The Case Against Intellectual Property 243
dhilvert writes "David Levine and Michele Boldrin argue that current IP laws encourage an inefficient rent model and stifle the potential for innovation without intellectual monopoly. Levine teaches at UCLA and maintains an Economic and Game Theory page."
I suppose its a precarious balance (Score:1)
Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents. (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, the 'breast cancer gene' has been patented, the harvard mouse too; not to mention all of the computer algorithims that are patented. Whatever happened to the notion that mathematics and science should be shared with everyone? The scientific community has functioned on the 'open source' model for hundreds of years, but it seems that thanks to the concept of 'intelectual property' this is all changeing.
Really, I mean some of these patent claims are analogous to Newton/Leibnits attempting to patent calculus or Feynmann trying to patent his discoveries in quantum electrodynamics.The point is when does intelectual property become a rediculous concept, or is it a rediculous concept from the very begining?
Re:Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents. (Score:4, Insightful)
Now the very definition means you can't even copy, use, view, or even talk about something if you do not have a license to do it. You should be able to ask Kinko's to copy a copyrighted photo for your daughters elementary school product. The copyright system was created for this and now you can not.
With patenting something physical is one thing because you can see how it works but patenting something virtual like software which is required to access something is totally different. I feel Microsoft's move with palladium and patenting drm is bad. Not only is the information not publicly shared but it will lock every computer to only Microsoft so they can kill competition and raise prices.
Re:Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents. (Score:1)
To me thats like claiming I have the rights to indoor plumbing because my great-great grandpa did it, and I have proof. Only thing it would take is an investment in Congress to get my law passed and I could maybe make a nickel a flush.
Re:Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is what I meant by patening a means to access. Patening the internet or plumbing is an example of this. This brings in shitloads of money and this is why there is a contest in corporate America to patent something first before your competitors do so. A structure or algorithm should not be patented because they are used to access data or be used in a method to access the data.
This kind of patenting should be illegal wether its prior art or not. That in return would kill software patents as well as drug companies patenting genes.
You think patenting software is evil, then you know nothing of the horrors of the drug and bio-engineering market which is price gouging. IT makes Enron look ethical.
Software is scary because its not real but virtual. No one can make a compatible system if something is closed. Any physical object can be examined if its patented but not software unless its opened. OLE and DCOM is what is keeping Microsoft a monopoly. Because their products are virtual no one but Microsoft knows the inept details about them. Everyone else only knows how to use them and not build a competitor.
Re:Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents. (Score:5, Insightful)
And it scares the kerpookie out of me.
No matter how you design or code anything, you are sure to step on something someone has documented. I mostly do analog design.. now there are several circuit topologies for switching power supply design.. but are any of them safe to use outside of an academic lab? Or as mentioned, can one even use a quicksort algorithm without the risk of the letter in the mail? What if I use a m-way search tree in a custom mini-database which keeps track of some activities my robots are doing... can I expect somewhere someone is going to see I am using an m-way tree and hold my company ransom for it?
I can only imagine what it is like in the biochemical industry. I have seen my share of organic synthesis books.. and how similar organic molecules are. You can darned interpret anything you want if you get Congress to back your patent. Its like coming to the building industry because they used copper wire, copper pipe, bricks, nails, whatever in the construction of the building, and you have your lawyers hold them hostage for it.
Scary indeed...
But then my great hope is the Chinese. Hopefully they will look at us and learn. They will be able to innovate and construct and hopefully use their resources for production instead of litigation. It won't bode well over here in the States, but then Congress may have another thing to consider, how do you control the masses of people once they have lost their homes and no longer have money or jobs to pay rent. I do not like to be a fat man in the presence of hordes of hungry wolves.
Re:Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents. (Score:2)
Sorry, I don't understand. How do the IP laws in place in Western economies constitute shooting oneself in the foot?
Capitalism works best in an expanding market. We have very few frontiers left. The very depths of the ocean (hard to reach, unlikely to be colonized), space beyond Earth orbit (same as the ocean only orders of magintude more difficult). That leaves the intellectual frontiers.
The problems there are manyfold. Important fundamental ideas are being patented (in spite of the fact that they're not supposedly patentable), legal con men submarine patents as traps, then lay in wait for an unsuspecting successful inventor to step in it. The cost of patent litigation is too high for any but multinational corporations to take part.
One of the more grievous violations of patent law today is the patent office itself. A patent is supposed to express the reduction of an idea to practice in such a way that a person in that field of ordinary skill could implement the patent. Many patents today are so foggy that a person in the field of ordinary skill would be lucky to be able to determine that the patent IS in his field, much less implement it.
In other words, so many leeches, cons, and cheats (aided and abetted by the U.S. and other patent offices) that it's getting more and more difficult and (financially) dangerous to bring a new product or service to market and keep us expanding on the intellectual frontier.
From a standpoint of ethics or 'what's right', while it is wrong that a person might have a good idea, work hard, and have it stolen, it's equally bad that a person can have an idea, work hard to develop it, and then be told that because someone else already had the idea and told nobody (except the patent office), and then did practically no work at all 'owns' their idea and there's nothing they can do about it. This is particularly grievous when it is clear that the patent holder had no real idea how to implement the patent, but it will cost millions in court to prove it.
The result? Economic stagnation and further loss of respect for government, law, and courts. In short, we shoot ourselves in the foot.
Practical? (Score:2)
However, if you tried to sell your database software you would have to do an exhaustive search to find out if any of the subroutines employed were previously patented.
What made the authors of patent law believe that this would be practical?
Re:Practical? (Score:3, Interesting)
If the trend had kept going we'd be at over 100 million now, but (as all of us on /. know) the Patent Office can't keep up with the applications. Also, patents went out of fashion in mid-century (possibly due to public distrust of monopolies, as well as the depression) and didn't come back in until the US started to deal with real international competition in the 70s.
Re:Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents. (Score:2)
However, if you tried to sell your database software you would have to do an exhaustive search to find out if any of the subroutines employed were previously patented.
Not so fast! We will grant for the sake of argument that the search is actually possible and it's results certain (good luck!).
