Now, with everyone in the world downloading your company's software, music, movie, etc. for free over their cable modems, how is that company going to make money?
I am sorry to rag on someone but this statement is complete and utter bullshit. There are a _litany_ of ways that companies can make money without resorting to intellectual property, and indeed the software industry shows so many such examples that this message should be treated as a troll.
As far as being bit in the ass. Any economics 101 will give you some idea that perfect competition (ie no barriers to entry and perfect market conditions) will drive profits to zero. The fact that the IP luminati make extraordinary profits should be claxon number one that something about the market in question is screwed.
As for the net social utility from a lack of IP, the analysis is more complex, but _globally_ speaking the benefits from no IP are certainly vastly more than the benefits from having IP. This is probably true from within national economies, including the US.
Don't forget that there is over half the population of the planet that could not give a rats ass about the legal niceties of precedent based legal systems.
I used to think that the kind of idiocy that we are forced to endure as a result of the existence of IP would take decades to resolve, but with organisations such as the RIAA wandering around like dinosaurs in a pre-meteroite strike paradise, perhaps it will only take years.
So there
PS, sorry again for the rant but, I mean _really_!!! (exasperated)
Sorry for responding to this message, which is pretty much a troll, but regardless of the marginal effect of the recent tightening of Australias gun laws, the gun ownership in Oz has always been vastly lower than in the US.
The point being made, and no matter how one cuts the figures, the point remains the _VAST_ difference between firearm mortallity in the US and Oz is due to the availability (legal, righteous, de facto or otherwise) of firearms.
Period.
If the Australian Statistics do not entertain then look at, gee I don't know, the UK where I predict (without having looked at the data) that the figures will be more like the Australian ones than the US ones.
Oh, BTW, I ain't no antigin campaigner, I just think if you like to have 'em around you gotta take the statistical medicine that is so bleedingly obviously there.
3) Does Australia have any organization equivalent to the NRA? Or for that matter, anything in legalese that's equivalent to the US Second Amendment "right to bear arms"?
As mentioned, no NRA. The right to bear arms such as it is in the US has no equivalent in the Australian constitution (a formal document) nor the constitutions of the states of Australia (usually not formal documents).
I recall the kneejerking that went on when this investigation was forst mentioned on Slashdot the other day.
I never cease to be amazed how the processes of good government, discloser of policy and consideration of new areas of social importance seem to be set upon by the zealots as "Big Government" sticking noses in where they do not belong.
The creation of a public discourse on this matter is an event for which the Oz government should be congratulated. Even if they had got the wrong answer (which it appears they did not IMHO) the fact that the review took place in a public forum is the point that so many people seem to have missed.
You have the freedome to create music, or art or whatever
Certainly true.
and sell it if you want.
This does not follow. In order to sell one must have property and title. For sale without either is called fraud. The assumption that authorship of a whatever gives you property is the flaw that currently curses us in Western society.
Everything else follows from this assumption. Consider a world in which authorship does not give property but rather a right to prevent others from claiming authorship. In the English legal tradition, and yes the Americans follow this tradition (even the continentals are influenced here (thank you industrial revolution)), there were Torts at law, to protect the rights of which I speak, the counterside is to protect ones property by preventing others from claiming that a given work was authored by someone when it was not, this wrong, called passing off, would stop someone from writing a song and calling it a Metallica track.
There are a number of standard replies to this point of view, most of them effectively rebutted in the GNU Manifesto, those that are not specifically rebutted there can be rebutted. Just think about it harder. In particular, don't think about it in terms of how our world would have to change to get to that place but just imagine such a place and how it might work.
The proof is all around, but just think about how people like Mozart and Beethoven made a living.
I do not have the freedom to deny them that right. that's where a lot of people don't 'get it.'
Why right are you denying? The right to sell something that they do not own? That is in itself wrong.
Ok, so one is not persuaded that authorship does not give property. I can accept that, it is a tough ask, but if we can leave the persuasion unitl another day, can it be agreed that if authorship does not give property then the author has nothing to sell and so the whole "stealing" of the fruits of intellect (note the active avoidance of the term Intellectual Property) is a moot point?
As for the persuasion, well it's a long road, starting with the roots of what we, in the Western tradition, call property, in the writings of English lawyer philosophers such as Blackstone, Hobbes and Locke and progesses through the Industrial revolution up until today. And you don't even need to touch alternative paradigms such as Marxism or the like.
So how do you reconcile that with the fact that the vast amount of streams are being provided by a relatively small number of large corporations, or by companies owned by those corporations?
