Intellectual Property Laws bad for business 293
mshiltonj writes "The NYTimes has a story called "Report Raises Questions About Fighting Online Piracy" that talks about how the stringent enforcement of current Intellectual Property laws (see: RIAA) may acutally be bad for business. It's the not EFF or FSF saying this, it's professors at Harvard Business School and Cardozo Law School. The professors say, "The ideas of copy-left, or of a more liberal regime of copyright, are receiving wider and wider support, It's no longer a wacky idea cloistered in the ivory tower; it's become a more mainstream idea that we need a different kind of copyright regime to support the wide range of activities in cyberspace." and "Bits are not the same as atoms. We need to reframe the legal discussion to treat the differences of bits and atoms in a more thoughtful way.""
wired article (Score:5, Interesting)
It is pretty clear that an idea is not something that someone can "own", because it doesn't exist in space and time. Property laws were developed because there is only a limited amount of material objects in the universe, but everyone can "own" ideas without "taking" anything from anybody else. In fact, it is better to spread good ideas around, for the same reason that it is better to live in a good neighborhood than a bad one.
Re:wired article (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically the copyright extension lobbyists are killing themselves slowly by stretching out copyright terms longer and longer. Each time they stretch it, the thinner it's importance becomes to the general population who see it as unfair to the common good.
Re:wired article (Score:5, Insightful)
Just make it a fixed amount of time, preferably no more than 30 years (this is, after all, for *copyright* not patents), then it all goes into the public domain.
Yes, I'm well aware of how the record companies would hate to lose some of their classic hits from the 60s and 70s, but I doubt they sell much from there but a small selection of the very best albums and whatnot.
This would also make it MUCH easier to determine when the copyright was over, rather than having to figure out when the author died, figure out if it was a joint work, or a company owned one, etc. Might also allow them to have an unpublished period of five years or something, too, and other bits like that.
But still, making copyright last forever is rediculous. I'm kinda glad that the 'freezing' of Walt Disney was mythical, because I'd hate to see them argue that since he's still "alive" (theoretically, at any rate), his copyright will live as long as he stays frozen... (e.g. forever, because it would cut into profits to bring him back, even if it were thought possible to in the far future...)
While we're at it, ditch software & business process patents entirely, make normal ones a bit more narrow, and possibly cut the time on them a bit.
One other thing we need to address, though, is the "IP vampire" companies with no actual products who buy up "IP" from dead companies and use it to extort normal companies, making them the living dead of the business world, since they can't be stopped with defensive patents... I'd like to think that open source/free software ideals can help fend them off, if applied more broadly. They are within the current laws, but they certainly don't advance the original purposes of those laws at all... (This, ironically, is one "business method" that I wish had been patented defensively... alas, it is probably too late...)
Re:wired article (Score:5, Insightful)
There IS a fundamentally valid reason for both copyright and patents (and trademarks) to exist. But the scope has been blown way out of proportion by the power brokers, who are only in government to make a buck.
Re:wired article (Score:5, Insightful)
incentive (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's phrase it a different way:
A person can be supporting his/her self and family OR advancing the Arts and Sciences. The purpose of Copyrights and Patents as put forth in the Constitution is to remove the devilment behind that 'OR' decision. Even if it's not enough incentive to enable and Artist/Scientist/Engineer to make a life wholly supported that way, it's got to be worthwhile, as opposed to putting in a few more hours at a day job.
The other side comes from the phrase, "If I can see farther, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants." Patents and Copyrights are SUPPOSED to release that stuff into the Public Domain, so others can use it as a basis for further works. THIS is the single most broken aspect of current IP law, IMHO.
Re:wired article (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:wired article (Score:5, Informative)
CED Report [ced.org]
Re:wired article (Score:3, Interesting)
Furthermore, I can learn an idea from you, but I am not "taking" anything from you the same way as I would with real property. You still retain the original idea.
Copyrights and patents are restraints on society's advancement, not aids.
Re:wired article (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:wired article (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to be be a bitch and point it out, but it works fine in Norway. And I believe that Sweden, Denmark and other socialistic democarcys are doing rather fine as well.
You guys just got to realise socialism is an idea, and a not a totalerian system. Socialism is about that the wealthy/resourcefull in society is obligated to help the less fortunate.
It might not be obvious, but this actually saves society money. Say, for example, if people aren't left to starve (actual, working social security), they won't have to steal or resort to crime in order to survive. And thus, less police is needed. Money saved.
I guess I can go on, but this post is probably offtopic enough allready.
So for a practical (and working) socialistic system, Norway and it's democracy is a good example.
Yes, stringent enforcement is bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright should always be a balance. Promotion should be allowed, but only on an intimate level with people you know, not the entire world, unless the creator or publisher says it's all right. Region codes on DVDs, encryptions, copy prevention methods, etc., are all just profits and ineffective in what they're named to do.
I love libraries, borrow from friends and let them borrow from me, and will take DVDs over to parties so we can watch movies. Some publishers, studios and organizations will call me a pirate, but I would like to think that I'm a consumer and a citizen of the USA who prefers to share what he rightfully paid for with those who would also enjoy it.
Just my opinion and observations.
Re:Yes, stringent enforcement is bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
what I really think is going way too far is companies deciding who can or cannot be my friend. I have no problem whatsoever with treating everybody as a friend (yes, there are different 'levels' of friend, like all other friends.), and I have no trouble sharing with all my friends.
Re:Yes, stringent enforcement is bad... (Score:5, Interesting)
Great! Friends, I need to "borrow" $20.