Now, what about all those pending applications (not public, not searchable at all). Was a relevant patent applied for yesterday? Last week? 10 years ago? You will never know for sure. However, if you are successful based on your idea, you can bet that if the patent WAS applied for, the applicant will hit you up for millions as soon as it is approved. If you survive that, you STILL won't know if there are more pending patents lurking out there.
Re:Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents. (Score:1, Insightful)
Having said that, I think current IP laws probably go too far. I think a balance is needed between encouraging people (writers, artists, programmers) to produce IP and allowing them to keep a stranglehold over it for obscene lengths of time.
Incidentally, Palladium is basically the MS implementation of the TCPA proposals (though not entirely in line with the TCPA specs, which are still evolving). If the TCPA is able to establish open standards for trusted computing, and MS uses them, there's no lock-in. That's why I think it's important to support the TCPA and ensure it's implemented on more than one platform.
Re:Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know when the IP-seeking behavior began in academia (I haven't been in it long enough to pontificate about the "old days). Perhaps it has always been there, and people were simply much more discrete about their patent filings.
Some of the patent drive may be related to the "publish-or-perish" mentality that exists at many larger universities. Aside from generating prestige and name-recognition, having a nice fat generating-income-for-the-university patent out there could do wonders for your chances of being granted tenure. Then again, it might also be a transparent attempt to financially rest on one's laurels, as it were.
Re:Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents. (Score:3, Insightful)
1) This is a good thing, it fosters research and brings money back to the University creating a cycle of innovate-to-profit.
2) The entire idea of allowing someone else to lock up knowledge invented on the public dime is repulsive and even if it HAS icreased tech-transfer rates and numbers of patents filed (and I've yet to figure out why that, in and of itself, is a goal) this is certainly no direct measure of increased INNOVATION.
Personally I think it was a terrible thing. It let the federal and state governments cut funding to major universities virtually in lock-step w/ the amount of cash those universities were bringing in with tech-transfer revenue. This creates a desperate cycle of invention-for-survival and patents and tech-transfers for cash, NOT for science.
Ick.
-j
Re:Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents. (Score:5, Insightful)
That is a really difficult question. At what point does an algorithm become a mathematical equation. At what point does patenting it become a detriment to society.
To use medical stuff as a starting point the theory (and it is well played out in reality) is that the development cost is huge, manufacturing cost is tiny - same is true in CS. In order for them to recoupe costs (and therefore make them want to do the research) they are given a period of unilateral controll of sales. In the end it drives progress, for a few years only a select few get the rewards, in the long run the poorest are extremely elevated.
Software, unfortunatly, does not have the much harder line that a pill does (not really a physical product from quicksort). Is a windowing system patentable? is Quicksort?
Ultimatly the question is "does this help advance society". We, in many cases, are quite capable of answering this question. That question is supposed to be the job of the courts or the patent office. Unfortunatly they want an expert system type of decision making. A simple yes/no based on a simple given input written in a few pages of documentation. Patenting online sales in our current date is idiotic, but it passes thier simple "yes/no algorithm". Patenting a new extremely low latency/high throughput network interconnect is patentable (and really should be).
The next question is length of patents. In our industry a 5 year patent is really "in the past" let alone our current patent system. If you can't make a profit in 5 years in CS a ten year patent will not make you a profit, nor will a longer one. On the other hand it seriously dampens societies progress.
Patents are supposed to be, and should be, a balance between the need of society to benefit from advances in tech, and the people who invented the tech (or corperation) need to profit from the tech. When one is given great priority over the other the system gets screwed. It generally takes a person, capable of rational thought, to find that line, not a simple "yes/no" solution. Plus they need to realise the line is not necessarily in the same place each time (and some may disagree), that is why there is such a thing as "comprimise" (which is where neither side is happy, and neither side is greatly unhappy
Re:Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents. (Score:2, Interesting)
There's where I disagree. Research is supposed to be about simply learning more - knowing new stuff. It's not supposed to be about recouping costs or producing sales. Maybe it's changing due to acadamia being commoditized or simply selling-out, but I think it's fundamentally wrong.
Sales can be produced through application of research. I don't think a gene in-itself should be able to be patented, but a product doing something neat with it sure can. You want to use knowledge to make money, you have to do something, not just know something.
The intangibility of thought or IP is a major problem. Every heard of the hundred monkeys experiment? Basically it illustrates that once enough people (monkeys) know how to do something, then eveyrone knows. The concept of "owning" an idea is broken from the start.
The OpenSource movement illustrates the problem with IP laws quite well; People work better feeding off of each others ideas and energy. Competition is good, but it really works better with free information exchange - otherwise there's too much wheel reinvention going on. And with IP laws, when you do reinvent that wheel, you'll probably wind up in court!
Re:Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents. (Score:5, Interesting)
In the case of patents there is a benefit if allowing patents has a result of inventions being available to society faster and more ubiquitously than they would otherwise be. That's a good idea for things that take a long time to develop and are unlikely to be independently developed by many different inventors. However, when the patent office allows 'trivial' patents, the result instead is that something that would have been freely and ubiquitously available for everyone, due to the ease of which it can be invented as need arises, is instead that society as a whole and other independent inventors are deprived of the use of that invention for a certain time.
What I'd like to see in the patent system would be a kind of brainstorming. When a patent is applied for, the problem the patent is intended to solve has to be posed (in engineering terms). A group of 5-10 engineers who are well versed in the field of the patent gets a day each (or in a group) to figure out possible solutions to the problem. If anyone comes up with a solution close to the patent the invention is declared trivial and unpatentable, and the solution and any other ideas the engineers have are entered in a database as prior unpatentable art, against which any further patent applications are compared for triviality.
Such a solution would probably be rather personell intensive in the beginning, but as the database evolves and more one-click shopping solutions get dumped on application there would probably be a sharp drop in frivolous patent applications and the system could go back to what it was supposed to be in the first place.
Re:Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents. (Score:2)
You'd also need qualified people to both express the problem in the appropriate terms (which would soon put a stop to applications attempting make up their own jargon to make something appear "innovative"). Also you need experts to make the judgement as to if something is similar enough, including checking a database.
