"then they're going fight you tooth and nail to squeeze your rights as small as the law and their considerable legal budget will let them."
And that's exactly what they've been doing and what they will continue to do, and why they get all the flack they get.
"I think that they're unproductive."
True, but let's be honest: all what we do or say on slashdot won't have any noticable effect on any policy be it of companies or the government. This place is just (to) talk and have debates, and it does a fine job at that. the only real influence is indirect; for instance an appeal to write congressmen or the parliament that is followed up, or something.
" Illegal copying doesn't just cut into their profits; it cuts into their ability to make any money at all."
For gods' sake... first of all, I'm not sure whether it's a question whether THEY should have the ability to make the money instead of, say, the actual musicians. And thus, the ability for THEM to make money does not necessarily mean no-one can make any money anymore (or that music-making will stop). Why do people still go to live-performances if they can download it on the internet? Why do I got to the movies when I know I can download it from the net (or that it will become viewable on TV eventually?). Why do I still buy books when I can read them all in the library? Is it because I'm afraid of breaking copy-right? I don't think so.
All these forms of entertainment will still be as popular as they have ever been, regardless of the possibilities of online P2P systems. So they will still make money in those instances, but, indeed, perhaps less in DVD/CD sales (though even there it is debatable how big the loss is). So in the end, they will still make money, but perhaps less than they do now. Big deal. Hence it's about lesser profits at most, and maybe the failure of an old businessmodel, but not the failure of creating movies and music, as some predict it. I just don't fall for that doomsday-scenario as the **AAs proclaim it.
"We here on Slashdot are the technicians: tell them what's possible and feasible and fair to both you and them."
What's possible and feasible is one thing, what is fair is something else entirely. The former is indeed a technical matter, the latter is a moral/ethical/political one. And a legal one, which is why what's "fair" is for the most part already made clear in precedent, such as the *fair*-use clause.
Besides, even purely speaking technically; it doesn't mean the **AAs will give one damn about our opinions on slashdot. For instance, it is more then clear that a full-proof encoding system is totally impossible. We, as technicians, have said many times (over and over again) that every sheme they come up with is going to be broken (TFA proves it once again)...yet it didn't and doesn't stop them from creating such encryption-mechanisms anyway. In fact, even a blind man can see that a medium which invariably has to be converted into an analoge signal (so we can hear and see it) has an *inherent* weakness in being unprotectable, ultimately.
"If you put all of the burden on them to respect your rights, while insisting that it's also entirely up to them to protect theirs,"
I put the burden on the legal system which already established our consumer rights...the only thing I expect is that the **AAs acts in accordance with it, as one should expect from any other entity or citizen (but aparently in vain). And yes, it's up to them to find a way to protect their rights without violating ours. I mean, if you can help them, fine; but the main point remains, namely that they can't trample on our rights to safegard theirs from potential misuse.
I don't know: maybe they should come up with a sheme that alows for one copy and no more? No doubt that would be broken too, but at least they would have done the effort in making some protection for their own without infringing on ours. But do you think they will seriously listen to this more fair and balanced solution? Of course not. Th
"I can't think of any way to resolve that conflict: anything that allowed you to make excerpts or backups or format-shift would also be used to make things freely available P2P."
This is true, but it doesn't change anything to the rights consumers have. whatever the **AA's do, they should do it without trampling on our rights with the excuse that it might be abused. a car can be used for joyriding or for killing someone too, yet it does not mean carsellers can order us around how to use our wars and on which roads we can drive - I don't think even you would accept that.
You seem to be complaining about the irrational and inconsistent behaviour of slashdot(ers)...but in fact it's very rational and consistent, we (well, most slashdotters, that is) just take the rights of the consumers as our first focus, not the profits of companies. I doubt you would see many complain if **AAs would come up with something that safegards all our consumer-rights. The actions they've done thusfar, have often been done in total disregard of any of our rights, and this includes encryption and suing people without actually checking the facts (for instance; downloading on a P2P is not neceseraly illegal if you're not uploading).
The bottom line is, excerpts or backups or format-shift belong to our basic rights as consumers, and whether or not abuse is possible, that is not our concern, and can not be invoked as a reason to take away our rights. It's this slashdot is pointing out, and they *are* rather consistent in it.
While I understand the feelings (and I do think people should decide for themselves what is suitable and not), I always think these arguments lack some consistency when viewed rationally.
First of all: "I'm in favour of preventing my children from seeing certain websites and images that are harmful to them."
This would be more convincing if anyone could actually show how pr0n (I assume that's what you're talking about) is actually harmfull to anyone when viewed. And if it were, how is it possible that it is o so harmful to children, but becomes unharmful the moment they turn 18? It just doesn't make any sense. In the USA, it is even deemed to be 'harmful' if kids see a booby...but at the same time they can watch a movie with a rather hefty dose of violence without any problem - while one could reasonably argue that violence is much more harmful than sex. The fact one has a great tolerance for the first, but almost none for the latter (at least in the USA) is completely nonsensical. I always wonder about parents who freak out about that; I mean, did they only started to look at 'dirty pictures' when they were 18 year or older? Myeah, right. If I remember correctly, the kids at my school (and I myself) where watching playboy-magazines (some kid snatched from his parents) LONG before we were 18. People should get a grip; it's part of life, and kids are curious and on itself it's anything but 'harmful'. I would rather argue it is unnatural to never have encountered sexual-themed topics before you're 18 years old (like in some parts of china, where married copples sometimes don't even know how to do 'it', even when they are 20+ years old). Teenagers will NOT die or get a trauma just by viewing sexual things, I assure you. In fact, I'm quite sure they actively go searching for it on the internet (I would have, if the internet had existed back then). There is no real harm done, it's just something people invent as an excuse to prevent their kids watching stuff they don't like because of their morals. And often they are hypocritical about it on top, because those same parents often DO watch it themselves, despite their proclaimed moral high ground. The idea that it would be harmful to minors while adults can watch it without any harm is truly absurd: not only has no scientific research demonstrated any actual harm, there is no basis whatsoever to argument it harms when being -18 and it doesn't when one is 18+. That concept is just crap, and I think most of us know that, deep down.
"I'm in favour of preventing adults viewing material that either encourages them to commit crimes against children or harms children in making the material."
I'm not completely getting this one neither. Preventing *adults*? You mean if kids view the material it would be ok, this time? Or do you mean 'everyone'? Is there any scientific proof that viewing material encourages crimes? And if that is the case, shouldn't all films where someone is killed be prohibited too, since it would encourage murder? Once again, the argument would be more convincing if there would be a bit more proof and consistency instead of conjecture. And while I agree in most cases it could mean children are harmed, what are you going to do about cases like the one mentioned on slashdot some months ago, where a teenager of 14 made some sexual webcam-recording of himself and now faces a 10-year prison sentence because of 'possesion of childporn'? Made by himself of himself! Just shows how stupid and overboard some laws have gone. I'm all for the protection of children (though the 'save the children' mantra has been overused as it is), but it's ridiculous to imprison a kid to 'protect' him from 'abuse' by himself. One could as well put teenagers in jail because of indecent behaviour with minors when they wank themselves, then. I understand the argument of protecting kids from harm, but I think it often has more to do with imposing morals than anything else, because otherwise, one could not argument against allowing it in the above case.
No first posts may be posted after 8:30 pm on Saturday, April 28th. Excerpts may not be archived. Any further use of excerpts is by express permission of Slashdotmember n3wsbyt3 only.
I completely agree with your analysis. Apart from the question whether it is probably cause or not (or in all cases; imagine open wap becoming ubiquitous, one might conclude differently in the future), that was that courts' current vision on it.
It was the CD-stack that did him in. Legally speaking, he would have had a better case if it had just been on his HD.
"I think to goes to show how similar us humans really are to other animals."
Kenan Malik would disagree.
That said, there are some things I disagree with Kenan Malik myself.;-)
In any case, his book 'man, beast and zombie' is an interesting read, which make you wonder of the intrinsical (?) differences between humans and animals (and AI's).
As a lot of other posters have pointed out, there might be serious problems when one is in another mood or if something happens (even if only you bought a new keyboard) which deviated enough from the pattern to be refused access. Now, in TFA they say they solved that by asking you additional questions, if you don't get it right a few times. But, if that's the case, it isn't any better then a security system with additional passwords.
