Discussion from Vastet and Furry about copyrighting ideas

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Discussion from Vastet and Furry about copyrighting ideas

ADMIN MOVED THREAD: Furry and Vastet, Sorry to do this to you but the side convo about copyright is off the issue of importance here.  If you don't oppose SOPA, we will not be able to play devils advocate, over analyze, and dissect every little issue of the world... like the legitimacy of copyright.  I would like to keep my blog on that issue.

We will be blacking out for a large portion of Wednesday to draw attention to SOPA and PIPA.  - Sapient

 

Submitted by Vastet on January 15, 2012 - 3:32pm. wrote:

FurryCatHerder wrote:
A copyright doesn't cover an =idea=
Yes, it does. Every piece of software ever written is nothing more than an idea and some math. Every song, every discovery, every invention, every everything humanity has ever made or dreamt up. And I will never stand for the idea that one person can own an idea. Like I said elsewhere, there's nothing wrong with being rewarded for doing or discovering something, the problem is that whoever does so then controls and profits off it forever. It's passed on to family for generations. Some smart ass creates a line of code to speed up some function then forces everyone who uses it to pay him and his great grandkids forever just because he got to the patent office first? I don't fucking think so.


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Vastet wrote:FurryCatHerder

Vastet wrote:
FurryCatHerder wrote:
A copyright doesn't cover an =idea=
Yes, it does. Every piece of software ever written is nothing more than an idea and some math. Every song, every discovery, every invention, every everything humanity has ever made or dreamt up. And I will never stand for the idea that one person can own an idea. Like I said elsewhere, there's nothing wrong with being rewarded for doing or discovering something, the problem is that whoever does so then controls and profits off it forever. It's passed on to family for generations. Some smart ass creates a line of code to speed up some function then forces everyone who uses it to pay him and his great grandkids forever just because he got to the patent office first? I don't fucking think so.

No, an "idea" is not covered by copyright =or= patent law.  Ideas are abstract -- that's what they are legally.  They become subject to intellectual property protection when they are reduced from an "idea" to a specific "work" or "process" or "method".

An idea is "my girlfriend dumped me and my dog has fleas".  That would be an "idea".  Reducing that to a specific set of lyrics and melody would become a typical country and western song.  You are perfectly free to write your own song based on that =idea=.  You could make it a country and western song, or you could make it "my bitch dumped my sorry ass and my dog ate my homework" and set it to any melody or style you wanted -- I'd suggest hip-hop or rap for any song involving the word "bitch".

For patents, the "idea" might be something like "open a can" and the "method" or "process" would involve some apparatus, such as an argon laser contained within an enclosure with a rotating base or carriage mechanism that either moved the laser or rotated the can.  If you patented that, I'd be free to come up with my own can opening mechanism involving a chainsaw.  As for "forever", no, they aren't "forever".  One of my oldest patents is about to expire, and I've not been alive forever.  Thankfully.

Software patents are just like "physical stuff" patents -- if I come up with a way to speed up a function, you're free to find some other way to speed up that same function, or completely eliminate the function, and after some length of time, my patent expires and you and anyone else can use it for free.  My first patent was, in fact, a software patent (my second is a hardware patent, the rest of my patents are a mix of hardware and software and I think I have a business method patent or two waiting approval, but with so damned many of them, I lose track ...)

Intellectual property law isn't nearly as nasty as many lay people think it is.  The real objective of IP law is encouraging people to make new stuff, which is why it discourages people from using old stuff without paying for it.  Imaging if we were all still using Visicalc and Microsoft Notepad.  What you see as a problem -- not being able to use old stuff for free -- is a feature because it forces people to come up with new stuff, which is supposed to be "better" because people won't pay for "worse".

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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No, ideas are the BASIS of

No, ideas are the BASIS of copyrights. An idea on paper is still an idea.

And sometimes there's no room or need for improvement, so all you have is a dynasty of controlled ideas. Other times improvement depends on the original, and so the dynasty continues indefinitely.

It's not a pressure to improve. Profit is a pressure to improve. Patents hold everyone back. They should be abolished.

Not forever? Then why is Bell still holding a monopoly on phone lines? Why is Hendrix' family able to control and profit off of his music decades after his death?

Not forever my ass.

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Vastet wrote:No, ideas are

Vastet wrote:
No, ideas are the BASIS of copyrights. An idea on paper is still an idea. And sometimes there's no room or need for improvement, so all you have is a dynasty of controlled ideas. Other times improvement depends on the original, and so the dynasty continues indefinitely. It's not a pressure to improve. Profit is a pressure to improve. Patents hold everyone back. They should be abolished. Not forever? Then why is Bell still holding a monopoly on phone lines? Why is Hendrix' family able to control and profit off of his music decades after his death? Not forever my ass.

I'm sorry, but the legal definitions for Intellectual Property aren't open to someones opinion.

Copyrights protect "expressions" and "works".  Patents protect a specific embodiment of a method, process or apparatus.  Feel free to contact an Intellectual Property attorney.  I spent 20 years working with them to develop and protect Intellectual Property.  I don't know any in Canada, but I know a dozen or more here in the States.

There are other reasons to produce new stuff, including to create competition in the market.  So, if there is something that's "good enough" and you want to make money, come up with something else that's "good enough" and sell it.

These sorts of attitudes are why I have mixed feelings about SOPA and PIPA.

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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Yes, they are. Legal

Yes, they are. Legal definitions are created by opinion. Therefore I am well within my rights to ignore them. And should one day the majority agree with me, the legality will also.

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Vastet wrote:Yes, they are.

Vastet wrote:
Yes, they are. Legal definitions are created by opinion. Therefore I am well within my rights to ignore them. And should one day the majority agree with me, the legality will also.

Based on that, and the fact that no one else seems to be disagreeing with you, I think I have no choice but to support both SOPA and PIPA.

The notion that Intellectual Property is just 1's and 0's, or "ideas" that shouldn't be owned by anyone, is why we're in the present situation.  If the people who are opposed to SOPA and PIPA don't understand why Intellectual Property is just as "real" as physical property, perhaps it's time that governments began enforcing property rights.

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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No, they should throw it out

No, they should throw it out like the garbage it is. You have no right to own an idea. Noone does. Noone ever will. Trying to force people to recognise a law that has no basis in reality will merely encourage people to break it even more than the current system encourages. All you do is increase the black markets power. The people will never bow down to attempts to control ideas.

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The most fundamental of all

The most fundamental of all rights is the right of property ownership, whether it is the right to control your body, the right to control land you lawfully own (meaning, you don't have the right to control someone elses land ...), the right to control the fruits of your labor -- whatever it is, property ownership is the absolute bedrock right.

What people who are opposed to Intellectual Property ownership are saying is that some fruits of some labor is NOT the property of the person who expends the labor, but the collective property of society as a whole.  It's akin to saying that butchers, bakers and candlestick makers all get to own their labor, but tailors and blacksmiths have to give their labor away at no charge.

To give you some background, I've received more than a dozen US Patents, filed about 50 applications, worked on the development of over 100, and personally reviewed something between 300 and 500.  The amount of effort it takes to produce that much intellectual property is massively huge, representing from hundreds of millions of dollars to =billions= of dollars of technical labor as well as legal professionals, administrative professionals, technical writers, draftsmen, and so on down the line.  In my last year of regular employment, the cost of developing the Intellectual Property I produced -- just me, just one year -- was 3 times my salary and compensation.

What if my former employer wasn't able to make money from licensing the corporate patent portfolio?

Many of those innovations WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED.  Computer hardware patents I wrote that =will= increase the performance of computers would likely never have been made.  Energy management patents that have the potential to conserve energy, or make electrical grids work better -- never invented.  Patents in the area of data privacy that allow information to be more tightly controlled, and protect the privacy of consumers -- non-existent.

These are real benefits to Mankind, and without the profit motive that is provided by limited patent protection -- 20 year patent lifetimes in WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) states -- many of these innovations wouldn't be out there.

This isn't just my "opinion".  This is what I used to do, and when I started my company, making sure I protected my Intellectual Property, so I'd be able to protect my means of earning a living, was high on the list.

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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I don't recognise your

I don't recognise your opinion that ideas can belong to people, and nothing you can say will change my mind. It's monopolisation, totalitarian, and facist.

There's nothing preventing a blacksmith from making a profit without such primitive concepts. He made something, he can sell it. What he CAN'T do is hoard a new process of creating back from everyone else. A process that he simply discovered. A process that is natural.

Btw, I'm against land ownership as well. You can't own land. The Earth isn't a commodity. At best you can say you own it whilst holding the bigger gun. But that doesn't make it yours. And it doesn't prevent someone or something from taking it away or rendering it useless to you. It isn't yours.