Trivial patents ... (Score:2)
Re:Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents. (Score:2)
However, you misinterpret me a bit, I think. By society I dont mean socialism, I mean the individual voters together as a whole. Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness are quite often are in the voters interest, and thus in the interest of society as a whole.
However laws, like patent laws, that take from every individual to give to one certain member of society may not be in the interest of society. Unless they have some really good side effects, which is becoming more and more dubious with patent laws.
Re:Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents. (Score:2)
Just being a little pedantic myself.
But it applies to the topic. Laws should benefit everyone equally. When IP laws are fair and equitable, they benefit me even if I never personally create anything original, by encouraging the sharing of innovation and creativity. As these laws stand now, they benefit a small segment of society to the detriment of most others.
In South Africa, they had a version of land rights that benefited a small group of people to the detriment of the rest. Current IP laws are like that.
Prior Art (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents. (Score:2, Interesting)
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
The concept is very noble and sound. It's the implementation that's been screwed.
The US Constitution clearly states that IP Laws have to serve particular purpose, whereas today IP Laws implementation treats them almost as property laws without regard of the delicate balance between the rights of said Authors and the society.
(other countries have less clear and thoght out basis for IP Laws and yet they manage to deliver better ``deal'')
Robert
"the industry would be at a complete standstill" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents. (Score:2)
Re:Disregard the post above. (Score:2)
For me, it's enough just to chortle smugly to myself, secure in the knowledge of my own superiority to the spelling and grammer impaired. But then, I realize that pointing things like that out in public makes me look more like a pedantic asshat than an intellectual.
Now, publicly pointing out what pedantic asshats grammer nazis are, THAT makes me look good.
IP (Score:2, Funny)
It's even worse now... (Score:5, Insightful)
IOW, lawyers chose to instititionalize s/w patents in spite of strong protests from individuals throughout the software industry.
From that point on, it has been accepted that lawyers have the right to reap profits and taxes off of so-called innovation in software. It's a huge inefficiency, impossible to enforce, and impossible for anyone to prove virtually any software is unencumbered by patent conflicts. It's ridiculous.
The USPTO loves it though. They just increased their staff to handle their backlog which will forever increase since software patents are prolific and easily twisted into patent submissions.
Better yet, lawyers are having a heyday. The more lawsuits, the better. They get wealthy while the software industry grinds to a halt. It's obscene and a severe conflict of interest that they should have instituted s/w patents over all reason from the s/w industry itself.
I'm not even sure it's legal. I wonder what authority the USPTO head, Bruce Lehmann, really had. Was he appointed, and by whom? He certainly wasn't a member of Congress where laws should be created.
S/w patents should be abolished.
Re:It's even worse now... (Score:2, Interesting)
IIRC Edison did a lot of research including about 1000 attempts to get the light bulb to work properly. He then found that most of the work was prior art except for one patentable item. He then found that this had been patented about four years earlier.
I'm all for software patents
When IBM introduced the PC it was described as "the trailing edge of technology." Most innovation in this area since has avoided the patent route.
The two examples above suggest there is a fundamental problem with the granting of patents as a public good. Given that the European Community has distanced itself from software patents, the big question is this: Will software innovation in the EC now exceed that of the USA?
Re:It's even worse now... (Score:5, Insightful)
But isn't this the US all over? I know you must be sick and tired of hearing being the most litigatious society etc - but don't think it's just limited to IP.
You want to talk about wolves guarding the henhouse? How many politicians used to be lawyers?
-- james
Re:It's even worse now... (Score:3, Funny)
Talk about living in a hell of your own making.
And when politicians are *not* lawyers. . . (Score:2)
There's a certain sense in lawyers serving in the body that creates law. Lawyers understand law, the philosophy, the coherence, the limitations, etc..
Of course, they're also a closed trade guild.
Not every theory is perfect.
KFG
Re:It's even worse now... (Score:3, Interesting)
What is happening in law and IP today is structurally and materially no different from what happened in the technology industry after about 1994. It's an orgy on a new profit source. It's a bubble. There will be a lot of mid-level or worse IP lawyers who get very, very wealthy for a few years, and then the bubble will burst.
Lawyers are almost always 5-10 years behind major trends, and this is no exception.
C'mon, are you going to attack the lawyers for getting rich off of software patents but excuse the VC who gave money to (and profited from) etaxidermy.com or some such stupid thing? The lawyer's no better than the money-hungry bubble riders of the last decade, but he's no worse either.
Perhaps some lawyers are in a better position to manipulate the system than the average technology worker, but that's not a conclusive argument. There are plenty of technology leaders who can manipulate their systems and force us consumers to buy overpriced merchandise with questionable technical merit (cell phones, until recently, fell into this category; POTS companies as well).
Do I think IP is over-litigated? Yes. Do I think there are thousands of useless patents that stifle innovation? Hell yes. Do I think it will last forever? Nope.
But you need to remember something. The USPTO is incredibly picky and self-protective. To sit for the patent bar, you have to have an undergraduate degree in physics, chemistry, biology, etc. I do not believe CS is eligible. So, the USPTO is filled with people who know a lot about physics and chemistry, but next to nothing about software and computers. And they're issuing the patents.
If you want to lash out at anybody, lash out at the stodgy and overly-permissive USPTO rather than the lawyers who are getting rich off of their ignorance. (Ok, lash out at the lawyers too, but recognize that they're just hitting an opportunity, not - entirely - making it.)
Re:It's even worse now... (Score:2)
Worse, how many of them are trial lawyers, like Democrat presidential candidate Senator Edwards [nationalreview.com]? These lawyers are so out of control that doctors are going on strike [yahoo.com] to protest the resulting six-figure malpractice insurance premiums. The loot from lawsuits bankrolls an awful lot of politicians, though, so I expect things to keep getting worse for quite a bit longer.
This is a joke . . . (Score:2)
Blame --at least in part-- the clients who decide that the upside of the litigation (or its favorable resolution) outweighs those fees, and the lawmakers who decided that the bases for that litigation do serve the policy interests of our nation, notwisthanding the minority opinion of these economists.