However, I do see an important possibility where the *speed* of the pattern is used as an integral part of the paswordprotection. Say, for instance, it needed at least a one second interval between each character typed, or otherwise, it would refuse the pasword. Now, that is easy to do, even (or maybe even easier;-) if you are drunk or what not. But what would that accomplish, you ask? Well, it would leave all brute force attacks useless (even quantummechanical ones), because those systems rely on crunching huge amounts of numbers (well, characters) superfast. Thus, if all passwords are rejected that doesn't take at least one second, and this is an integral part of getting access, then this means a computer can at most try out one pasword each second, instead of, say, a billion.
This in turns means that such a system, when the code is long enough, can't be beaten by a brute-force attack (well, not in the lifetime of the universe) because such an attack would intrinsically need huge amounts of time to decypher it. While a human, knowing the password, would have no trouble at all. His 'slowiness' compared to a computer using a decryption algorithm would be exactly his strong point.
Don't take it too personally, it happend to me too. Sometimes, moderaters squander away their modpoints in incomprehensible ways. This is slashdot, after all; there are some pretty weird folks around here.
It's sometimes frustrating, I,know, but moderators are, ultimately, like every human population: they are comprised of intellectually honest people and of assholes wanting to make a point while being inept in making a rational argumentation - and everything in between those two things.
When a system is borked like our current patent system, it's ludicrous to think all (or even any) problems will be solved by just making it a 'who filed it first' (which is the biggest improvement talked about in TFA). We have it in europe, and it didn't do squat. In fact, one can argument that, while it is more *pragmatic* (easier for the courts to determine), it is equally true that it is *less fair* for the one inventing something.
But then again, the whole notion of patents is rather unfair, because, even when two inventers would invent something at the same time, independend of eachother, the one filing first got it, and the other one gets aboslutely nothing. Why is that? didn't the other party invest at least as much in it? In fact, couldn't it be that he was the first to invent it, but due to say, a traffic jam, he got second in filing it - where's the fairness in that?
But, even that wouldn't solve the problems with the current patents and copyright-system. I would refer you to http://newsbyte.blogspot.com/2007/04/patents-vs-fr ee-world.html , and if people feel there are other links that could be placed there, feel free to point them out.
A frequently occurring debate I have is with the question whether or not we should have space-exploration (and as a subset: human vs. robotic space exploration). This involves the "we should spend the money on other things, like combating worldhunger"-arguments, as the more subtile arguments which is better: human or robotic exploration.
I have pondered a long time about this, and this is my conclusion:
We all heard the reasoning for abolishing space-exploration (particular human-based) before, and I think the major flaw in all these 'arguments' why we shouldn't go into space is that they always set economic factors as a premise.
But, although economic viability is important to create a mass-usage of space(travel), I fail to see why it should be the only possible motive to start exploring space. It's a pretty narrow-minded, materialistic and typical capitalistic view on things. It's the same view that makes progress on medication for very rare diseases, or for diseases that are prevalent in continents that are poor, so slow: corporations can't see how they are ever going to get profit out of it, so they all turn their backs on it.
If ppl (including states) are only going to do something when they are sure of an immediate profitable return, the world has become a sad place. (And we should leave it the sooner;-)
Arguments based on such a viewpoint fail to recognize other incentives apart from economical ones.
And the reason why we shouldn't (only) rely on robots? You can explore, but you can not colonize with robots. The will to explore is deeply entrenched in the human race, but with a reason: it has survival advantages.
A species that doesn't colonize new territory and adapt, will perish. I think it's paramount that humans always keep their spirit of adventure and keep exploring and expanding, because the moment we will go "ah, let's sit back in our sofa's and let our robots/droids do it", we're basically finished, even when not being aware of it at that moment.
So, to to all the people saying we don't *need* space-exploration (human or otherwise); we don't *need* the pyramids neither, nor all those great buildings and artworks, nor any luxury, etc. The only thing we 'need' is food and shelter. Based on what we truly 'need' thus, we should go back living like cavemen. But of course, we don't, and the reason is that we, as humans, look beyond our immediate needs and have (and should have) grander visions.
So, economics (and also the ratio of costs/science output) is often less good with human space-travel then robotic ones. Contrary to some zealots, I do not dispute that. But, as I have indicated, I do not think one should measure everything in terms of economic benefits. Even if you could send a hundred, or a thousand robots for the price of one human mission, it still would not change the fact that robots can't colonize planets, and augment the survival chances of the human race (and earths' ecology) through interplanetary spreading.
"Most of that marketing is in the form of free samples, so essentially half that marketing goes back to subsidizing consumers."
Ermm...you *are* aware that the link you gave does not really speak in favor of such practises, right? Consumers are not 'subsidised'; they are given a sample to try to hook them to the product. they do not do it out of chatity. The difference may be lost to some, but it amounts to this: companies care about profits, not what is best for the people. For instance, it has already been demonstrated many times that there have been companies who promoted new drugs (also with examples) which were in effect less effective than old drugs - but those had lost their patents. It is more profitable for drug-companies to *sell* drugs with patents, *regardless* of the benefits. Sure, they can't just sell crap, because there is much govenment control and they are liable if something happens, but I have no doubt that they would promote and sell things that don't work at all, if it gives them profit. In fact, they already do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy
So, I fail to see your argument here; do they keep giving free samples to people who tried it? I doubt it. Thus, once people are acustomed to the product, they have to pay later on, and then they pay for *expensive* patented drugs, instead of generic ones, which might work as well, but don't get the 'free example' treatement. How is theis beneficial to the populace? However they market it; the purpose is still marketing, and that money is not going to R&D.
"So getting rid of exclusivity will result in more spent on advertising."
If that would be true, then companies that sell generic drugs would spend more on advertising then companies that sell patented drugs. I have never seen any researchpaper that substatiated such a claim. If you have such a link, please provide it, I would be more than interested to read it.
"12.5% of revenue spent on R&D is inline with what the electronics industry invests."
Exactly. Another area where patents have shown to be a burden to innovation and cheaper products. Or didn't you mean the IT-sector? Regardless, I don't see how comparing a weak sign of R&D of one sector (which is heavily based on patents) with another, equally weak sign of R&D in another sector (which is also heavily based on patents). If anything, it indicates that patents might have something to do with it, as was my point.
"The drug corps must spend on R&D because they constantly need new patents to replace those that are expiring. If they don't get new drugs to market, they go out of business."
It's the first time I see a monopoly being defended as a good way of promoting innovation. Monopolies inherently go against the free market - with its basic tenent of competition, which *is* supposed to be the most beneficial to end-users, consumers and a stimulus for innovation. If I remember correctly, the R&D of academic research is way higher than 12.5%, so the argument that patents are necessary for innovation seems to fail on more than one front. It's true they seldom come to the actual marketing of drugs, but that's mainly due to the fact the government has endorsed patents in the first place, and leaves it up to companies and their patents. It's far from certain this is the best solution, however (as in: most beneficial to the largest amount of its citizens and society as a whole).
"I would say that patent protections are too long and should be reduced (avg time for drug to recoup it's investment is 8.5 years)."
Hmmm...that number comes from where, exactly? Does it include government subsidising - which, btw, already happens a lot, EVEN with private monopolistic drug-companies. But, ok, say it's true... while patents suck, they would suck less if they are less long, I agree. And also, I'm well aware there is no chance in hell the patentsystem will be thrown out: it's too well entranched by now, and too powerfu
No. You have missed my point. While what we think is crap may vary, it is a FACT that there is crap -to EVERYONE (even though people don't always agree on what's crap). For instance, I can show quite clearly that it's not only to me: do *you* denie there is crap? Does, in fact, anyone?
You also missed my point about 'the wallets decide'. For instance, we both know (well, I presume) that box-office sucesses are NOT always succes due to their greatness. In fact, many elements contribute to it being a succes, mass-advertising being one of the most prominent one. Do you denie that? Does anyone?
So basically, wallet voting != the best movies. Pretending that the amount of profit a film gathers is the only, or even the most accurate measurement of how good the quality of a film is, borders to the ridiculous. Since almost no EU film reaches the level of a typical commercially succesful hollywood movie regarding ticket-sales, that would mean, according to your reasoning, that no EU film was ever better than such commercial movie. You claim I'm in a minority here, but I dare you to find a majority (of people whome have seen EU films and compare that to the typical commercial hollywood film), who come to the conclusion wallet voting is, effectively, a measurement for quality.
It sounds cool as a simplistic soundbite, and it has the advantage of being straightforward and simple to check, but the fact is, no one actually really *believes* a commercial succes necessarily defines a quality picture.
