...and doesn't send a strong enough message to other pubescent male teens thinking...
Deterrence doesn't work. If it did, America with it's tough laws and lengthy jail terms would have virtually no crime.
Secondly, "pubescent male teens" and "thinking" don't really go together. So the deterrence factor is even further limited... Do you honestly believe children think about legal consequences?
Community service to give the person some appreciation for his fellow man is the only thing that might help.
While the money doesn't vanish, litigation is a leach on the system.
Lawyers don't produce anything and are only necessary because we can't just all get along.
Like the police: If everyone were law abiding we wouldn't need police and jails and courts and all the other fine expenses that go along with enforcing the laws.
For me, this is one of the things that is much overlooked in Intellectual Monopoly law: what is the cost of running this system to society?
Even assuming that patents do increase innovation (I don't believe they do) they also cause a drain of production resources in terms of legal costs, both to file and then to protect. This cost (along with other social costs, like increased prices of drugs etc) needs to be deducted from any gains that a patent system gives (and since I don't believe there are any gains to begin with, I think we have an overall loss...but that's just mho)
Re:Doesnt it sound like...(Score:2, Insightful) by Korin43 (881732) on 12:40 AM -- Thursday August 24 2006 (#15967575) Aw man.. of all the days to not have mod points:(
and yet someone else has mod points to burn... are they just mocking you?
Burnin' mod points, baby... ya can't take 'em with you!
...and on re-reading it all, it's not as cut'n dry as I remember it. It does say that if you knowingly infringe there's a triple payout when you get sued and lose, and that's the part I remembered.
True - left alone, humans will create. For themselves. But creating a market in ideas is the only way to have a mechanism that can easily compensate people for creating things of value to others.
Well...that's just not true. "only way"? current way, sure, but a market for ideas is only a coupl'a hundred years old and yet Mozart composed music that is still appreciated today and he was compensated. Am I suggesting that was a better way? maybe not, but it's different....
But who is out there volunteering to create programs of very narrow interest and high complexity?
The current system doesn't necessarily 'incent' to create those things that are most beneficial to society; just those that are the most profitable for the corporation...
What I'm getting at, is that to discuss that another system may/may-not build the things that you want isn't really relevant as the current system may not build those things either.
Lucas has complained that w/o copyright there won't be anymore $500m movies made as they just don't pay. So what?
He might as well be asking why the system doesn't support hundred-billion dollar movies.
No system is going to be perfect. But if it's important for $500m movies to be made (I can't see why it's price tag has anything do with how important it is to society that it be made) then capitalists will find a way to recoup the cost. Even without intellectual monopoly laws.
At least in a system w/o intellectual monopolies there wouldn't be rent-seeking activities which are very bad for society, like setting drug prices so high that people can't afford them anymore. There is no fundamental difference between "something not being created" and "something that I can't get". I've read that some 80% of recorded music is unavailable for purchase. I don't know if it's true (I suspect it is) but if I can't legally aquire it, it might as well not have been created...
As a final note, ask any economist and they will tell you that included in the definition of 'monopoly' is that there will be a lower supply at a higher price. Is that what we want for ideas? Less ideas that cost more? If you haven't read the PDFs in my previous post, do yourself a favour and check them out. While it's a lot of reading, it does read nicely; it's not a heavy read.
They will do this because if they don't, their customers will sue them.
For what? The terms of service (as I read them, IANAL!) pretty much let EchoStar do whatever they want, but will send you a bill or a policeman if you do anything other than passively sit there and just watch TV...
C. DISH Network reserves the rights to alter software, features and/or functionality in your DISH Network receivers,
D. DISH Network's PVR/DVR Products allow you to record programming in digital format....[snip]... DISH Network does not guarantee access to or recording of any particular programming....[snip]... DISH Network may, in its sole discretion, add, change or remove features of its PVR/DVR Products and, upon notice to you, introduce or change fees for the use of PVR/DVR Product features. DISH Network will notify you of any change that is within its reasonable control....[snip]...