Unfortunately, this time you'll have to share your own money, not an evil record company's money, and I don't actually plan to give it back to you.
I mean, as long as you can re-define "friends" to mean "people I've never met who share my musical tastes and my ethical blind spots", can't I be as intellectually (dis)honest and re-define "borrow" too?
(I am reminded of the Cowbirds in Walt Kelly's Pogo, socialist agitators whose motto was "To share! To share what others' have!")
Re:Yes, stringent enforcement is bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I necessarily agree with the parent, but if you are going to pick an analogy, at least pick one that makes sense.
Re:Yes, stringent enforcement is bad... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's all nice and good until everyone does it, and you discover that your system results in runaway inflation.
Surprisingly enough, despite the absurdity of the analogy, we can compare it back to intellectual property. As less people purchase IP-based products and more people simply "borrow" them from "friends", the
Re:Yes, stringent enforcement is bad... (Score:4, Insightful)
I've heard arguments like this before and, I have to say, it's one of the weakest one's I've heard used to try to justify copyright infringment.
I think that most *rational* people would agree on a common definition of the term "friend". Additionally, I think most people would agree that someone you've never met, never chatted with, and never had any type of contact with except to trade stuff is *not* a "friend". That is why we have the term "stranger".
When people try to use the argument "I am willing to view/treat anyone as a friend so really when I share my stuff on Kazaa I am sharing with friends" they really don't mean it. Take it to the next level. Since I'm your friend, would you please lend me $5,000? Can I come stay at your house for a few months? Can I borrow your credit card to go buy some computer stuff? I promise, I'll stick to a limit you set. No? Why? I thought we were friends?
Insightful? Please... (Score:4, Interesting)
what I really think is going way too far is companies deciding who can or cannot be my friend. I have no problem whatsoever with treating everybody as a friend (yes, there are different 'levels' of friend, like all other friends.), and I have no trouble sharing with all my friends.
That's not insightful, it's just manipulation of words to thinly veil a support of wholesale piracy. In no meaningful way is a person whom you have never met--and with whom your only interaction ever is the trading of a song file--your "friend". Saying "I'm a friend to the world" doesn't change the fact that wholesale piracy is fundamentally different than sharing music with a close circle of actual friends.
It's pathetic when people try to make this defense of massive online filesharing (as opposed to, say, sharing within an actual, meaningful, community of people, be it online or in the real world). If you are for piracy, say so. Don't try to defend your position using meaningless redefinition of terms. There are grey areas in file swapping--calling everyone your friend is not one of them, and weakens much more legitimate arguments (such as calling a smallish online music discussion group a group of friends with whom sharing should be permissible).
Any crime can be "defended" by relabeling:
but the relabeling itself doesn't make the defense valid.
Monopoly on commercial distribution (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yes, stringent enforcement is bad... (Score:4, Insightful)
I whole-heartedly and utterly DISAGREE. This is why we have the stupid ass laws in rural states like "It's illegal to have sex with a dead kitten" or "you may not wash your hand on a Wednesday after sundown."
We don't need MORE laws, we need LESS, but ENFORCEABLE laws. Otherwise, this happens. We have billions of laws and it's up to the whim of the controlling body to decide which one they want to enforce that day.
Re:Yes, stringent enforcement is bad... (Score:3, Informative)
(Ohh that rymes even)
Patent laws in the past were used pritty much as intended with a few exceptions. Today those laws are being abused left and right and our legeslation hasn't done a thing about it.
IP law was intended to be an evolving thing. It was always known there'd be new kinds of IP and there'd be abuses of IP it was up to congress to address the problems as they came up.
For example: Software copyrights. To me it seam
No, its not (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, can't disagree more.
Elvis's stuff should be PD. Not only because he's dead, but because he's been dead a long time and the bulk of his work was really done over 40 years ago.
What good does it serve to have Elivis's stuff under strict copyright? Is Elvis "incented" to create more stuff? Is Lisa-Marie "incented" to take up music as a caree
then don't complain (Score:4, Insightful)
when [large corp] comes along and just takes your idea to market without giving you a bean, they make billions all the execs get to live in bliss and you can eat dirt out of the sidewalk
sounds fair to me, yeah "do away with copyright ! say already financially secure professors and stock trading buisness tutors"
of course you can just watch [large corp] spend billions on developing widget X then just steal it saving $$$$!
yeah sounds fair to me !!
A>S
Re:then don't complain (Score:5, Informative)
That's what a lot of large corps do now if you work for them. If you work for a large auto manufacutrer and design something you'll be lucky if you get a thing for it. While the company and execs make a killing on it. This is not something new.
Re:then don't complain (Score:5, Insightful)
This is far from the same thing as a company taking work from you when you are not affiliated with them.
Re:then don't complain (Score:3, Insightful)
My two (euro) cents (Score:5, Insightful)
Things are not always that simple. My own employer recently presented me with a new contract. It included among many other things the three following points:
1) A clause about 'any software/hardware/idea/invention... etc' of mine being the property of the company'. It was so loosely worded that they could theoretically have laid claim to things I 'coded/designed/invented' in my spare time even if this had nothing to do with the business the company is in was likely to cause the company loss of revenue.
2) Forbid me to code in my own time for an Open Source project even if the project is in no way related to the business the company and is completely unlikely to cause them loss of revenue.
3) They also tried to insert what they called a "competition protection" clause in the new contract where they reserrve the right to place an injunction on me, forcing me to remain unemployed for a period of upto 6 months, if I should happen to quit working for them and begin working for somebody they feel is a competitor or if I might be using knowledge obtained in my old job at my new place of work.