I know, this is a concept difficult to swallow, especially for USA-citzens, but 'sales numbers' do not equal quality. If that really would be true, there wouldn't be anyone who would deny a sucesful commercial film is still crap. I doubt many people do that. I even wonder if you think that. Hasn't there been any blockbuster where you thought: fuck, that's crap, I've seen much better which had much less sales numbers? I doubt that.
So, you might fulminate against what you perceive as me 'chosing' for you, but that's not my point. My point is, to demonstrate wallet voting != a film of quality. Mind you, I do not claim the two can't be possible: there certainly ARE blockbusters who were very good too, but I doubt anyone really 'goes with the latter' of defining quality with sales numbers.
"Like I said, data please, no speculation."
Well, ok...but please adhere to that principle yourself. Where is your hard data that patents and copyright are benefical to the populace at large? I *did* give you the links and references, right? Not only to the pirate bay, but also to a whole plethora of researchpapers which strongly indicate the current patent and copyrightsystem just doesn't do what it is supposed to do. I find it a bit puzzling you shrug off all that so easily (well, you DID read some of it, right?). I'm still waiting for *any* link to *your* hard data demonstrating the beneficial effect patents and copyright has to society.
I'm sure we can both agree that, if hard data is required, it must come from both sides of the debate. A dozen researchpapers have - I think you will agree - more weight than mere idle speculation.
As for the estimated cost: as far as I can find on wikipedia and the internet, the average cost of a film is 110.000.000 dollar, and the average amount of films from the USA is 200. That means an average of 22 billion. The GPD of the USA is more than 13 trillion, which means that it's 1/590 - far less than a double digit, as I said. As far as the reference to Iraq is concerned, while I appreciate that it is a sensitive matter, in this discusion it *was* relevant, because it demonstrates the possibility of a government to free massive amounts of money (far more than what would be necessary to subsidise films). And the war in Iraq is quite obviously paid by taxes, too. If it is *possible* to do so for an illegal war, it is possible to do so for other things as well: your objection that something like that would be
The logical flaw of your reasoning lies in the fact that
1)your premise isn't substantiated, 2)AND you make a false dillemma out of it (patents and medicne, or no patents and no medicine, as if that were only the two possible options).
Patents are *supposed* to lead to investments. However, in reality patents are more than not used to stiffle innovation. In reality, the huge profits those companies make go primarily into marketing, NOT R&D. And the relatively small investment (compared to the overall profits and what goes to other departemtns like marketing and the legal teams) that remains, is that really the best return one can get? Is that the most efficient (in terms of being beneficial to the populace at large instead of being most beneficial for the monopolist) we can get?
"What's "crap" to you doesn't seem like crap to others."
True, but nevertheless it can not be denied that there *is* crap. Thus, the only thing remaining is to ask oneself if, on average, films that are made purely for the money are more often than not crap compared to films that are made as an art form. I would claim it is, and I'm not exactly the only one to think so, if I may be so bold. Certainly, I've watched commercial movies too, and some were not too bad...and some where actually crap, indeed. But, you know, even of commercial films who were succeses at the boxoffices and I went watching myself, I have no difficulties acknowledging they're weak shadows of real strong movies.
Which is another way of saying that "voting with their wallets" isn't really a good measurement of the quality of a film. In fact, if you would put all my money I spend on movies together, I think the majority of it will have gone to commercial films as well...but as I said, that doesn't mean I don't realise that the quality of those films is often less than some EU-movies I've seen who weren't box-ofice successes. I'd rather go with critical acclaim then by pure wallet-voting, if one does need some measurement of quality. I know it's popular (especially by UDA citizens) to consider all value in terms of money and profit, but there really is more than that to measure something for its worth.
"Anyway, it seems you agree with my first argument - that less will be produced"
Well, what I SAID was that I don't know: I can't exclude the possibility. And neither can you that the amount would remain the same, or even augment. It's just speculative. It could be it gets less, but that would depend entirely on the mechanisms that would pop up in the place of movie-corps (and to what degree). Seen the fact that in the EU, many directors/movies are already subsidised, and the quality as a whole is better then the average hollywood production, I can't feel to think that maybe you are a bit to pessimistic about government funding.
"The government only has so much money. If I wanted to nitpick I could say it will have even less, as a few industries will all but disappear, and you don't tax donations (am I wrong here?)."
I'm not sure; I don't know how much the movie-industry contributes to the GDP or overall taxes of the USA. I doubt it's anything compared with, say, a war in Iraq. As for the EU; there it would be completely negligable.
"The annual budgets generally get spent and then some (deficits anyone?) on things like health care, education, and yes, culture. Where is all that extra money going to come from?"
From taxes. I'm not sure what you're getting at. Budgets are never fixed completely; they always differ from year to year. It's true all want a part of it, education as well as defence...but you seem to think it would amount to double digits of the GDP, while even with a huge boost it wouldn't go beyond a single digit. In the past, governments have always shifted money to diferent departments, including an extra 3 billion a month for wars, or to reform eucation, or, indeed art. It's nothing beyond the impossible to do it when the movies needs to be extra subsidised.
"As for new forms of philanthropy, it's just speculation at the moment. People generally have been known to look after their own interest first."
Heh.There we go again, with the typical self-centered explanation. I think people have been reading too much 'the selfish gene' and not realised it's been long shown to be flawed. In reality, people do not 'generally' look after their own interest at all. In fact, there was a research done to look at the *actual* behaviour of people, and they found that the only ones who actually behaved as if people were mostly motivated by self-interest where the economists who used those theories and psychopaths. all the rest of humanity wasn't nearly as self-centered as the neo-capitalistic mentality seems to consider as fact. "Man, beast and zombie" is a book who gives some refreshing i
"It's not a bad thing at all, but even today the first case happens a lot less than the second one.[] If today you can't convince anybody (for whatever reason) to fund your project, good luck doing that when the for-profit companies will get out of the game."
Well, I think that's largely due to self-enforcement of the current system. It has largely taken over the old philantropists and government-funded subsidies just *because* the capitalist-market-driven orientated thinking rules our current timeframe. I mean, why would the government spend on anything if they are convinced (or perhaps misguided into thinking) that the private sector can do better in all area's, be more efficient and cheaper than if they would invest in it?
I'm not saying this isn't the case sometimes (I'm not a communist, after all;-), but sometimes the idea is taken too far. I definitely believe that the state does a better job sometimes, *if the premise is to help as many people as possible*. And there lies the difference; the duty of the state is (or at least should be) towards the benefit of as much of its citizens as possible. The duty of a private company is..to make profit.
There are areas where both things overlap, and there is no discord between those two goals; companies making a profit is, in general, goodfor the populace as well. But while the two different goals can get along quite well, they are not the same, and where and when there is a conflict betwen the profits of companies and the benefits of the populace (as in the case of medicine and public health), then the state has the right and the duty to go for its citizens, NOT the profits for companies. In the USA (and EU more and more too) the current corporatism consiniously erodes that primary objective of the state, with the consequence that politicians do not hold to the benefits of the populace, but rather cater to the (money of) the corporations.
Hmm...anyway, I have disgressed somewhat.:-)
If the current system of patents and copyrights were abolished, its almost certain that their would be an increase in philantrophy and government-subsidies in that area. Where is where I think you are wrong in your argument that it wont be replaced. I don't know if *everything* would be replaced to the same amount, true, but then again, if it means less crap, I wouldn't mind too much. But your basic mistake is, that you seem to think it's something static; that, if copyrights were gone, no other mechanism would pop up to at least compensate for a large part.
I, however, I'm quite sure the government would fill in the gap, as well as new forms of philantrophism. In that regard, I read an article somewhere which stated that, with our new technology (notably the internet), a new form of philantropists could come up as well; not (only) the old ones - rather limited amount of people - with large amounts of money to spend, but huge masses with a limited amount of money.
The only thing you would need for that to work, is a system that makes payment very easy for small amounts (and easy to set up/use). Paypal still doesn't do the trick, but I think a system with pre-paid cards, like something you buy for cellphones or buy-cards from certain shops, would do the trick. I mean, if ordinary people (fans of a music-group, say) would be able to support their group with some small money-incentives, and enough can do it, then that group doesn't need to search for one rich philantropist; it just has to be good enough to have a loyal fan-base.