I guess making it so it doesn't record anything is just a change of "features"... it's still a clock, right?
much of it is because the patent system requires that the technology be disclosed to the public,
AFAIK no one reads patents to advance their own tech... creating a product that infringes on someone else's patent, where they can show that you read their patent results in a greater reward (penalty) from the judge... so the lawyers tell the engineers to explicitly not read existing patents when they build something new (to them)...
Yes, that's true - ideas are nonrival goods. But they are not free goods, and they do roughly obey the law of supply and demand.
I'm not sure what you mean by this: ideas aren't goods, but they are 'free' as in anyone can trade time and neuron-cycles for one. The notion that intellectual monopoly should be called intellectual property is marketing speak by those that want to extort rents... ideas aren't 'goods' or 'property' as they can't be 'owned' in the physical property sense.
The question becomes how to create incentives for the production of ideas, if the ideas cannot be valuable to the idea-generator.
Well, the real question is why everyone thinks that humans need incentive to create or be creative.
Humans create.
Our creativity is one of the main reasons we are the dominant species on this planet.
That creativity bubbles within us (more in some than others to be sure!) and wants to get out.
Creativity need no more a law to incent it than gravity does to attract bodies...
If you're really interested, read this. It's kinda long, it's PDF, but it's probably the best stuff I've ever read on the subject.
Mash-ups, like rappers' "sampling," are nothing more than stealing somebody else's creativity and hard work.
Mash-up artists, like rappers "sampling" are working and applying their own creativity -- aka: hard work.
I like mash-ups... most of them suck. Large.
Making *good* use of sound...any sound, is an art. And doing it well is arguably more difficult...if a note doesn't fit, you can't change it. It just doesn't fit.
You need to get over the notion that "art" is always _new_. In reality, art is new every few hundred years if ever. Art is the reinterpretation of previous art pasted over the canvas of the current society.
Chuck Berry "invented" rock 'n roll (just a r&b variant at the time!) and the Beach Boys just took Chuck Berry and re-interpretted it as viewed by the surf culture. etc, etc, etc...
How can a debate be controlled by "lawyers and lobbyists," and even if such a thing was possible, how would this lead to the loss of the debate? If you have truth and reason on your side, you shall surely win the debate if both parties are allowed to express themselves.
What was originally supposed to be a way to increase the size and quality of the public domain is now being used to create virtually unlimited monopolies on information.
I'd state it as
What was originally supposed to be a way to increase the size and quality of the public domain is now being used to ensure that no new content ever gets into the public domain. The exact opposite of the original intent.
Well if we're going to remove artificially create rights and restrictions we also need to get rid of most laws. Or are you being hypocritical? Why do YOU have a monopoly on your property? I should be able to take whatever I want, sure you can stop me or try to but I should be able to freely shoot you dead as well.
And you've just illustrated with Intellectual Monopoly is not property. It just doesn't translate.
As this is/. we can queue the unlimited number of bad analogies, but the reason they are all bad is for the simple reason that ideas aren't property. They can't be owned.
Physical land, buildings, cars etc don't require artificial rights since only one person can occupy or use a physical object at one time. And they're scarce... as in limited quantity.
Ideas have no such problem. Any idea can literally be known by every living human and this doesn't preclude the next-born to also know or have this idea, and in no way impacts all those that already have the idea.
and any system must ensure that the producer gets his cut.
Good idea in theory. In practice, that's communism.
Huh? By that reasoning all artificial rights are communism. Everything short of total anarchy is communism.
Nope PP just said that a system that ensures that people get paid for work (regardless of value or desire of public to pay) is communism. Capitalism and free-market economies don't guarantee a return. The intellectual monopoly laws are much closer to communism than no law (imho they still don't qualify since the protection is still no guarantee of return, but that's just mho...)
But if you so heartily disagree with the current model, don't steal[1] (or otherwise consume) their goods, or enable others to do so.