When a particular minority with very special interests gets an overwhelming amount of mindspace, the public needs special protective measures against the corps abusing their power.
But the fundamental difference between traditional broadcast and (almost) anything "net" related are the barriers to entry. With broadcst there are many barriers to entry, cost, (as others have so oft mentioned) bandwidth to name but two. On the net there are virtually none. As such, Joe Public with killer content is going to be just as good as XCorp at getting that content out (within the obvious constraints of available bandwidth but that is purely a commercial question, ie there is not the same upfront infrastructure barriers, eg building a TV station). The same goes for Peter Minority so the barrier to getting out the content is non existent and so minoroty views have no barrier to expression.
FWIW I recall some testimony given by one Packer comma K fullstop to a senate inquiry in Oz where he stated (and it is obvious) that the fact that he could "broadcast" his opinions through his vast array of media interests was not a side effect of his ownership but the purpose of ownership. It is important to ask the kind of questions that the Australian government is asking but it is critical that they get the right answer - ie that internet content is not broadcasting. $0.02
Small technical detail on the CO2 thing. IIRC specific molecules can only absorb a limited set of wavelengths. The energy reradiated from the earths surface (ie the energy that counts in "greenhouse gases") at wavelengths that can be absorbed by CO2 is already 100% absorbed by the existing levels of CO2. So the addition of more CO2 cannot increase the amount of energy trapped within the atmosphere.
Please correct me, about the limited absorbtion thing and whether or not we have already reached the 100% absorbtion level if it is true, if you know better.
Artists made a living by being patronised by those who had money (and by patronised I mean those with the cash kept them in food and shelter ie sustainence) Mozart was fated by the Vienese toffs whilst Beethoven would have to write a bit of party music from time to time to make ends meet (there was some reference to his scottish agent in a SciAm Connections article recently IIRC).
The same principal can return us to a more just regime of paying for reproduceable art (ie not paying) since once the art is made we dont gotta spend more social surplus (ie money) on spreading it around other than the cost of actually getting it around.
If the artists starve then the music stops and so if you like the sound then you better start patronising the artists (just like the vienese toffs). In the 21st C we can use a million peoples dollar rather than a single millionares dollars to keep a million dollars woth of artists in sustainence.
Further to the posters comment about Tesco, check out the Tesco press release about how the World Sourcing Director of Tesco wrote a letter to the President of Warner Home Video saying that zoning was "against the spirit of free competition".
It should be noted that Tesco has taken other manufacturers to court (specifically Levi Strauss) to allow Tesco to sell the manufacturers products in their stores at discounted prices.
Since, by spreading the DeCSS source far and wide, we are all keeping alive something that "the Authorities" want burnt. May I ask what is the flashpoint of DeCSS source? Perhaps it would make a good title for a book on the subject:-)
Any real solution or response of the kind Josh Rosenberg seeks begins with the realization that corporatism is, in fact, a serious challenge that needs to be countered.
Just a small issue with the point that corporatism is bad. The only thing to stop the representation of many of the interest groups within the "good" side of this fight as corporatist is a lack of formal external recognition. This may indeed be changing, but even if it is not, the interest groups which fight the "forces of darknes (MPAA et al)" have more in common with a formal corporatist analysis than not.
Further I would suggest that an increase in corporatist activity in the modern "democratic" state is (IMHO) a greater force to oppose those large organisations that would ride roughshot (sp?) over the interests of a large number of "voiceless" persons than virtualy any other political mechanism. So let's not go hacking at the coporatist ideology without due care.
Someone out there has spent time and effort and probably their own money creating some product be it music, a movie, whatever. If you make a copy, that is theft - pure and simple - you have taken something which is not yours. You can try and hide your actions by cloaking it in phrases like 'making a backup', or it 'they won't notice' or whatever, but there can be no argument that it is theft.
No it is not theft. Neither is it purely theft nor simply theft. The person from who you derived your copy still has their original and therefore they have _NOT_ suffered a loss. Without loss, theft is a very difficult legal paradigm to sustain.
This is the reason why the IP zealots piss themselves every time the non marginal cost of copying falls into the realms of consumer prices because it means that they can no longer rely on physical constraints to enforce their fictional propoerty rights, and so they must turn to some legal fiction (or cultural ones such as the MP3 is theft meme mentioned elsewhere).
The "Some Easily Rebutted Objections to GNU's Goals" section of the GNU Manifesto should be read as a starter before coming back with "Oh yes it is".
