"Intellectual Property" Law

[TheBuzzSaw]

Even if people are "educated", sales will only go down. People won't magically start buying simply because they cannot or will not pirate content.

 

[KrazyGlue]

Even if people are "educated", sales will only go down. People won't magically start buying simply because they cannot or will not pirate content.

I meant that the band should understand that refusing to sell their CDs due to piracy is a poor decision, and I'm more sad for them than angry or "glad" they're never releasing a CD again.

 

[Crimson King]

http://blogs.courant.com/eric_danton_sound_check/2010/02/fighting-digital-piracy-brandt-morain.html

[size=+4]L O L[/size]

Well, to be fair, musicians don't make much from album sales anyway, so they will probably tour plus one of the guys designs semiconductors, so I doubt he's doing this for the money.

 

[AltF4]

Take a look at Flattr

http://flattr.com/beta/

It was made by the Pirate Bay's own Peter Sunde, and is a micropayment system that people can use to give to creators they like on the internet. The idea looks very promising. I already signed up for a Beta invitation, so should you guys.

 

[Sucumbio]

Take a look at Flattr

http://flattr.com/beta/

It was made by the Pirate Bay's own Peter Sunde, and is a micropayment system that people can use to give to creators they like on the internet. The idea looks very promising. I already signed up for a Beta invitation, so should you guys.

Likes This

A friend of mine, Derek Sivers (founder of CD Baby) suggested we start something similar for buskers... it's this kind of out-of-the-box idea that will help musicians greatly, given the sea of obscurity that's out there...

not to mention the Independent Music Industry. I wrote a lengthy rant to Derek years ago, never published it but basically it detailed the course of the independent artist. Artist writes a song, submits it to a music contest, or posts in on myspace, what have you... it gets noticed and before you know it in comes all these "offers" ... I want to get your music on the radio in the greater Seattle area, I wanna make you 1000 CDs for distribution at concerts, I wanna build you a nifty flash website...

before you know it you've spent 10s of thousands of dollars. The catch? No one has that kind of money! It's literally cheaper to buy a CD press and make your -own- 1000 cds. To buy a Flash for dummies book and some hosting space at godaddy and build your -own- flash site. And then you can become one of Them, who offeres to make CDs for the new guy, cause now you're a provider. This model has been in place for a decade now, and its definitely no better than it was before, it's steadily gotten worse. Thousands upon thousands of independent artists, we all have an album on iTunes, we all have a website, a pitch or two in some e-zine. And none of us have enough real bank to break the new glass ceiling, the one that gets you truly noticed, that bridges you past independent, and into "signed."

Sorry for the tangent, lol. Good find, AltF4, I have totally signed up, we'll see how it all turns out.

 

[AltF4]

I just happened across a really good article written by Courtney Love, here:

http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2000/06/14/love/

It was written back in 2000, and it's amazing I haven't read it until now. It's a really good read about the corrupt recording industry by someone who knows them well.

On a related note, please check out Magnatune if you haven't already:

http://magnatune.com

 

[Crimson King]

So, she can write (articles not songs; she stole a bunch of melodies from her late-husband), do math, AND get away with murder. Impressive.

 

[AltF4]

Holy cow. The US government appears to have gotten something right. Here they are debunking claims of loss due to piracy in an official investigation. I'll post more details when I get a chance to read this more thoroughly. But here's a link:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/..._term=Main Account&utm_campaign=microblogging


EDIT: Okay, I got a chance to read the whole document, and here's my take:

It's essentially a sane take on what everyone clearly knows are fabricated and/or wildly exaggerated figures. One of the most popular ones you see floating around is $250 Billion yearly lost due to piracy. This investigation reveals this number (and just about every other figure commonly in use to describe piracy losses) and completely fraudulent. The authors even go so far as to acknowledge that there are many economic benefits to piracy, and that it's not even clear whether the net effect is negative or positive.

That said, the authors do suffer from the typical misgivings when you try to talk about "Intellectual Property" as a singular term. Much of what they describe is not digital piracy about which this thread has been concerned, but rather knock-off pharmaceuticals or clothing. A 12 year old girl downloading a song linked to by The Pirate Bay, and organized crime organizations distributing fake pharmaceuticals are fundamentally different things. And they do not deserve to be talked about in the same breath.

What is so striking about this paper is that it was commissioned by the GAO, in response to the recently passed "PRO-IP" act. Congress wanted quantified data about the losses due to piracy after having passed this law (Shouldn't it have been the other way around?...) and so they had the GAO do it. Who then turned around and said essentially that there is no reliable data to substantiate claims about losses due to piracy. In fact, it's not even clear that there are any.

 

[AltF4]

Bump:

A new interesting article appeared on TechDirt:

http://techdirt.com/articles/20100611/0203309776.shtml

Some highlights:

it's important to point out that the chart above is not the entire music industry, but a limited segment of it: the RIAA record labels, mainly comprised of the big four record labels. It doesn't take into account all of the other aspects of the music business -- nearly every single one of which has been growing during this same period. It also doesn't take into account the vast success stories of independent artists and labels doing creative business models and routing around the legacy gatekeepers.