I'm just saying; there ARE possibilities our culture and society at large could deal with no patents/copyright just fine. The perceived disastrous impact it would have (as often claimed by companies that own those copyrights and patents) are severely exagerated, IMHO. In fact, I remember some paper where they researched the inventions made in countries (during the 19th century) where they had patents versus where they didn't have any. The conclusion was, that, though it did show a
Basically, patents make monopolies, monopolies make products more expensive, expensive products mean not all people can buy it - especially the weaker/poor populace who often needs it the most. Since the product here is medicine, and medicine is about health (if not life and death) of people, there most certainly IS a problem when patents are a hinderance in saving as much human lives as possible.
1)I think his point was that that kind of 'charity' doesn't really help where help is needed the most. In fact, it isn't charity at all, if you consider it an essential element of charity that it is meant to help people in the first place, instead of being a side-effect. For example, if companies would pollute my surroundings, but that would somehow help me (or people specialised in cleaning up pollution), I still wouldn't consider it charity from the part of those corporations.
2)The parent poster was pointing to the hypocrisy when drug-corps use the nominator 'charity' on conduct/methods that has nothing to do with wanting to help people, but rather with making a profit. If you deny that intention is a major factor, you deny a great many things in human behaviour, and how we classify it.
"The question of whether $1000 in my pocket is worth some African boy's life is ultimately a decision to be made by me, not by almighty Government."
Only if you live completely isolated from society, which no human does.
All societies inherently have laws that govern the conduct of its populace. Claiming something else is nonsensical or wishful thinking; I could say "The question whether I want to save someone I see is in trouble, is ultimately a decision to be made by me". Just as yours, this seems rational, if your premise is, that you're the measurement of everything (e.g. an egocentric premise).
Alas, in practise, I will be dragged before the court by the state if I refused to aid someone in trouble when I could.
Now, why is that? Simply, because the premise you start with is not generally accepted. The reason it's not generally accepted is because such a self-centered premise would mean there is no way to maintain that society. (It's impossible for a society to keep existing if each individual is of the opinion that he holds all rights.) Now, you could dispute which rights and which not, but that's ultimately arbitrary, and depends on the willingness of the state, it's government, and in a democracy, the majority of its people. It's not, however, something you're inherently entitled too, as you seem to imply.
"No, but if an author's vision seems like it has a shot at being appreciated, funding comes from people expecting a return on their investment."
Perhaps, but the question of the parent poster remains. Let's take your own example, but related to your 'investement'-reason:
"Some authors may be able to secure funding (from companies, in your case), some may not. Let's pick 10 of your favorite authors (any arts field). Now let's say that maybe 5 of them will be skilled enough to secure funding (from companies). The world would still lose 5 authors' great works."
You see? Nothing really changes, you just replaced a chance to get funded by the government or philantropists with those by (movie)companies. Yes, in the first case, the appreciation is not (or at least less) based on the question how big the profits will be from the movie... but is that really a bad thing? Unless one wants to insinuate that movies are better when they become more profitable for the companies, this seems irrelevant.
However, european movies have shown this to be a false argument; many of the EU movies *were* in fact art-jewels, where many of the commercially inspired films from hollywood were crap. Of course, there was some crap in subsidised movies, and some good hollywood-commercial ones, but all in all most people would agree that plain commercial-oriented films are far from the best the movie-industry has provided.
But regardless of WHOME authors get funding from, you will always have 5 who succeed, and 5 who don't (as it were). So one could as readily say it's a shame one has lost 5 authors' great works, because they weren't skilled enough to convince movie-companies of their commercial potential.
The reasons why those authors get funding or not may change, but the argument you used hasn't, and the endresult doesn't differ.
And electric motors often achieve 90% conversion efficiency over the full range of speeds and power output and can be precisely controlled.
The Victorian-elite argument was made by a historian, and I'm not completely convinced by it neither (at least, not as sole cause). It doesn't explain the vegetable oil-driven cars went away, for instance.
That said, back in the 19th century, a lot of other fuels were used to drive the first cars, and had we gone one way or another, our future might have been completely altered (probably in a good sense). And also true is the fact that, had we kept using batteries or electricity, we would have been much further with that technology than we are today.
Of course, we would be less developed in (petrol)combustion, but seen the problems these give, I wonder if that would have been such a bad thing.
It's a not too well known fact that, in the beginning, a lot of things *were* actually powered by electricity, *before* something else took it over. That something else wasn't necessarily better then the batteries they'd replace, but, sadly, history is full of examples where a less good alternative wins over the market (betamax vs VHS, anyone?). Somtimes electricity did win (it replaced gas for lightening homes/streets) but sometimes, alas, it didn't.
The same was true for cars. Many would think cars were always powered by diesel/petrol, but nothing is further from the truth. In fact, there were many fuels used to drive cars when they were first developped, and electricity-driven cars were actually a rather considerable percentage of cars. But then petrol came and took it over for reasons that are unclear (it has been speculated that it might had something to do with the sound, strangely enough; it made for a more impressing 'look at me, here I am!' - not unimportant to the late-victorian elite of that time. Heck, even today half of the gadgets are bought to show off (blu-ray, HD-DVD, anyone?). In that time, battery- or oildriven cars were in fact ahead of the petrol ones, but that rapidly changed the more popular the petrol-using cars became. In a few decades, the rest was all but gone.
If that hadn't happend, it is obvious we would be FAR ahead of our current state of developement where batteries and electricity-storage is concerned (just like petrol-injection has come a long way since the 19thy century). Just imagine the state of technology now on the same scale as petrol has improved, and all what we invent now (including the nano-tubes) would probably have been developed ages ago. It would have led to efficiencies and yields we can only dream of today. And also imagine the impact it would have had on other areas; a lot less - or none at all - CO2 from cars (and maybe the petrol-industry as a whole would not have reached the peak it has today) and all the problems associated with that would not exist (maybe even les wars)! (Arguably, one would - maybe - have had a environmental problems with acids and such, from the batteries; in that respect, vegetable oil would have been best, perhaps.)
It's funny (well...) to think how one little thing in our history can lead to such huge (and possibly devastating) consequences for humanity more then a century later.
The only thing I'm still waiting for is firefox being controlled by voice recognition. Now, THAT would be cool.
I heard Opera has it, so I don't understand why it takes so long for firefox. I did search for firefox extensions and plugins that had something to do with 'sound' or 'voice', but the only thing that came up was something that tried to read out text on a page. Fine for blind people, I guess. But what I'm looking for is to give commands, like 'firefox, slashdot' and voila, there it opens on slashdot.
That would be cool AND useful, contrary to the majority of the plugins to date.
The only other useful thing would be a far better downloadmanager - but than again, I think that should be incorporated in firefox by default.
If an USA citizen plays on a european server, and converts his gold at another server in the kayman isles, where exactly should he pay taxes?
He then waits a few days, gold gets less expensive and he can buy more with the sama amount, so he does. He now has converted everything to virtual gold... when he nows plays on a USA server, should he pay on the amount of virtual gold he has? I mean, he has converted in real money, but *the profit* he made is only measurable in virtual gold.
Isn't that rather an investment?
And what about tax-reduction? If one claims virtual swords can be taxed if you pay for it, than equally you can claim some items should be tax-deductable. Somehow, I don't see the tax-office willing to accept a virtual security-alarm as a cost that goes of your real taxes.
While it might theoretically be possible to find an answer for everything, in a pragmatic sense, it just would get incredible complicated... I mean...I don't know how it is in your country, but they already have difficulties here to combat fiscal fraude in reality, let alone they could take on an online virtual world. For instance, imagine the difficulties when someone could (perhaps rightfully) claim the virtual items he sold were second-hand... then a whole other tax-system/amount would apply (at least in my country).
HMMM...well, if the handscanner also looked for the warmth-signature of bloodvessels (quite unique on it's own) the finger/handprint recognition would solve the problem of 'cut off hands' too.
Of course, one could speculate that chopping of the hand and *immediately* putting the hand on there would fool the system, but then again, you caould as well argument that it's possible to kill someone, put his mouth over the mouthpiece and perform a Heimlich-maneuver; since there is always some air left, it could be forced out, that way, possibly fooling the system as well.
But then again, it would be more probable, if it came so far, to just force the guy to do whatever he needs to do by gunpoint, or other life-threat.
Slashdot Mirror
"then they're going fight you tooth and nail to squeeze your rights as small as the law and their considerable legal budget will let them."
And that's exactly what they've been doing and what they will continue to do, and why they get all the flack they get.
"I think that they're unproductive."
