, ie., having one car rather than no car improves your standard of living more than having 3 cars rather than 2 cars). Also notice that this greater effect is applying to more people.
Efficiency and equity are two commonly competing goals in public policy. A flat tax would be more efficient than our progressive tax, but whatever percentage it would be, it would be a bigger effective burden on people who have to budget for basic needs. Hence the flat tax would not be very equitable. On the other hand, complete equity(wealth being distributed so that everyone has the same after the government is done) is extremely inefficient, to the point that such a system is not viable. The key is to find a good balance; when people on the left argue that its not progressive enough, or that the latest tax cut was weighted too heavily to the rich, it is not because of any lack of understanding how much is paid by whom or who benefits, it is because they believe that the equity that is gained is worthwhile, and outweighs or equals the loss in efficiency. When they feel that a certain increase in taxes on the rich decreases efficiency in a way that outweighs the gain in equity, then they won't support such increases.
I could see Kazaa
Fine print from Sharman Networks:
Copyright: Sharman Networks Ltd does not condone activities and actions that breach the rights of copyright owners. As a Kazaa Media Desktop user you have agreed to abide by the End User License Agreement and it is your responsibility to obey all laws governing copyright in each country.
So Kazaa explicitly warns people to obey copyright laws of their jurisdictions. Kazaa does not induce infringement. It also, to its credit, has information for parents to protect their children from 'harmful' content, and everything concerning what information is shared, being a supernode, and how to enable/disable this stuff is explained on the site, so any claims of inducement by 'duping' customers into infringing copyrights should also be summarily rejected.
Still, I fear the 'reasonable person' standard will be too easy to prove, and that even Kazaa might be found guilty of inducing infringement under the new law. Somehow the fact that Sharman Networks benefits from infringement of its customers will be spun into a case that Sharman Networks 'induces' copyrights and lures children, despite explicit evidence to the contrary.
Hatch in his comments about the legislation, said the RIAA 'has to' have someone to sue, and since they couldn't prove inducement charges under current law, they need to lower the bar. Even if every company(in the US) that distributes P2P software is sued out of existence, the programs are still out there on people's computers; P2P networks will still work, and then there are P2P companies in other countries, who will not be affected by this law at all. All this will do is give the RIAA someone else to sue in addition to those they are already sueing(their customers).
Of course it is a solution, to pick a distro with a better or more convenient packaging system. I must also say, that with RPM systems like Redhat, you usually, pick your applications in the install process, and everything is handled for you. Heck, if you pick default install options, everything most users need is installed by default. Certainly convenient enough for a home user that surfs the web, checks email, listens to music, writes term papers, and maybe occasionally plays a game of Freecell. Some people will have applications that they really can only get for or use in Windows, but I bet for most people that think that its not really true(not that they don't have valid reasons for sticking with Windows, but reasons like, I can't use Word or Outlook are usually pretty weak, since there are equivalent and generally compatible alternatives).
But for a society to thrive and function, there must be a common ground defined, a shared ethical framework that is fair to everyone
I think that's called law, except that law != ethics. People's ethical systems and beliefs are different. Many(if not most) people don't find anything ethically or morally wrong with copying for one's own personal use a copyrighted work without paying for it or otherwise without permission. Fewer I would wager think it is ethical to turn around and share that work(because of the reasons you mentioned of denying other potential sales, even if you wouldn't have bought it anyway).
emusic.com tends to have less mainstream(ie, major record label) stuff, lots of variety, but you may or may not find what you are into. I've gotten into several new bands that I didn't know about before I became an emusic customer.
allofmp3 tends to have lots of mainstream stuff and probably is closer to what you find on iTunes, but with a lot of oddball things(a lot of overlap with emusic, actually) you won't find on iTunes(its been a while though since I browsed the iTunes store to see what they have).
$0.99? Good bargain?
Let's see:
emusic pricing averaging $0.22 per track(with premium subscription) for mostly high quality VBR mp3s(no DRM and platform restrictions).
allofmp3 pricing of about $.01 per megabyte downloaded(most albums will cost less than $0.99 unless you encode at very high rate) with your choice of compression formats and quality levels(again, no DRM or platform restrictions).
Not at all pointless. The paper trail is not going to be used for a recount in every district. The idea is that you only recount a couple(ie, enough to have reasonable statistical confidence in the machines not checked) of random districts or machines for each vendor, to verify that the machines are accurate. This is a means of quality control. There would be no doubt or delay in these checks because of things like hanging chads, no basis for wondering what the 'intent' the voter had, because they will be printed by a machine.
Note that the possibility of this kind of quality control by election officials will give voting machine vendors more incentive to be really sure things work and are accurate and secure.
2. For the last couple years, sales have been declining, not growing
At best, this point is not beyond dispute, and at worst, it is outright false.
Would you also think it's right to scan and reprint a magazine or book for a friend?
