I believe in the end this practice will drive great ideas out of the Universities. Personally, I would rather work on developing an idea at home rather than pursue it though a graduate degree for this very reason.
A few years ago ( back in 2000 ) the University of Idaho's 'wonderful' administration attempted to impose differential fees on their Engineering students. At the time I, and many other students, fought this idea. The U of I is a public institution of the state, as such the residents of the state (and their children) should not have their education choices limited due to issues of fees.
Google for 'university of idaho differntial fees' and several archive links are available covering the debate both on campus and within the state board of education.
You have a good point, but let's take it one step further. In a developed country, such as the US, capital (software in this case)is relatively inexpensive and labor is relatively expensive (ie why we have H1B visas). Now in the case of a developing nation, such as China, labor is relatively inexpensive and capital is relatively expensive. Numerous microeconomic models have different ways of combining capital and labor which yields output. The important thing here is that "cost" of captial goods are often the limiting factor for a developing nation. Piracy does lower this cost allowing developing nations to deliver capital intense (techy) goods at a lower per-unit cost. So one could make the arguement that by people in developed countries (such as the US) they are in effect allowing developing nations to produce good at an artifically lower price. However I don't see how lowering the price of music/videos much effect on a developed nation...
I've often tossed around the idea with friends of putting a hard-drive within a microwave, as a sort of quick destroy. Here's the thought process; the harddrive itself is sealed within a nice farady cage. However the wires and other circuits leading into the drive would act as an antenna bringing those nice sparks that you see with a cd in the microwave. This will also probably destroy the disk controller by coupling in high voltage to the digital circuits, but hey it's a quick zap.
One of the fundamentals of economics is the unintended consequences of grand plans. If such an organization is allow to exist, others will follow suit creating a type of oligopoly of intellectual property within the US. The unfortunate outcome, is that this may serve as a catalyst for IP innovation moving out of the US. A country such as India has very weak IP laws and may be the less of two evils. The US based arguement, of course, is that it is the center of the commerce, innovation and the Universe. However the US has small share of the Earth's population. Many of the third and second world countries are emerging into the consumption of IP rich goods, thus decreasing the marketing impact of US consumers.
Actually Thomas Edison originally used the threat of execution to scare the public away from Westinghouse's (and Tesla's) AC distribution system. Edison believed that DC was the only safe solution. Infact Edison licensed Westinghouse's AC technology to build the first electric execution chair for the state of New York.
The one thing that concerns me about this whole "wireless e-mail" patent business is that this basic functionality has been available in the amateur radio community for DECADES. Packet radio was pioneering in 1978 by hams in Montreal, Canada. Hams established "wireless" BBS systems through the 1980's, which provided an e-mail like feature via the message board. Further with the rise of the Internet hams have provided e-mail over the amateur radio bands; i.e. wireless e-mail. Perhap's I'm missing something, but this appears to be a pretty compelling prior art arguement.
http://www.tapr.org/history.htmlhttp://www.winlink.org/History.htm
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I believe in the end this practice will drive great ideas out of the Universities. Personally, I would rather work on developing an idea at home rather than pursue it though a graduate degree for this very reason.
A few years ago ( back in 2000 ) the University of Idaho's 'wonderful' administration attempted to impose differential fees on their Engineering students. At the time I, and many other students, fought this idea. The U of I is a public institution of the state, as such the residents of the state (and their children) should not have their education choices limited due to issues of fees.
Google for 'university of idaho differntial fees' and several archive links are available covering the debate both on campus and within the state board of education.
You have a good point, but let's take it one step further. In a developed country, such as the US, capital (software in this case)is relatively inexpensive and labor is relatively expensive (ie why we have H1B visas). ...
Now in the case of a developing nation, such as China, labor is relatively inexpensive and capital is relatively expensive. Numerous microeconomic models have different ways of combining capital and labor which yields output. The important thing here is that "cost" of captial goods are often the limiting factor for a developing nation. Piracy does lower this cost allowing developing nations to deliver capital intense (techy) goods at a lower per-unit cost. So one could make the arguement that by people in developed countries (such as the US) they are in effect allowing developing nations to produce good at an artifically lower price. However I don't see how lowering the price of music/videos much effect on a developed nation
I've often tossed around the idea with friends of putting a hard-drive within a microwave, as a sort of quick destroy. Here's the thought process; the harddrive itself is sealed within a nice farady cage. However the wires and other circuits leading into the drive would act as an antenna bringing those nice sparks that you see with a cd in the microwave. This will also probably destroy the disk controller by coupling in high voltage to the digital circuits, but hey it's a quick zap.
One of the fundamentals of economics is the unintended consequences of grand plans. If such an organization is allow to exist, others will follow suit creating a type of oligopoly of intellectual property within the US. The unfortunate outcome, is that this may serve as a catalyst for IP innovation moving out of the US. A country such as India has very weak IP laws and may be the less of two evils. The US based arguement, of course, is that it is the center of the commerce, innovation and the Universe. However the US has small share of the Earth's population. Many of the third and second world countries are emerging into the consumption of IP rich goods, thus decreasing the marketing impact of US consumers.
Actually Thomas Edison originally used the threat of execution to scare the public away from Westinghouse's (and Tesla's) AC distribution system. Edison believed that DC was the only safe solution. Infact Edison licensed Westinghouse's AC technology to build the first electric execution chair for the state of New York.
The one thing that concerns me about this whole "wireless e-mail" patent business is that this basic functionality has been available in the amateur radio community for DECADES. Packet radio was pioneering in 1978 by hams in Montreal, Canada. Hams established "wireless" BBS systems through the 1980's, which provided an e-mail like feature via the message board. Further with the rise of the Internet hams have provided e-mail over the amateur radio bands; i.e. wireless e-mail. Perhap's I'm missing something, but this appears to be a pretty compelling prior art arguement. http://www.tapr.org/history.html http://www.winlink.org/History.htm