"Their goods" is our culture. And it is ours not theirs. They are granted temporary exclusive rights, but the "goods" belong to us, and those rights were bestowed to enrich our lives, not the publishers bank-accounts.
By your logic I can either be a social outcast (like using Linux doesn't already mark me!) or I can support this model.
It's not so simple as you suggest.
The system is broken, but it's broken in a way that makes a select group of people very rich. And they have no intention of letting anything impact their free ride.
If this has so utterly failed, why not develop the new model that replaces it?
Well, because there are some serious hurdles to implemeting a new system. Here's a few:
The incumbents are rich. Very rich. A new model will cost money and/or buying politicians is expensive:)
The current model is only a failure from the consumers point of view. From the publishers perspective they are getting very wealthy on this system and would like to keep it that way. They will buy the legistaltion they need. In general, the average person can't affect the laws that way they can.
The current model allows the publishers a great deal of control. The vast majority of radio, MTV, etc play is RIAA material, which (despite the original fear) is a 3-5min commercial for the album, and is considered one of the best ways to advertise new music. Hence: payola.
Any artist who doesn't want to play by RIAAs rules (even after a hit) is burried, and only by selling out can they get play, which translates to concert ticket sales which is what the artists really care about...
People like the music they currently listen to. Any new model needs somehow include music from the old model. Any new model that doesn't include the RIAA won't have the current music in it, and will therefore be much harder to start. Any new model that does have the RIAA in it, will be corrupted to their will and profit...again.
The basis for all of this is the copyright law. Remove the copyright law, and a new model will emerge quite quickly. Artists will (I suspect) self-publish on the internet. News-groups, google, youtube etc (maybe even/.!) will contain discussions and artists will be discovered. Music will be made. Artists will sell tickets. There will be more music.
The problem is that you've bought into the idea that their monopoly on our culture is required, and that there needs to be some kind of controlling interest. There already is a controlling interest: Us. It's our culture. Humans have had art and culture thousands of years despite the absence of monopoly controls like the RIAA.
Kanitz v. Rogers Cable, Inc., OJ 665 (Ontario Super. Ct., 2002). A Canadian court upheld the validity of an amended clickwrap agreement. Rogers Cable amended its user agreement to include an arbitration clause. The originl agreement allowed for amendment provided Rogers gave notice to its customers by posting it on the website, via email, or by post. Furthermore, the agreement stated that continued use of the service following the notice constituted acceptance of the amended agreement. Rogers added the arbitration clause and posted the notice on its customer support webpage. The court held that Rogers had provided its customers with sufficient notice and that the plaintiff customers had accepted the agreement by their continued use of the service.
Give away product with EULA that states you can change the EULA at any time
Give away lots of this product.
Alter agreement to turn over title of users house to yourself
Spoken like someone who has never written software of any consequence. All software has bugs.
Spoken like someone who hasn't thought about the fact that *no* product made by humans is perfect. It's not relevant. As previously discussed manufacturers have tried and failed to change the terms on products in the past... Regardless of whether any person has written code, engineered cars, or pooped in a shoe: It should not be acceptable for the terms to change post-purchase. Period.
I don't agree with your specific solution - as long as lawyers are going to be our foot-soldiers, people should be able to sue companies for their failures.
And, while I'm all for abolishing copyright, that's a band-aid to a real problem.
The problem isn't with copyright it's with massive imbalance in power that a corporation has vs. a person that you alluded to.
This shows in more than just the current copyfight, but in other things like unacceptable EULAs being accepted because there's no alternative and the tremendous clout over our political system that corporations wield.
Get a cell-phone, internet connection and various other services and the terms are dictated to you. Don't like them? Tough. There's only two carriers and they both have the same terms, and as long as they have an oligopoly will have no reason to change their terms for the benefit of the user.
In this so-called democracy, I get a vote. A single vote with which to declare to the leaders what direction I would like to take. Corporations spend millions convincing those politicians to bend the law to their favor. This is in no way equal.
What needs to change is the corporations ability to negatively impact our lives for their profit.