So mistaken, th USPTO never did such a thing . . . (Score:2)
Indeed, the USPTO for years opposed software patents, and regularly rejected blatant claims to algorithms as a matter of course. It was the Supreme Court in Diamond v. Diehr, reversing a USPTO ruling, and then later the Federal Circuit, reversing USPTO decisions in cases like In re Alapatt, and then later in State Street Bank and the AT&T cases, that determined the present state of software patents.
Some people will just blame the lawyers as a matter of ideological course -- and nothing will stop that. But here the "blame" (or praise) is not due to lawyers or the PTO -- blame this one entirely on the Congress and the courts.
IP is Efficient (Score:4, Insightful)
IP Goes too far (Score:4, Interesting)
Where to protect your rights and inventions you must sue people and protect them under a situation of IP laws that are too old now
Whatever happened to the idea of 'a good name'. A company could live off of its good name and good will by being well known and respected because of it their actions. If they truly have good IP then they will be respected for inventing it and earn more in other areas
that to me and mindshare is worth more than copywriting their invebntions and just making forceful noises about people paying them for it.
note:the slashdot user 'danamania' is a transexual. beware of him
Peeing in the Hot Tub (Score:2)
It is WAY too easy to secure credit. How many companies go Chapter 11/13 after going on a buying binge? And how many markets did the decimate in the process? How many companies only clue to stop borrowing is when bamks won't give them any more money?
We need to get ourselves, as a culture, to view debt as a vulgar, distateful way of life and doing business.
Here we go again... (Score:4, Insightful)
Before people post "Burn down the IP laws!", make sure you have a valid alternative that comes some way toward protecting the rights of creative people.
As a model for handling commercial rights, which not too many creative people seem to mind having, intellectual property laws are not a perfect construction. Especially now we are trying to stretch paper rights around a digital wordl. But to the distant cousins of anarchists would like to see the whole system trashed (because destroying things feels good):
Go and read Animal Farm and construct a good alternative before you go starting a revolution.
Cheers, and good luck
Did you actually READ the paper? BOTH chapters? (Score:2)
Re:Here we go again... (Score:1)
Re:Here we go again... (Score:4, Interesting)
The current system of monoplies is way too powerful for my taste.
Re:Here we go again... (Score:1)
- What if the program you wrote has 21 features that are protected by different patents?
- Even more troubling: What about free software?
(I believe those are also some of the arguments used by Stallman in "The Danger of Software Patents")
Re:Here we go again... (Score:2)
Then the inventors split the 5% between them.
- Even more troubling: What about free software?
I don't really agree with patents on most software- it's too obvious for words 98% of the time, but I guess this will sort itself out in the long run when most of the obvious things are patented, or the patent office gets beaten with a clue stick.
Yes, you don't want people deliberately 'open sourcing' patented technology (5% of nothing is still nothing). We could have a statutary minimum sum per implementation of a patent, to avoid this issue. But the IP owner could always wave any royalties if they agree with it being open sourced of course.
Re:Here we go again... (Score:2)
Of course you'd make sure to infringe on all your friends stuff as well (and them on yours). You could probably get it down to less than the cost of mailing the cheque given enough stupid patents.
Re:Here we go again... (Score:2)
Two things:
a) I didn't say that it would be equal shares for every patent used; that doesn't work.
b) adding useless stuff to your product makes it more expensive to make. If you overdo it; you lose more than the 5%. Also, the law courts start to weigh in at some point; if you've obviously just stuffed a patent in for no reason then they can take a dim view, and withhold payment.
Re:Here we go again... (Score:2)
Yes. That's life I guess. ;-( I'm unconvinced that abolishing patents entirely are a good thing- it means that rich people like Bill Gates can steal _anything_.
Huh? I don't see how that's going to happen.
Well, if it really was that obvious in which case the courts will likely find in your favour. Otherwise, it comes back into the public domain in the long run anyway after 15-25 years. It's a bit of a git I know, but in the long run, patents expire.
Re:OK, here's an alternative. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:OK, here's an alternative. (Score:2)
They feel that it's ok to extend copyright terms in order to protect "Disney" despite the fact that the man stopped breathing decades ago. They can never say just how long they think the term should be, just that "Mickey Mouse should always be exclusively Disney". Arguments about Cinderella, the wheel, fire, etc. just bounce off.
It seems that many intelligent people just haven't thought this all the way through. Mickey mouse in the public domain is dissonant to them so they accept the alternative without considering the side effects.
Re:Computer programs aren't everything (Score:2)
The revolution has already been fought (Score:2)
As such it isn't necessary to construct a good alternative. One of the great legal and socio-political minds of the ages has done that for us already.
His name? Thomas Jefferson. The founding father of American intellectual property.
"Intellectual Property" does not exist. You can't find it, or make it, or put it in a safe and guard it with a pointy stick like you can "real" property.
It's an abstract concept *created* by the laws of man. Created *specifically* so that it didn't simply rot and die in its creator's jealous little head. Created, primarily, for the good of *society.*
Jefferson did a damned fine job of creating it, and we've been pissing in the pool for generations now.
No, we don't need a revolution. We merely need to step back to that time just after the revolution had been won.
If it takes a revolution to do that, well, I guess that second ammendment thingy makes sense after all.
KFG
You have not misinterpreted my thought (Score:2)
http://cti.itc.virginia.edu/~meg3c/classes/tcc3
KFG
Re:Here we go again... (Score:2)
What do you do as a programmer at an 'IP firm', program bots that spew reams of ridiculously obvious variations on standard business practices to be submitted as patent applications?
Re:Here we go again... (Score:2)
Not sure why you think Animal Farm is very relevant to the keeping or discarding of IP cartels.
Are you suggesting somehow that the patent system is fundamental to democracy? I hope you are not that confused.
Re:Here we go again... (Score:2)
Before people post "Burn down the IP laws!", make sure you have a valid alternative that comes some way toward protecting the rights of creative people.
What makes you think that the current system does that? Copyright law was designed to protect publishers, and IP laws in general don't work unless you have a pile of money to pay lawyers.
I don't want to eliminate Copyright and patent law, but I do want to limit severely what they cover and how low they last.