All IP is bunk. The sooner we come to terms with this the happier we will be.
Private property, as we Anglo jurisdescendents know it, was invented to protect the new merchant class at the time of the industrial revolution. Designed to allow the aggregation of the New Capital by people who had no estate from which to protect their stuff. If someone took their new property they suffered _actual_ loss ie. they did not have it anymore.
And there's the rub, to "take" someones Intellectuall Property is to cause them no loss they still have their original such as it is worth.
If Joe Techie is of a mind to fund the solution to a problem (by giving up their leisure time and hacking it together in their garage, or whatever) where the solution belongs in IP space then, once solved, why should society have to pay to solve it again, the box is opened it cannot be closed again without some legal fiction (corollary DeCSS:-). Nor should it be closed. The global missallocation of resources resulting from IP is truly frightening (and we can all think of a trivial example of about USD100B can't we:-).
Well the answer in todays world is because of some stupid artifice derived from a fundamental misunderstanding of the origins of Private property. A stupid artifice that you and I know as IP. (This does not mean that the torts such as Passing Off do not apply to protect the integrity of the creators authorship). /rant --
Slashdot Mirror
I am sorry to rag on someone but this statement is complete and utter bullshit. There are a _litany_ of ways that companies can make money without resorting to intellectual property, and indeed the software industry shows so many such examples that this message should be treated as a troll.
As far as being bit in the ass. Any economics 101 will give you some idea that perfect competition (ie no barriers to entry and perfect market conditions) will drive profits to zero. The fact that the IP luminati make extraordinary profits should be claxon number one that something about the market in question is screwed.
As for the net social utility from a lack of IP, the analysis is more complex, but _globally_ speaking the benefits from no IP are certainly vastly more than the benefits from having IP. This is probably true from within national economies, including the US.
Don't forget that there is over half the population of the planet that could not give a rats ass about the legal niceties of precedent based legal systems.
I used to think that the kind of idiocy that we are forced to endure as a result of the existence of IP would take decades to resolve, but with organisations such as the RIAA wandering around like dinosaurs in a pre-meteroite strike paradise, perhaps it will only take years.
So there
PS, sorry again for the rant but, I mean _really_!!! (exasperated)
The point being made, and no matter how one cuts the figures, the point remains the _VAST_ difference between firearm mortallity in the US and Oz is due to the availability (legal, righteous, de facto or otherwise) of firearms.
Period.
If the Australian Statistics do not entertain then look at, gee I don't know, the UK where I predict (without having looked at the data) that the figures will be more like the Australian ones than the US ones.
Oh, BTW, I ain't no antigin campaigner, I just think if you like to have 'em around you gotta take the statistical medicine that is so bleedingly obviously there.
As mentioned, no NRA. The right to bear arms such as it is in the US has no equivalent in the Australian constitution (a formal document) nor the constitutions of the states of Australia (usually not formal documents).
I never cease to be amazed how the processes of good government, discloser of policy and consideration of new areas of social importance seem to be set upon by the zealots as "Big Government" sticking noses in where they do not belong.
The creation of a public discourse on this matter is an event for which the Oz government should be congratulated. Even if they had got the wrong answer (which it appears they did not IMHO) the fact that the review took place in a public forum is the point that so many people seem to have missed.
Certainly true.
and sell it if you want.
This does not follow. In order to sell one must have property and title. For sale without either is called fraud. The assumption that authorship of a whatever gives you property is the flaw that currently curses us in Western society.
Everything else follows from this assumption. Consider a world in which authorship does not give property but rather a right to prevent others from claiming authorship. In the English legal tradition, and yes the Americans follow this tradition (even the continentals are influenced here (thank you industrial revolution)), there were Torts at law, to protect the rights of which I speak, the counterside is to protect ones property by preventing others from claiming that a given work was authored by someone when it was not, this wrong, called passing off, would stop someone from writing a song and calling it a Metallica track.
There are a number of standard replies to this point of view, most of them effectively rebutted in the GNU Manifesto, those that are not specifically rebutted there can be rebutted. Just think about it harder. In particular, don't think about it in terms of how our world would have to change to get to that place but just imagine such a place and how it might work.
The proof is all around, but just think about how people like Mozart and Beethoven made a living.
I do not have the freedom to deny them that right. that's where a lot of people don't 'get it.'
Why right are you denying? The right to sell something that they do not own? That is in itself wrong.