All but the third clause were shot down after intense negotiations (read: most of the empoyees staged a small scale mutiny). The third point has been kept in the new contracts but nobody expects it to hold up in court, at least not here in Europe. Although the poor bastard who the company decides to honor by testing that clause on is probably going to have to shell out a small fortune in legal fees to prove them wrong and employees will probably think twice beore signing the new contract. Fortunately I was able to avoid swapping my old contract for the new model.
Now, I will agree that a comany owns what I code/design/invent on company time. I also think that a company is no worse off rewarding employees for valuable innovations in some way. But when the company starts trying to dictate whether or not I can innovate in my own spare time in a way that does not undermine the company I work for I think the company has gone too far.
Re:My two (euro) cents (Score:3, Informative)
It will be considerably cheap. Because of the right to choose your place of work freely (as laid down in the European Convention on Human Righ
Re:then don't complain (Score:5, Informative)
Less obvious ideas are discussed in the public domain long before they are introduced as products. I like to give ADSL as an example - the original idea was that you have to split your band into many (ideally infinite) subbands to send information. The problem was that until the development of fast DSPs it was impossible to do it - and it was certainly impossible to do it when the idea was first mentioned.. since it was the days of analog filtering.
Nevertheless, there are numerous patents on ADSL, which are about very specific parts of the overall ITU-T standard rather than the idea of splitting the band in subbands to send information..
Furthermore, an individual has little or no protection against predatory companies that want to steal his ideas even with the patent system in place. The reason that a patent costs much more than an individual can possibly afford. What people do, is they give the idea to a patent attorney/firm, who agrees to pay for the upfront cost in return for a percentage on any profit made from the patent.
ivory tower? (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's now being said by the Harvard Business School and Cardozo Law School, you might say that it's no longer just being said by the long-haired hackers, but now it is also coming from the ivory tower.
Re:ivory tower? (Score:4, Insightful)
These two schools tend to be on the more liberal side of things and tend to be closer to "long-haired hackers" than a majority of the "ivory tower". What they say doesn't necessairly match what most business believes at all.
Re:ivory tower? (Score:5, Insightful)
The term IP itself is misleading (Score:5, Interesting)
It is just hard to apply the term "property" to something that is so easily duplicated and propagates so easily.
Re:The term IP itself is misleading (Score:5, Informative)
Re:IP is property and downloading is theft. (Score:5, Insightful)
Steal means "to take, and carry away, feloniously; to take without right or leave, and with intent to keep wrongfully; as, to steal the personal goods of another." You haven't stolen anything from the mechanic, but you have breached your contract to pay for his work. You've probably also trespassed in his shop or yard while collecting your vehicle. He can sue, and if the state agrees it will use its monopoly on violence to compel you to pay. He may also be able to press criminal charges for your trespass.
Electricity is an interesting thing if you try to think of it as a physical object, since the act of consuming it actually involves flowing electrons through a device and then back to the producer. Of course I'm no more entitled to use the city's electrons in my cellphone (even if I send them right back) than the city is entitled to go using random stuff in my home - even if they put it back right away.
Electricity makes a bit more sense if you think of it as a service, like auto repair, but the same principles apply. If you're obtaining electricity without the provider's consent, it's probably through trespass, fraud, or similar unlawful means.
DMCA aside.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:DMCA aside.. (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree with the spirit of what I understand you to be saying here, I think it's important to note that a law which is only good when marginally enforced is a lousy law.
I certainly do not expect that framing a better law will be easy, but I think it's clear that settling for ones that are pretty-not-too-bad has largely contributed to the mess we're in right now. The blood, sweat, and tears should go into the framing of appropriate laws, not the decision of whether to enforce them.
Dan
too complex (Score:4, Insightful)
in the end, the free market will decide.
radical rethinking of IP? (Score:4, Insightful)
Jeff Cagle
Re:radical rethinking of IP? (Score:5, Informative)
And deliciously ironic. Most people don't realize that Hollywood was LITERALLY founded on piracy. Edison had very strict controls on the equipment that was used to produce and show movies. He formed an organization to enforce his rights. This organization was so onerous that scores of soon-to-be movie producers/directors/etc packed up their lives and moved to the "wild wild west" AKA California. California was so wild and remote that Edison's patents couldn't be enforced, and the movie industry grew and flourished. By the time the law got things settled down, the patents had expired (the patent limit was 17 or 18 years at that time).
Next time you have to sit through those annoying anti-piracy bits before the movie, just remember that it it were't for wholesale disregard for the "Intellectual Property" of others, Hollywood might have never came to be.
Re:radical rethinking of IP? (Score:5, Informative)
It was also because it was close to another country so they could occasionally flee to Mexico [stanford.edu] to avoid the law.
Re:radical rethinking of IP? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:radical rethinking of IP? (Score:5, Interesting)
While these acedemics may be doing the hero's task of rethinking IP, I'm also concerned about this comment by a copyright professor who read the report:
Sloppy scholarship helps no one. Given how much bad research, lack of fact-checking, and fabricated hearsay (Jane Fonda and John Kerry photos anyone?) floats around on the net, the moment I encounter anything that I know is untrue or wrong in any piece, I stop reading and file the whole thing in the Intellectually Suspect folder.
The Committee for Economic Development has a spotty track record. Marshall Plan: Good. World Bank and IMF: iffy. Setting standards for public schools through testing: bad (and, yes, I am a parent).