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Vastet wrote:I don't

Vastet wrote:
I don't recognise your opinion that ideas can belong to people, and nothing you can say will change my mind. It's monopolisation, totalitarian, and facist. There's nothing preventing a blacksmith from making a profit without such primitive concepts. He made something, he can sell it. What he CAN'T do is hoard a new process of creating back from everyone else. A process that he simply discovered. A process that is natural. Btw, I'm against land ownership as well. You can't own land. The Earth isn't a commodity. At best you can say you own it whilst holding the bigger gun. But that doesn't make it yours. And it doesn't prevent someone or something from taking it away or rendering it useless to you. It isn't yours.

I think you're gross ignorance about Intellectual Property speaks volumes.

First, you cannot patent a natural process.  A blacksmith cannot patent "rust" then sue anyone who makes horseshoes that =do= rust on their own.

Second, you cannot patent something that is "obvious to one skilled in the art".  A blacksmith cannot patent heating up iron in a fire to make it hot, because that's what fire does -- it makes something hot.  Anyone who uses fire, especially anyone who uses fire around metal, or vice versa, knows this.  It is "obvious to one skilled in the art."

Third, you cannot patent something that other people already know about or already do.  A blacksmith cannot patent punching holes in pieces of metal for the nails to go through, because people already punch holes in things.

Now, let's say a blacksmith comes up with a way to make horseshoes from Gummy Bears.  Assuming one could figure out how to do such a thing, the blacksmith could do that.  In exchange for the exclusive right to do such a thing, the blacksmith =must= describe, in full and complete detail, how to do that.  The blacksmith cannot simply say "I patent Gummy Bear horseshoes!" and not tell anyone how they did that.  You could then read this information, which you would not have if the patent system didn't exist, and learn how to make door hinges from potato chips.

This is an example of what happens, and it was a hotly contested patent at the time.  It is ... the dreaded "Blinking Cursor Patent".

http://www.google.com/patents/US3531796

That patent is referenced by 5 additional patents which were issued from 1974 through 1978.  Without the requirement that patents be published, those 5 additional patents likely wouldn't have been issued.  What actually happened with the "Blinking Cursor Patent" is exactly what happens with patents -- someone comes up with something better and before you know it, no one =cares= about cursors that blink, they want cursors that change shape.  What happens next is something like this patent --

http://www.google.com/patents/US4197590

What you want to pay careful attention to is the "Referenced By" section.  That is all of the new patents which were "taught" something (in patent lingo we say "The present invention teaches a method and process by which gummy bear candy, or other candies formed from gummy material, regardless of the animal, vegetable or mineral shape into which said gummy candy is formed, may be converted into a horse shoe, or shoe for other such animals as may be used to perform labor of various forms, blah, blah, blah.&quotEye-wink by US Patent 4,197,590.

One of my earliest patents referenced more than 15 other patents, and was referenced by several SCREENFULS of other patents.

Again, because there is a legal =requirement= that the patent be fully disclosed, all of those several SCREENFULS of new patents were made easier to create.  That patent is going to expire soon, but it is still being used to "teach" new methods for doing what it does.

You can do this with patents all day long -- find something in a product you use, look up the patents, and see all of the innovations that came from that one patent.  If it's a good patent, like the one I wrote that has SCREENFULS of references, it can change entire industries.  If it's a bad patent (and I have a few of those), it mostly gets ignored.  But the key is that the requirement that inventors publish the instructions for making the "thing" provides Society with a HUGE amount of technical information it wouldn't otherwise have.

If you'd like a counter-example, I give you WD-40.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WD-40

No one knows how to make WD-40, other than the company that makes it.  The uses of WD-40 are entirely too numerous to mention, and the company that makes it isn't telling anyone how to do that.  We don't know what sorts of improvements could even be made to WD-40 because we can't read the "recipe" and try to improve on it.  WD-40 is an intellectual dead end.  It is the same product it was in 1953, back when computers filled entire rooms and there was no such thing as a PS/3.

What you want is WD-40.  What I want is blinking cursors, cursors that change shape, cursors that can aid in navigating 3D objects, and so on.  You want stagnation, I want innovation.

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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A transmission over a phone

A transmission over a phone line is a natural process which was patented. Even a line of computer code or a song is nothing more than natural processes. Your ignorance of the fact that copyright laws interfere with progress and have no basis in reality is mind boggling. I'll fight your monopolising totalitarian facism to the day I die.

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I was a design engineer in

I was a design engineer in new product design in several companies. I have my name on about 10 patents, assigned to the companies where I worked.

The whole point is to limit competition for the company that innovates. It is their reward for expending the R & D capital to develop the idea.

I also have copyrights on several books. I spent the time and effort to write them and as such should get paid for what I created.

I also have intellectual property for an idea that I developed into a product that can be made using certain methods and techiques. This is currently in litigation with a company that stole it outright.

I expended effort, time, money and created a method and technique and should have the right to reap the rewards.

If not for such protections, no one would want to expend money as someone else would  just take your work and put their name on it. In whivh case, why bother.

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Vastet wrote: Btw, I'm

Vastet wrote:
Btw, I'm against land ownership as well. You can't own land. The Earth isn't a commodity. At best you can say you own it whilst holding the bigger gun. But that doesn't make it yours. And it doesn't prevent someone or something from taking it away or rendering it useless to you. It isn't yours.

 

Well then you won't mind if I make myself at home on your couch then. Since you don't own (or whomever you rent from doesn't own) the land your house/apt is on then you have no basis to force me to leave.

 

FurryCatHerder wrote:

I think you're gross ignorance about Intellectual Property speaks volumes.

 

The sad part is that despite your best efforts his ignorance will probably remain. Not much you can do about ignorance when it is willful. Lay your hopes with the lurkers out there learning something.

 

And for the record there is a huge difference between a patent and a copyright. Copyrights do last longer than a persons life but that covers published works like songs, books etc. not technical innovation. Patents last 14-20 years depending on type and such- furry is probably more in a position to provide specific details as far as which types last how long than I am.

 

So Hendrix's family still holds the rights to his music. Any time a radio station or someone plays it/sells a cd with it etc, they have to be paid (or whoever they choose to sell the rights to) because the copyright is still in effect until 70 years after Hendrix's death.

 

The monopolies in utilities on the other hand have absolutely nothing to do with patent law. They exist because the government highly regulates utilities and prevents companies from competing either through laws that say so outright or a permitting process where permits are never issued to new companies. Usually utilities require eminent domain to be exercised and a variety of permits, environmental impact statements etc. If you wanted to build a phone line on private land and could get the building/environmental permits your area requires nothing in patent law is going to stop you from building a phone line. I doubt it is that much different in Canada.   

 

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Vastet wrote:A transmission

Vastet wrote:
A transmission over a phone line is a natural process which was patented. Even a line of computer code or a song is nothing more than natural processes. Your ignorance of the fact that copyright laws interfere with progress and have no basis in reality is mind boggling. I'll fight your monopolising totalitarian facism to the day I die.

 

Your work is nothing other than a natural process of your muscles moving in a certain order. I can't believe anyone pays you for something that is just a natural process. And you think that natural process should result in you getting money, wow, you are almost a capitalist swine thinking you should get money for a purely natural process. 

 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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That's a strawman made up of

That's a strawman made up of presuppositions. Such as assuming no right to own land equates to no right to privacy or shelter or self defence. As ridiculous as copyright laws.

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pauljohntheskeptic wrote:I

pauljohntheskeptic wrote:

I was a design engineer in new product design in several companies. I have my name on about 10 patents, assigned to the companies where I worked.

The whole point is to limit competition for the company that innovates. It is their reward for expending the R & D capital to develop the idea.

I think if that were true the publication requirement for patents wouldn't exist.  The legal requirements for publication are extremely strict -- if you file a patent and you miss a single step, the patent is invalid.  Yes, you get the monopoly, but that could be granted without the strict publication requirements.

For example, let's say I patent "Gummy Bear Horse Shoes" and the method involves heating the gummy material until it forms some kind of cross-linked polymer material.  But in order to cause that cross-linkage I have to add a Snicker's bar because the peanut oil is converted into some super-strong tar-like substance.  I can't leave out the Snicker's bar.  I =must= disclose that not only is a Snicker's bar required to make the horse shoes, but the temperature that this happens at must be disclosed.  If I don't do that, I lose the patent.

A while back I was in a situation where I needed to "embody" a patent that was owned by my employer.  The inventor sat 4 floors up, so I went to his office and told him the problems I was having making his patent work.  Mind you -- very serious business because if I can't "embody" the patent, it could be invalid if someone else figures out that the patent is missing something.  It turned out that the missing ingredient was defective hardware, not a defective patent, so the patent was safe.  Once I determined how the hardware was broken, I was able to work around that problem and embody his invention.