Re:Here we go again... (Score:2)
The whole point of this discussion is that a persons "rights" aren't perfectly clear and certainly aren't recognized as natural rights. If you're in the United States nothing in the constitution protects your ability to claim copyright. The constitution allows congress to create copyright, but congress is free to revoke copyright just as easily. Your belief that a creator has some sort of fundamental right to control how a work he sold is used it a huge assumption. If I make a chair and sell it, the buyer is free to make copies. If I make a program and sell it, the buyer isn't free to make copies? Why? Just because it's easy to copy to the software, but hard to copy the chair?
Yes, perhaps a world with intellectual property would destroy jobs and certain ways of making money. But many people would argue that new jobs and ways to make money will crop up. Even today musicians often make the majority of their money from concerts. Businesses will still need software, they can funnel their software budget to develop it themselves (or perhaps pool it with other businesses who desire similar software). The world would be different. Perhaps certain careers would not longer be possible. It would be a shame, but it's also a shame that telegraph operators and elevator operators lost their jobs. The world adapts, and to assume that you have some fundamental right to make money a particular way is insane.
Personally I like intellectual property laws in theory, but our current set of laws are too powerful and last too long. But I can see that there are reasonable arguments against any IP.
Yes, current patent laws suck. (Score:3, Interesting)
Or that both parties have too many lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Or that both parties have too many lawyers (Score:2)
Bah. (Score:1, Insightful)
Just watch. Intellectual property will be the first to go. Then personal property, then private property. All land and all items will be owned by an oligarchy of megacorps, and most if not all personal freedoms will not even be a memory, as revisionist history will be rewritten to make the times we have now seem like the dark ages. Dissidents will be jailed and executed. Freedom will be a thing of the past. The country will OWN you, and you will be a slave to your corporate government.
Lawyer Fodder (Score:5, Insightful)
Does this really protect the individual who actually *invented* something or protect the ones who say they have the rights to it and have the resources to protect it.
The post before mine recognizing Newton/Leibnitz and the possiblilty of "patenting" calculus drives the point home.
This seems to me just to be another excuse not to work. My whole country seems to be doing this. It seems everyone is out not to produce anything per se, but to tie up anybody trying to do anything and exact a fee. Somehow this system passes as "free enterprise".
Now, if the patent protection lasted for seven years or so, I would consider it much more appropriate. That way one could profit during the market window, but not tie the works up in perpetuity.
Re:Lawyer Fodder (Score:3, Funny)
I am a patent attorney, and I am dismayed by the anti-lawyer comments this thread has generated. "Contrived to feed lawyers"???!!! HOW DARE YOU!!!
The comments I've read seem to divide humans into two broad groups, lawyers and people. Hey, I'm a person too! In fact, most patent attorneys I know are neither evil nor interesting. Ever see a prime time drama about PATENT lawyers?? Damn right!
I wish I knew where to start refuting all this negativity, but I haven't the foggiest. Just because you're right doesn't make it hurt any less.
Won't anybody give a poor lawyer a break?
You might want to look up the Seldon patents too (Score:5, Insightful)
So he filed a patent on the *idea,* and got it.
The fight between him and Henry Ford is one of the great sagas of intellectual property dispute in any nation. The patent was eventually broken, but not until after many, many years of courtroom fighting had passed, and millions of dollars such fighting takes to wage had passed from the hands of innovators into the hands of lawyers.
The Wright Bros. invented flight. Then they made sure that America became the absolute *last* in aero technology through patent fights. By the time we entered WWI, hardly more than a decade after that first flight at Kitty Hawk, America had to license aero technology from Europe in order to be competitive in the military aeronautics.
The Europeans either outright ignored the Wright Bros. patents, or found work arounds they could claim didn't violate them.
KFG
Re:You might want to look up the Seldon patents to (Score:2)
No shit. However if the latter is true, then one must question why no American aviation company was able to work around said patents.
Because. . . (Score:2)
European companies got to test the validity of their work arounds in *European* courts, which is also where the Wright Bros. would have to file.
Makes a big difference, especially in a time when war was a nearly a foregone conclusion, let alone after the war started, at which time all bets were off and all courts and civil law were entirely irrelevant.
KFG
It's not just IP (Score:5, Insightful)
Marconi vs Tesla (Score:5, Interesting)
Read this:
PBS, Who invented Radio? [pbs.org]Its about how Tesla filed for patent on the radio in 1897, Marconi applied for his patent in 1900.
Marconi's patents were thrown out at first. Marconi became rich and powerful, then Tesla's patents were thrown out in place of Marconi's.
So you end up with a market in which the patent owner isn't the inventor and the whole purpose of patents - to reward the inventor, is turned on its head.
You can see the same pattern happening in software patents and the constant requests on Slashdot for prior art.
Re:Marconi vs Tesla (Score:4, Informative)
Also see: NIKOLA TESLA 1856 - 1943 FORGOTTEN AMERICAN SCIENTIST [concentric.net]
The above page is in co-operation with Yale Scientific Magazine, who has this story: To the Smithsonian or Bust: The Scientific Legacy of Nikola Tesla [yale.edu]
Nice to see some validation (Score:2, Insightful)
But it would be more efficient to go after corruption. It's the root cause of failure for systems other than the IP system. Also, if you don't go after general corruption
You remove the top of a wart, and its roots will bring forth another wart. Over and over again. Eventually, you have to go through some trouble and dig out the roots before the area can finally heal properly.
The whole difficulty of corruption in government is they write the rules of the game. And as you follow the rules of the game to eliminate corruption, you might find some difficulty.
I'm still counting on the Enron anamolies to bring about some change. Sooner or later people will have to realize this is not currently a society where everyone plays by the same set of rules.
Seems a weakened effort for people to run around trying correct various symptoms of the disease when they might make a more powerful and unified stance against the root cause of many of the problems. The corruption. Shouldn't be to hard to find a govt sector to begin with here in the US. Just pick..anywhere.
YES! YES! YES! And complexity == corruption (Score:2)
Ending the double-tax on dividends will have a positive (though lesser) effect too: dividend payouts force discipline (can't fake cold hard cash). Plus it'll make it easier to raise capital with equity instead of debt, which will be a big help to manufacturers, which will be a big help to my home state of Michigan. One very smart thing: the double-tax is only dropped on income that was taxed to begin with. Play Enron games and tax shelter your income and ending the double-tax does you no good at all.