Alongside suggestions from Thom Yorke that the RIAA may be collapsing within a matter of months, this could get interesting.

Sounds a bit too good to be true, so it probably is. But one can hope.

 

[KrazyGlue]

I'm sure the recession contributed to its sales losses though. This would be a huge development if RIAA actually collapsed though. But I don't really see it happening in the immediate future.

 

[AltF4]

A quote that I had read before, but forgotten entirely about until just recently. I may even make it my signature.

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.

Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.

Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

Also, read the rest of the essay where I was reminded of this quote, here:

The Economy of Ideas. (Selling Wine Without Bottles on the Global Net) By John Perry Barlow.

 

[Reaver197]

Thomas Jefferson continues to be an enlightening figure to this day, though, I cannot say all together whether that is a good or bad thing.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Oh dear.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100623/film_nm/us_piracy

Better version:

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=18815

Basically, the Obama Administration is going to be doing the RIAA's job in the near future, still equates copyright infringement to theft, claims that $20B (!!!!!!) was lost to piracy each year in actual revenue (WHAAAAAAAT? Where the **** did you get this figure biden?). They also plan on going after P2P services, including bittorrent filesharing apps such as bittorrent or utorrent because they "might" cause damages. And finally, they include the very first thoughtcrime law in the history of the USA-specifically, hammering you because they have a "reasonable suspect" you might go and download illegal stuff (think finding out that you entered "torrent green day" or something into google).

**** biden.

 

[thegreatkazoo]

Oh dear.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100623/film_nm/us_piracy

Better version:

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=18815

Basically, the Obama Administration is going to be doing the RIAA's job in the near future, still equates copyright infringement to theft, claims that $20B (!!!!!!) was lost to piracy each year in actual revenue (WHAAAAAAAT? Where the **** did you get this figure biden?). They also plan on going after P2P services, including bittorrent filesharing apps such as bittorrent or utorrent because they "might" cause damages. And finally, they include the very first thoughtcrime law in the history of the USA-specifically, hammering you because they have a "reasonable suspect" you might go and download illegal stuff (think finding out that you entered "torrent green day" or something into google).

**** biden.

A war on piracy==war on drugs IMHO. Blindly cracking down on everyone and their mother (literally) is not the hottest look.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

While I do oppose the wasting of tax dollars on this campaign, I just want them to get on with it so they can learn firsthand that reduced piracy does not equate to increased sales. The entire idea will be a net loss.

 

[thegreatkazoo]

While I do oppose the wasting of tax dollars on this campaign, I just want them to get on with it so they can learn firsthand that reduced piracy does not equate to increased sales. The entire idea will be a net loss.

Duly noted, but look @ the war on drugs. Billions burned in tax dollars, yet no administration will turn the page and get true reform done (like not having mandatory minimum sentencing, legalizing pot, &c.)

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

Duly noted, but look @ the war on drugs. Billions burned in tax dollars, yet no administration will turn the page and get true reform done (like not having mandatory minimum sentencing, legalizing pot, &c.)

Yeah, it's tragic that money is wasted on such fruitless pursuits. Frankly, it's embarrassing how so many people/organizations fail to understand the economics at work here. Fighting piracy is essentially chasing ghosts. At least with the war on drugs, there is a tangible target to build laws around. With this war on piracy, authorities will have no way of verifying what content is legitimately licensed.

We need copyright reform. Laws need to acknowledge that there is no such thing as "a single copy". With today's technology, content has to be copied whenever it is "moved". As far as most devices are concerned, even the move operation is nothing more than a "copy and delete".

Content creators need to pick sides. Consumers have had enough of this attitude where stuff bought on store shelves are both licensed and physical: while it's in your possession, you have thousands of restrictions, but if you lose it, you have to buy another one just as if you lost a spoon. If the content is licensed, the creator has an obligation to ensure that the customer always has access to the content. That means if the customer's DVD is destroyed, the creators should sell a replacement for $2 (basically the cost of the disc printing and some labor). If the content is physical, the creator is freed of the license responsibilities, but the customer has every right to make copies and preserve the investment.

Granted, copyright reform goes way beyond this. Content creators need to accept that they cannot have their cake and eat it too. By that, I mean that they need to let go of this idea called "control". They work so hard to shove their stuff into people's faces and then boss them around when they finally decide to buy it.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

So I was actually discussing with my friend, and somehow we came to the conclusion that fully getting rid of copyright laws after X years seems a little ridiculous. However, I brought up this suggestion, which seems to work very nicely.