Most patents have a "shelf life" that is measured in far fewer years than the patent monopoly, but the "claims" can serve to educate people for far longer -- the last patent that referenced the patent I received long enough ago that it's going to expire soon was issued last month.  The techniques in that patent of mine have been obsolete for just about as long as the patent's been out there.  The "troublesome" patent I mentioned above was a very important tool, but it lasted all of about 7 or 8 years before it stopped being as interesting as it once was.  My understanding is that 3 to 5 years is about all you get, before someone invents a better mousetrap.

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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Beyond Saving wrote:Vastet

Beyond Saving wrote:

Vastet wrote:
A transmission over a phone line is a natural process which was patented. Even a line of computer code or a song is nothing more than natural processes. Your ignorance of the fact that copyright laws interfere with progress and have no basis in reality is mind boggling. I'll fight your monopolising totalitarian facism to the day I die.

 

Your work is nothing other than a natural process of your muscles moving in a certain order. I can't believe anyone pays you for something that is just a natural process. And you think that natural process should result in you getting money, wow, you are almost a capitalist swine thinking you should get money for a purely natural process. 

 

Categorical error. There isn't a person that the transmissions must travel through. It's a piece of metal.
The work I do may be natural, but it wouldn't happen if I didn't gain sustenance to be able to provide it.

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Beyond Saving wrote:The sad

Beyond Saving wrote:
The sad part is that despite your best efforts his ignorance will probably remain. Not much you can do about ignorance when it is willful. Lay your hopes with the lurkers out there learning something.

If my track record with patents is any indication, there are people out there right now scratching their heads and going "Hmmm.  There might just be something to this patent process."

Patents drive so much innovation it really isn't funny, and the lack of improvement on WD-40 is the classic example.  Not knocking how great WD-40 is, but we also have no clue how much it could have been improved on over the last 48 years.

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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Vastet wrote:Beyond Saving

Vastet wrote:
Beyond Saving wrote:
Vastet wrote:
A transmission over a phone line is a natural process which was patented. Even a line of computer code or a song is nothing more than natural processes. Your ignorance of the fact that copyright laws interfere with progress and have no basis in reality is mind boggling. I'll fight your monopolising totalitarian facism to the day I die.
Your work is nothing other than a natural process of your muscles moving in a certain order. I can't believe anyone pays you for something that is just a natural process. And you think that natural process should result in you getting money, wow, you are almost a capitalist swine thinking you should get money for a purely natural process.
Categorical error. There isn't a person that the transmissions must travel through. It's a piece of metal. The work I do may be natural, but it wouldn't happen if I didn't gain sustenance to be able to provide it.

Right, but all people "work" the same as you do, therefore your "work" is a "natural process" and belongs to me as well.

I'd suggest you get busy mowing my lawn and cleaning up my den.

Beyond is spot-on right -- you are willfully ignorant, though I wished you'd look at what is involved with patents and compare some kind of patented something or other, such as the Post-It Note (trademarked by 3M ...), with all of its innovation and WD-40, with its complete lack of innovation.

You're so hot about "ideas", but WD-40, which has NO patent protection, has spawned =zero= new "ideas".  The Post-It Note(tm) has spawned entire industries.

Which is better -- no innovation, or lots of innovation?  Which would you prefer?

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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No, you're just ignorant

No, you're just ignorant capitalists who have no idea how to reward people without being totalitarian facists promoting monopolies.

You don't own a den or lawn. You temporarily inhabit them. Do it yourself.

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Vastet wrote:No, you're just

Vastet wrote:
No, you're just ignorant capitalists who have no idea how to reward people without being totalitarian facists promoting monopolies. You don't own a den or lawn. You temporarily inhabit them. Do it yourself.

I agree with you in principle, but unfortunately this isn't how the world works.  Of course everything is temporary, but true innovation would be impossible without the monetary incentive.

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Ktulu wrote:Vastet wrote:No,

Ktulu wrote:

Vastet wrote:
No, you're just ignorant capitalists who have no idea how to reward people without being totalitarian facists promoting monopolies. You don't own a den or lawn. You temporarily inhabit them. Do it yourself.

I agree with you in principle, but unfortunately this isn't how the world works.  Of course everything is temporary, but true innovation would be impossible without the monetary incentive.

That's true, money =is= an incentive.  But I'd like to discuss the difference between something that has patent protection (Post-It Notes) and something that doesn't (WD-40).  You can buy all manner of Post-It Note like products, with all sorts of uses.  That patent ran out =years= ago.  But you can only buy one kind of WD-40 and it has been the same, more or less, since 1953.

Who really has the monopoly?  3M or WD-40?  3M lost the monopoly on Post-It Notes =years= ago.  The WD-40 people still have the monopoly on WD-40, and they'll keep having it so long as they keep their secrets.

This is the exact opposite of what Vastet claims is happening.

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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Ktulu wrote:
Vastet wrote:
No, you're just ignorant capitalists who have no idea how to reward people without being totalitarian facists promoting monopolies. You don't own a den or lawn. You temporarily inhabit them. Do it yourself.

I agree with you in principle, but unfortunately this isn't how the world works.  Of course everything is temporary, but true innovation would be impossible without the monetary incentive.

Maybe I'm naive, but I'd expect more defense for the "freedom of living without property".

So I will go straight to the point: money an incentive? Yes and no. Too many times it's been an incentive to do the wrong thing, I concede you that. Do I really need to make an example of people that did something not for the money? It's like saying that people before cash were dead. The next thing is that someone here agree with Marx's economic history (or anthropology, if you will).

Also I don't care if patents permit to look to previous patents eccetera: you're saying this to justify money... It's obviously important knowledge, to have references, but it can be done without money.


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Ktulu wrote:true innovation

Ktulu wrote:

true innovation would be impossible without the monetary incentive.

I don't have much knowledge to contribute on the patenting subject, this statement I strongly disagree with.

 


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Today each of us have to go

Today each of us have to go out and see the angles, find a way to squeeze money out of eachother to put food on the table, we must do this to survive and under the current system, this is respectable if done "ethically" which most of us attempt to do.  Looking back from a much more advanced us, we are quite primitive.  We are a gas guzzling barely civilized folk, who compete with eachother from morning to night to get an advantage, to hoard up for a rainy day like chipmunks coming into winter.  We do this because we must to survive,  and because we have the fear of scarcity in our blood from millenia of cold hungry nights. If and when we learn to shift our focus as an entire species (which we likely will blow ourselves up first), and  our technology and mind become advanced enough that we are feeding, housing, providing energy to and transporting all equally and with no effort, and information and new technology is shared instantly for all to improve upon finally innovation will reach its true potential.  For now, food or also known as "money", will be a fairly good incentive yes, but it has been proven people work on things they are interested in because they are interested in them and good at them.  Edward Whitten isn't thinking about hot tubs and bentleys, your uncle Tim isn't spending 4 hours a night working on that complicated hotrod build for 2 years leaning reading and learning everything their is to know about the engineering needed so he can profit a few dollars, and in such an advanced world with no monetary system Wayne Gretsky would have played hockey for our entertainment for a hot dog per game.   We as people, the vast majority of us anyway have a strong need to do stuff, all kinds of stuff.  Retired people are known to come back to the profession they love, or take it up as a hoobby, or something new as a hobby.  People would not stop working on a cure for cancer because their is no monopoly to be made from the pill.   To make the statement that we as people, would do nothing, that our minds would cease to invent, and we would cease to work on and improve things without the profit incentive is FUCKING ludicrous.


I fully understand the reasoning behind the patening process in this current system, but looking at it from ahead, from an advanced civilizations mind,
it is primitive, pointless and just another pin in our progress. I think Vastet is just thinking ahead, I believe it is good to do so I like to think such a world is possible, but don't forget that in the current system a writer who spends 2 years on a book has to put food on the table for his family aswell.  
 


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To touch on this profit

To touch on this profit incentive thing again, I'd like to point out some irony I see in that statement (no profit incentive=no innovation/motivation) being made by the average athiest.  I see a shadow of similarity between that statement and a thiest saying "why would anyone be good without ultimate judgement."   We athiest like to jump on those statements and say things like    "How about being good for the hell of being good," or  "an athiest who does the right thing because it is the right thing to do is more honorable than a thiest who does the right thing because he believes he will be rewarded" or  "how about the fact it is proven people act just fine without religion, if not better."    Most athiest like to believe people in general can be good without an ultimate judge, and that that is a better, truer form of good we should endeavor for.  Why not apply the same optimism to our advancing civlization, and the monetary system.  The dollar is not almighty, only our minds and our reasources are important, not profit.   Money is not our ultimate ruler, we can break free from its shackles with time, in the same way we so many here are working hard to help our world break free from the shackles of organizerd religion.     And I am optimistic that we can, as I am optimistic that people are in general decent not because they want to be rewarded or are scared of being punished by some ultimate ruler, but because in general the average person wants to do the right thing.  I don't know which has caused our species more harm, the idea of an all powerful ultimate dictator, or the concept of money, but I believe that with enough time if we survive,  they are both going to fade out eventually. 

