Fucking pathetic that these sorts of people are allowed to be called "liberal" when in reality all they are is authoritarian.
And ironic that their namesake, Craig, is himself what people would describe as a "liberal" and is being targeted by the very people that he in other contexts would support. This is a man who would go to hell and back to avoid discriminating against others, and one who runs his business at unbelievably thin profit margins in order to pursue other goas with the service. And what is his thanks? He gets sued on grounds of discrimination, ignoring all the oppressed groups he's helped find housing. Brilliant!
"A conservative is a liberal who's tried to run a business."
The buyer is probably just out to screw over scalpers by making bids they won't pay. When you exhaust all avenues stipulated on ebay for time until you have to pay vs. the relatively small penalties for canceling a bid, this could force the seller to delay selling it to a time when the hype dies down so they're paid less and have to wait longer.
Neat strategy -- but your ebay account won't do too well.
If you want to give someone Karma and the post doesn't fit into the Insightful or Interesting category, use +1 Underrated.
And if you want to unjustifiably mod someone down because you disagree with them, and not have the moderation reviewed in metamoderation, use -1 Overrated.
When you buy a PS3, you get a (really powerful) processor, a hard drive, a graphics card, and some accelerometers. What if someone figures out how to salvage these for alternate uses? (E.g., sells the hard drive, rents out supercomputing time, etc.) Then, it would be a much smaller loss per purchase, or perhaps even profitable.
And if it is profitable to do that: bye bye, Sony.
In a sense, you're right. But think about it this way:
1) If people don't buy them:
Sony eats the cost of making the consoles.
2) If people buy them, but never get any games:
Sony loses $300 on each console, gets an artificial signal to build more consoles, and then eats the cost of making those additional consoles. Game industry starts to learn the difference between "market share" and "real profits".
So, at E3 there were going to be a million, then they had to reduce it to 400,000 a few months before launch. Then the day before, the announced there would only be 200,000. So I'm expecting them at about 6pm to say they only have 100,000 in retail stores, then at 9pm, they'll announce that due to an error some boxes did not have a PS3 placed in them before shipping, so really stores only have 50,000 or so, and then at 11 they'll announce contract dispute with retailers, meaning only 20,000 will be allowed to be sold, and at midnight they'll announce that the North American launch has been delayed until March 2007.
So, in other words, you didn't read any of the follow-up replies, and are suffering from the delusion that you just offered some new insight to the topic.
I appreciate your interest in the point I have advanced. I have argued it back and forth on the mises.org blog with the "authority" on refuting IP, Stephan Kinsella, who wrote this case against IP. The following may interest you:
Here is a typical thread from about a month ago, that got pretty long, and here is a more recent one. In those places I try to present the same argument, but it's excruciatingly difficult to get the point across there. I also from time to time question their claims about non-IP related ways to profit from intellectual works.
I post under the name "Person" because Stephan Kinsella is a sociopathic admin who has revealed his willingness to release users' personal information to get back at those who back him into a corner in an argument. Your posts there would be much appreciated. Not because you agree with me (since I'll admit it's hard to form an opinion on this), but because you seem to actually listen to the point I tried to make.
Eh, except such laws appear to be fairly easily ignored (so far).
So where are the private theaters advertising pirate opening-weeking movies?
There were other, much more important issues there. Like people being annoyed about going to war and such
It doesn't matter. If it were REALLY that big of a defiance of public opinion, it would *become* an issue. The more plausible hypothesis is that it's not just big corporations that agree with the concept of copyright.
Produce custom software that's only intended to be sold once (a number of people here have talked about doing this)?...Basically, anything where you do specific work for each customer instead of generic work that customers could as easily share as buy.
Is this an admission that without IP, it wouldn't be profitable to make software that's use-able off the shelf? And that that would be a good thing?
Provide support (Red Hat, etc)?
Money from support is a return to providing support, not a return to the production of the intellectual work. 99% of the software written for Red Hat was written by someone else as charity.
Do live performances rather than rely on selling CDs (I seem to recall hearing of a few bands that consider CDs/downloads as basically advertising for their live performances?)?
Which venture capital-funded record company overturned the industry by drawing artists with this model?
Thanks -- you're explaining my point very well. I was going to add the possession reductio (the point about using others' pots when they're not in use), but couldn't phrase it understandably at the time I made the post so I left it out.