After X years (thinking around 5 for video games, 10 for TV/other media, 3-5 for music), extend the "free use" rights that people have to a product to be almost anything short of gross copyright infringement (copying it and selling the copies, or explicitly copying it (needs a caveat for fan-based works; think of any number of the fan-projects based on Chrono Trigger that SE has shut down for no adequate reason) and calling it their own work). That not only gives them a very large window to make a profit off of the product, but prevents someone from coming along, taking the product, and claiming it as their own. Said products would, in effect, become "free" after X years, seeing as copying it and giving it to a friend is covered under the new free use rights, as long as you don't mass-produce and resell it.

How does this sound?

 

[AltF4]

This is what usually happens when you fail to innovate:

Blockbuster delisted from the NYSE

Expect Blockbuster to be completely bankrupt in very likely a month's time. They have nearly a billion dollars in debt, and a non-working business model. And good riddance.


Now imagine what we'd get if Blockbuster had a powerful Washington lobby which labeled anyone who offered a better service using superior technology as "pirates"?

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Well, then they'd be doing great and netflix would be illegal.

 

[AltF4]

It has been over a year since I last edited the OP of this thread, and since that many names have come and gone. Many new members may not realize that this thread was one of the original Great Debates that took place here. The original post of this thread is in fact the longest OP on these forums. (Excluding certain threads with large lists of facts like a database) This Debate Hall holds a special place to me, as for a long time it served as a forming grounds of my ideas. I'm taking the time now to both reflect upon what I once wrote and also update it once again. The issues I talked about back then have not gone away, and instead have only become more important. Many things have happened in this time that are relevant such as Wikileaks and Anonymous.

I want to start out by saying that if I had made one single greatest mistake in my arguments it was too easily dismissing the concept of intellectual "property". It seemed abundantly clear to me then, as it still does, that this concept is farcical. That matters of intellect simply cannot, in any sense of the term, be one's property. A consequence of this was that I did not spend much time trying to convince anyone of this fact.

In practice, the debate boiled down to whether or not you viewed ideas as property, and I did not directly enough argue this central point. Anyone who knows anything about debate knows that it often is all about framing. How you frame the issue defines the issue. The terms "pro-life" and "pro-choice" are both explicit attempts to frame one issue very differently. If I let you, the reader, fall into believing that information should or even CAN be considered property, then I have already lost. This is something I have now remedied.

On this same note, I have mixed feelings on the topic of piracy. Firstly, to use the term "piracy" is to surrender to the opposing frame of reference. Real life piracy (as in with boats and guns) is something truly terrible, where people die and goods are stolen. To call one's self a pirate is to imply a simile with those barbarians. It's to imply that what you are doing is theft. This is a point that Richard Stallman has made on many occasions, but it managed to evade me each time.

It is abundantly clear to me, again, that this is not what people MEAN to say when they call themselves a pirate. The European Pirate Parties, which are gaining an incredible amount of political sway, are more than clear about this fact in their platforms. The term "pirate" is used as a term of endearment from what used to be an insult. This is a common phenomenon, in the same way that "Yankee" (which translates to "pirate") was adopted by colonial Americans.

The reason I have mixed feelings about the term is 1) That I am at a loss for any suitable alternatives, and 2) The term piracy probably has a critical mass of momentum behind it.

You won't find me removing my Pirate Bay sticker from my laptop, or revoking my Pirate Party membership. But it's with an ounce of regret that I willingly play into my opponents hand by implying to those who do not yet understand us something which we do not believe.

Secondly about piracy, it's been more obvious to me than ever that if you are pirating something, then you are doing something wrong. Not in the sense that you should not be freely allowed access to information, no. But only in the sense that if you are pirating something, you are supporting the opposition. Put another way: The correct alternative to the Pirate Bay is not iTunes. It's Magnatune. It's creative commons licensed artists. If we want to build a Free Culture, then we have to support those that participate in it.

If you are downloading cracked copy of Windows, you are doing something wrong. Your error is not failing to pay Microsoft, your error is failing to use a Free and Open Source operating system such as GNU/Linux. This is a point I want to make clear and push as hard as one can.

Also, I've changed my mind about what is wrong with copyright. I once said that I didn't think that it was fundamentally broken, but now I do. It's become clear that the problem with copyright isn't its implementation but the basis of the very thing it regulates: copies. With today's technology, every conceivable use of information produces a copy. What we need isn't a set of laws that regulate copies. What we need is a set of laws that regulate commercial distribution. Clearly there is something wrong with Time Warner taking the latest Disney movie, boxing it up into DVDs and selling them. But this is an entirely different act than a 12 year old girl making a funny remix of a clip of that same Disney movie and posting it on YouTube. Our laws should recognize that difference.

I've restricted my criticism of patents to just Software Patents. As a software engineer, I can give you first hand accounts of the wrongs it inflicts. While I still believe that patents in general are counter-productive, one should allow the respective industries to decide on their own whether they would like to keep it. With the exception of pharmaceutical patents, which are responsible for the deaths of unprivileged citizens of foreign countries. These people are banned from manufacturing or importing generic drugs that would save lives, just so that profits can be maximized in corporate boardrooms. This is the quintessential example of evil corporate greed.