 

       


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luca wrote:Also I don't care

luca wrote:
Also I don't care if patents permit to look to previous patents eccetera: you're saying this to justify money... It's obviously important knowledge, to have references, but it can be done without money.

When you find a way to pay for food, clothing, shelter, energy and transportation without money, you get back to me.

It isn't that I wouldn't sit down and go "Hmmm.  What if we use toothpicks instead of bobby pins?", but without the profit motive, I'd be thinking "Okay, what can I do in order to pay the bills this month?"

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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Quote:When you find a way to

Quote:

When you find a way to pay for food, clothing, shelter, energy and transportation without money, you get back to me.

It isn't that I wouldn't sit down and go "Hmmm.  What if we use toothpicks instead of bobby pins?", but without the profit motive, I'd be thinking "Okay, what can I do in order to pay the bills this month?"

 

I'm THIS close to busting out my Zeitgeist stuff and explaining to you and Beyond how ridiculous your notions are.  Intellectual property control isn't truly rewarded because when you introduce incentive into the equation, it keeps them motivate in the WRONG ways.  It creates a profiteering machine that is based on the idea of small changes over time, sometimes no changes at all, on an idea that can be great, but instead, a form of obsolescence is integrated making it something that requires being constantly updated for a fee or purchasing something new altogether rather than keeping what you have that should last years and years without having to worry about becoming potentially useless.  However, the way our minds have been conditioned is through gain and possession; very few of us live with the notion of doing things just to do them and even before having that mindset, they were living with a "GIMME THAT IT'S MINE!" or "whoever winds up with the most wins" mentality at one point or another.  It's why we have greed and corruption.  When we start realizing that monetary compensation isn't even remotely the best motivating factor for ideas that benefit everyone, then we can finally get our shit together and get up to today's standards which very few of us are living up to today, technologically speaking.  

 

By the way, there are people that survive just fine without money... http://www.odditycentral.com/news/woman-hasnt-used-money-in-15-years.html


 


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Sage_Override wrote:

Quote:

When you find a way to pay for food, clothing, shelter, energy and transportation without money, you get back to me.

It isn't that I wouldn't sit down and go "Hmmm.  What if we use toothpicks instead of bobby pins?", but without the profit motive, I'd be thinking "Okay, what can I do in order to pay the bills this month?"

 

I'm THIS close to busting out my Zeitgeist stuff and explaining to you and Beyond how ridiculous your notions are.

And I'm about THIS close to giving you a really good schooling on how Intellectual Property actually works.

Sage_Override wrote:
Intellectual property control isn't truly rewarded because when you introduce incentive into the equation, it keeps them motivate in the WRONG ways.  It creates a profiteering machine that is based on the idea of small changes over time, sometimes no changes at all, on an idea that can be great, but instead, a form of obsolescence is integrated making it something that requires being constantly updated for a fee or purchasing something new altogether rather than keeping what you have that should last years and years without having to worry about becoming potentially useless.

And here is where you start being very wrong.

Let's assume, for a moment, that software copyrights only lasted 10 years.

If you've got a set of old Windows 2000 Server Professional CDs lying around, you'd be able to burn them until the cows came home and Microsoft couldn't do anything about it.

Once you know how Intellectual Property =really= works, instead of how you mistakenly believe it works, it all starts to make a lot of sense.  But if all you do is guess, and believe what people who also haven't a clue are telling you, it can look pretty bad.

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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Quote:And I'm about THIS

Quote:
And I'm about THIS close to giving you a really good schooling on how Intellectual Property actually works.

 

That's a laugh.  Even if you tried to teach me anything, which would be pretty feeble at best, your views on the system would make me disregard just about everything just as my views on how society and the way things should exist would be, in turn, denounced based on your indoctrination to the whole broken mechanism.  I bet you didn't even read that link I posted.  Save what intellect you don't have on the issue and keep it bottled up for someone who is ten million times more impressionable; like a toddler.

 

Quote:

And here is where you start being very wrong.

 

Gee, didn't see that coming...

 

Quote:
Let's assume, for a moment, that software copyrights only lasted 10 years.

 

But they don't.  Keep things the way they are much longer, however, and we'll see nonsense like that emerge, though.

 

Quote:
If you've got a set of old Windows 2000 Server Professional CDs lying around, you'd be able to burn them until the cows came home and Microsoft couldn't do anything about it.

 

I can do that now without any trouble whatsoever.  Your example is so invalid that it borders on insanity.  In a society that demands monetary compensation for just about anything, I have to purchase those CDs in order to legally own them.  Technically speaking, Microsoft owns the rights to the INFORMATION on those CDs.  We're not under guard here; I can do what I please with those CDs as long as I don't re-sell or pirate to anyone because, as iron fisted as it is, it's still not REALLY my information to legally distribute and even if it were legal for me to make a buck off of, I wouldn't because it's just INFORMATION.  The way you think, however, is that if they aren't getting money from it, it makes it wrong to own never taking into consideration that there are other ways to say thanks and reward.  Easier to just throw an illusory at them, right?  Don't worry; you can take solace in the fact that you're not even remotely alone on this type of thought process.  I'm just going to reiterate this once more for the mentally impaired: THE CDs ARE MINE; THE INFORMATION IS NOT.  THEREFORE, I CANNOT SEEK MONETARY GAIN OR DISTRIBUTE WITHOUT CONSENT.  I can, however, set a nice oil drum fire and toss in any CD I dislike including Vista and Windows ME.        

 

Quote:
Once you know how Intellectual Property =really= works, instead of how you mistakenly believe it works, it all starts to make a lot of sense.  But if all you do is guess, and believe what people who also haven't a clue are telling you, it can look pretty bad.

 

 

I'm an atheist; I don't have your naive luxury of believing in things that people have no clue about.

 

 


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Sage_Override wrote:

Quote:
And I'm about THIS close to giving you a really good schooling on how Intellectual Property actually works.

 

That's a laugh.  Even if you tried to teach me anything, which would be pretty feeble at best, your views on the system would make me disregard just about everything just as my views on how society and the way things should exist would be, in turn, denounced based on your indoctrination to the whole broken mechanism.  I bet you didn't even read that link I posted.  Save what intellect you don't have on the issue and keep it bottled up for someone who is ten million times more impressionable; like a toddler.

In other words, "I hate the system, so I'm going to completely ignore it."

Oh-Kay.  Real productive, that.

And while that link is sort of relevant, I'm not sure what a company with Microsoft's annual revenue and expenses is going to do with whatever it is that people who want to trade for Office have to trade.

Money exists for a reason -- I don't have to decide how many times I have to wash Bill Gates' car in order to get a copy of Office or Word or Windows 7-8-9-and-10.  I can find someone who needs their car washed, get money from them, then go find someone with a copy of whatever it is I want, give them that money, then get my software.

But that's still besides the point of this thread -- does Microsoft get to decide that you cannot, in fact, lawfully burn all the CDs of Windows 2000 you want, and do with them =whatever= you want, or not?  Can Microsoft decide that you don't get to trade shoe shines for copies of Windows 2000 you burned?  And if you answer is "Yes", what is special about "Intellectual Property" that you get to steal it, but you don't get to walk into Microsoft and walk out with whatever printer/copier/fax machine you happen to want?

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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Hmmm...this looks like an opportunity for me to learn something.

*My* understanding of copyrights (...for what precious little that's worth...) is that they are a temporary monopoly to reward the author of a concept.  (The word "author" here is to be understood broadly, to include, say, composers of musical works, creators of computer graphics, etc.)  This temporary monopoly has a purpose: to reward a person with the fruits of their labor by temporarily allowing that author to be the only person legally able to make a profit off of the work in question.  When the temporary period ends, the work is to become a part of the public domain, so that it can inspire/influence authors (still understood in that broad sense) to come in the future, and contribute to the national culture. 

 

On this understanding, the problem with copyright laws is not that they exist (they *should* exist,) but rather that they last "forever, on the installment plan."  (Sorry, but I don't remember who it was that I got that idea from--I just found it on the web somewhere.  I acknowledge that it is *not* my own phrase.)

 

Conor

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Conor Wilson wrote:*My*

Conor Wilson wrote:

*My* understanding of copyrights (...for what precious little that's worth...) is that they are a temporary monopoly to reward the author of a concept.  (The word "author" here is to be understood broadly, to include, say, composers of musical works, creators of computer graphics, etc.)  This temporary monopoly has a purpose: to reward a person with the fruits of their labor by temporarily allowing that author to be the only person legally able to make a profit off of the work in question.  When the temporary period ends, the work is to become a part of the public domain, so that it can inspire/influence authors (still understood in that broad sense) to come in the future, and contribute to the national culture.

What's copyrighted is a specific "work", not the "concept" or "idea" or "genre" or whatever.