Actually, yes. I believe the standard for what qualifies as copyright infringement should be that it is commercial copying, done for the purpose of selling those copies in competition with the copyright holder. That is the only case where there is quantifiable($) demand for a work that is being diverted from the copyright holder. If it is not commercial infringement(ie, any kind of copying or sharing in which there is no exchange of money), it is very hard to make a case that the copyright holder is even being harmed.
First of all, yes. The RIAA's legal stance is that any downloading is copyright infringement, even if you own the CD
IANAL, but I'm pretty sure this stance is bunk, legally. Which is one of the reasons they are suing the people who are sharing the files(the other being that its easier to make a case for damages, because the 'I wouldn't have bought it anyway or I already owned it' defense would be irrelevant).
To be sure, there IS copyright infingement involved when you download something, but the infringement is by the person that was sharing the file. It's more effective to cut off the source than to stop every person who wants to download, at least in theory. In practice it cannot be done, stopping the distribution of their works on p2p networks. It would also make more business sense for record labels to take part in voluntary collective licensing. Instead, they choose to try to stop filesharing which according to some more recent studies, does not affect music sales to a statistically significant degree.
Aside from the fact that your link is about US law, and the article is about a patent infringement case in Canada(ie, assuming that the laws are substantially similar), the patent is on the gene and the process of putting it in a plant to confer Roundup resistance, not on the plant itself. According to the dissenting Justices, precedent exists in Canadian Law and some court decisions that indicates an entire plant is not patentable. Of course, IANACL (IANAL either).
The way I see it, Monsanto's patent protections are intended to protect against competitors who would use the same techniques to create Roundup resistant plants using the same gene.
Monsanto doesn't need (this paragraph about what Monsanto does or doesn't need is, I think, however,irrelevant to whether the plant is patentable, ie, if Roundup was sold by another company and Monsanto's sole revenue came from Roundup Ready Crops, my answer would be the same, even though diffusion of the plants would be bad for Monsanto then) protection of the plant to give incentive, because Monsanto sells Roundup, and the diffusion of Roundup Ready crops will make more farmers buy Roundup. Arguably, people that spread "Monsanto's" seed are indirectly benefitting Monsanto.
On a Windows based machine:
Step 1: Click on file
Step 1: Press Control-C
Step 1: Press Control-V
IANAL, but I don't think copyright law has any bearing on doing something like that, if there is no distribution. However, if I were doing that to copy the files to a public ftp server or p2p share directory or something, then it copyright law would have bearing on this. It's all about context and what the effect of the copying is.
I don't think you are violating copyright law by using hymn, unless you distribute the songs to other people(ie, I think your fair use rights prevail here over your TOS). But regardless, currently, because of the DMCA, that is moot, you violated the DMCA by circumventing protections, and that will be the case until this bill is enacted(hopefully soon).
Lets make all software/algorithms open game
Patents aren't needed for software, period. Software is already covered by copyrights. As for algorithms, they should be open game. It is stifling to innovation if I cannot use that algorithm to create new programs or properly build on it if I have to be beholden to some patent holder.
Suppose I put...Suppose I invent
You are using hyperbole here. Maybe 'truly innovative' was a little strong though(I didn't mean to imply that you were in no way building on the work of others), so I will say 'innovative and non-obvious'. Without these requirements patents would be valid merely for being first to do something and filing the application.
If patents were removed from law today, capitalism as we know it would disintegrate.
I think your doomsday scenarios are pure speculation. Sure there would be some significant changes due to the removal of the patent system. I don't think its clear what would happen. Companies would have to adjust to remain competitive in a freer market since they wouldn't have the crutch of patents to maintain profitability, but OTOH, we would lose the inefficiencies(such as patent related litigation) associated with a government mandated monopoly. It's an open question whether such inefficiencies are worthwhile. I actually do think they are worthwhile in some cases, if, as I said above they are applying only to traditional patent scope(ie, no patents on software/algorithms/business processes/or anything that could qualify as Free Speech), and only to innovative and non-obvious inventions with NO prior art.
The only thing that would save the world's economic structure would be government intervention on a massive scale.
More speculation...
In other words, communism. But thats what you anti-patent types are shooting for, right?
which I presume was used to setup your communism/anti-patent strawman.
"Our business plan dictates that we not patent our product. Patents are for cowards....hey where are you going??"
This wouldn't be a problem if the patent system were reasonable and you couldn't patent things like software, algorithms, or business methods. We can argue about whether a well implemented patent system is just or whether such a patent system is even possible, but it is clear we do not have such a system now. Examples of valid patents(ones awarded for truly innovative, and non-obvious inventions with no prior art) that maybe help innovation do not prove that the system is not horribly broken, or even that we are not better off without such a system altogether.
Not a strawman at all. It is clearly an analogy, and not all that bad of one, IMHO. A strawman is a logical fallacy where you make up some kind of weak argument and portray it as the argument for the other side.
But note: if the goal is to "legitimize" p2p so that artists get paid, how would you do it? The EFF has come up with a solution called Voluntary Collective Licensing that would allow artists to be paid for filesharing that is going to occur anyway.