True, but let's be honest: all what we do or say on slashdot won't have any noticable effect on any policy be it of companies or the government. This place is just (to) talk and have debates, and it does a fine job at that. the only real influence is indirect; for instance an appeal to write congressmen or the parliament that is followed up, or something.
" Illegal copying doesn't just cut into their profits; it cuts into their ability to make any money at all."
For gods' sake... first of all, I'm not sure whether it's a question whether THEY should have the ability to make the money instead of, say, the actual musicians. And thus, the ability for THEM to make money does not necessarily mean no-one can make any money anymore (or that music-making will stop). Why do people still go to live-performances if they can download it on the internet? Why do I got to the movies when I know I can download it from the net (or that it will become viewable on TV eventually?). Why do I still buy books when I can read them all in the library? Is it because I'm afraid of breaking copy-right? I don't think so.
All these forms of entertainment will still be as popular as they have ever been, regardless of the possibilities of online P2P systems. So they will still make money in those instances, but, indeed, perhaps less in DVD/CD sales (though even there it is debatable how big the loss is). So in the end, they will still make money, but perhaps less than they do now. Big deal. Hence it's about lesser profits at most, and maybe the failure of an old businessmodel, but not the failure of creating movies and music, as some predict it. I just don't fall for that doomsday-scenario as the **AAs proclaim it.
"We here on Slashdot are the technicians: tell them what's possible and feasible and fair to both you and them."
What's possible and feasible is one thing, what is fair is something else entirely. The former is indeed a technical matter, the latter is a moral/ethical/political one. And a legal one, which is why what's "fair" is for the most part already made clear in precedent, such as the *fair*-use clause.
Besides, even purely speaking technically; it doesn't mean the **AAs will give one damn about our opinions on slashdot. For instance, it is more then clear that a full-proof encoding system is totally impossible. We, as technicians, have said many times (over and over again) that every sheme they come up with is going to be broken (TFA proves it once again)...yet it didn't and doesn't stop them from creating such encryption-mechanisms anyway. In fact, even a blind man can see that a medium which invariably has to be converted into an analoge signal (so we can hear and see it) has an *inherent* weakness in being unprotectable, ultimately.
"If you put all of the burden on them to respect your rights, while insisting that it's also entirely up to them to protect theirs,"
I put the burden on the legal system which already established our consumer rights...the only thing I expect is that the **AAs acts in accordance with it, as one should expect from any other entity or citizen (but aparently in vain). And yes, it's up to them to find a way to protect their rights without violating ours. I mean, if you can help them, fine; but the main point remains, namely that they can't trample on our rights to safegard theirs from potential misuse.
I don't know: maybe they should come up with a sheme that alows for one copy and no more? No doubt that would be broken too, but at least they would have done the effort in making some protection for their own without infringing on ours. But do you think they will seriously listen to this more fair and balanced solution? Of course not. Th
"I can't think of any way to resolve that conflict: anything that allowed you to make excerpts or backups or format-shift would also be used to make things freely available P2P."
This is true, but it doesn't change anything to the rights consumers have. whatever the **AA's do, they should do it without trampling on our rights with the excuse that it might be abused. a car can be used for joyriding or for killing someone too, yet it does not mean carsellers can order us around how to use our wars and on which roads we can drive - I don't think even you would accept that.
You seem to be complaining about the irrational and inconsistent behaviour of slashdot(ers)...but in fact it's very rational and consistent, we (well, most slashdotters, that is) just take the rights of the consumers as our first focus, not the profits of companies. I doubt you would see many complain if **AAs would come up with something that safegards all our consumer-rights. The actions they've done thusfar, have often been done in total disregard of any of our rights, and this includes encryption and suing people without actually checking the facts (for instance; downloading on a P2P is not neceseraly illegal if you're not uploading).
The bottom line is, excerpts or backups or format-shift belong to our basic rights as consumers, and whether or not abuse is possible, that is not our concern, and can not be invoked as a reason to take away our rights. It's this slashdot is pointing out, and they *are* rather consistent in it.
While I understand the feelings (and I do think people should decide for themselves what is suitable and not), I always think these arguments lack some consistency when viewed rationally.
First of all: "I'm in favour of preventing my children from seeing certain websites and images that are harmful to them."
This would be more convincing if anyone could actually show how pr0n (I assume that's what you're talking about) is actually harmfull to anyone when viewed. And if it were, how is it possible that it is o so harmful to children, but becomes unharmful the moment they turn 18? It just doesn't make any sense. In the USA, it is even deemed to be 'harmful' if kids see a booby...but at the same time they can watch a movie with a rather hefty dose of violence without any problem - while one could reasonably argue that violence is much more harmful than sex. The fact one has a great tolerance for the first, but almost none for the latter (at least in the USA) is completely nonsensical. I always wonder about parents who freak out about that; I mean, did they only started to look at 'dirty pictures' when they were 18 year or older? Myeah, right. If I remember correctly, the kids at my school (and I myself) where watching playboy-magazines (some kid snatched from his parents) LONG before we were 18. People should get a grip; it's part of life, and kids are curious and on itself it's anything but 'harmful'. I would rather argue it is unnatural to never have encountered sexual-themed topics before you're 18 years old (like in some parts of china, where married copples sometimes don't even know how to do 'it', even when they are 20+ years old). Teenagers will NOT die or get a trauma just by viewing sexual things, I assure you. In fact, I'm quite sure they actively go searching for it on the internet (I would have, if the internet had existed back then). There is no real harm done, it's just something people invent as an excuse to prevent their kids watching stuff they don't like because of their morals. And often they are hypocritical about it on top, because those same parents often DO watch it themselves, despite their proclaimed moral high ground. The idea that it would be harmful to minors while adults can watch it without any harm is truly absurd: not only has no scientific research demonstrated any actual harm, there is no basis whatsoever to argument it harms when being -18 and it doesn't when one is 18+. That concept is just crap, and I think most of us know that, deep down.
"I'm in favour of preventing adults viewing material that either encourages them to commit crimes against children or harms children in making the material."
I'm not completely getting this one neither. Preventing *adults*? You mean if kids view the material it would be ok, this time? Or do you mean 'everyone'? Is there any scientific proof that viewing material encourages crimes? And if that is the case, shouldn't all films where someone is killed be prohibited too, since it would encourage murder? Once again, the argument would be more convincing if there would be a bit more proof and consistency instead of conjecture. And while I agree in most cases it could mean children are harmed, what are you going to do about cases like the one mentioned on slashdot some months ago, where a teenager of 14 made some sexual webcam-recording of himself and now faces a 10-year prison sentence because of 'possesion of childporn'? Made by himself of himself! Just shows how stupid and overboard some laws have gone. I'm all for the protection of children (though the 'save the children' mantra has been overused as it is), but it's ridiculous to imprison a kid to 'protect' him from 'abuse' by himself. One could as well put teenagers in jail because of indecent behaviour with minors when they wank themselves, then. I understand the argument of protecting kids from harm, but I think it often has more to do with imposing morals than anything else, because otherwise, one could not argument against allowing it in the above case.
"I'm in fav
No first posts may be posted after 8:30 pm on Saturday, April 28th. Excerpts may not be archived. Any further use of excerpts is by express permission of Slashdotmember n3wsbyt3 only.
I completely agree with your analysis. Apart from the question whether it is probably cause or not (or in all cases; imagine open wap becoming ubiquitous, one might conclude differently in the future), that was that courts' current vision on it.
It was the CD-stack that did him in. Legally speaking, he would have had a better case if it had just been on his HD.
"I think to goes to show how similar us humans really are to other animals."
;-)
Kenan Malik would disagree.
That said, there are some things I disagree with Kenan Malik myself.
In any case, his book 'man, beast and zombie' is an interesting read, which make you wonder of the intrinsical (?) differences between humans and animals (and AI's).
As a lot of other posters have pointed out, there might be serious problems when one is in another mood or if something happens (even if only you bought a new keyboard) which deviated enough from the pattern to be refused access. Now, in TFA they say they solved that by asking you additional questions, if you don't get it right a few times. But, if that's the case, it isn't any better then a security system with additional passwords.
;-) if you are drunk or what not. But what would that accomplish, you ask? Well, it would leave all brute force attacks useless (even quantummechanical ones), because those systems rely on crunching huge amounts of numbers (well, characters) superfast. Thus, if all passwords are rejected that doesn't take at least one second, and this is an integral part of getting access, then this means a computer can at most try out one pasword each second, instead of, say, a billion.