Re:radical rethinking of IP? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're absolutely right. However, sloppy journalism is just as bad. A statement like:
it "makes unsubstantiated, misleading, or misinformed statements about copyright law."
needs to be clarified. A competent journalist would ask further, demanding to know which statements are considered unsubstantiated misinformed or misleading. Without clarification this is just an opinion from one source and considering the phrasing of the rest of the comment, probably a biased source
no way! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:no way! (Score:3, Funny)
Over and over (Score:5, Insightful)
Its good that these reports are coming from schools that might have a louder voice in getting the point through.
When Joe Sixpack buys the CD, there is no ulterior motive behind that buy. He is not thinking about ripping the songs and sharing it for free. The DRM/copy protection/encryption/blah and all other technologies only make the experience of listening to music bittersweet when you put the CD into the player and it refuses to recognize it. And no digital protection is good enough for the Black Hats who would get around it, no matter what.
I will say it one more time. I have bought MORE music after I listen to it online before buying it. ARE YOU LISTENING RIAA?
BR 10 years down the line, I am sure we will all look back and laugh at RIAA tactics.
Fear for the future (Score:5, Interesting)
No kidding? People prefer free? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? What a surprising finding. I would never have guessed that the vast majority of people, who happen to be the consumers of copyrighted material, would actually prefer the copy-left concept where that material was available to them free.
All sarcasm aside, people have always preferred free to paying for something but, the creators of the copyrighted material do deserve to make a living off of their work. The RIAA may be going to extremes with draconian practices but, the presently unspoken idea that "music wants to be free" is not justifiable. When I create a work, what ever it may be, I should have the right to determine how and by whom it may be used. The fact that someone else would rather have it for free is not an adequate reason for me to give it away if I choose not to.
Re:No kidding? People prefer free? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. The creators. The RIAA does not create music - it finds, harvests, markets , controls and charges for music, giving the slightest hint of what it makes (wastes) back to the original artist.
Courtney Love herself said that the average artist would do a lot better working for tips. That's what copylefting music does - it allows the artists to survive very well on tips, not on hoarding. This is the way artists have survived since the dawn of humanity.
Re:No kidding? People prefer free? (Score:4, Insightful)
The added bonus of course is that the good artists get paid and the crap artists have to find something else to do. It's more efficient (in an economic sense) than the current system which can drive sales for groups with no musical talent.
Re:No kidding? People prefer free? (Score:3, Insightful)
Bingo! Bands like mine have no chance at getting signed by a major label, because #1, we were not poured and shaped in the mold of Britney by the company brass, and #2, there are no more talent scouts. There are scouts, but they don't hear the music, they see T&A or hunk-meat prospects.
And LONG gone are the days when you could buy an album based on how cool its cover was, and have a good shot at liking the music. (But now I
Re:No kidding? People prefer free? (Score:4, Insightful)
"This is the way artists have survived since the dawn of humanity"
And this is exactly the point. The very concept of coyright goes against thousands of years of humanity copying and using whatever they find useful to better their lives.
While the Greeks did not invent writing, they copied the concept from somewhere else and their society benefitted greatly from it. The Romans used pumps that were invented elsewhere and without which their aquaducts would have been useless.
I believe that every invention and improvement made in the modern era is a direct result of the education and knowledge that our ancestors invented for us. Seriously, sdo you think Bill Gates could have written Windows without all of the work others had done before him? Without the ability to read and write or do complex mathematic calculations if those ideas and principals had been copyrighted throughout all this time? Of course not, we take what knowledge we can and we build upon it. The end result is the result of work done by thousands (if not millions) of individuals throughout time and it took all of our learning and knowledge to get where we are today. IP laws never helped humanity then and they are not helping humanity now.
I believe that people should be compensated for their intellectual work, but IP laws as they are now don't benefit people, they benefit nobody but companies. IMO IP laws are not natural, they do not add to society and they certainly do not encourage the sharing of knowledge which, in turn would increase research times...
Well I'm at work and in a hurry. I'll stop my rant, sorry if it makes no sense. But all we have, we have because of the collective works of humanity - IP laws bastardise the right of the public to learn and research whatever they like which is a fundamental right our ancestors have always had.
John the Kiwi
Re:No kidding? People prefer free? (Score:4, Insightful)
Music wants to be free is not justifiable. It never was. Although, the tactics are being criticized because there is no alternative provided to the 'buy the whole cd or don't buy it'. I DO NOT want to spend 14/15/16/17 dollars on a CD if there is only a couple of songs that I would like to listen. iTunes is an example that Apple got this sentiment right and its a small step in right direction.
I am not defending people who want the music for free or who are sharing/downloading for free. All I am saying that beating up with a stick without giving an alternative is not right. This is only going to alienate customers and push them to do the wrong thing.
The distribution methods have changed with the P2P technologies and its time to build a business model around it.
ARE YOU READING THIS RIAA???
Freedom from the RIAA (Score:4, Interesting)
For over a year I've been suggesting that artists stick a PayPal button on their sites and offer amnesty for downloaders. Paying the artists 2 or 3 times what they actually profit for these crappy CD deals that the RIAA companies force artists to sign, is peanuts compared to CD prices.
Amnesty is the answer!
Re:No kidding? People prefer free? (Score:3, Interesting)
and that right should end when you perform that work in public.
that system worked very well for thousands of years, and would still work today if we totally abandoned copyright law. all but a handful of musicians already make all of their profits from live performances. patronage (government or private) can support artists who require more financing (opera and architecture come to mind) tha
Actually they don't (Score:3, Interesting)
The question is how much personal freedom we want to give up to serve the later very s
Not bad for business... (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't a post about how good patents are. On the contrary, it's a post about how patents can be misused or abused to give one company an unfair advantage over its rivals.