Fix the above two and IP laws become a much more exposed target for change. Technically the order they're tackled in doesn't matter, but I think changing IP laws will be the hardest (hardly anyone deals with IP laws directly but everyone deals with the tax code), so from a practical perspective we should deal with the tax code induced corruption first.
Adam Smith and *Intellectual monopoly* (Score:5, Informative)
From The Relevance of Adam Smith [frb.org] by Robert L. Hetzel.
With added commentary by yours truly...
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
For example, Microsoft's Internet Explorer containscurrently 20 unpatched vulnerabilities [pivx.com] , a disproportionately high number in comparison to all the other browers on the market today. Also, because of a general disregard for security in the past, many of those same vulnerabilities are exploitable though other Microsoft applications.
And there is many a CIO discovering that the new Microsoft enterprise licensing agreement is far more expensive than before.
The next section is very IMPORTANT.
In fact, the term "intellectual property" is a misnomer, a more correct term would be intellectual monopoly. Patents, Copyrights and even Trademarks are a government granted monopoly, they do not occur naturally. That does not mean that they are a bad thing per-say, but their use should be dictated by the benefit to socitety in general, with approprate limits so their use cannot be abused.
These statutes give the power that the ol' Mercantile laws gave to those monopolies. There is no true effective choice in the market. Compainies like Microsoft are sustaining it's dominate position in the markerplace by using a state-constructed and granted monopoly, which gives Microsoft the monopoly over it's protocols [microsoft.com] , effectively just as restrictive as the East India Trading Company trading zone monopoly of the Orient.
Let's twist the model. (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course, law suits would spring up as to who should receive the credit and the money, therefore, the only conclusion is to remove patenting. Lawyers would suffer (which is why they should be identified as the corrupt link).
One thing is for certain, patents have nothing to do in the computer world. The younger generation knows this, and it is waiting for the current generation to wither and die.
Why do "we" have to wait until the year 2525 to grasp this?
It could use some fact checking. (Score:4, Informative)
Design patents have a term of 14 years. Utility patents have a term of 20 years from filing. They had it reverse. Also, the current term for copyright is the life of the author plus 70 years, not 50 years--this was changed several years ago (is the piece that old?)--and I believe one of the reasons Disney and others had an excuse to request extensions of copyright law (yea right to "harmonize" the old and new law/copyright term).
That's in the first 4 pages of chapter 1. Perhaps they are typos and not indications of the intellectual rigor that went into the book.
Proactive IP regulation & Patent Busting (Score:5, Interesting)
The solution I'd like to see, instead, would be the government taking a proactive stand. Instead of granting patents and waiting for the mess to sort itself out, I want the government to go out and bust patents. Presidents like to portray themselves as trustbusters; well, "patent cartels" are one large trust that's never been busted. If some technology covered by a patent becomes truly umbiquitous - that is, so widely used that the inventor has ALREADY recouped his R&D investment - I'd like to see the government force the patent into the public domain. Example: CD-ROMs... Philips hold the patent, and has been very generous with it. But the technology protected by that patent is SO widespread that any abuse of the CD-ROM patent would ruin the technology sector. Think of how much some companies (or the RIAA, to supress non-DRM formats) would pay to control that patent - the value is inconceivable.
At this point, CD-ROM technology ceases to be a useful patent and starts to become something that the general public has a vital interest in... and here's the point where the government should "seize" the patent and turn the IP over to the public BEFORE the patent expires of its own accord. A widely used piece of IP (or any of the "obvious" patents we regularly complain about here on Slashdot) has passed the point where the inventors NEED a monopoly to protect their idea and has reached the point where the only purpose of that patent is profit at the expense of the public.
Monopolies are useful, but powerful monopolies are not; patents are useful, but exploitable patents are not. The government has an active role in regulating all other monopolies; it needs to take an active role in regulating IP monopolies as well.
Re:Proactive IP regulation & Patent Busting (Score:2)
Example: CD-ROMs... Philips hold the patent, and has been very generous with it. But the technology protected by that patent is SO widespread that any abuse of the CD-ROM patent would ruin the technology sector. Think of how much some companies (or the RIAA, to supress non-DRM formats) would pay to control that patent - the value is inconceivable.
Sorry, the CR-ROM is an example of the patent system working as designed. If the CD-ROM had already been widespread when philips applied for the patent, you would have a point.
Re:Proactive IP regulation & Patent Busting (Score:2)
The point is that your product hasn't just become successful, it has become completely mainstream. By that point, you've ALREADY sold it to everyone and their dog... You've stopped using your IP to repay R&D investment (it's gotta be almost entirely repaid already - everyone's bought your product!), you have "name brand" recognition that is more valuable than the remaining profits to be had, and the only people you haven't sqeezed yet are the people who are behind the times - and likely don't have the money to catch up anyway. I'm not at all saying you shouldn't profit (you should!), but at some point the government needs to say "enough".
Admittedly, the CD-ROM patent was probably a bad example; it was the first thing that came to mind. How about other patents... the x86 architecture, the PCI bus, the GIF graphics format? The point, as you put it, is "there should be some way to prevent abuse of a patent that has become a mainstream need" - and I have not heard even whispers of such a mechanism. And, the point I raised above: Philips has been very generous with their patent. But if Philips lost control of it... if the restrictions that are on DVDs were to be applied to CD-ROMs as well, where's the line? And, since Philips HAS established the industry standard, do they still need that patent? It's not like anyone else will be duplicating their efforts - any competing technology would fail in the already established market.
Here's probably a better hypothetical example. Coca-Cola and aluminum cans. Coca-Cola has a patent on the formula for their recipie (actually, they don't, but they're willing to risk going without); no one else can produce Coca-Cola-tasting drinks. They raise the price - fine, I'm switching to Pepsi. What about the supplier of all those aluminum cans? If he raises the price, I'm not going to be able to avoid it. And the industry is locked in - they can't afford to revert production to glass bottles when aluminum cans are so widespread. So if that supplier uses his patents to raise the price of aluminum cans, I as the customer get abused. The only good news is that the patent on aluminum cans is (I think) long since expired - or enough of multiple patents are expired that it wouldn't be very expensive to get around the remaining patents.