However, I do see an important possibility where the *speed* of the pattern is used as an integral part of the paswordprotection. Say, for instance, it needed at least a one second interval between each character typed, or otherwise, it would refuse the pasword. Now, that is easy to do, even (or maybe even easier
This in turns means that such a system, when the code is long enough, can't be beaten by a brute-force attack (well, not in the lifetime of the universe) because such an attack would intrinsically need huge amounts of time to decypher it. While a human, knowing the password, would have no trouble at all. His 'slowiness' compared to a computer using a decryption algorithm would be exactly his strong point.
Don't take it too personally, it happend to me too. Sometimes, moderaters squander away their modpoints in incomprehensible ways. This is slashdot, after all; there are some pretty weird folks around here.
,know, but moderators are, ultimately, like every human population: they are comprised of intellectually honest people and of assholes wanting to make a point while being inept in making a rational argumentation - and everything in between those two things.
It's sometimes frustrating, I
When a system is borked like our current patent system, it's ludicrous to think all (or even any) problems will be solved by just making it a 'who filed it first' (which is the biggest improvement talked about in TFA). We have it in europe, and it didn't do squat. In fact, one can argument that, while it is more *pragmatic* (easier for the courts to determine), it is equally true that it is *less fair* for the one inventing something.
r ee-world.html , and if people feel there are other links that could be placed there, feel free to point them out.
But then again, the whole notion of patents is rather unfair, because, even when two inventers would invent something at the same time, independend of eachother, the one filing first got it, and the other one gets aboslutely nothing. Why is that? didn't the other party invest at least as much in it? In fact, couldn't it be that he was the first to invent it, but due to say, a traffic jam, he got second in filing it - where's the fairness in that?
But, even that wouldn't solve the problems with the current patents and copyright-system. I would refer you to http://newsbyte.blogspot.com/2007/04/patents-vs-f
A frequently occurring debate I have is with the question whether or not we should have space-exploration (and as a subset: human vs. robotic space exploration). This involves the "we should spend the money on other things, like combating worldhunger"-arguments, as the more subtile arguments which is better: human or robotic exploration.
;-)
I have pondered a long time about this, and this is my conclusion:
We all heard the reasoning for abolishing space-exploration (particular human-based) before, and I think the major flaw in all these 'arguments' why we shouldn't go into space is that they always set economic factors as a premise.
But, although economic viability is important to create a mass-usage of space(travel), I fail to see why it should be the only possible motive to start exploring space. It's a pretty narrow-minded, materialistic and typical capitalistic view on things. It's the same view that makes progress on medication for very rare diseases, or for diseases that are prevalent in continents that are poor, so slow: corporations can't see how they are ever going to get profit out of it, so they all turn their backs on it.
If ppl (including states) are only going to do something when they are sure of an immediate profitable return, the world has become a sad place. (And we should leave it the sooner
Arguments based on such a viewpoint fail to recognize other incentives apart from economical ones.
And the reason why we shouldn't (only) rely on robots? You can explore, but you can not colonize with robots. The will to explore is deeply entrenched in the human race, but with a reason: it has survival advantages.
A species that doesn't colonize new territory and adapt, will perish. I think it's paramount that humans always keep their spirit of adventure and keep exploring and expanding, because the moment we will go "ah, let's sit back in our sofa's and let our robots/droids do it", we're basically finished, even when not being aware of it at that moment.
So, to to all the people saying we don't *need* space-exploration (human or otherwise); we don't *need* the pyramids neither, nor all those great buildings and artworks, nor any luxury, etc. The only thing we 'need' is food and shelter. Based on what we truly 'need' thus, we should go back living like cavemen. But of course, we don't, and the reason is that we, as humans, look beyond our immediate needs and have (and should have) grander visions.
So, economics (and also the ratio of costs/science output) is often less good with human space-travel then robotic ones. Contrary to some zealots, I do not dispute that. But, as I have indicated, I do not think one should measure everything in terms of economic benefits. Even if you could send a hundred, or a thousand robots for the price of one human mission, it still would not change the fact that robots can't colonize planets, and augment the survival chances of the human race (and earths' ecology) through interplanetary spreading.
"Most of that marketing is in the form of free samples, so essentially half that marketing goes back to subsidizing consumers."
Ermm...you *are* aware that the link you gave does not really speak in favor of such practises, right? Consumers are not 'subsidised'; they are given a sample to try to hook them to the product. they do not do it out of chatity. The difference may be lost to some, but it amounts to this: companies care about profits, not what is best for the people. For instance, it has already been demonstrated many times that there have been companies who promoted new drugs (also with examples) which were in effect less effective than old drugs - but those had lost their patents. It is more profitable for drug-companies to *sell* drugs with patents, *regardless* of the benefits. Sure, they can't just sell crap, because there is much govenment control and they are liable if something happens, but I have no doubt that they would promote and sell things that don't work at all, if it gives them profit. In fact, they already do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy
So, I fail to see your argument here; do they keep giving free samples to people who tried it? I doubt it. Thus, once people are acustomed to the product, they have to pay later on, and then they pay for *expensive* patented drugs, instead of generic ones, which might work as well, but don't get the 'free example' treatement. How is theis beneficial to the populace? However they market it; the purpose is still marketing, and that money is not going to R&D.
"So getting rid of exclusivity will result in more spent on advertising."
If that would be true, then companies that sell generic drugs would spend more on advertising then companies that sell patented drugs. I have never seen any researchpaper that substatiated such a claim. If you have such a link, please provide it, I would be more than interested to read it.
"12.5% of revenue spent on R&D is inline with what the electronics industry invests."
Exactly. Another area where patents have shown to be a burden to innovation and cheaper products. Or didn't you mean the IT-sector? Regardless, I don't see how comparing a weak sign of R&D of one sector (which is heavily based on patents) with another, equally weak sign of R&D in another sector (which is also heavily based on patents). If anything, it indicates that patents might have something to do with it, as was my point.
"The drug corps must spend on R&D because they constantly need new patents to replace those that are expiring. If they don't get new drugs to market, they go out of business."
It's the first time I see a monopoly being defended as a good way of promoting innovation. Monopolies inherently go against the free market - with its basic tenent of competition, which *is* supposed to be the most beneficial to end-users, consumers and a stimulus for innovation. If I remember correctly, the R&D of academic research is way higher than 12.5%, so the argument that patents are necessary for innovation seems to fail on more than one front. It's true they seldom come to the actual marketing of drugs, but that's mainly due to the fact the government has endorsed patents in the first place, and leaves it up to companies and their patents. It's far from certain this is the best solution, however (as in: most beneficial to the largest amount of its citizens and society as a whole).
"I would say that patent protections are too long and should be reduced (avg time for drug to recoup it's investment is 8.5 years)."
Hmmm...that number comes from where, exactly? Does it include government subsidising - which, btw, already happens a lot, EVEN with private monopolistic drug-companies. But, ok, say it's true... while patents suck, they would suck less if they are less long, I agree. And also, I'm well aware there is no chance in hell the patentsystem will be thrown out: it's too well entranched by now, and too powerfu
"It can't be denied that there is crap TO YOU."
No. You have missed my point. While what we think is crap may vary, it is a FACT that there is crap -to EVERYONE (even though people don't always agree on what's crap). For instance, I can show quite clearly that it's not only to me: do *you* denie there is crap? Does, in fact, anyone?
You also missed my point about 'the wallets decide'. For instance, we both know (well, I presume) that box-office sucesses are NOT always succes due to their greatness. In fact, many elements contribute to it being a succes, mass-advertising being one of the most prominent one. Do you denie that? Does anyone?
So basically, wallet voting != the best movies. Pretending that the amount of profit a film gathers is the only, or even the most accurate measurement of how good the quality of a film is, borders to the ridiculous. Since almost no EU film reaches the level of a typical commercially succesful hollywood movie regarding ticket-sales, that would mean, according to your reasoning, that no EU film was ever better than such commercial movie. You claim I'm in a minority here, but I dare you to find a majority (of people whome have seen EU films and compare that to the typical commercial hollywood film), who come to the conclusion wallet voting is, effectively, a measurement for quality.
It sounds cool as a simplistic soundbite, and it has the advantage of being straightforward and simple to check, but the fact is, no one actually really *believes* a commercial succes necessarily defines a quality picture.