Well put. And I think there's a deeper point here: At any given moment, we only see what people are choosing as their best alternative. We do not see the things they *could* be doing, but don't, yet would if factor prices shifted. Extrapolating statically from current practices is worse than useless. It's like going to someone retired on an annuity and saying "SEEE!!! If we didn't have annuities, you'd be STARVING!" But if there were no annuities, he would have made different saving decisions, and perhaps kept working.
Good point, but I think in this case, they allowed it to be released to the general public because:
1) No one will buy securities based on it anyway (i.e., most who accept Peak Oil wouldn't be convinced by counterevidence, and those who don't have already acted on that basis), so there's no market disadvantage.
2) They want to justify why they're "not doing more about Peak Oil" and thereby calm a public that may pass laws demanding they end such "shortsightedness".
Paul Birch has published (in the Journal of the British interplanetary Society) a way to "quickly" terraform all of Mars quickly. (Don't get too mad at me if that article has long since become obsolete.)
It's not just false predictions that are a concern. Chalatans (easy -- I'm speaking in general terms, not referring to global warming here) can go the other extreme and meticulously avoid making any prediction that *could* come wrong (i.e., violating falsifiability) while making it look like they're making a bold prediction. With cults, the template is something like:
"If you don't repent [as measured by $FUZZY_STANDARD], $BAD_EVENT will happen."
If $BAD_EVENT happens:
"You didn't repent! You should have listened to me!"
If $BAD_EVENT doesn't happen (more likely):
"You repented! You're welcome! Now take me more seriously!"
2) Paying someone to advise you on the future for the market you're in.
This consultancy seems to be in the second category. If they're wrong, the energy companies will have invested poorly. Energy companies have an interest in accuracy here.
Because a large number of large businesses (that spend a lot on lobbying) have chosen business models that depend on it.
I doubt it. If it's really this unpopular, new politicians would sail into office on a campaign against IP. How did it go a week ago?
Also because it provides a very clear way for entities to profit from information work (of course, there are other less-clear ways that don't rely on these restrictions),
Could you please describe these ways in detail, and give examples where they have played out? Exclude all that rely on charity or non-profit tax status.
But then is the cornfield scarcity artificial? There, the scarcity occurs across a permission rather than the permission's referent as well. Remember that with your cornfield, your intended use does not actually conflict with my use(sleeping in it), yet still you demand I leave. Is that scarcity artificial as well? Remember, scarcity there only arises because you *chose* to exclude an otherwise freely available thing (and in fact, for which my use did not impede another's use).
Hate to burst your bubble, but I've heard that argument about six thousand times at this point. I already knew the premise, I was just getting him to reveal it. If you go to the link I gave, and the other thread my post references, you'll see my response to this. I'll summarize it here.
The economic good of "being able to use this new lawnmowing method" is indeed non-scarce. But what about the economic good of "being able to determine who may use this new lawnmowing method"? If I may decide who uses the method, you may not. There, scarcity exists. Now, before you jump at me, I agree there are reasons to reject such a claim -- but lack of scarcity isn't one of them. In fact, this is precisely the same kind of scarcity arising across physical goods. For example, what if I said, "I have the right to sleep in your cornfield at night, because you're not using it right now and it doesn't impede your intended use (growing corn) and therefore is not scarce in the sense I want to make use of it" ? You probably wouldn't be too impressed. Or what if I took a small enough amount that you never noticed my presence?
I consider the attempt to dismiss IP claims on grounds of scarcity to in fact be a category error. At its root, it's essentially trying to say, "you can't complain about my copying because it doesn't affect you, nya nya nya" But if they're complaining, it *must* be affecting them!
And to fend off another potential attack, I actually don't have a position on IP. I consider EITHER side to be riddled with severe problems. I focus on indentifying which arguments are in error.
Well, yes, sure, but how can one get through the metal bulkheads with an electromagnetic signal ? Unless your aircraft is made from some type of material that will allow e and b fields to buzz right through it (and if so, perhaps we can sell that material to various Stealth programs, no ?), you're going to have to cut holes for waveguides instead of cable ways.
Still though, only needing one small relay through a bulkhead or frame is still a lot better than having to bore holes large enough to pass all wires through.
Pardon me, but I don't think you answered my question. All you did was explain the implications of your position on property rights, when I was looking for the justification for your distinction between physical and intellectual property. The closest you came was in alleging that IP is mind control, which appeared to be more of a scare tactic than an actual distinction.