I don't know where you draw the line between good patents and bad ones but it seems to me that a patent should at least illustrate a degree of innovation and invention beyond "Let's take this old idea and put it together with that old idea and have ourselves a licence to print money!", which is where we're at now with the USPTO handing out patents to overly-broad, far from unique ideas to anyone who ponies up the relevant filing fees.
Re:Not bad for business... (Score:5, Insightful)
That was the whole idea behind them. It might be just that a 20 year term of protection is too stringent for things like computer science innovations. However, withness the revolution in textiles when the original Gore patent rant our on Gore-Tex a few years back. Radical improvement in the quality of the 'competeing' fabrics, many of which were simply Teflon-laminate membranes made by someone other than Gore.
You could build an argument that Gore deserved to earn significant revenues for their pioneering work in the textiles field. That's what the patent process is supposed to look like. Since the innovation is clearly documented, at the end of the term, everyone benefits. It's definately a double edged sword.
Patents might have problems, especially when someone is granted a patent for non-novel techniques, or worse, something with demonstrable prior-art. This is when the system starts to break down. Combined with the Bog Business technique of cross licensing you can really lock out the little guys. Those practises are more a problem that the underlying concept.
Re:Not bad for business... (Score:5, Interesting)
But everyone else gets screwed. That's fine as long as it encourages people to come up with new stuff, but it's bad in the long term; which is exactly why patents and copyrights should be for a limited time only. Your comment is like saying that inflation is good, because some people benefit from inflation (e.g. borrowers with a fixed interest rate, etc.) at the same rate that other people suffer. But in the long run, you don't want runaway inflation or runaway intellectual monopolies; because it destabalizes the economy, and breaks the fundamental quid-pro-quo of copyright/patent/trademark law.
Just to give an example; if you want to make an album full of samples (like the Beasty Boys' second album) these days.. well.. you can't! Because it would be too expensive to license all those 1 second samples, even though they have questionable artistic merit per se, and combining them into a new work is an artistic endeavor which results in a holistic new work. And that holds true even for those with pretty sweet record deals; record companies won't even crosslicense between their own artists. This is an enormous barrier-to-entry for sampling artists, which the established rightsholders don't care about because it's not their model of either business or art. And you can count on none of those copyrights expiring any time soon, because they're retroactively being renewed by paid-for laws.
I don't know where you draw the line between good patents and bad ones but it seems to me that a patent should at least illustrate a degree of innovation and invention beyond "Let's take this old idea and put it together with that old idea and have ourselves a licence to print money!", which is where we're at now with the USPTO handing out patents to overly-broad, far from unique ideas to anyone who ponies up the relevant filing fees.
The fees themselves, and the costs of contesting bad patents, and their running time, are as much of a problem as the USPTO's whoring for dimes.
If applying for patents was really cheap, the FSF would hold hundreds of them; if contesting them was cheap and easy (just mail the USPTO some prior art or explain why it's trivial), most of the patents that come up on
None of this is true though; applying for a patent is costly, contesting one (either through the USPTO or the courts) is fiendishly complicated and costly, and patents run for years and years. The rubberstamping is little more than aiding and abetting.
RIAA (Score:3, Insightful)
IPR isnt a problem in itself... (Score:5, Interesting)
A startup requires some kind of protection from companies that are bigger and more established from taking their idea and using their extra resources to get the product to market first. The IPR laws were orginally designed to protect the small guy and give him a fighting chance... in this case they add competition to the market.
The problem is that they are being used as bargining chips by huge global-hyper-mega corps as the corperate equivilant of a nuclear deterant (You sue me for this and i'll sue you for that!). This is absolutely NOT what they are designed for.
It would be great to come up with some hard and fast rule that prevents this abuse, but I cant think of one. Perhaps some kind of patent lifespan restriction based on company net worth (to prevent a company with ample resources to develop a patented technology from just sitting on the idea).
Any other suggestions?
Re:IPR isnt a problem in itself... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wouldn't work. Any big company with significant resources would have little trouble spinning off a subsidiary company with very little net worth whose entire purpose was to hold all the patents and license them and/or hammer competitors with lawsuits. And if you say "any company a big company has controlling interest in" as a caveat to get around this, you run into a catch-22 for small startups: their patents are gone if they get too much investment, but without investment their patents are useless....
A matter of simple economics (Score:5, Insightful)
The access to the infinitely duplicable material destroys the notion of scarcity of the product itself - whereupon the obvious price for such a product is no more than the cost of transport - usage of an Internet account.
We're seeing the destruction of an entire industry; its old guard will cry foul every step of the way, until the market eventually drags it into this new age. Observe the American car industry in the '70s, or of US Steel.
Re: the "worth" of bits. (Score:4, Interesting)
Currently when assessing the "damage" when a copyright violation has taken place, the retail cost of the item is used. However, this doesn't make sense - when a 14 year old kid pirates a movie industry standard $40,000 dollar 3D rendering package - is the damage really $40,000? Of course not, it is really $0. (I'm not saying the kid should go unpunished - that's a different argument).
But... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But... (Score:4, Interesting)
Three words: Economies of scale
I think there's an interesting change happening around us, where folks are starting to rediscover that ideas aren't the be-all, end-all of a successful business. The key in business has always been in the execution. If you can do it better, faster, cheaper, etc. you win. You don't get a guaranteed billion just for coming up with an idea and ambushing somebody with your patent 10 years after they make the business model work.