Lastly, I've added a new section where I lay out a vision of what the replacement to copyright should be. I've made it as specific as possible without actually writing a real bill! This section I most eagerly invite discussion and criticism.


In addition to changes to substance, I've done an overhaul of the OP's structure. Anyone who knows me in person knows that I have a style of speech that tends to go off on tangents. I would call it "depth-first-speech", others might call it rambling. I fear this came across too strongly in my writing so I reorganized the entire document.

So, everyone do please go a re-read the Original Post on this thread. It's been substantially rewritten. You will find lots of new text added and removed. I hope you find it enlightening, persuasive, and informative.

Thanks

 

[ballin4life]

Patents seem much worse than copyrights to me because they restrict new innovation.


Also, crazy long OP.

 

[AltF4]

I would, of course, argue that they both restrict innovation in their own way. Patents are arguably more direct. If you ever invent something of value, get a lawyer. Because the first thing that will happen is that you will be sued from every direction.

But copyright is pervasive. 10 year old girls on their shiny new pink laptop don't have to be concerned about patent law. It's still "just" a restriction on corporate activity for the most part. (Not entirely though, as Free and Open Source programmers have learned. Which is why the GPL stipulates that any affected patents must be given a lifelong royalty free license) Copyright affects every action on the Internet. It's friction in the gears of a machine that used to be frictionless.


Also, yes, I know the OP is a book. In fact, I've been considering reformatting it into a downloadable PDF or ODT. But please do take the time to read it fully, I think there's a lot of important content there.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

I have to second the notion that any form of intellect can be construed as "property". No one can own ideas. Sure, I'm a believer in attribution and credit where credit is due, but we live in the modern era of contracts and licenses. Creative minds feel it is within their right to dictate what one can and cannot do with their creative output.

I was going to go further with this, but I lost my train of thought. It's late. I need to sleep. I SHALL RETURN.

 

[Dragoon Fighter]

Secondly about piracy, it's been more obvious to me than ever that if you are pirating something, then you are doing something wrong. Not in the sense that you should not be freely allowed access to information, no. But only in the sense that if you are pirating something, you are supporting the opposition. Put another way: The correct alternative to the Pirate Bay is not iTunes. It's Magnatune. It's creative commons licensed artists. If we want to build a Free Culture, then we have to support those that participate in it.

If you are downloading cracked copy of Windows, you are doing something wrong. Your error is not failing to pay Microsoft, your error is failing to use a Free and Open Source operating system such as GNU/Linux. This is a point I want to make clear and push as hard as one can.

Question: I understand that almost all the time there are free counter parts to many programs out there, but even if the intellectial property law where removed

Spoiler

(Which I have not reached a complete conclusion yet ethier way, though I am leaning toward agreeing with you.)

shouldn't piracy still be illegal? By that I mean shouldn't copying a rom/game/program/movie for free internet distrabution be illegal because it hurts the artist?

I ask this from a morality stand point more than anything.

Spoiler

I will admit it is extreamly ironic that I should ask this considering I have a demoniod.me acount, but I use that acount to try out wii games, if I like the game then I go get it, if I don't then I stop playing the disk and throw it away. So while it does not make my actions anymore legal, I do that to make my self feel morally intact.

Note: Things in spoliers are things I thought where irrelevent to my question, but somewhat related to this topic.

 

[AltF4]

Well, first I'd urge you to read the full OP. I think I provide for an adequate answer in there. I don't advocate for merely removing the system of laws we have currently and replacing them with nothing.

Also, though you say that you ask from a morality standpoint, it really is from an economic standpoint. You're asking the question everyone asks: how do authors make money if we don't pretend that information can be owned? It's an economic question with an economic answer. But it has nothing to do with morality.

If you said: "When I write something, I own it. And I should have the ability to control how everyone uses it." Then you're making a moral argument. I would still disagree with you, but it's important to keep these matters separate.

 

[ballin4life]

I made a presentation once about alternative models in the music industry. As it happens, music in particular has a lot of complimentary goods so artists can make lots of money from selling goods like clothing, concerts, etc.

 

[Sucumbio]

Excellent read!