For example, if you say "I have an idea -- people herding cats.  How funny would that be?"  You can't copyright that.  If you say "Okay, the people who are herding cats they live on a really big ranch, in an expensive Dallas suburb.  We'll make it into a television series -- disowned child of oil billionaires struggles to make a fortune with a cat ranch."  You can't copyright that either.  When you start writing scripts, showing how Billy Bob became disowned after he marries an eccentric older woman (think "Harold and Maude", perhaps) who is surrounded by dozens of cats, then hits on the idea of the cat ranch -- THAT script you can copyright.

Conor Wilson wrote:
On this understanding, the problem with copyright laws is not that they exist (they *should* exist,) but rather that they last "forever, on the installment plan."  (Sorry, but I don't remember who it was that I got that idea from--I just found it on the web somewhere.  I acknowledge that it is *not* my own phrase.)

I would argue that the longer a copyright exists, the greater the motivation to produce competing products.  It's the same as with any commodity -- when supply exceeds demand, prices fall due to competition for the limited number of dollars chasing the supply.  The only exception is when demand is inelastic, which does appear to be the case -- consumers aren't chasing lower priced goods, they are demanding the =specific= goods that have the higher price.  Despite numerous attempts to put Linux on the desktop, consumers keep insisting on buying Windows, then they complain that the Windows copyright exists.  The only threat that has been successful against the WinTel PC has been the Apple and Android tablets --

Decline In Global PC Sales Could Mean Lower Profits For Microsoft

Quote:
SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp is starting the new year much as it did the one just ended - grappling with weak computer sales tearing a hole in its core Windows business, while it gropes its way slowly into the faster-growing mobile phone and tablet markets.

Word on the streets is that now that Microsoft has competition, they will work to make Windows 8 more "mobile device friendly", and they recently demoed Windows 8 on ARM --

Windows 8 on ARM Processors: Three Working Tablet Demos

Quote:
This week has seen lots of talk about Microsoft Windows 8 coming to hardware running on ARM processors. Now, the first prototypes, from Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments, are on display here at the BUILD Expo. But questions remain.

So, if you look at what the Microsoft copyright on Windows has done, what you see is three mobile platforms (Android, Chrome OS, Apple iOS) being created, and a shift by Microsoft to port Windows onto ARM in an attempt to capture market share they are losing.

Copyright works -- it forces innovation, which might not feel all that pleasant while people are waiting for it to happen, but when "choice" starts to open up in the market, people seem to forget that once upon a time, Windows was the only choice out there.

 

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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Ktulu wrote:Of course

Ktulu wrote:
Of course everything is temporary, but true innovation would be impossible without the monetary incentive.

One can give monetary incentive without locking ideas up for so many decades that by the time it becomes fair use it's become completely useless and/or uninteresting.

And most of the time it's corporations who hold the patents/copyrights, so the inventors or artists don't see the real fruits of their labours anyway. As an author, I know full well how little I'll get for publishing a story. And it has a lot more to do with publishers than pirates. Same goes for music and movies. Yet artists stupidly listen to their slave drivers over common sense and basic logic.

Anyone can ironically suggest I'm the ignorant one all they like, but they're just making total fools of themselves. There's nothing to argue.

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


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Vastet wrote:Ktulu wrote:Of

Vastet wrote:
Ktulu wrote:
Of course everything is temporary, but true innovation would be impossible without the monetary incentive.
One can give monetary incentive without locking ideas up for so many decades that by the time it becomes fair use it's become completely useless and/or uninteresting. And most of the time it's corporations who hold the patents/copyrights, so the inventors or artists don't see the real fruits of their labours anyway. As an author, I know full well how little I'll get for publishing a story. And it has a lot more to do with publishers than pirates. Same goes for music and movies. Yet artists stupidly listen to their slave drivers over common sense and basic logic. Anyone can ironically suggest I'm the ignorant one all they like, but they're just making total fools of themselves. There's nothing to argue.

But if you get to keep using whatever is out there, how will "new stuff" come into existence?  That's the point you keep ignoring over and over again.

There was a patent on the glue for Post-It Notes.  3M benefited from that for years, and now it is fair game, and an entire industry based on what would otherwise be a "really bad adhesive" has sprung up.  3M had to file the patent and explain how to make it in order to get their limited monopoly.

There is no patent on WD-40.  The only people who know how to make it are the people who make it.  There is no secondary industry, no new products, no new innovation.  The WD-40 people have not disclosed anything because they don't have to -- it's a Trade Secret.

Likewise, people got fed up with Windows and a new product was made that was completely not at all like Windows.  The copyright on Windows forced people to make something else.

I completely get what you're saying, I really do.  But what you're saying is essentially "I do not want new or innovative products.  I want the =old= products and I want them for free."  It is in the best interests of the General Public to =have= new and innovative products because that causes technological (or whatever) advancement and fosters competition for a wider range of products in the market place.

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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Okay, I guess now I have to explain myself...

Par for the course.

 

Anyway, Furry, you wrote: "What's copyrighted is a specific "work", not the "concept" or "idea" or "genre" or whatever."

 

I didn't quote the rest of that part because I don't really have an issue with it.  What I tried (...apparently badly...) to communicate was that my usage of the term "author" was not meant to be understood restrictively (as in "only a person who writes a book,&quotEye-wink but should be understood fairly broadly (i.e., as including composers of music, creators of computer programs, etc.)  What I did *not* mean to do is refer to ideas that have not been put to paper, or discussions about creative works as distinguished from actual creative works (actual pieces of music, actual poems, etc.)

 

As for your point about the length of copyright existence...hmmm...I'll have to chew on it for a while.  But for now, I can mention that it is my understanding that there are some very old films which are in danger of being lost forever, simply because copyright law as it exists doesn't allow anyone but the owner--who cannot be located, and may be unknown--to authorize the copying/reproduction of said film specifically for the purpose of preserving it for future generations.  One problem that I *do* have with copyright law as-is, is the fact that, when I take music CDs that I purchased fair-and-square in the store, and take them home, I am not allowed to use my computer to select songs off of different CDs and burn them onto a blank so as to have a CD of *my* choice of music.  It seems halfway outrageous to me that legally, *I* *can't* *do* *as* *I* *see* *fit* *with* *my* *own* *property!*  (And I stress: this chain of events starts with me walking into a music store to purchase CDs that, to the best of my knowledge, are *not* bootlegged copies!  In other words, I'm giving the musicians/producers/companies, etc., the money they seek.) 

 

Conor

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I think the bottom line is

I think the bottom line is people's work in developing a patent or product must be protected so that the incentive to create is not reduced or eliminated. I think when judges and juries decide cases, they must distinguish what came from nature and what came from work. The fruits of labor can be owned, nature should not.

I actually agree with Vastet(for once) that land should not be owned. However the work done to build a home or whatever on the land can be property. People that use any piece of land should pay a user fee for the privilege. This would force land conservation instead of hording. This makes a lot more sense than taxing work and business activity as a way to fund government.

Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen


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Conor Wilson wrote:Par for

Conor Wilson wrote:

Par for the course.

Anyway, Furry, you wrote: "What's copyrighted is a specific "work", not the "concept" or "idea" or "genre" or whatever."

I didn't quote the rest of that part because I don't really have an issue with it.  What I tried (...apparently badly...) to communicate was that my usage of the term "author" was not meant to be understood restrictively (as in "only a person who writes a book,&quotEye-wink but should be understood fairly broadly (i.e., as including composers of music, creators of computer programs, etc.)  What I did *not* mean to do is refer to ideas that have not been put to paper, or discussions about creative works as distinguished from actual creative works (actual pieces of music, actual poems, etc.)

Copyright law protects "works" because until something is reduced to a "work", it's just an "idea" and "ideas" cannot be owned.  Not sure where that fits into what you were saying, because there's not enough context.

Conor Wilson wrote:
As for your point about the length of copyright existence...hmmm...I'll have to chew on it for a while.  But for now, I can mention that it is my understanding that there are some very old films which are in danger of being lost forever, simply because copyright law as it exists doesn't allow anyone but the owner--who cannot be located, and may be unknown--to authorize the copying/reproduction of said film specifically for the purpose of preserving it for future generations.  One problem that I *do* have with copyright law as-is, is the fact that, when I take music CDs that I purchased fair-and-square in the store, and take them home, I am not allowed to use my computer to select songs off of different CDs and burn them onto a blank so as to have a CD of *my* choice of music.  It seems halfway outrageous to me that legally, *I* *can't* *do* *as* *I* *see* *fit* *with* *my* *own* *property!*  (And I stress: this chain of events starts with me walking into a music store to purchase CDs that, to the best of my knowledge, are *not* bootlegged copies!  In other words, I'm giving the musicians/producers/companies, etc., the money they seek.)

First, I love your signature.  I often had a hard time getting my clergy peeps to understand that my =faith= was rock-solid and I didn't need to be protected from Science.  I just wish more clergy peeps were understanding.