I'm drawing a bit from my artistic background here, and looking at it from a slightly different perspective. As an artist (dancer), I don't get paid if I don't work. That work can be teaching, it can be choreography, it can be performing. The simple fact is, however, that if I'm not constantly working, I don't get paid. I don't tell my students that they can't use the knowledge I've passed on to them. They can use it however they please.
The key works out to this: If you don't work, you don't eat. You can have all the inspiration you want, but if you can't translate that into something someone else wants, and do it consistently, you're going to be hurting. I'm not sure yet whether I like that idea or not, but it certainly seems fair enough.
Then again, I may just be hallucinating....
Dan
Correct term is Intellectual Monopoly (Score:5, Interesting)
Adam Smith and *Intellectual monopoly* (Score:5, Interesting)
by NZheretic (23872) on Fri 18 Oct 12:11AM (#4467943 [slashdot.org])
Everyone realises and acknowledges that Microsoft is a business, there to make a profit to share with it's marjor stakeholders, from it's shareholders to it's employees. However ...
If there were no copyright ... (Score:5, Interesting)
The primary motivation for copyright is to stimulate more output by giving creators limited-time protection of their work. But do we really need stimulation for more musical output if you can a million songs with you at anytime? If copyright were to be abolished, the amount of new works will undoubtly fall, but it's unlikely to dissappear altogether. The benefits is that everybody can, for little costs, enjoy about the complete published musical output of the past with them. Is this a good tradeoff?
Re:If there were no copyright ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:If there were no copyright ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If there were no copyright ... (Score:4, Insightful)
The "industry" is using their monopoly protection not to increase creative output, but to reduce it. There are hundreds of thousands of performing musicians in this country... how many are represented by "industry" labels? Almost none. Meanwhile the most prolific songwriter I know works at Guitar Center selling knockoff Fenders to teenagers in order to pay the rent.
A scene on campus... (Score:5, Funny)
Man-on-the-street: "But, aren't you a member of that group of ivory tower theorists?"
Profs: [runs off] "AAHAHAHA! Man the battlements! Back, I say to thee, BACK!"
So you want MORE coercion through force... (Score:5, Interesting)
Copyright makes sense in some ways, but if you look at copyright historically, much of the greatest art and music was produced with no protection for the author. Great literary works and poetry also had no protection under copyright until recently.
In the past 300 years, we decided in order to protect the "rights" of a creator, we need government to step in and threaten anyone who wanted to steal such creations and use them without compensating the artist. Fine.
Our Constitution gave very limited protection (7 years, extendable for another 7 years maximum). To many free thinkers, copyright was a great concern, as it now gave government a new power it didn't have before. As many of the free marketeers here know, every new government power is a slippery slope towards ultimate government power.
Copyright has been made into a monopolizing power for corporations, and now capitalism and the free market is blamed! Capitalism would never allow copyright -- if you create something, don't release it until you have the best way to market or distribute it. Should I have a better tactic, I should be able to move it too. Creating a product or art is only part of the profitability -- marketing, distribution, and other parts of selling the item are just as important.
Copyleft is no better. In the end, you still need some entity to enforce it. If its a free market entity, people will have no reason to support your copyleft as they aren't forced to. If you allow government the ability to enforce it, they will only use coecion through force to protect it, and that again creates a monopoly.
When it boils down to software, there might not be any reason to copyright or copyleft or protect the software through the monopoly of force. There are free market protections in place already!
If you were the author of Windows, and someone wanted to promote the product without your consent, you could submit to the buying public that they should buy your product as they'd get your support. They'd get your updates (as you have the source code) quicker than through your competitor. They'd get the support of knowing they can submit new ideas to you that might get into the code (your competitor wouldn't have that ability, no source code). Your customers would also have the knowledge that they'd be supporting you to continue to make better products.
Where does copyright fit into this? Is copyright preventing rampant piracy? Not a chance. If you want to protect your software from getting copied, force your software to register itself online at every use. Fixed. No pirating.
If you want to protect your software from getting copied, how about hardware locks like in the past? Sure, some have been worked around, but in the end, the pirates would have to work extra hard to do so. If you price it properly, business would have no incentive to pirate.
Copyright and copyleft are both automations created that can only work through force. Only government has the legal mandate to initiate force. And once we allow that power, we have no power to restrain it should it get out of hand.
The report itself (Score:5, Informative)
Science Friday (Score:5, Interesting)
So I'd definitely agree that this travesty of laws that have sprung up at the behest of media companies is indeed harming the economy.
And what happened to Xerox? (Score:3, Informative)
It never managed to commercialize the products it created. The name PARC is known only to a few computer geeks. Xerox itself went into a tailspin during this time, unable to handle competition in the copy industry from companies that copied (heh) and improved Xerox technology and undercut it tremendously in price while at the same time Xerox was wasting billions of dollars trying to compete with IBM.
This is a horribl
You're thinking like a programmer (Score:3, Insightful)
Imagine that Xerox's top management had a clue. They patent everything: Ethernet, laser printers, most of the elements of a GUI, etc. They sue the hell out of anyone copying the tech, while marketing all-in-one solutions for "document management" with immense profit margins. This is what the document industry is doing now, but the tech is available to everyone, so the margins are a lot smaller.
Xerox rakes in sagans of dollars, just like they did when they made the f
Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
If you look back, the entire motivation for IP laws was to promote the greater creation of those works.
There doesn't seem to be any reason to believe that the current system of IP laws produces the greatest benefit for the least cost to society.