I probably have more sympathy than you think :). My (late) grandfather held several patents on locks (the circular kind used on good bike U-locks), and did go to court to defend them against reverse-engineering. But here, as I see it, is the deciding factor: are your dad's box designs the industry standard? I.e., if I'm buying a new widget for my car, would I automatically reject any widget that wasn't in your dad's specialty box as inferior? If your dad is using his patents to hold onto a position of sole supplier of widget boxes that the auto industry depends on, I object to the patents. But if the boxes are just a convenience (i.e. they're somewhat cheaper, or they ship better, or they look nicer - but the widget would do just as well sold in a generic box), then your dad has a nice patent and a nice business. Economists call this "price elasticity" and the "substitution effect" - if I raise prices, will you a) switch to another product, or b) have to pass on costs to your customers or go out of business yourself? (a) is a good use of patents (protecting an inventor), (b) is not (exploiting consumers).
A quick test: what if your dad jumped the price of his boxes up by 10? If he goes out of business he's got small but productive patents; if he stays in business but the auto industry raises prices on sold cars by that much, he's abusing his patents. And even if your dad swore he wouldn't raise prices, what's to prevent Acme Monopoly Corp from buying him out, taking over the patent, and raising prices in his stead? The problem isn't patents that can't be abused (probably your dad's); it's the patents that CAN be abused I'm afraid of.
The bad thing with IP patents (Score:4, Insightful)
Amazon's one click nonsense, how was this even patentable? In essense that idea was click a virtual button, and it does something, does that sound innovative? No step in that process was innovative, Amazon, like a million other companies keeps a cookie in your browser, and you're shipping/billing info in their file/database, what was new with that? And yet here we are, patenting these simpleton ideas a retarded chimpanzee could have come up with.
Software techniques should not be patentable on the simple basis that the staff on the USPTO simply seem incompetent, due to no fault of their own, to designate what truly deserves a patent and what is merely an old idea in a new dress. The system is set up by lawyers for lawyers, in the end tilted toward corporations with cash and IP agreements with each other, so the small software development houses can't get in.
Really, Software should not be patentable, at the most, copyrightable in certain aspects, the name, logos, and protected in regards that nobody should be able to legally take the binary and resell it as their own.
But that is about it.... otherwise all you are asking in the future with this so-called 'ip property' is a constant headache with unscrupulous people who are smart enough to patent an idea that has been around for ages and ask enough so you pay them, but don't ask so much that you fight them in court.
Obvious patents = theft (Score:5, Insightful)
Therefore, patent granting should be very restrictive - not like today, when you can patent obvious bits of code, obvious business processes, DNA sequences, the wheel, swings, whatever.
When the patent is obvious, patenting is theft - taking from all and giving to one.
Brilliant observation... (Score:1)
I feel like I should be moderating myself down, but that just could not be less of news.
I have a question no one seems to want to answer (Score:1)
Kickstart
Re:I have a question no one seems to want to answe (Score:2)
The summary for lazy people (Score:5, Informative)
1. Right of sale. If someone has an idea, that person can sell a copy of it to someone else. If someone makes a copy of it and the originator hasn't agreed to sell it, legal action can be taken. Example: An aspiring screenwriter sends a copy of his latest script to a famous director. The director likes it so much that he makes a movie out of it -- without having first acquired the right to use the script's contents. The script's author could sue the director in this case.
2. Intellectual monopoly. The originator of information can decide what others can do with that information once sold. Shrinkwrap software licenses/EULAs are a great example of this.
They argue that right of sale is a good thing because it gives creative people an incentive to produce and some amount of legal protection. They also argue that while intellectual monopoly gives them even more incentive to produce, controlling what people do with information after they have bought it (including making copies for other people) cannot be done without terrible social consequences:
Take the case of slavery. Why should people not be allowed to sign private contracts binding them to slavery? In fact, economists have consistently argued against slavery -- during the 19th century David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill engaged in a heater public debate with literary luminaries such as Charles Dickens -- with the enconomists opposing slavery, and the literary giants arguing in favor. The fact is that our labor cannot be separated from ourselves. For someone else to own our labor requires them to engage in intrusive and costly supervision. Such transaction costs are socially damaging as they imply violation of privacy and essential civil liberties. Hence they are commonly rejected on economic, not just moral, grounds. Moreover, there is no economic reason to allow slavery. With well functioning markets, renting labor is a good substitute for owning it. And so we allow the rental of labor, but not the permanant sale.
For intellectual property we are proposing the reverse: allowing the permanent sale, but not rental. For with intellectual property, posession belongs to the buyer and not to the seller. If you sell me an idea, I now have that idea embodied either in me or an object I own. For you to control the idea requires intrusive and costly supervision. Similarly if you sell me a book, a CD or a computer file. In each case, I have physical control of the item, and you can control its use only through intrusive measures.
I haven't read all of chapter 2 yet, but I'm trying to compromise between providing a decent summary of what's obviously a very insightful text in the hope that people will read it, and not getting buried on the second page where nobody will see the post.
From what I've read so far, this is really good stuff.
reloads (Score:2)
Against intellectual property? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Against intellectual property? (Score:2)
The previous poster wrote:
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition wrote [reference.com]:
I can't see copyright, patent, or trademarks (the big three of intellectual property) as being anything but a monopoly.
Only obscurity should be permitted (Score:4, Insightful)
The only benefit you get should be the time-advantage you have in thinking about it first. Publishing it (Open Source) means you accept to forego the advantage, for common good.
Most people who believe in software patents, do so because of a complex. They can't stand the fact that most people are as intelligent or more so than they are. Since they know that someone else will have that idea, they try to prevent that by patenting it. They preach how patents are required for innovation -- bullsh*t!
That is what destroys inovation IMHO.