Your understanding of copyright law is actually incorrect -- the Home Audio Recording Act made it legal for you to create all the mix-tapes you want.  Media companies wanted to outlaw home-made mix-tapes, but they lost that battle.

Also, my understanding of why films aren't being preserved isn't because the work can't be STARTED under the existing copyright laws, but because there is no financial incentive to do the work.  In other words, to the best of my knowledge, someone could purchase a print, restore it, hold onto that restored work, THEN sell it when the work falls into the public domain.  You have the right to modify any work you purchase, provided you don't then distribute that work.  You might be prevented by a license for that work, but copyright law doesn't keep you from doing all sorts of things to whatever you lawfully purchase.  The risk here is that more than one person will perform the restoration and glut the market.  I might be wrong, but see the next paragraph, because I'm not completely wrong Eye-wink

There is additional public law which provides for what you mention.  See http://www.loc.gov/film/filmabou.html .  If there are works in need of protection, one would hope the Library of Congress would recognize them.

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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FurryCatHerder wrote:
luca wrote:
Also I don't care if patents permit to look to previous patents eccetera: you're saying this to justify money... It's obviously important knowledge, to have references, but it can be done without money.

When you find a way to pay for food, clothing, shelter, energy and transportation without money, you get back to me.

It isn't that I wouldn't sit down and go "Hmmm.  What if we use toothpicks instead of bobby pins?", but without the profit motive, I'd be thinking "Okay, what can I do in order to pay the bills this month?"

 

In fact I don't understand how broad is the scope you're talking about. "Pay the bills", absolutely true, but that's not THE incentive, sorry.

In this capitalistic system (or in any other system with money), you need, as said, money, but this is limited within these systems! If there is a system without money (and it's a reality, not an hypothesis), it's not like you kill yourself because "oh no what do I do now, I have no reason to live"... People do things for emotions. Money are not the aim, but power, realization, respect, or whatever you feel is the reward.

So what I dislike about your argument is that you're mixing too many things, too many needs that have different sources, different aims. Creativity doesn't need money, and while I think a pecuniary system could survive, it's sure that money can be used for bad things -- and it is done, but it's not the point: money are too important, to the point they are a weapon. And I think I don't have to tell you that, I hope. Everybody knows that if you need money you can technologically rub people: you can put a little loop in your software that slows everything down and then you ask money for a patch that "magically speed ups everything", or you can build the light bulb integrated in the plastic of a car's light so that you have to change everything when something breaks down (so that you have to pay more). The are a gazillion tricks like these.

Probably now you'll argue about how money brought technology, innovation, but that's not true. Humans did it, not money. Maybe for wrong reason (search for power), maybe for something more ethical (helping others), but it's the whole world of factors that made it possible, not "just money".

Although I understand that money helps in "officializing" and standardizing things; I even acknowledge that the copyright was born for a good reason. Still, I retain they should be dropped. Maybe not now, but they are being abused AND they are just old concepts that must (and will) die.

FCH wrote:
I often had a hard time getting my clergy peeps to understand that my =faith= was rock-solid and I didn't need to be protected from Science.

I take this little place just to assert another time that faith and science are not compatible, and the reason is that humans, investigating in reality, never found an "objective", which is not what religions claim.

 

Do someone has to say something about this (5 minutes)?


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luca--

Thanks for posting that video!  It's basically what I was trying to convey (albeit badly.)

 

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Furry--

I'm glad you like my sig.  For me, (...as is probably obvious...) my faith (...back when I still had it...) *did* need protection.  I only realized how much it did need that protection after I deconverted.  It now seems obvious: something that, allegedly, "God said" is either right or wrong.  If it is wrong, then God couldn't have said it.  And there is so *much* in the modern world that God couldn't have said.  I have yet to run across a credible candidate for something that "God" could have said.  And I am increasingly amazed at the length of time that it took me to own up to all of this, and take the now-obvious step of becoming an atheist.

 

But, alas...all of that is a bit of a digression.

 

Back to copyright.  The video posted says what I wanted to say, only so much better than I actually did.  (It defends and explains the idea better, too.)  That said, your information on the Home Audio Recording Act, and the "additional public law" you mentioned are welcome new bits of information.  Thanks for posting that.  It does make the whole issue look a bit different.  My instincts/emotions are still on the side of copyright reduction, but at least now I have more to consider.

Conor

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"Faith does not fear reason."--Pope Pius XII

"But it should!"--Me


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Conor Wilson wrote:I'm glad

Conor Wilson wrote:

I'm glad you like my sig.  For me, (...as is probably obvious...) my faith (...back when I still had it...) *did* need protection.  I only realized how much it did need that protection after I deconverted.  It now seems obvious: something that, allegedly, "God said" is either right or wrong.  If it is wrong, then God couldn't have said it.  And there is so *much* in the modern world that God couldn't have said.  I have yet to run across a credible candidate for something that "God" could have said.  And I am increasingly amazed at the length of time that it took me to own up to all of this, and take the now-obvious step of becoming an atheist.

But, alas...all of that is a bit of a digression.

The path I wound up taking took me (duh) to a different conclusion.  Some of it was realizing that Christianity was just plain made up.  I mean, it's about as fake as it gets because it is simply impossible to go from Judaism to Christianity.  But there rest of it was looking at what Judaism is trying to accomplish, comparing the world as we know, with 100% certainty it existed 3,500 years ago, and seeing how how things have worked out.  To me, the proof is in the pudding.  Half the planet or so believes in the same G-d I believe in (more or less), and contrary to what you might think, that percentage isn't going down.

 

Conor Wilson wrote:
Back to copyright.  The video posted says what I wanted to say, only so much better than I actually did.  (It defends and explains the idea better, too.)  That said, your information on the Home Audio Recording Act, and the "additional public law" you mentioned are welcome new bits of information.  Thanks for posting that.  It does make the whole issue look a bit different.  My instincts/emotions are still on the side of copyright reduction, but at least now I have more to consider.

I see that video and what I get from it is "We want to be lazy.  Please let us be lazy."

There is nothing keeping someone from making up their own talking rodents and creating "works" which involve them.  "Charlotte's Web" by E. B. White has an entire barnyard of talking animals -- they weren't sued by Disney or any of the other "talking barnyard animal" companies.  What is it about a talking mouse that people can't seem to create some new "talking mouse" character?  "Pinky and The Brain" were two talking mice -- they weren't stopped by Disney.  "Stuart Little", also by E. B. White, is about a talking mouse -- not stopped by Disney.

I'm sure I could dig up more talking mice or lists of fictional rats and mice, but I hope I've made the point -- there is nothing stopping anyone from having a story about a mouse that talks and does various things.  GO DO THEM.

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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Furry, all religions are

Furry, all religions are essentially "just made up", even yours. And they all have things they are trying to achieve, which are typically, like any other set of human ideas, a mix of positive and negative aspects.

"Laziness" can very well be the drive for generation of new ideas, concepts, which can lead to ways to get more done for less effort, and the apparent contradiction can be often observed in how much effort an inventor can put into perfecting a 'labour-saving' device or system.

Monetary incentive is definitely not the only or even necessarily the best drive for creativity. Obviously, while any creative person is working on their current personal obsession, whether a work of art or a more 'practical' device or piece of computer code or application, they need the practicalities of life to be met, which in current societies typically involves money, but as long as such needs are met, further monetary incentive is not necessary, although it may well encourage them to put in a bit more effort, depending on their personalty.

I created many new circuit designs and computer apps in my career in our (Australian) national telecom organization, none of which were driven by explicit monetary reward - they were exercising my particular skill-set, doing my job, which gave me great satisfaction when they 'worked', when problems were solved. My reward was the appreciation and gratitude of my colleagues.

Your description of the 'idea' is just the start of what is incorporated in the completed implementation, which typically incorporates even more new 'ideas' and concepts than involved in conceptualizing the basic problem to be solved or task to be implemented. So IP does most definitely cover ideas, just not necessarily the initial thoughts or inspirations.

The dissatisfaction with something existing, such as Windows, is often THE biggest incentive to make something better - if people can meet their daily life needs while they work on it, I can assure you they will work on it. Heard of Linux? It may not have achieved the dominance of Windows, but Open Source has achieved niche dominance, such as with the Apache Web Server. OSS is also the foundation of Apple's OSX. So we are significantly indebted to creative work done with little or no monetary incentive.

As already mentioned, too much reliance on monetary incentive can easily distort and pervert the creative process, as the many crappy aspects of Microsoft products demonstrates.

Just as religious ideas often pervert our empathy-derived moral instincts.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

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Quote:BobSpence wrote:

Quote:
BobSpence wrote: Monetary incentive is definitely not the only or even necessarily the best drive for creativity. Obviously, while any creative person is working on their current personal obsession, whether a work of art or a more 'practical' device or piece of computer code or application, they need the practicalities of life to be met, which in current societies typically involves money, but as long as such needs are met, further monetary incentive is not necessary, although it may well encourage them to put in a bit more effort, depending on their personalty.