If not optimized, the laws just preserve some artificial revenue stream protection scheme.
Having invented a patentable idea, I can say that the term of the patent had absolutely nothing to do with my creation of that idea. It might have something to do with how much money the patent is worth to a company that wanted to buy it, but it had nothing to do with the creation of the idea.
Unamerican! (Score:5, Funny)
This is unamerican and illegal thought!!! Whether it be atoms or bits, everything needs to be owned and properly licensed for use! The idea that something can be free for all borders on communism and treason! Here in the U$A we must ensure that authors and inventors rule the use of their work with an iron fist! Write your senators and the FBI, these traitorous academics must be silenced and jailed, in order to preserve their freedom!
Re:Unamerican! (Score:3, Funny)
Cheap (Score:4, Interesting)
1 - Sell each song on the internet for $1,
they will probably get more money than
trying to sell CDs with 12 songs for $15.
If for no other resason than because you
don't have to leave your house.
iTunes proves that a lot of people prefer
this to just swapping files.
2 - The same goes for movies -- if you could
"order" a high quality copy for $5,
you wouldn't have to go out to the
movie theater, but you will watch at least
4 times the number of movies.
When the networks get faster, to download a
high quality 4GB mpeg for $5 beats
downloading a crappy version for 0
Re:Cheap (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure that they don't realize it. For all the twaddle that is spouted about destroying economic incentives, there is one thing that somehow goes unmentioned (although Eben Moglem did touch on it in his recent speech at Harvard). The core of what's going on with all this (and you can add proprietary software companies to the labels and studios) is perfectly explicable from Economics 101: specifically, microeconomics, which says that in an efficient market, price = marginal cost. (Marginal cost is the incremental cost of adding one unit of output; note this is different from average cost!)
Given today's technology, the marginal cost of producing one more CD or DVD or copy of a program is very close to zero. Also, there is no particular benefit to having the physical object (e.g., a CD) for itself, unlike, for example, a beautifully printed, illustrated book.
So I'm not sure that lack of realization or understanding is the problem -- studios, labels, and software companies may well realize it. They just don't like the answer, because it means their business model is broken beyond repair.
"Bits are not the same as atoms." (Score:3, Funny)
CEOs and children under five... (Score:3, Interesting)
My Take (Score:5, Insightful)
I feel that tuning the amount of IP protection for different types of industries is helpful for business. Long-term or indefinite-term copyright just doesn't make sense, especially when the original creator is long gone, or the current owner isn't the original creator. Fifty years should really be the maximum, or should be the maximum if the property has been sold by the original owner (thinking of printed materials here). There are some other issues that need to be addressed with the sale of specific types of rights. One example that comes to mind is that of the works of Philip K. Dick. Hollywood basically gave him the "we'll call you later" line while buying movie rights at bargain-basement prices. Now that he is deceased, we've got three big-budget screen adaptations of his work that raked in the dough. There's also the issue of studios which review a script, reject it, then make a movie based on that script (without proper credit) years later. Occasionally a couple of studios will do this, producing similar movies at about the same time. Weakening IP laws in this situation will only hurt the "little guy" even more.
The area that definitely needs the most tuning is IP with regard to technology. There should be some type of orphan clause, if the creator goes bankrupt (or the author dies), and no one had previously made claim to the IP. I'm thinking primarily about software source code lost in limbo. In specialty sofware areas where there isn't a high profit margin this is a major concern when picking the right package: Will this company still be in business 10 years from now? And, of course, (everyone's favorite) tech patents on methods really need an overhaul. Seven years seems to be a bit to long. We really need a new way of reviewing patents. It's not that all of them are overly broad, but a problem that exists because changing a few key words makes something patentable. The "pausing live broadcast" patent should be tossed. The concept has existed and has been implemented since probably the late 1950s for the purposes of "instant replay" during sporting events. Throwing in the words "digital" and "disc", or the amount of time that can be "shifted" shouldn't have a bearing on the validity of the patent. Likewise, the concept of recording in the background shouldn't be patentable either, even if it uses the buzzword "buffer".
d'oh! (Score:3, Funny)
well, if that correlation comes as a surprise, i'm no longer surprised! just look what prohibition did to the alcohol business!
patents are a monopoly (Score:3, Insightful)
Compare with 19th C England (Score:5, Interesting)
The main result was the decline of new invention and improvement originating out of England and a surge of advancement of invention in the US.
(England continued to 'coast' as a world power by expending its capitol (i.e.: the empire) for another 50 - 100 years before precipitous decline was obviously evident.)
"mickey mouse"-right (Score:3, Interesting)
The major problem is (Score:5, Interesting)
The person who created the work should retain all rights to the work. Not some global megacorp that can monopolize on the giant mass of copyrights they have bought or taken from employees.
If you can only monopolize what you have actually created then the power and wealth would be spread much more evenly. An individual is normally much more likely to license or sell a product at a reasonable price.
The idea that a corporation has the rights of a person but no way to be held accountable for its actions was not taken into account when these laws were passed or when the US Constitution was originally written to grant copyright.
IMHO, returning a corporation to its original status of a group of accountabe individuals with individual rights and copyrights, rather than the current status of an untouchable person, would correct many of our current problems.
IP policing == offshoring has precedents (Score:5, Interesting)
Eventually people got sick of it and moved to the other side of the country & got on with it unmolested.
Current US IP laws are a significant incentive to move any business involved in the creation of IP offshore.
I suspect in a hundred yeasr noone other thana few historians will know why it is that the biotech or IT industry is centered on, say, Australia or India or Marituis and that it once was centered in the US.