I'm not sure how to do this, and I'm not anti-corporation: I'm pro freedom and equality.
18,000 lawsuits * $3000 = $54,000,000 / 3 yrs (2006-2003) = $18,000,000 per year in income.
If you pay the lawyers $250k/yr on salary you can have 72 of them full time.
18,000 lawsuits / 72 lawyers is only 250 each over three years is about 83 per year, or (with a 240-day work-year) is a little more than one every three days.
Ok, but there's other people involved, and I'm sure that since they work in bulk I'm going to estimate that the last three years looks something like:
Half a dozen 'techies' at $80k = $1,440,000
Hot line (no idea, just guessing) = $3,000,000
Legal Team (half dozen, plus assistants) = $5,400,000
The most solid proof of this is shareware - so we are not talking about hundreds of dollars but more like $20.
Shareware registration ratios are useless for a few reasons:
Most notably, the download:pay ratio is skewed even if every unique person eventually buys it because most people download the same software more than once. I'm pretty sure I've downloaded Winamp *dozens* of times; when I rebuild a WinBox it's just easier to download it again. It's a tiny amount of bandwidth and gives me the latest version.
Many people download shareware for a one-off task, and have no intention of using it forever, and so are very strictly within their legal usage.
There is no way to check if any download that hasn't paid is in use. No where near every person who downloads a copy decides to keep using it.
But lastly and (imho most importantly) most people don't think of 'shareware' with 'piracy': For many people "shareware" is synonomous with "free".
So, in short, I don't agree that 5% is anywhere near the right number, and shareware has way too many other factors to be a useful/meaningful giude. By way of contrast, all Oracle products are free unencumbered* downloads from some really fast servers, but of course require payment to Oracle for legal production usage. I really don't think Larry is a billionare because 5% of the users of Oracle products have paid for it...
BSA/CAAST puts the worldwide piracy rate at 35% for 2005, and rates vary world-wide, (and US and European rates are much lower) and that's from people who want us to believe that the sky is falling... so I suspect that the true rate is even *lower*. Beyond that, the true "non-paying" piracy rate is much lower, because the 35% would (at a minimum) include people who in all honesty unknowingly bought a fake...they are willing to buy it, and they paid for it (just not to the rights-holder).
So despite the ease and availability of pirate software, still some 65%+ choose to hand over cash...
*Requires registration with Oracle, which if I recall is a web-form that can't ensure that Santa Claus hasn't just registered...(or his nephew, if Santa is already registered)
while I also have abundant faith that the ability to succesfully complete an IT project is inversely relational to the size of the organisation, I also have utmost faith that the guv will roll out something and I expect it to be a bug-riddled chunk of sh!t that will produce some amazing and unpredicable results when querried...
Slashdot Mirror
Secondly, "pubescent male teens" and "thinking" don't really go together. So the deterrence factor is even further limited... Do you honestly believe children think about legal consequences?
Community service to give the person some appreciation for his fellow man is the only thing that might help.
Lawyers don't produce anything and are only necessary because we can't just all get along.
Like the police: If everyone were law abiding we wouldn't need police and jails and courts and all the other fine expenses that go along with enforcing the laws.
For me, this is one of the things that is much overlooked in Intellectual Monopoly law: what is the cost of running this system to society?
Even assuming that patents do increase innovation (I don't believe they do) they also cause a drain of production resources in terms of legal costs, both to file and then to protect. This cost (along with other social costs, like increased prices of drugs etc) needs to be deducted from any gains that a patent system gives (and since I don't believe there are any gains to begin with, I think we have an overall loss...but that's just mho)
Burnin' mod points, baby ... ya can't take 'em with you!
embrace, extend, extinguish ...repeat as necessary.
What I'm getting at, is that to discuss that another system may/may-not build the things that you want isn't really relevant as the current system may not build those things either.
Lucas has complained that w/o copyright there won't be anymore $500m movies made as they just don't pay. So what?
He might as well be asking why the system doesn't support hundred-billion dollar movies.