 

I seem to recall a presentation with a dry erase board called RSA Animate on Youtube mentioning a company in Australia that gives it's employees one day out of the week to work on whatever they wanted which I thought was cool as hell.

 

It's kind of a series that revolves around capitalism and a new type of social order.  You mentioned that you aren't a fan of The Zeitgeist Movement, but maybe you might find these videos interesting.  www.youtube.com/user/theRSAorg 


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BobSpence wrote:The

BobSpence wrote:
The dissatisfaction with something existing, such as Windows, is often THE biggest incentive to make something better - if people can meet their daily life needs while they work on it, I can assure you they will work on it. Heard of Linux? It may not have achieved the dominance of Windows, but Open Source has achieved niche dominance, such as with the Apache Web Server. OSS is also the foundation of Apple's OSX. So we are significantly indebted to creative work done with little or no monetary incentive.

How much of Microsoft's copyrighted code is in Linux?

How much of Microsoft's copyrighted code is in Mach?

How much of Microsoft's copyrighted code is in OS X?

Oh, right -- none.

Now, do you believe that Linux or Mach or OS X would have been produced if you could just stroll over and snarf all of the Windows source code off the Interwebs?

Let's look at what that "OSS" gets you.  I use KompoZer for an HTML editor.  Not because it is good (it's got major issues), but because I can run it on Windows or Linux.  Without a cash incentive, this is how things go --

Latest stable version: 0.7.10 (2007-08-30)

KompoZer is free software. To keep this project running, please consider making a donation.

Hmmm.  Jesus =and= OSS seem to both need money.

So ... buggy code that's 4 1/2 years old is what OSS produces.  But, it doesn't cost me any money and it runs on both Windows and Linux.  Whenever I can justify buying Dreamweaver -- a product with that evil financial incentive thing -- I'll do exactly that and dump KompoZer.

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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FurryCatHerder

FurryCatHerder wrote:

BobSpence wrote:
The dissatisfaction with something existing, such as Windows, is often THE biggest incentive to make something better - if people can meet their daily life needs while they work on it, I can assure you they will work on it. Heard of Linux? It may not have achieved the dominance of Windows, but Open Source has achieved niche dominance, such as with the Apache Web Server. OSS is also the foundation of Apple's OSX. So we are significantly indebted to creative work done with little or no monetary incentive.

How much of Microsoft's copyrighted code is in Linux?

How much of Microsoft's copyrighted code is in Mach?

How much of Microsoft's copyrighted code is in OS X?

Oh, right -- none.

Now, do you believe that Linux or Mach or OS X would have been produced if you could just stroll over and snarf all of the Windows source code off the Interwebs?

Let's look at what that "OSS" gets you.  I use KompoZer for an HTML editor.  Not because it is good (it's got major issues), but because I can run it on Windows or Linux.  Without a cash incentive, this is how things go --

Latest stable version: 0.7.10 (2007-08-30)

KompoZer is free software. To keep this project running, please consider making a donation.

Hmmm.  Jesus =and= OSS seem to both need money.

So ... buggy code that's 4 1/2 years old is what OSS produces.  But, it doesn't cost me any money and it runs on both Windows and Linux.  Whenever I can justify buying Dreamweaver -- a product with that evil financial incentive thing -- I'll do exactly that and dump KompoZer.

The accusations in all directions of copying code and interface ideas has been rife as long as the software industry has been around, and programmers move around, so there are almost certainly bits of code 'shared' across more than one commercial application or OS.

I did not say that paid-for software is all crap. Both commercial and Open Source can produce good and bad software.

Windows has a lot of really bad design in it - I have wrestled with its crap from 3.1 on. I have been face-palming at appalling design decisions from that company ever since I first encountered it, many of which were certainly from the era when that strange person Bill Gates had a direct hand in the design of the code. Windows 7 still has a lot of legacy stupidity in it.

There would have been plenty of incentive to produce a new OS from scratch even if Windows code had been freely available, simply because of the continuing need/desire for something better. It's a pity Microsoft themselves didn't redo their OS from scratch, because one of he biggest problems with Windows has always been its burden of legacy code, and a deep reluctance to start over.

But of course there are also many excellent examples of commercial programs. People with real skill and insight into programming are employed by companies run by people with a genuine understanding of what they are about, and what is required to encourage people to produce their best. And it ain't necessarily just showering them with monetary incentives.

Quoting any number of less-than-well designed Open Source programs does nothing to discredit the successes, such as Apache, any more than my experience with Windoze proves commercial software is all crap.

I am just trying to point out that good design is not dependent on monetary incentive. For some people it can work more than for others.

Copyright and patent protection does serve a purpose, but it can also be abused, and become a block to progress and freedom.

Balance, please.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

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BobSpence wrote:The

BobSpence wrote:
The accusations in all directions of copying code and interface ideas has been rife as long as the software industry has been around, and programmers move around, so there are almost certainly bits of code 'shared' across more than one commercial application or OS.

That wasn't my point, Bob -- whether or not someone who's ever worked on Windows kernel or application code (pick me) and worked on Linux kernel or application code (pick me here as well) inadvertently copied a few lines of code, or programming concepts between the two is irrelevant to whether or not large-scale, wholesale copying of code should be permitted under some liberalized copyright scheme.

BobSpence wrote:
Windows has a lot of really bad design in it - I have wrestled with its crap from 3.1 on. I have been face-palming at appalling design decisions from that company ever since I first encountered it, many of which were certainly from the era when that strange person Bill Gates had a direct hand in the design of the code. Windows 7 still has a lot of legacy stupidity in it.

Windows has a requirement, more or less, that very old software still be able to run on the operating system.  While some people might think backward compatibility is a bad idea, it's one of those design decisions that can make all the difference in the world for a commercial product.  The software my company sells was designed, from the very beginning, to be backwards compatible and I periodically make sure it still is by having clients from the oldest version of the software read data from the newest version.  In 1998 I designed an extension to an API that a former colleague had designed in 1992 or 1993.  As of 2012, the API is still in use.  Could it be made "better" by dumping backward compatability?  Sure.

Don't knock legacy stupidity -- when a competitor of mine claimed that their software ran on more versions of Windows than mine, I booted an old Windows 98 virtual machine I keep lying around and verified that the software ran on it.  That pretty much ended that little conflict.

BobSpence wrote:
There would have been plenty of incentive to produce a new OS from scratch even if Windows code had been freely available, simply because of the continuing need/desire for something better. It's a pity Microsoft themselves didn't redo their OS from scratch, because one of he biggest problems with Windows has always been its burden of legacy code, and a deep reluctance to start over.

I disagree.  If you look at the history of Linux, for example, if MINIX had a more liberal license, the Linux kernel wouldn't have been written -- Torvalds wrote his kernel =because= of the copyright restrictions and license terms of MINIX.  In the open source area, many developers (pick me ...) won't use GPL'd products because the GNU GPL license is so horribly restrictive.  For my company's software, I use an LGPL'd communications stack on most platforms, but when I needed the same stack on a completely different platform, all of the libraries I could find were under the GPL, so I wrote my own.  I don't license it =yet=, but likely will because it is technically superior to anything under either the GPL or LGPL.

This is the impact of copyright law -- it forces innovation because it prevents people from being lazy and borrowing code from others.  It might not be pleasant, and I'd have much preferred not to have spent the time writing that new stack, but it does achieve the goal of "fostering" innovation.

BobSpence wrote:
But of course there are also many excellent examples of commercial programs. People with real skill and insight into programming are employed by companies run by people with a genuine understanding of what they are about, and what is required to encourage people to produce their best. And it ain't necessarily just showering them with monetary incentives.

Oh, I totally agree that pouring money on someones head is no guarantee that the person is going to put out good code, or good literary works, or good art.  But my experience is that when someone has little or no choice but to produce something new and original, the result is that various mistakes from the past are learned from and the new products are improvements over the old products.  Ten years back I needed some code that was "owned" by a different division of the company I worked for at the time -- same company, so no copyright issues, just a turf war between my department and some other department.  The manager who "owned" the code wanted something like $4.5M for it.  I told the manager they were crazy, so I got my two best developers to work on the problem and for less than $200K, I had the solution I needed.  A year or two later I heard that other product had been cancelled, while my product had shipped (on time and under budget Smiling ) and became widely used.

BobSpence wrote:
Quoting any number of less-than-well designed Open Source programs does nothing to discredit the successes, such as Apache, any more than my experience with Windoze proves commercial software is all crap.

I am just trying to point out that good design is not dependent on monetary incentive. For some people it can work more than for others.

Right, but the ability to =restrict= copying does result in the desired behavior -- "fostering innovation".  For example, this website runs on the NGinx web server, and according to Wikipedia, NGinx is taking share from Apache due to a change in the Apache 2.0 license.