I know, this is a concept difficult to swallow, especially for USA-citzens, but 'sales numbers' do not equal quality. If that really would be true, there wouldn't be anyone who would deny a sucesful commercial film is still crap. I doubt many people do that. I even wonder if you think that. Hasn't there been any blockbuster where you thought: fuck, that's crap, I've seen much better which had much less sales numbers? I doubt that.
So, you might fulminate against what you perceive as me 'chosing' for you, but that's not my point. My point is, to demonstrate wallet voting != a film of quality. Mind you, I do not claim the two can't be possible: there certainly ARE blockbusters who were very good too, but I doubt anyone really 'goes with the latter' of defining quality with sales numbers.
"Like I said, data please, no speculation."
Well, ok...but please adhere to that principle yourself. Where is your hard data that patents and copyright are benefical to the populace at large? I *did* give you the links and references, right? Not only to the pirate bay, but also to a whole plethora of researchpapers which strongly indicate the current patent and copyrightsystem just doesn't do what it is supposed to do. I find it a bit puzzling you shrug off all that so easily (well, you DID read some of it, right?). I'm still waiting for *any* link to *your* hard data demonstrating the beneficial effect patents and copyright has to society.
I'm sure we can both agree that, if hard data is required, it must come from both sides of the debate. A dozen researchpapers have - I think you will agree - more weight than mere idle speculation.
As for the estimated cost: as far as I can find on wikipedia and the internet, the average cost of a film is 110.000.000 dollar, and the average amount of films from the USA is 200. That means an average of 22 billion. The GPD of the USA is more than 13 trillion, which means that it's 1/590 - far less than a double digit, as I said. As far as the reference to Iraq is concerned, while I appreciate that it is a sensitive matter, in this discusion it *was* relevant, because it demonstrates the possibility of a government to free massive amounts of money (far more than what would be necessary to subsidise films). And the war in Iraq is quite obviously paid by taxes, too. If it is *possible* to do so for an illegal war, it is possible to do so for other things as well: your objection that something like that would be
The logical flaw of your reasoning lies in the fact that
_ of_intellectual_property )
1)your premise isn't substantiated,
2)AND you make a false dillemma out of it (patents and medicne, or no patents and no medicine, as if that were only the two possible options).
Patents are *supposed* to lead to investments. However, in reality patents are more than not used to stiffle innovation. In reality, the huge profits those companies make go primarily into marketing, NOT R&D. And the relatively small investment (compared to the overall profits and what goes to other departemtns like marketing and the legal teams) that remains, is that really the best return one can get? Is that the most efficient (in terms of being beneficial to the populace at large instead of being most beneficial for the monopolist) we can get?
I doubt it. ( http://www2.piratpartiet.se/referenser/the_reform
"What's "crap" to you doesn't seem like crap to others."
True, but nevertheless it can not be denied that there *is* crap. Thus, the only thing remaining is to ask oneself if, on average, films that are made purely for the money are more often than not crap compared to films that are made as an art form. I would claim it is, and I'm not exactly the only one to think so, if I may be so bold. Certainly, I've watched commercial movies too, and some were not too bad...and some where actually crap, indeed. But, you know, even of commercial films who were succeses at the boxoffices and I went watching myself, I have no difficulties acknowledging they're weak shadows of real strong movies.
Which is another way of saying that "voting with their wallets" isn't really a good measurement of the quality of a film. In fact, if you would put all my money I spend on movies together, I think the majority of it will have gone to commercial films as well...but as I said, that doesn't mean I don't realise that the quality of those films is often less than some EU-movies I've seen who weren't box-ofice successes. I'd rather go with critical acclaim then by pure wallet-voting, if one does need some measurement of quality. I know it's popular (especially by UDA citizens) to consider all value in terms of money and profit, but there really is more than that to measure something for its worth.
"Anyway, it seems you agree with my first argument - that less will be produced"
Well, what I SAID was that I don't know: I can't exclude the possibility. And neither can you that the amount would remain the same, or even augment. It's just speculative. It could be it gets less, but that would depend entirely on the mechanisms that would pop up in the place of movie-corps (and to what degree). Seen the fact that in the EU, many directors/movies are already subsidised, and the quality as a whole is better then the average hollywood production, I can't feel to think that maybe you are a bit to pessimistic about government funding.
"The government only has so much money. If I wanted to nitpick I could say it will have even less, as a few industries will all but disappear, and you don't tax donations (am I wrong here?)."
I'm not sure; I don't know how much the movie-industry contributes to the GDP or overall taxes of the USA. I doubt it's anything compared with, say, a war in Iraq. As for the EU; there it would be completely negligable.
"The annual budgets generally get spent and then some (deficits anyone?) on things like health care, education, and yes, culture. Where is all that extra money going to come from?"
From taxes. I'm not sure what you're getting at. Budgets are never fixed completely; they always differ from year to year. It's true all want a part of it, education as well as defence...but you seem to think it would amount to double digits of the GDP, while even with a huge boost it wouldn't go beyond a single digit. In the past, governments have always shifted money to diferent departments, including an extra 3 billion a month for wars, or to reform eucation, or, indeed art. It's nothing beyond the impossible to do it when the movies needs to be extra subsidised.
"As for new forms of philanthropy, it's just speculation at the moment. People generally have been known to look after their own interest first."
Heh.There we go again, with the typical self-centered explanation. I think people have been reading too much 'the selfish gene' and not realised it's been long shown to be flawed. In reality, people do not 'generally' look after their own interest at all. In fact, there was a research done to look at the *actual* behaviour of people, and they found that the only ones who actually behaved as if people were mostly motivated by self-interest where the economists who used those theories and psychopaths. all the rest of humanity wasn't nearly as self-centered as the neo-capitalistic mentality seems to consider as fact. "Man, beast and zombie" is a book who gives some refreshing i
"It's not a bad thing at all, but even today the first case happens a lot less than the second one.[] If today you can't convince anybody (for whatever reason) to fund your project, good luck doing that when the for-profit companies will get out of the game."
;-), but sometimes the idea is taken too far. I definitely believe that the state does a better job sometimes, *if the premise is to help as many people as possible*. And there lies the difference; the duty of the state is (or at least should be) towards the benefit of as much of its citizens as possible. The duty of a private company is..to make profit.
:-)
Well, I think that's largely due to self-enforcement of the current system. It has largely taken over the old philantropists and government-funded subsidies just *because* the capitalist-market-driven orientated thinking rules our current timeframe. I mean, why would the government spend on anything if they are convinced (or perhaps misguided into thinking) that the private sector can do better in all area's, be more efficient and cheaper than if they would invest in it?
I'm not saying this isn't the case sometimes (I'm not a communist, after all
There are areas where both things overlap, and there is no discord between those two goals; companies making a profit is, in general, goodfor the populace as well. But while the two different goals can get along quite well, they are not the same, and where and when there is a conflict betwen the profits of companies and the benefits of the populace (as in the case of medicine and public health), then the state has the right and the duty to go for its citizens, NOT the profits for companies. In the USA (and EU more and more too) the current corporatism consiniously erodes that primary objective of the state, with the consequence that politicians do not hold to the benefits of the populace, but rather cater to the (money of) the corporations.
Hmm...anyway, I have disgressed somewhat.
If the current system of patents and copyrights were abolished, its almost certain that their would be an increase in philantrophy and government-subsidies in that area. Where is where I think you are wrong in your argument that it wont be replaced. I don't know if *everything* would be replaced to the same amount, true, but then again, if it means less crap, I wouldn't mind too much. But your basic mistake is, that you seem to think it's something static; that, if copyrights were gone, no other mechanism would pop up to at least compensate for a large part.
I, however, I'm quite sure the government would fill in the gap, as well as new forms of philantrophism. In that regard, I read an article somewhere which stated that, with our new technology (notably the internet), a new form of philantropists could come up as well; not (only) the old ones - rather limited amount of people - with large amounts of money to spend, but huge masses with a limited amount of money.
The only thing you would need for that to work, is a system that makes payment very easy for small amounts (and easy to set up/use). Paypal still doesn't do the trick, but I think a system with pre-paid cards, like something you buy for cellphones or buy-cards from certain shops, would do the trick. I mean, if ordinary people (fans of a music-group, say) would be able to support their group with some small money-incentives, and enough can do it, then that group doesn't need to search for one rich philantropist; it just has to be good enough to have a loyal fan-base.
I'm just saying; there ARE possibilities our culture and society at large could deal with no patents/copyright just fine. The perceived disastrous impact it would have (as often claimed by companies that own those copyrights and patents) are severely exagerated, IMHO. In fact, I remember some paper where they researched the inventions made in countries (during the 19th century) where they had patents versus where they didn't have any. The conclusion was, that, though it did show a
"How has it failed?"