No system is going to be perfect. But if it's important for $500m movies to be made (I can't see why it's price tag has anything do with how important it is to society that it be made) then capitalists will find a way to recoup the cost. Even without intellectual monopoly laws.
At least in a system w/o intellectual monopolies there wouldn't be rent-seeking activities which are very bad for society, like setting drug prices so high that people can't afford them anymore. There is no fundamental difference between "something not being created" and "something that I can't get". I've read that some 80% of recorded music is unavailable for purchase. I don't know if it's true (I suspect it is) but if I can't legally aquire it, it might as well not have been created...
As a final note, ask any economist and they will tell you that included in the definition of 'monopoly' is that there will be a lower supply at a higher price.
Is that what we want for ideas? Less ideas that cost more? If you haven't read the PDFs in my previous post, do yourself a favour and check them out. While it's a lot of reading, it does read nicely; it's not a heavy read.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=194404&cid=159 33993 has the agreement...
RESIDENTIAL CUSTOMER AGREEMENT
I guess making it so it doesn't record anything is just a change of "features"... it's still a clock, right?Humans create.
Our creativity is one of the main reasons we are the dominant species on this planet. That creativity bubbles within us (more in some than others to be sure!) and wants to get out.
Creativity need no more a law to incent it than gravity does to attract bodies...
If you're really interested, read this. It's kinda long, it's PDF, but it's probably the best stuff I've ever read on the subject.
I like mash-ups
Making *good* use of sound...any sound, is an art. And doing it well is arguably more difficult...if a note doesn't fit, you can't change it. It just doesn't fit.
You need to get over the notion that "art" is always _new_. In reality, art is new every few hundred years if ever. Art is the reinterpretation of previous art pasted over the canvas of the current society.
Chuck Berry "invented" rock 'n roll (just a r&b variant at the time!) and the Beach Boys just took Chuck Berry and re-interpretted it as viewed by the surf culture. etc, etc, etc...
What was originally supposed to be a way to increase the size and quality of the public domain is now being used to ensure that no new content ever gets into the public domain. The exact opposite of the original intent.
As this is
Physical land, buildings, cars etc don't require artificial rights since only one person can occupy or use a physical object at one time. And they're scarce ... as in limited quantity.
Nope PP just said that a system that ensures that people get paid for work (regardless of value or desire of public to pay) is communism. Capitalism and free-market economies don't guarantee a return. The intellectual monopoly laws are much closer to communism than no law (imho they still don't qualify since the protection is still no guarantee of return, but that's just mho...)Ideas have no such problem. Any idea can literally be known by every living human and this doesn't preclude the next-born to also know or have this idea, and in no way impacts all those that already have the idea.
People have made careers low-ball suing corporations because they know it's cheaper to settle than fight...that doesn't make them 'guilty'.
By your logic I can either be a social outcast (like using Linux doesn't already mark me!) or I can support this model.
It's not so simple as you suggest.
The system is broken, but it's broken in a way that makes a select group of people very rich. And they have no intention of letting anything impact their free ride.
Well, because there are some serious hurdles to implemeting a new system. Here's a few:- The incumbents are rich. Very rich. A new model will cost money and/or buying politicians is expensive
:)
- The current model is only a failure from the consumers point of view. From the publishers perspective they are getting very wealthy on this system and would like to keep it that way. They will buy the legistaltion they need. In general, the average person can't affect the laws that way they can.
- The current model allows the publishers a great deal of control. The vast majority of radio, MTV, etc play is RIAA material, which (despite the original fear) is a 3-5min commercial for the album, and is considered one of the best ways to advertise new music. Hence: payola.
- Any artist who doesn't want to play by RIAAs rules (even after a hit) is burried, and only by selling out can they get play, which translates to concert ticket sales which is what the artists really care about...
- People like the music they currently listen to. Any new model needs somehow include music from the old model. Any new model that doesn't include the RIAA won't have the current music in it, and will therefore be much harder to start. Any new model that does have the RIAA in it, will be corrupted to their will and profit
...again.