Ok, so one is not persuaded that authorship does not give property. I can accept that, it is a tough ask, but if we can leave the persuasion unitl another day, can it be agreed that if authorship does not give property then the author has nothing to sell and so the whole "stealing" of the fruits of intellect (note the active avoidance of the term Intellectual Property) is a moot point?
As for the persuasion, well it's a long road, starting with the roots of what we, in the Western tradition, call property, in the writings of English lawyer philosophers such as Blackstone, Hobbes and Locke and progesses through the Industrial revolution up until today. And you don't even need to touch alternative paradigms such as Marxism or the like.
When a particular minority with very special interests gets an overwhelming amount of mindspace, the public needs special protective measures against the corps abusing their power.
But the fundamental difference between traditional broadcast and (almost) anything "net" related are the barriers to entry. With broadcst there are many barriers to entry, cost, (as others have so oft mentioned) bandwidth to name but two. On the net there are virtually none. As such, Joe Public with killer content is going to be just as good as XCorp at getting that content out (within the obvious constraints of available bandwidth but that is purely a commercial question, ie there is not the same upfront infrastructure barriers, eg building a TV station). The same goes for Peter Minority so the barrier to getting out the content is non existent and so minoroty views have no barrier to expression.
FWIW I recall some testimony given by one Packer comma K fullstop to a senate inquiry in Oz where he stated (and it is obvious) that the fact that he could "broadcast" his opinions through his vast array of media interests was not a side effect of his ownership but the purpose of ownership. It is important to ask the kind of questions that the Australian government is asking but it is critical that they get the right answer - ie that internet content is not broadcasting. $0.02
Please correct me, about the limited absorbtion thing and whether or not we have already reached the 100% absorbtion level if it is true, if you know better.
The same principal can return us to a more just regime of paying for reproduceable art (ie not paying) since once the art is made we dont gotta spend more social surplus (ie money) on spreading it around other than the cost of actually getting it around.
If the artists starve then the music stops and so if you like the sound then you better start patronising the artists (just like the vienese toffs). In the 21st C we can use a million peoples dollar rather than a single millionares dollars to keep a million dollars woth of artists in sustainence.
It should be noted that Tesco has taken other manufacturers to court (specifically Levi Strauss) to allow Tesco to sell the manufacturers products in their stores at discounted prices.
Just a small issue with the point that corporatism is bad. The only thing to stop the representation of many of the interest groups within the "good" side of this fight as corporatist is a lack of formal external recognition. This may indeed be changing, but even if it is not, the interest groups which fight the "forces of darknes (MPAA et al)" have more in common with a formal corporatist analysis than not.
Further I would suggest that an increase in corporatist activity in the modern "democratic" state is (IMHO) a greater force to oppose those large organisations that would ride roughshot (sp?) over the interests of a large number of "voiceless" persons than virtualy any other political mechanism. So let's not go hacking at the coporatist ideology without due care.
No it is not theft. Neither is it purely theft nor simply theft. The person from who you derived your copy still has their original and therefore they have _NOT_ suffered a loss. Without loss, theft is a very difficult legal paradigm to sustain.
This is the reason why the IP zealots piss themselves every time the non marginal cost of copying falls into the realms of consumer prices because it means that they can no longer rely on physical constraints to enforce their fictional propoerty rights, and so they must turn to some legal fiction (or cultural ones such as the MP3 is theft meme mentioned elsewhere).
The "Some Easily Rebutted Objections to GNU's Goals" section of the GNU Manifesto should be read as a starter before coming back with "Oh yes it is".
All IP is bunk. The sooner we come to terms with this the happier we will be.
:-). Nor should it be closed. The global missallocation of resources resulting from IP is truly frightening (and we can all think of a trivial example of about USD100B can't we :-).
Private property, as we Anglo jurisdescendents know it, was invented to protect the new merchant class at the time of the industrial revolution. Designed to allow the aggregation of the New Capital by people who had no estate from which to protect their stuff. If someone took their new property they suffered _actual_ loss ie. they did not have it anymore.
And there's the rub, to "take" someones Intellectuall Property is to cause them no loss they still have their original such as it is worth.
If Joe Techie is of a mind to fund the solution to a problem (by giving up their leisure time and hacking it together in their garage, or whatever) where the solution belongs in IP space then, once solved, why should society have to pay to solve it again, the box is opened it cannot be closed again without some legal fiction (corollary DeCSS
Well the answer in todays world is because of some stupid artifice derived from a fundamental misunderstanding of the origins of Private property. A stupid artifice that you and I know as IP. (This does not mean that the torts such as Passing Off do not apply to protect the integrity of the creators authorship).
/rant
--