Re:Academia .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or did you think all free software has been developed by a bunch of teenage hackers?
Re:bad for economy too (Score:3, Interesting)
All the major corporations are moving their operations to overseas . . .
Corporations are not moving their operations overseas because of IP issues. They still have to sell their wares in the US, which would still hold them liable for IP compliance. So I can't see how parent is so insightful.
Corporations move overseas to avoid paying higher taxes and higher wages. Since higher wages are an issue, perhaps over-unionization and price floors on wages are more to blame?
Re:bad for economy too (Score:5, Interesting)
Trying to own and sell automation using barcodes (the concept, not the product) is viewed by most as open seas type piracy. One of the major bar code manufactures was sued for patent infringement for providing factory automation solutions which used barcodes with a workflow database. Somehow someone thought the concept of tracking with a database and barcodes instead of hand entry was a violation of IP. It got thrown out (thank goodness). Unfortunately more and more stuff is being tyed up in a concept as IP rights, not product rights. This started with songwriters as far as I can tell. A band records a song. I respect their recording. Another band sings their song (produces new product). They can either pay for what they produced or are prohibited from distributing or performing it in public. Somehow this seems wrong to lots of people.
Imagine if the concept were copied to the building industry. Someone makes nails. Someone else makes screws. Someone else makes glue. Someone makes 2X4's. They all patent the idea. Do you know the problems this would create for the building industry. Screws and screwdrivers only from International Fastener, Nails only from National Wire, 2X4's only from Georga Pacific.. etc. Some in the fastener industry have already done some of this. Posi-drive screws, Torx tm., etc.
Building materials are much cheaper if there is not a single vendor choice. Market forces set prices.
I see Open Source, Creative Commons, Public Domain, and the internet as a great equalizer. We just have to wean ourselves off the **AA licensed stuff. Tonight I was downloading free Public Domain radio programs. Laurel and Hardy, Fibber McGee, and Jack Benny are great alternitves to much of the high priced stuff. Don't pirate. Shop for the deals. They are out there.
There are lots of sites dedicated to collecting the material, selling or trading for very reasonable prices. Why can't BMI, Capitol, etc. sell MP3 CD's full of over 20 year old stuff for $5 each? You just can't tell me it's the cost of production and distribution. They would rather sell a couple of copies of $100 CD collections of old stuff than sell thousands at $5. They are also unwilling to use MP3's. Funny but the competion is using MP3's. All the radio programms I downloaded tonight are unencumbered MP3's. They will work in my MP3 CD player unlike what they are selling.
Do a search of Old Time Radio MP3's. You can literaly get days worth of material on MP3 CD's for under $10. Hey RIAA, are you listening? Want to sell from your old catalog? Naw, they would rather sit on their archive while I shop the competion. Their artificaly scarce material is being diluted by the competion. Piracy isn't their only competion. Games, movies, Public domain, Creative Commons, and freebies are their competion. Killing piracy won't make it go away.
Re:bad for economy too (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, consider the possibility that the same process was independently developed. Is it still "theft"? It doesn't map as easily onto property law now, does it? Yet independently developing a process which happens to be covered by a patent is still a breach of patent law.
Not FUD, You're Just On A Different Subject (Score:4, Insightful)
Egads, you people can be really bizarre.
Why is the grandparent FUD? Because you decided to start a different argument? Just because there are jobs NOW - which is what you said - doesn't mean there will be the same types of jobs in the FUTURE - which is what the grandparent said.
No, the grandparent is making a prediction. Perhaps it's a weak one, but you didn't argue that. You didn't argue with the poster at all. In fact, you started a whole different subject. Please, if you're going to try and refute someone's predictions, think through the post before you do it and make sure you're at least talking about the same thing the person you're trying to refute was.
Re:bad for economy too (Score:4, Insightful)
In any case, it seems to me that IP laws are "good" for the movie and recording industries in the US, and that is why the US is so hell-bent on enforcing their IP laws on other countries. I think it was Marx that said Capitalism is Imperialism. In my books, IP laws are just another weapon on that front.
world's largest exporter (Score:5, Informative)
1,163,548,552,000 imported and
693,257,300,000 exported and thats a difference of
-470,291,252
how does that help the situation??
cite- http://ese.export.gov/SCRIPTS/hsrun.exe/Distribut
remove spaces as necassary
Re:In a hypothetical world (Score:5, Insightful)
It'd be funny if it happened, even as a marketing ploy.
You mean it hasn't happened already ?, all i can hear on the big radio stations and tv are "professional kareoke people" aka "manufactured pop" singing a bad cover of a song that another band from 1980 wrote (inspired by a 1970's band) because the record company can't be bothered to nurture real talent because they now deem its too financially "risky" better to go with what we know right ?
now as a result you have the odd phenomonon of "manufactured garage bands" as in bands that are designed to look like "real" bands (like in the pub/club variety) but really they are completly assembled by a marketing team and dont usually write/play their music (meaning covers) or subcontract it out to "real" songwriters all because "real talent" is too risky
so yep im pretty convinced thats it !, you have heard it all, for the rest of your life you are going to listen to basically the same songs from the same 60-90 eras repeaded ad infinitum, until you end up hating that song and can no longer tolerate it, if its a bad song tough shit, it will be played to you regardless until you do like/buy it (if you play something enough for long enough they will like it MTV method)
same goes for movies too, have all the tales really all been told ? i could go on but i won't, looking at the this centuries film output and what they are planning in the future, i don't hold a lot of confidence.
marketing is clever at being stupid