My reactions:

1.) The car-copying machine: good or bad? From my eyes (and I realize this was purely an analogy) I think this actually touches on an even broader issue of global economy. I don't think I need to harp on the obvious; there are literally millions of people around the world who make their living thanks to the Auto industry (manufacturing or sales). So of course obliterating that industry in one fell swoop would have cataclysmic effects on them, which of course would in turn lead to further cataclysm. This said I'm not opposed to such an invention, only that it be revealed carefully, timely, so as to allow all those millions of people to adjust, to find a new livelihood.
If we take this analogy back to its source, we see why RCA, Sony, et al have fought so vigorously to hold onto their old business models as set forth decades ago with the invention of the record, and then radio, TV and finally the Internet. The big issue here is money. The freer information exchange becomes, the less chance there is for money to be made. Sure people can make money the old fashioned way, by toiling. But that's what White Collar existence is about. It's about making oodles of money without ever breaking a sweat.
What I'm seeing in this article, what I'm feeling from it... is that to suggest these business models be scrapped is to suggest that Corporations be scrapped. And of course this leads back to global economy, and how it would be impacted. It's bad enough that iTunes started off as a way for no-names like myself to "get out there" and get paid a bit on the side, but now it's just another sea of faces with no real expectation of stardom to be had. In other words, the Internet may have granted a temporary alleviation of Big Business holding all the cards, and the little guy taking it up the ***, but it didn't stay that way for long, and with each new iteration of the Internet, comes a landslide of new angles, get-rich-quick schemes, and ultimately leads us to the same place we've always been in: little guys, taking it up the ***.
To combat this, you and me and millions of others have banded together to declare ourselves free of the tyranny of Big Business -because we can-. But is that not Windows you're running on your PC right this second? Okay maybe you're really good, and using an open source OS, and an open source browser to read this post, and perhaps you built your own PC using cheap(er) 3rd party parts... I find that no matter how you slice it, we'll still be entrenched in this Internet-thing, that's not built on freedom, but built on billboards. I have to pay for my access! Sure I can... "pirate" my neighbor's WiFi, but that IS stealing, and not because they're harmed necessarily, they may never notice a difference given we're all DOCSIS 3.0 in this neighborhood... they're harmed because they'd be paying for my access.
So how do we really break these chains? No matter what we do... imagine: We start sharing our vast CD libraries from the 90's as MP3's ... using our PCs as servers and P2P sharing all these songs, entire albums. Because it's the Internet, people who have never originally paid for the CD are also listening to these works of art. Is that right? Is it just? Should it be allowed? Who should be punished, them for being inquisitive, or us for allowing them the access? Remember the start of just about every VHS in history... it cites an Interpol resolution regarding "piracy" alongside a chapter/title quip and an FBI warning. Granted this is mainly to prevent people like you or me, "commoners" from making our own Movie Theaters, and charging others to attend public viewings. Private Use Only. But it does serve a more general purpose of indoctrinating society into recognizing the difference between acceptable and non-acceptable use (by their standards, of course).
So again, how do we -really- move forward, when every step we take is shadowed by Consumerism?

2.) Freedom of Information Exchange (Censorship):

I find this to be a troubling area of discussion, mainly because while I do agree that information should never be withheld, the Internet was and is divided into two main categories: Local, and Wide, with several iterations in between. On one extreme, the Local, you have closed-net access, where you have to physically be in the building to gain access, or at the very least, have proper protocol and permissions to gain access. This is reserved for things like Intranets. On the other end, the Wide, you have Google. The difficulty becomes apparent when information from one area leaks either accidentally or on purpose into the other. For instance, should one be able to "google" 'how do I make a nuclear device?" and get actual data from DARPA? Maybe the intention is benign... but maybe it's not. Can we as a society afford to take that chance? This example is interchangeable of course with anything dangerous to the public at large, such as child porn, WMDs, anything illegal.

Oh wait, but that's just it. The very thing at the heart of this matter IS legality. It's about declaring something illegal based on out-dated rules which are insufficient to properly govern. So this means, what, that we have to start ascertaining legality of the thing first? Information is more than just information. Words, sounds, images... these things coalesce into ideas which by themselves may be harmless, and unable to be owned, but once witnessed, interacted with... used.... can become something far more treacherous. I think the reason why there's been less than ample public support for moving forward with intellectual freedom, is because our society depends on government-groups to do our thinking for us, to keep us from harm's way. Not until we dissolve some of these entities will we really be free. In other words, The Pirate Bay is doing a good thing, in one sense, and in another sense, is attempting to do an impossible thing, which is move toward freedom from oversight. This results in what I consider the majority of PirateBay users, BitTorrent users... users who really just don't want to pay 600 bucks for their copy of Adobe software, so they download it and use it to make a YouTube video that gets a millions hits and they become the next Justin Beiber.

 

[Theftz22]

Also, though you say that you ask from a morality standpoint, it really is from an economic standpoint. You're asking the question everyone asks: how do authors make money if we don't pretend that information can be owned? It's an economic question with an economic answer. But it has nothing to do with morality.

At some point you're making a moral argument here if you want to advocate that we ought change the intellectual property laws. Initially you might be making economic arguments to show that changing these laws will benefit the economy, but after that you'll have to make the ethical claim that we ought change them because of that.

which does not compute

 

[Sucumbio]

I didn't really get a giant morality hammer over the head reading his article. It really is about money. IP laws are designed to keep the rich rich and the consumers consuming. The moral question of "is it right" is easily answered if you don't consider your idea as property, and consider it instead as a gift to the world: one should not attach the -expectation- of compensation for their creativity, but creative outlet brokers have tricked the masses into thinking otherwise, so that they can become rich off of the creativity of others.