I discuss this distinction frequently on the mises blog where I post as "Person". Here is the most recent thread.
First of all, the State creates laws which give some companies preferential treatment over ideas or the way a person can use their hands and mind to create something. We call these useless laws "copyright," "patent" or "trademark." The State is the only way to enforce these laws which govern how you think and use your body, it is impossible to cover these restrictions without force or the threat of force.
Okay, but you could say the same thing about physical property rights that you just said about "copyright," "patent" or "trademark." (Usefulness is a matter of opinion.)
You believe that physical property rights are different in that "people naturally respect them anyway". But I'd say there's the same general respect for the principle of "don't copy without permission".
Don't get me wrong -- you and I agree about physical property. I'm just saying that your attempt, quoted above, to differentiate between physical and intellectual property fails to do so.
A proper, technically accurate, English equivalent would be something like "Rick (at least) likes tennis" or "As for Rick (and I'm not talking about anyone else) likes tennis" or even "Rick (compared to unnamed others) likes tennis."
I don't follow. Why do you need to add the parenthetical to convey the same information in English? When I say, "Rick likes tennis", no one's going to say or think, "Oh, you mean Jane likes tennis?" or "You're trying to tell me Rick is the ONLY person who likes tennis?"* It just seems that all of your parentheticals would be redundant in English. Are you trying to say that in Japanese, the parenthetical is made explicit?
*Okay, that's not completely accurate. In my history of posting on the internet, I would not be surprised at all if I said "Rick likes tennis" and someone replied to it with "You really think Jane likes tennis? What are you smoking?" That's why I had to add my sig. I'm talking about regular cases.
Well, keep in mind that for whatever legislation these corporations are supposedly buying, if it doesn't have significant support to begin with, some bright upstart politician can knock the incumbent out of office simply by campaigning to undo it.
For example, I hear people complain about corporate welfare, farm subsidies, and protectionist tariffs as exampels of corporate influence. But government "aid to business", farm subsidies, and protectionism are popular!!!!
If it's corruption, it's corruption by engraved invitation.
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Fucking pathetic that these sorts of people are allowed to be called "liberal" when in reality all they are is authoritarian.
And ironic that their namesake, Craig, is himself what people would describe as a "liberal" and is being targeted by the very people that he in other contexts would support. This is a man who would go to hell and back to avoid discriminating against others, and one who runs his business at unbelievably thin profit margins in order to pursue other goas with the service. And what is his thanks? He gets sued on grounds of discrimination, ignoring all the oppressed groups he's helped find housing. Brilliant!
"A conservative is a liberal who's tried to run a business."
The buyer is probably just out to screw over scalpers by making bids they won't pay. When you exhaust all avenues stipulated on ebay for time until you have to pay vs. the relatively small penalties for canceling a bid, this could force the seller to delay selling it to a time when the hype dies down so they're paid less and have to wait longer.
Neat strategy -- but your ebay account won't do too well.
If you want to give someone Karma and the post doesn't fit into the Insightful or Interesting category, use +1 Underrated.
And if you want to unjustifiably mod someone down because you disagree with them, and not have the moderation reviewed in metamoderation, use -1 Overrated.
Which is probably not what it was intended for.
When you buy a PS3, you get a (really powerful) processor, a hard drive, a graphics card, and some accelerometers. What if someone figures out how to salvage these for alternate uses? (E.g., sells the hard drive, rents out supercomputing time, etc.) Then, it would be a much smaller loss per purchase, or perhaps even profitable.
And if it is profitable to do that: bye bye, Sony.
I have a, still functioning, Sony Betamax. I have a, still functioning, Sony PS2. I have a, still hasn't set the house on fire, Xbox 360.
You have a, still, annoying, itchy, comma finger.
In a sense, you're right. But think about it this way:
1) If people don't buy them:
Sony eats the cost of making the consoles.
2) If people buy them, but never get any games:
Sony loses $300 on each console, gets an artificial signal to build more consoles, and then eats the cost of making those additional consoles. Game industry starts to learn the difference between "market share" and "real profits".
So, at E3 there were going to be a million, then they had to reduce it to 400,000 a few months before launch. Then the day before, the announced there would only be 200,000. So I'm expecting them at about 6pm to say they only have 100,000 in retail stores, then at 9pm, they'll announce that due to an error some boxes did not have a PS3 placed in them before shipping, so really stores only have 50,000 or so, and then at 11 they'll announce contract dispute with retailers, meaning only 20,000 will be allowed to be sold, and at midnight they'll announce that the North American launch has been delayed until March 2007.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
So, in other words, you didn't read any of the follow-up replies, and are suffering from the delusion that you just offered some new insight to the topic.