/ 29/safrica.aids.patents/index.html
You must have missed this:
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/conditions/01
Basically, patents make monopolies, monopolies make products more expensive, expensive products mean not all people can buy it - especially the weaker/poor populace who often needs it the most. Since the product here is medicine, and medicine is about health (if not life and death) of people, there most certainly IS a problem when patents are a hinderance in saving as much human lives as possible.
1)I think his point was that that kind of 'charity' doesn't really help where help is needed the most. In fact, it isn't charity at all, if you consider it an essential element of charity that it is meant to help people in the first place, instead of being a side-effect. For example, if companies would pollute my surroundings, but that would somehow help me (or people specialised in cleaning up pollution), I still wouldn't consider it charity from the part of those corporations.
2)The parent poster was pointing to the hypocrisy when drug-corps use the nominator 'charity' on conduct/methods that has nothing to do with wanting to help people, but rather with making a profit. If you deny that intention is a major factor, you deny a great many things in human behaviour, and how we classify it.
"The question of whether $1000 in my pocket is worth some African boy's life is ultimately a decision to be made by me, not by almighty Government."
Only if you live completely isolated from society, which no human does.
All societies inherently have laws that govern the conduct of its populace. Claiming something else is nonsensical or wishful thinking; I could say "The question whether I want to save someone I see is in trouble, is ultimately a decision to be made by me". Just as yours, this seems rational, if your premise is, that you're the measurement of everything (e.g. an egocentric premise).
Alas, in practise, I will be dragged before the court by the state if I refused to aid someone in trouble when I could.
Now, why is that? Simply, because the premise you start with is not generally accepted. The reason it's not generally accepted is because such a self-centered premise would mean there is no way to maintain that society. (It's impossible for a society to keep existing if each individual is of the opinion that he holds all rights.) Now, you could dispute which rights and which not, but that's ultimately arbitrary, and depends on the willingness of the state, it's government, and in a democracy, the majority of its people. It's not, however, something you're inherently entitled too, as you seem to imply.
"No, but if an author's vision seems like it has a shot at being appreciated, funding comes from people expecting a return on their investment."
Perhaps, but the question of the parent poster remains. Let's take your own example, but related to your 'investement'-reason:
"Some authors may be able to secure funding (from companies, in your case), some may not. Let's pick 10 of your favorite authors (any arts field). Now let's say that maybe 5 of them will be skilled enough to secure funding (from companies). The world would still lose 5 authors' great works."
You see? Nothing really changes, you just replaced a chance to get funded by the government or philantropists with those by (movie)companies. Yes, in the first case, the appreciation is not (or at least less) based on the question how big the profits will be from the movie... but is that really a bad thing? Unless one wants to insinuate that movies are better when they become more profitable for the companies, this seems irrelevant.
However, european movies have shown this to be a false argument; many of the EU movies *were* in fact art-jewels, where many of the commercially inspired films from hollywood were crap. Of course, there was some crap in subsidised movies, and some good hollywood-commercial ones, but all in all most people would agree that plain commercial-oriented films are far from the best the movie-industry has provided.
But regardless of WHOME authors get funding from, you will always have 5 who succeed, and 5 who don't (as it were). So one could as readily say it's a shame one has lost 5 authors' great works, because they weren't skilled enough to convince movie-companies of their commercial potential.
The reasons why those authors get funding or not may change, but the argument you used hasn't, and the endresult doesn't differ.
And electric motors often achieve 90% conversion efficiency over the full range of speeds and power output and can be precisely controlled.
The Victorian-elite argument was made by a historian, and I'm not completely convinced by it neither (at least, not as sole cause). It doesn't explain the vegetable oil-driven cars went away, for instance.
That said, back in the 19th century, a lot of other fuels were used to drive the first cars, and had we gone one way or another, our future might have been completely altered (probably in a good sense). And also true is the fact that, had we kept using batteries or electricity, we would have been much further with that technology than we are today.
Of course, we would be less developed in (petrol)combustion, but seen the problems these give, I wonder if that would have been such a bad thing.
It's a not too well known fact that, in the beginning, a lot of things *were* actually powered by electricity, *before* something else took it over. That something else wasn't necessarily better then the batteries they'd replace, but, sadly, history is full of examples where a less good alternative wins over the market (betamax vs VHS, anyone?). Somtimes electricity did win (it replaced gas for lightening homes/streets) but sometimes, alas, it didn't.
The same was true for cars. Many would think cars were always powered by diesel/petrol, but nothing is further from the truth. In fact, there were many fuels used to drive cars when they were first developped, and electricity-driven cars were actually a rather considerable percentage of cars. But then petrol came and took it over for reasons that are unclear (it has been speculated that it might had something to do with the sound, strangely enough; it made for a more impressing 'look at me, here I am!' - not unimportant to the late-victorian elite of that time. Heck, even today half of the gadgets are bought to show off (blu-ray, HD-DVD, anyone?). In that time, battery- or oildriven cars were in fact ahead of the petrol ones, but that rapidly changed the more popular the petrol-using cars became. In a few decades, the rest was all but gone.
If that hadn't happend, it is obvious we would be FAR ahead of our current state of developement where batteries and electricity-storage is concerned (just like petrol-injection has come a long way since the 19thy century). Just imagine the state of technology now on the same scale as petrol has improved, and all what we invent now (including the nano-tubes) would probably have been developed ages ago. It would have led to efficiencies and yields we can only dream of today. And also imagine the impact it would have had on other areas; a lot less - or none at all - CO2 from cars (and maybe the petrol-industry as a whole would not have reached the peak it has today) and all the problems associated with that would not exist (maybe even les wars)! (Arguably, one would - maybe - have had a environmental problems with acids and such, from the batteries; in that respect, vegetable oil would have been best, perhaps.)
It's funny (well...) to think how one little thing in our history can lead to such huge (and possibly devastating) consequences for humanity more then a century later.
The only thing I'm still waiting for is firefox being controlled by voice recognition. Now, THAT would be cool.
I heard Opera has it, so I don't understand why it takes so long for firefox. I did search for firefox extensions and plugins that had something to do with 'sound' or 'voice', but the only thing that came up was something that tried to read out text on a page. Fine for blind people, I guess. But what I'm looking for is to give commands, like 'firefox, slashdot' and voila, there it opens on slashdot.
That would be cool AND useful, contrary to the majority of the plugins to date.
The only other useful thing would be a far better downloadmanager - but than again, I think that should be incorporated in firefox by default.
If an USA citizen plays on a european server, and converts his gold at another server in the kayman isles, where exactly should he pay taxes?
He then waits a few days, gold gets less expensive and he can buy more with the sama amount, so he does. He now has converted everything to virtual gold... when he nows plays on a USA server, should he pay on the amount of virtual gold he has? I mean, he has converted in real money, but *the profit* he made is only measurable in virtual gold.
Isn't that rather an investment?
And what about tax-reduction? If one claims virtual swords can be taxed if you pay for it, than equally you can claim some items should be tax-deductable. Somehow, I don't see the tax-office willing to accept a virtual security-alarm as a cost that goes of your real taxes.
While it might theoretically be possible to find an answer for everything, in a pragmatic sense, it just would get incredible complicated... I mean...I don't know how it is in your country, but they already have difficulties here to combat fiscal fraude in reality, let alone they could take on an online virtual world. For instance, imagine the difficulties when someone could (perhaps rightfully) claim the virtual items he sold were second-hand... then a whole other tax-system/amount would apply (at least in my country).
It would rather be opening a can of worms.
HMMM...well, if the handscanner also looked for the warmth-signature of bloodvessels (quite unique on it's own) the finger/handprint recognition would solve the problem of 'cut off hands' too.
Of course, one could speculate that chopping of the hand and *immediately* putting the hand on there would fool the system, but then again, you caould as well argument that it's possible to kill someone, put his mouth over the mouthpiece and perform a Heimlich-maneuver; since there is always some air left, it could be forced out, that way, possibly fooling the system as well.
But then again, it would be more probable, if it came so far, to just force the guy to do whatever he needs to do by gunpoint, or other life-threat.
Since when did slashdot became so blatantly a mouthpiece for corporate advertising, such as this add-campaign for motherboards?
Mind you, I mean *so blatantly*. They used to have a bit more discretion.