The basis for all of this is the copyright law. Remove the copyright law, and a new model will emerge quite quickly. Artists will (I suspect) self-publish on the internet. News-groups, google, youtube etc (maybe evenThe problem is that you've bought into the idea that their monopoly on our culture is required, and that there needs to be some kind of controlling interest. There already is a controlling interest: Us. It's our culture. Humans have had art and culture thousands of years despite the absence of monopoly controls like the RIAA.
Might as well codify gravity: it's going to happen with or without the law.
Read this.
by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine
Read:
Kanitz v. Rogers Cable, Inc., OJ 665 (Ontario Super. Ct., 2002). A Canadian court upheld the validity of an amended clickwrap agreement. Rogers Cable amended its user agreement to include an arbitration clause. The originl agreement allowed for amendment provided Rogers gave notice to its customers by posting it on the website, via email, or by post. Furthermore, the agreement stated that continued use of the service following the notice constituted acceptance of the amended agreement. Rogers added the arbitration clause and posted the notice on its customer support webpage. The court held that Rogers had provided its customers with sufficient notice and that the plaintiff customers had accepted the agreement by their continued use of the service.
I thought we'd agreed that the internet was tubes ... not trucks.
And, while I'm all for abolishing copyright, that's a band-aid to a real problem.
The problem isn't with copyright it's with massive imbalance in power that a corporation has vs. a person that you alluded to.
This shows in more than just the current copyfight, but in other things like unacceptable EULAs being accepted because there's no alternative and the tremendous clout over our political system that corporations wield.
Get a cell-phone, internet connection and various other services and the terms are dictated to you. Don't like them? Tough. There's only two carriers and they both have the same terms, and as long as they have an oligopoly will have no reason to change their terms for the benefit of the user.
In this so-called democracy, I get a vote. A single vote with which to declare to the leaders what direction I would like to take. Corporations spend millions convincing those politicians to bend the law to their favor. This is in no way equal.
What needs to change is the corporations ability to negatively impact our lives for their profit.
I'm not sure how to do this, and I'm not anti-corporation: I'm pro freedom and equality.
If you pay the lawyers $250k/yr on salary you can have 72 of them full time.
18,000 lawsuits / 72 lawyers is only 250 each over three years is about 83 per year, or (with a 240-day work-year) is a little more than one every three days.
Ok, but there's other people involved, and I'm sure that since they work in bulk I'm going to estimate that the last three years looks something like:
Half a dozen 'techies' at $80k = $1,440,000
Hot line (no idea, just guessing) = $3,000,000
Legal Team (half dozen, plus assistants) = $5,400,000
Grand Total: $9,840,000
Profit: $8,160,000
But that's just a guess...
So, in short, I don't agree that 5% is anywhere near the right number, and shareware has way too many other factors to be a useful/meaningful giude. ...
By way of contrast, all Oracle products are free unencumbered* downloads from some really fast servers, but of course require payment to Oracle for legal production usage. I really don't think Larry is a billionare because 5% of the users of Oracle products have paid for it
BSA/CAAST puts the worldwide piracy rate at 35% for 2005, and rates vary world-wide, (and US and European rates are much lower) and that's from people who want us to believe that the sky is falling... so I suspect that the true rate is even *lower*. Beyond that, the true "non-paying" piracy rate is much lower, because the 35% would (at a minimum) include people who in all honesty unknowingly bought a fake...they are willing to buy it, and they paid for it (just not to the rights-holder).
So despite the ease and availability of pirate software, still some 65%+ choose to hand over cash...
*Requires registration with Oracle, which if I recall is a web-form that can't ensure that Santa Claus hasn't just registered...(or his nephew, if Santa is already registered)
while I also have abundant faith that the ability to succesfully complete an IT project is inversely relational to the size of the organisation, I also have utmost faith that the guv will roll out something and I expect it to be a bug-riddled chunk of sh!t that will produce some amazing and unpredicable results when querried...