There are more succinct ways to get that across.
I appreciate your interest in the point I have advanced. I have argued it back and forth on the mises.org blog with the "authority" on refuting IP, Stephan Kinsella, who wrote this case against IP. The following may interest you:
Here is a typical thread from about a month ago, that got pretty long, and here is a more recent one. In those places I try to present the same argument, but it's excruciatingly difficult to get the point across there. I also from time to time question their claims about non-IP related ways to profit from intellectual works.
I post under the name "Person" because Stephan Kinsella is a sociopathic admin who has revealed his willingness to release users' personal information to get back at those who back him into a corner in an argument. Your posts there would be much appreciated. Not because you agree with me (since I'll admit it's hard to form an opinion on this), but because you seem to actually listen to the point I tried to make.
Eh, except such laws appear to be fairly easily ignored (so far).
...Basically, anything where you do specific work for each customer instead of generic work that customers could as easily share as buy.
So where are the private theaters advertising pirate opening-weeking movies?
There were other, much more important issues there. Like people being annoyed about going to war and such
It doesn't matter. If it were REALLY that big of a defiance of public opinion, it would *become* an issue. The more plausible hypothesis is that it's not just big corporations that agree with the concept of copyright.
Produce custom software that's only intended to be sold once (a number of people here have talked about doing this)?
Is this an admission that without IP, it wouldn't be profitable to make software that's use-able off the shelf? And that that would be a good thing?
Provide support (Red Hat, etc)?
Money from support is a return to providing support, not a return to the production of the intellectual work. 99% of the software written for Red Hat was written by someone else as charity.
Do live performances rather than rely on selling CDs (I seem to recall hearing of a few bands that consider CDs/downloads as basically advertising for their live performances?)?
Which venture capital-funded record company overturned the industry by drawing artists with this model?
Thanks -- you're explaining my point very well. I was going to add the possession reductio (the point about using others' pots when they're not in use), but couldn't phrase it understandably at the time I made the post so I left it out.
Well put. And I think there's a deeper point here: At any given moment, we only see what people are choosing as their best alternative. We do not see the things they *could* be doing, but don't, yet would if factor prices shifted. Extrapolating statically from current practices is worse than useless. It's like going to someone retired on an annuity and saying "SEEE!!! If we didn't have annuities, you'd be STARVING!" But if there were no annuities, he would have made different saving decisions, and perhaps kept working.
Good point, but I think in this case, they allowed it to be released to the general public because:
1) No one will buy securities based on it anyway (i.e., most who accept Peak Oil wouldn't be convinced by counterevidence, and those who don't have already acted on that basis), so there's no market disadvantage.
2) They want to justify why they're "not doing more about Peak Oil" and thereby calm a public that may pass laws demanding they end such "shortsightedness".
Paul Birch has published (in the Journal of the British interplanetary Society) a way to "quickly" terraform all of Mars quickly. (Don't get too mad at me if that article has long since become obsolete.)
It's not just false predictions that are a concern. Chalatans (easy -- I'm speaking in general terms, not referring to global warming here) can go the other extreme and meticulously avoid making any prediction that *could* come wrong (i.e., violating falsifiability) while making it look like they're making a bold prediction. With cults, the template is something like:
"If you don't repent [as measured by $FUZZY_STANDARD], $BAD_EVENT will happen."
If $BAD_EVENT happens:
"You didn't repent! You should have listened to me!"
If $BAD_EVENT doesn't happen (more likely):
"You repented! You're welcome! Now take me more seriously!"
There's a huge difference between
1) Paying someone to speak to the general public
and
2) Paying someone to advise you on the future for the market you're in.
This consultancy seems to be in the second category. If they're wrong, the energy companies will have invested poorly. Energy companies have an interest in accuracy here.
Because a large number of large businesses (that spend a lot on lobbying) have chosen business models that depend on it.
I doubt it. If it's really this unpopular, new politicians would sail into office on a campaign against IP. How did it go a week ago?
Also because it provides a very clear way for entities to profit from information work (of course, there are other less-clear ways that don't rely on these restrictions),
Could you please describe these ways in detail, and give examples where they have played out? Exclude all that rely on charity or non-profit tax status.