 

[ballin4life]

If Star Trek replicators were invented, everyone would be MUCH better off.

Even though it would destroy the concept of money, it would also make money irrelevant since we would have infinite goods.

 

[T-block]

Services would still have worth, and we would be hard pressed to find a system of exchanging services then.

Anyways, I haven't read the OP yet, but I hope to get around to it soon.

 

[AltF4]

Excellent read!

Thanks!

:This said I'm not opposed to such an invention, only that it be revealed carefully, timely, so as to allow all those millions of people to adjust, to find a new livelihood.

Should we have delayed the invention of the car? It put out of business many stage coach manufacturers and repairmen. Should we have delayed the invention of the CD? Everyone who was making cassette tapes had to adjust.

No, it does not make sense to intentionally impede innovation.

What I'm seeing in this article, what I'm feeling from it... is that to suggest these business models be scrapped is to suggest that Corporations be scrapped.

I don't agree with this. There is a place for corporations in the Internet age. But the business model that will make them profit is not one of packaging up bits and selling them. Look at Google, or any number of other companies following their example.

To combat this, you and me and millions of others have banded together to declare ourselves free of the tyranny of Big Business -because we can-. But is that not Windows you're running on your PC right this second? Okay maybe you're really good, and using an open source OS, and an open source browser to read this post, and perhaps you built your own PC using cheap(er) 3rd party parts... I find that no matter how you slice it, we'll still be entrenched in this Internet-thing, that's not built on freedom, but built on billboards. I have to pay for my access! Sure I can... "pirate" my neighbor's WiFi, but that IS stealing, and not because they're harmed necessarily, they may never notice a difference given we're all DOCSIS 3.0 in this neighborhood... they're harmed because they'd be paying for my access.

I just want to say that I want to state plainly that the fight for a Free and Open Internet is not a fight against corporations generally. It may be a fight against a certain set of corporations who oppose a Free and Open Internet. There's nothing wrong with buying computer hardware from a large name company.

The reason you shouldn't use Windows is not because they're a big business, but because Microsoft has a long history of doing outrightly evil things in order to continue their monopoly and inhibit freedom. (Google's official motto of "Don't be evil" is a tongue-in-cheek stab at Microsoft) Maybe I should have a section dedicated to all the evil stuff Microsoft has done through the ages.

At some point you're making a moral argument here if you want to advocate that we ought change the intellectual property laws. Initially you might be making economic arguments to show that changing these laws will benefit the economy, but after that you'll have to make the ethical claim that we ought change them because of that.

which does not compute

I do mean to make both an economic argument and a moral argument. I just want to keep them separate. It's easy to muddle them together into something that doesn't follow.

I didn't really get a giant morality hammer over the head reading his article. It really is about money. IP laws are designed to keep the rich rich and the consumers consuming. The moral question of "is it right" is easily answered if you don't consider your idea as property, and consider it instead as a gift to the world: one should not attach the -expectation- of compensation for their creativity, but creative outlet brokers have tricked the masses into thinking otherwise, so that they can become rich off of the creativity of others.

Well put, with one exception I think. You'll have to forgive me for being nit-picky, but language has so much to do with this debate.

"consider it instead as a gift to the world" isn't quite right. In order for something to be a gift, it must be given, which implies ownership. Plus offering a gift implies that you receive nothing in return. Neither are the case, here. Also, don't refer to "IP law". There is no such thing. If you mean copyright, say copyright.

 

[ballin4life]

Services would still have worth, and we would be hard pressed to find a system of exchanging services then.

Anyways, I haven't read the OP yet, but I hope to get around to it soon.

It would be figured out incredibly quickly, and even if it weren't, it would still EASILY be worth it to have replicators.

Not to mention that we could just replicate some robots to provide services

 

[Sucumbio]

Should we have delayed the invention of the car? It put out of business many stage coach manufacturers and repairmen. Should we have delayed the invention of the CD? Everyone who was making cassette tapes had to adjust.

No, it does not make sense to intentionally impede innovation.

Well, I I do agree that innovation should not be impeded, but at the same time one has to be responsible with the way in which their invention is unleashed, and in the far extreme case of the car copier, it's just foolhardy to think that it cannot be done without careful attention to the impact such an invention would have on the global economy. One way in which this could be accomplished is by turning Ford, Chrysler, et al into the car copiers. Basically as an inventor of such a device, one could sell the rights to use the device to the car companies, who in turn still keep their showrooms, but instead of having giant lots filled with inventory, just have the showroom, out of which copies of each of that year's make and model can be made and distributed to the public. This accomplishes two things: 1.) It prevents people from just randomly going around and copying someone else's car off their driveway. This is important because a car -is- something you own, and there is a sense of pride and individualism attached to each car owner's property. 2.) It'd keep car companies in business, albeit a slightly different business. True the labor pool would down-size dramatically, given that making millions of production models would no longer be necessary, and so car factories would no doubt shrink in size.... but who knows, perhaps the invention still requires the use of raw materials to fuel the copying process, and so auto workers expertise would shift from assembly-line jobs to something else. At any rate I'm getting away from the purpose of the analogy, but it's because the analogy was an extreme example that I feel actually goes too far to express the intent of allowing progress to continue for progress' sake. There will always be implications that progress may lead to disaster, and that is NOT a valid reason to not do it, but depending on what the progress involves, there should be a level of attention and responsibility paid to act of progressing and innovating. Another example I can think of is the discovery of the atom, and how it quickly developed from a theoretical science into a military application, with presumably little regard for the consequences.