BobSpence wrote:
Copyright and patent protection does serve a purpose, but it can also be abused, and become a block to progress and freedom.

Balance, please.

I definitely agree on the "balance" thing, and anyone is free to release their work into the Public Domain or with a very liberal license.

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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BobSpence wrote:Copyright

BobSpence wrote:

Copyright and patent protection does serve a purpose, but it can also be abused, and become a block to progress and freedom.

Balance, please.

I think that what we see in copyright laws and treaties is abusive because of a shift away from the idea that these laws exist to protect the user and future creator as well as current creators and the importance of having published material enter the public domain to be available for creative reuse, educational and research purposes.  People can't create online public archives about the history of film and literature in the 20th century even though the source material and technology exist and these resources would be hugely beneficial to society. A research library called HathiTrust attempted to create a digital library of only orphaned works for a limited community of students. They were sued and copyright law is strict liability.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-jenkins/til-the-end-of-eternity_b_1194399.html

One area of creative reuse which is not even imitation that is severely hindered is documentary film making. When people create documentary films they invariably end up recording things in their surroundings that are copyright protected which can make the costs prohibitively high. The PBS documentary  "Eyes on the Prize" about the US civil rights movement for example could not be re-aired or released on DVD for years because they couldn't afford to license the music in the film. Overprotection may be as bad as no protection. It takes the benefit of copyright law away from users and future creators in order to give more to current creators but the promise of copyright protection is to everyone and if lawmakers break that promise to the user then users like the OP won't respect it anymore. It's hard to think of a reason why he should.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyes_on_the_Prize

There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft


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Much of the 'legacy

Much of the 'legacy stupidity' I see in Windows is not in the fundamental code but in the interface design - they seem more worried about confusing their longer term users by changing things, even when the things they leave in serve no purpose to the user.

As far as the underlying code goes, the approach of just adding more code at the top level to add new features leads to major code bloat, and significant impacts on performance. There are signs in Windows 7 that they are beginning to 'get' this. I was appalled way back in my last years at the company I had worked for since university, then called the Australian Telecommunications Corporation, at finding how many coding problems I was running into were due to the version of Windows we were using - Win 95, I think, at the end - still was riddled with 16-bit code, with the resultant limitations, such as of various resource table lengths.

I remember earlier updating to the latest version of the XL spreadsheet and finding it ran at a fraction of the speed of the old version. I think this was due to their switching to the use of a psuedo-code system which the new apps were written in, allowing them to change the underlying OS greatly while still implementing the same psuedo-machine, so old apps would still run. They were quite proud of this, but were reluctant to acknowledge the massive performance hit it entailed.

I also remember MS taking ages to make some sort of half-assed transition from 16 to 32 bit Intel CPU's, while around the same period Apple moved to a whole new CPU (Motorola 6800x to PowerPC) in a shorter period, including a virtual environment allowing old code to still run.

They still seem to be a very ponderous dinosaur, with poor and/or confused design standards, apart from their X-Box division. But since big business, their biggest ( I think ) and most reliable revenue stream, is also conservative and slow to adopt new stuff, it keeps them afloat.

Major part of this is the problem of a near monopoly, with resultant limited level of effective competition. Exacerbated by the fact that for a company or an individual to switch to a different OS is a major hassle, unlike switching to a new brand of car. IOW, as long as Windows could still be made to work adequately, the company will be reluctant to switch. Also, the IT section would prefer to stick with the OS which generates more support work, and they are the people typically asked for advice on what OS to use...

Just trying to point out that there are many more issues and complexities to this business than just code copyright or patenting affecting progress.

Basic code techniques should be copyable, so advances can spread rapidly through the industry, rather than people having to work around them, or come up with new solutions, which are as often as not inferior to the copyrighted code, not necessarily better. The copyright or patents should be restricted to higher level constructs or pattern more specific to a particular app. Just like the other patent stupidity (pun intended) of patenting DNA sequences, rather than the particular applications of the information.

Patent wars have become a source of revenue in themselves in the US, and a company founded by one of the original MS guys was shown by an episode of PRI's 'This American Life' as being mainly devoted to raising revenue by manipulating coders and their code patents.

When such trivial things as "one-click purchasing" can be patented, something is out of balance.

 

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Bob,I won't deny that

Bob,

I won't deny that Microsoft behaves in strange and mysterious ways.  However, after about 30 years of using their operating systems, I'll say this -- I don't worry that software I've had to a decade or more won't run on their systems.  I've been using Linux since it was installed from floppy disks, and a number of other UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems since the early '80s and Windows has them all beat for "backwards compatibility".  Is Windows still crap?  Yup.  A giant steaming turd pile of crap.

Copyright isn't about making it so 12 people can make 12 minor modifications to the Excel interface.  Or replacing some virtual machine / pseudo-code layer so the application runs faster / better / different.

Here's the language from the Constitution, just for reference:

Quote:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

There are some interesting things about the Copyright Clause.  It's objective is to =promote= innovation, it's not to make it so you get to use whatever you want.  It's to encourage Artisans to make new stuff.  The assumption, by folks who are Free Market Capitalists, is that with more new stuff, there will be competition in the market.  And I'd argue, there is.

If there is competition in the market, why does Microsoft still have a monopoly?  My guess is that in large part that is because Apple prices their products so horribly high that buying from Microsoft is an easier decision.  I bought a Mac Mini for my business and it cost more than any Windows PC I'd purchased in =years=, and it cost more than any Linux server I'd built in years as well.  Oh, and the Mac Mini is much harder to find software I want.  No one can force Apple to actually compete effectively if they don't want to.  Because there is no real profit motive to Linux, it's been hard to get a Linux distribution which works as "easily" as Windows, though I think Ubuntu has done a good job in getting to that point.  I had seen a shrink-wrapped distribution at my local electronics store, but it made such a poor impression I can't remember which distribution it was.  A number of PC vendors have offered to pre-load Linux, but that hasn't been all that popular either.  A monopoly is only a monopoly when people don't have viable choices, and that's not at all the case with PC operating systems anymore.

So, "innovation" is happening, and where the innovations are well presented, they seem to be taking hold.  Android now rules the mobile space, Windows the "personal computer" space and Linux the server and super computer spaces.  That innovation is happening in an environment with copyright laws.

On to patents.

Patent law has the same set of objectives -- fostering innovation.  You claim that the "One Click Purchasing" patent is somehow trivial, but as we like to say, a patent is only obvious after you tell someone about it.  Of the 50 or so patent applications I've filed, maybe 3 or 4 weren't "obvious" after I explained them to someone, and the ones that weren't "obvious" were often considered to be "impossible".  But once I explained them, suddenly they were just as obvious as the others.  The key to invention is getting rid of pre-conceived notions.  Who'd ever put a weak adhesive on a piece of paper?  What a silly idea!  Except that Post-It Notes were a success =because= they used a weak adhesive.

We could have a patent system that doesn't provide a financial reward, in which case the company doing the research is at a disadvantage -- it costs money to develop "stuff", and their competitors wouldn't have that cost.  Or we could have a patent system that didn't require disclosure, but does private the financial reward, in which case they retain a monopoly for however long it takes people to figure out the "secrets" -- we already have that system, which is just the Trade Secret process.

So there are a number of possibilities for Intellectual Property --

1). The existing patent system.  You get a monopoly, but you have to disclose.

2). The existing trade secret system.   You get a monopoly, but only for as long as it takes someone to figure out your secrets.

3). Placing works in the public domain.  You don't get a monopoly, and you've obviously disclosed.  This happens surprisingly often and the website "ip.com" exists to do this.

The only combination of "money" (the monopoly) and "disclosure" is not getting any money and not telling anyone what you're doing, but that seems silly.

There is NO REQUIREMENT that you pick one of those three (or four).  You get to choose.

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


luca
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some myrth

FurryCatHerder wrote:
I won't deny that Microsoft behaves in strange and mysterious ways.

When you are fined for hundreds of millions of dollars and you don't care, it's because you can do what you want.

FurryCatHerder wrote:
Here's the language from the Constitution, just for reference:

Quote:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

There are some interesting things about the Copyright Clause. It's objective is to =promote= innovation, it's not to make it so you get to use whatever you want. It's to encourage Artisans to make new stuff. The assumption, by folks who are Free Market Capitalists, is that with more new stuff, there will be competition in the market. And I'd argue, there is.


That part of the copyright is ok-ish, but what does it mean "promote"? What is the link between "promotion" and "securing writings and discoveries"? There are some implicit things to understand first. Is for example this the best "promotion" that can be done? No. Is this the only way? No. Is it used to rob people? Obviously, so it's not infallible -- just saying. Why competition is neede? Because of the lack of knowledge and organization. Put it like you want, cooperation is better than competition. You can make to compete ideas, but copyright forces competition on people.