But then is the cornfield scarcity artificial? There, the scarcity occurs across a permission rather than the permission's referent as well. Remember that with your cornfield, your intended use does not actually conflict with my use(sleeping in it), yet still you demand I leave. Is that scarcity artificial as well? Remember, scarcity there only arises because you *chose* to exclude an otherwise freely available thing (and in fact, for which my use did not impede another's use).
Then you'd have a tough time explaining why all IP hasn't already been abolished.
Hate to burst your bubble, but I've heard that argument about six thousand times at this point. I already knew the premise, I was just getting him to reveal it. If you go to the link I gave, and the other thread my post references, you'll see my response to this. I'll summarize it here.
The economic good of "being able to use this new lawnmowing method" is indeed non-scarce. But what about the economic good of "being able to determine who may use this new lawnmowing method"? If I may decide who uses the method, you may not. There, scarcity exists. Now, before you jump at me, I agree there are reasons to reject such a claim -- but lack of scarcity isn't one of them. In fact, this is precisely the same kind of scarcity arising across physical goods. For example, what if I said, "I have the right to sleep in your cornfield at night, because you're not using it right now and it doesn't impede your intended use (growing corn) and therefore is not scarce in the sense I want to make use of it" ? You probably wouldn't be too impressed. Or what if I took a small enough amount that you never noticed my presence?
I consider the attempt to dismiss IP claims on grounds of scarcity to in fact be a category error. At its root, it's essentially trying to say, "you can't complain about my copying because it doesn't affect you, nya nya nya" But if they're complaining, it *must* be affecting them!
And to fend off another potential attack, I actually don't have a position on IP. I consider EITHER side to be riddled with severe problems. I focus on indentifying which arguments are in error.
Well, yes, sure, but how can one get through the metal bulkheads with an electromagnetic signal ? Unless your aircraft is made from some type of material that will allow e and b fields to buzz right through it (and if so, perhaps we can sell that material to various Stealth programs, no ?), you're going to have to cut holes for waveguides instead of cable ways.
Still though, only needing one small relay through a bulkhead or frame is still a lot better than having to bore holes large enough to pass all wires through.
Pardon me, but I don't think you answered my question. All you did was explain the implications of your position on property rights, when I was looking for the justification for your distinction between physical and intellectual property. The closest you came was in alleging that IP is mind control, which appeared to be more of a scare tactic than an actual distinction.
I discuss this distinction frequently on the mises blog where I post as "Person". Here is the most recent thread.
First of all, the State creates laws which give some companies preferential treatment over ideas or the way a person can use their hands and mind to create something. We call these useless laws "copyright," "patent" or "trademark." The State is the only way to enforce these laws which govern how you think and use your body, it is impossible to cover these restrictions without force or the threat of force.
Okay, but you could say the same thing about physical property rights that you just said about "copyright," "patent" or "trademark." (Usefulness is a matter of opinion.)
You believe that physical property rights are different in that "people naturally respect them anyway". But I'd say there's the same general respect for the principle of "don't copy without permission".
Don't get me wrong -- you and I agree about physical property. I'm just saying that your attempt, quoted above, to differentiate between physical and intellectual property fails to do so.
A proper, technically accurate, English equivalent would be something like "Rick (at least) likes tennis" or "As for Rick (and I'm not talking about anyone else) likes tennis" or even "Rick (compared to unnamed others) likes tennis."
I don't follow. Why do you need to add the parenthetical to convey the same information in English? When I say, "Rick likes tennis", no one's going to say or think, "Oh, you mean Jane likes tennis?" or "You're trying to tell me Rick is the ONLY person who likes tennis?"* It just seems that all of your parentheticals would be redundant in English. Are you trying to say that in Japanese, the parenthetical is made explicit?
*Okay, that's not completely accurate. In my history of posting on the internet, I would not be surprised at all if I said "Rick likes tennis" and someone replied to it with "You really think Jane likes tennis? What are you smoking?" That's why I had to add my sig. I'm talking about regular cases.
Well, keep in mind that for whatever legislation these corporations are supposedly buying, if it doesn't have significant support to begin with, some bright upstart politician can knock the incumbent out of office simply by campaigning to undo it.
For example, I hear people complain about corporate welfare, farm subsidies, and protectionist tariffs as exampels of corporate influence. But government "aid to business", farm subsidies, and protectionism are popular!!!!
If it's corruption, it's corruption by engraved invitation.