Now of course, this reply started with the idea of selling the "rights" to something, and a lot of your article is devoted to moving away from this idea of ownership. However, I submit that indeed an idea is one's own until they share it with others. I say this because it's not as if the idea materialized from thin air and randomly found its way into the mind of an individual... an idea as you've pointed out is a culmination of experiences and information - within a single person. The point of protecting that origination is so that there's a guarantee that someone else does not exploit it, however naive that expectation may be. At the very least it forms a framework by which one can benefit from having an idea in the first place, which in turn leads to ideas flourishing. It's a method of economizing ideas, turning them into paychecks (which unfortunately we still require in order to be successful.) In an ideal world, we'd simply have ideas for the sake of the betterment of mankind, with no forethought to the monetary profit it could bring. But we still live in a money-driven world, and so ideas are often attached to dollar signs.

To expand this further, I actually just had this conversation with one of my customers the other morning.

"Have you ever had an idea," he asked. I chuckled a bit but then answered seriously.
"OF course, I've had several. You?"
"Yes sir, I just had a great one, one of those I-can-do-this-and-retire ideas."
"Ah yes," I said, wistfully, "but once you share it, someone else will grab it up."

The contention here is resources. People either do or do not have the resources to see their ideas come to fruition. Large companies like IBM of course have gigantic pools of resources with which they can achieve great things. Take their recent stint on Jeopardy with Watson. Hundreds of interconnect computers, thousands of man-hours... all so a computer could play a game show. But the implication here is that the information gathering resources of Watson are such that the Information Age will be catapulted into the next frontier. Now you or I could have had the same idea. "Hey, lets network a few hundred computers and program a nifty interface to make information gathering more efficient and accurate, while simultaneously working towards perfecting A.I." But such an idea would have been wasted on us, because we're regular people who lack the resources to actually do something like that. We're not IBM.

I don't agree with this. There is a place for corporations in the Internet age. But the business model that will make them profit is not one of packaging up bits and selling them. Look at Google, or any number of other companies following their example.

I feel as if Darth Vader should step in and remind Google to not be so proud of the technological terror they've constructed. Google is no punk. Cableone internet service just recently changed to gmail as their main email server, in favor of running their own email service, out-sourcing if you will. Google have acquired many companies. I agree that they are a pioneer for Information Exchange, it's their business model to make digital information as accessible as possible. But their public image is not by accident, as I'm sure you're aware. At the end of the day, they simply have their iron grip on a business model that has little room for competition, which is why anti-trust investigations have taken place over their largest deal. It's not to say they're "evil" like Microsoft, definitely not. But they are also unique, and their business model isn't something I can see being applicable to -all- corporations. Not everyone in the Internet biz can be in the business of the Ideal, in other words.... they've already claimed it.

Well put, with one exception I think. You'll have to forgive me for being nit-picky, but language has so much to do with this debate.

"consider it instead as a gift to the world" isn't quite right. In order for something to be a gift, it must be given, which implies ownership. Plus offering a gift implies that you receive nothing in return. Neither are the case, here. Also, don't refer to "IP law". There is no such thing. If you mean copyright, say copyright.

Well I sort of alluded to this point earlier but let me further explain. By gift I mean offering, with no expectation of reward or even thanks or praise. The moment you -expect- these things, is the moment your art loses something. This is really specific to art and culture, less to innovation. As an inventor, it's not wrong to expect you be compensated for sharing your invention with others, especially if that invention betters their lives. As an artist, it's ... well, shallow to expect compensation for you presentation. True your art may require large amounts of resources to create and express, but this is not the fault of the witness, so it should not be expected that the witness lose anything by taking part (in the form of money, etc.). If they decide of their own volition to part with their own resources to gain the value of sharing in that art, then so be it. SonyBMG and others have capitalized on people's determination to experience music, by charging amounts of money for access to the music. Is this right? Eh, it's kinda crappy, but since the days of the wandering minstrel whose payment may have been nothing more than food and lodging, musicians... nay artists in general, have always sought to live for the creation of more art, and so are compensated as rewards for making more art.

I just watched Metallica's bio actually, and of course they mentioned the Napster fiasco. Lars Ulrich was furious to find out that people were getting ahold of their music for free. And indeed he took it out on them! He personally wrote to several users berating them for their behavior. And thus the penny dropped - Lars was a money grubbing *****. The result now is that digital distribution rights are tailor made to maximize profit (of course). He agreed to drop the charges, so long as Napster paid them and any other artist the rights to distribute music.



In essence this Article touches on a lot of subjects, but what is clear is that there are many problems still with how things are handled. It's true that ideas should not immediately mean dollar signs. It is true that copyright law is outdated. It is true that most Corporations are more interested in exploiting, than furthering. It is also true that in order for these things to improve one has to re-evaluate the basis for which these things exist. The problem lies in the politics of money - of global economy, and that is something that's needed to change for a long time, this subject is yet another gigantic reason why.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

http://www.cracked.com/article_18817_5-reasons-future-will-be-ruled-by-b.s..html

So... just out of curiosity, how could we make a post-scarcity society look less like "Rich people have EVERYTHING" and more like "star trek"? After all, a world with cable TV is better than a world without, etc... But a world without authors? Musicians can pull it off via merch, concerts, etc... But Authors? Inventors? R&D departments? Game designers?

 

[ballin4life]

I hope that cracked article isn't meant seriously ... but just in case - I'd like to say that a century ago he would probably be talking about how the automobile is putting all the horse carriage drivers out of work. If we can automate processes so that we don't need a human there, that's a good thing. The human loses his job, but really that just frees him up to move to an area where he will be more productive, and the consumer is better off due to the automation.

Anyway, inventors will still make tons of money by being first to market. If you invent a great new product then it will take time for others to copy you. That's one of my arguments about music actually, because this effect doesn't really apply to music - it can be copied instantly. But music artists will survive despite that due to alternative business models. My point is that if the problem can be solved by music artists, who face the problem of instantaneous copying, then it can be solved by other industries.

Note also that whoever comes up with the best post-scarcity business model will make tons of money, so that's a pretty big incentive. Just because I can't necessarily come up with the answer off the top of my head doesn't mean that the answer does not exist.

 

[gm jack]

I've restricted my criticism of patents to just Software Patents. As a software engineer, I can give you first hand accounts of the wrongs it inflicts. While I still believe that patents in general are counter-productive, one should allow the respective industries to decide on their own whether they would like to keep it. With the exception of pharmaceutical patents, which are responsible for the deaths of unprivileged citizens of foreign countries. These people are banned from manufacturing or importing generic drugs that would save lives, just so that profits can be maximized in corporate boardrooms. This is the quintessential example of evil corporate greed.

This is a bit separate, but it caught my eye.

If there were no patents, very few new drugs would ever be developed. The costs of developing and trialling a drug is enormous, and that has to include the thousands of compounds which never make it to sale. Others are just plain expensive to mass produce.

As such, pharmaceutical companies need the patents to make research viable, or else other companies can just wait for them to announce their new product, and copy it without any of the research costs.

Without patents, research would be limited to purely academic institutions such as universities, which have fraction of the resources.

So yes, while patents to allow drugs to be with held on account of price, it is the ability to charge such a price that allows the drug to be developed in the first place.

 

[AltF4]

Replying in reverse order...

If there were no patents, very few new drugs would ever be developed.

I wasn't being clear enough, I think. I don't mean to say that pharmaceutical patents should be abolished. Just that there should be some kind of "third world country exemption".


Ballin:

I agree. There is a danger with making strong arguments in a vacuum about what you think will happen in the future. Things are complex, and leaving out the intricacies of the real world means you will never guess things right.

You know that it's perfectly legal for bands to do covers of other bands' songs? If you like, you can get up on a stage and sing whatever song you want. One might be tempted to make an argument like "Covering a band's song is stealing! Every person in the audience is one less audience member for the original band. No band will come up with original songs if they're allowed to copy others, it must be made illegal!"

But this isn't how music works. In music, there's something special about hearing the original artist sing a song that is unique to them. Nobody can ever copy that. The ability to cover songs actually helps musicians, since that's how virtually every young band gets its start. In practice, musicians are in no real threat from cover bands "stealing" their songs.

The same is true with almost all art. The ability to make copies does not diminish the value of the original. Or some physical analogue. This can be made into a business model. Cory Doctorow (Science Fiction Author) licenses all of his books under a Creative Commons license, which allows non-commercial copying. E-books are available for free of all his books.

But then he still sells printed hardcopy books at normal price, and they sell very well. (Little Brother was a NYT Best Seller) He also sells special one-off editions with hand printed paper, unique covers, and hand written notes to the buyer for a large sum (a few thousand dollars). If you're popular, there's a good chance someone in your audience is very rich and is more than willing to spend a lot of money for something one-of-a-kind and unique.

[more replies coming]

 

[ballin4life]

I'd recommend the book "Against Intellectual Monopoly" by the way. It's economists arguing for getting rid of patents and copyrights.