Re:Only obscurity should be permitted (Score:2)
First-mover advantage (Score:3, Interesting)
I Am Not An Economist, so the second chapter was challenging for me, I must confess. However, I think I get the gist of the paper's argument. And, if I do, I admit I am (pleasantly) shocked by its "innovative" argument, which opened my eyes somewhat. Of particular interest to the slashdot audience, I believe, is probably the section titled, "The First-Mover Advantage" on pages 24-28 of the second chapter. These first-mover advantages, which the current patent law intends to secure through the granting of temporary monopoly to innovators, all apply in the absence of the IP law.
In other words, absent the present incentive model of temporary monopoly to an innovation, innovators will continue to innovate, given that they can recoup the "sunken cost" of initial research. Am I convinced that the above conditions exist for innovators as "first-movers"? Yes. And, as the paper points out, there might be other ingenious ways to take advantage of new ideas in the absence of the IP law.
However, I do see the abolition of the current IP law having a radical impact on the way the society functions. First off, product-placement in "copyright" works will increase dramatically, until indeed another innovative method of extracting the initial investment cost is found. Imagine each and every single song you hear on the radio having some kind of reference to Pepsi or Marlboro. What a trade-off! Secondly, related to the first point, the advertising industry will come to exert an even greater control over musicians, software programmers, writers than they do now. In other words, if you want to make money off your work, you better do what the advertisers say. Ugh, Gator comes to mind here...
I was going to go on about the fantasy list of impacts the abolition of the IP law would have on our world, but I just remembered a question that I had and the paper didn't answer. So I will just finish this post by posing that question and, hopefully, engage some of you in a debate of sort about it as well. My question is this: in the entertainment industry (publishing, music, film, etc.) wouldn't the initial impulse to control the distribution/reproduction channel be too great to ignore? This is happening to some extent already (AOL Time, invasive P2P software) and, were the proposal of the paper to be adopted, we may see the privatization/regulation of the Internet along the line of what China is doing or the cable TV industry. This, to me, would be equally bad as (if not even worse than) the ridiculuous extension of copyright to Disney.
Man, I haven't been this excited about the IP law in a while. I didn't really think of a way to get around the economic incentive argument for the IP law before tonight...
Ip has been fucked since WW1 (Score:2, Informative)
This is why I like Linux, without free code sharing, I'd be unable to create a 3d MMORPG to compete with the big dogs. Crystalspace has got me up and running on a 3d engine, all I need to do is add new networking code, some animations, balance, some levels, and a story.
Why software patents should be eliminated (Score:3, Insightful)
The same thing applies to patenting business processes - just plain unnecessary. A business won't decide to abstain from an innovative business model because of the lack of an ability to use patents to prevent competitors from using it. Quite the opposite - once having conceived the idea, they will be in a haste to implement it precisely because they fear their competitors may also do it and they don't want to get left behind. A business model or process that would be unprofitable without patent protection isn't a truly innovative one. Only bad ones and obvious ones have a need for patent protection to make them profitable, and the truly innovative ones would be implemented anyway.
The purpose of patents is to encourage or accelerate the innovation that would not have occurred if patents didn't exist. Software and business patents don't fit that mold because whatever the patents implement would have been done anyway, either by the original creator or soon afterwards by someone else.
Summary in the March issue of Reason (Score:2)
FWIW, even as a Libertarian who is distressed by the way copyrights and patents are abused [krose.org], I don't buy their conclusions for (say) the pharmaceutical industry, in which the indivisibility of research cost, the practically zero marginal cost of production, and the commoditized nature of cures for a particular illness make a stronger argument for patents and artificial monopoly as incentive for innovation than, say, copyright does as incentive for the next Britney Spears album.
Pharmaceutical patents are the worst (Score:2)
I don't buy their conclusions for (say) the pharmaceutical industry, in which the indivisibility of research cost, the practically zero marginal cost of production, and the commoditized nature of cures for a particular illness make a stronger argument for patents and artificial monopoly as incentive for innovation
Pharmaceutical patnets are the worst. The most evil example I could think of was when corporate executives wrote an article to the newspaper that effectively said they had no incentive to innovate unless they had the right to lock out millions of people dying of AIDS in Africa. Other examples include the antibotic - Cipiro where a generic was being made in India for I think 10 cents a pill - and was offered to the USA during the worst of the Anthrax chrises, but was rebuffed for patent reasons. Not to consider all the research and development of natural, alternative, or other cures that involved the use of medicines with expired patents that was outright blackballed by industry giants in favor of more dangerous drugs that could be patented. And don't forget the millions of old people who are litterally "reamed" over medicines that they can't afford, but if they try to order generic's or non-generics that are sold at a cheaper price outside the country they could end up with a fine I think of $250,000. The real question, is how many people are we willing to let suffer and die in the name pharmaceutical patents? For all the people that are needlessly suffering and dying I would expect amazing and overwhelming justifications, but have rather gotten nothing but crap.
You don't get it. (Score:2)
Let's say 5,000 people/year die from a particular disease. Under the current system, once a cure is developed, 5,000 * 12 = 60,000 people die before the price drops. Without patents, 5,000 * forever = infinite people die before the cure is even found. (This is a bit simplistic in assuming that no one will ever find the cure. But I don't think it's unrealistic to replace 12 by, say, 100 or 200, and still end up with orders of magnitude more deaths.)
Yes, there are universities and other not-for-profit research centers, but (as is typical with free markets) the commercial pharmaceutical industry is much more efficient at finding those things that people really want.
Yes I do (Score:2)
What you are saying is that without patnets nobody would have an incentive to put the money and effort into say, a cure for AIDS. That is outrageous. There is plenty of incentive for people to organize economically to stop diesase and the like without an artifical government monopoly. In fact, from newspapers I've gleamed - patents are actually intefering with a cure for AIDS as companies fight bitterly over conflicting patents, and researchers are forbidden to share critical information with other researchers, for fear of giving competitors the lead on a patnet claim.
Facts and figures against copyright... (Score:5, Informative)
This AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies article by Mark S. Nadel is also relevant to showing the case against intellectual property.
http://www.aei.brookings.org/publications/abstract .php?pid=302 [brookings.org]
From the abstract: This article questions the economic justification for copyright laws prohibition against unauthorized copying. Building on the thesis of Stephen Breyers 1970 Harvard Law Review article, The Uneasy Case for Copyright, it contends that not only may copyright laws prohibition against unauthorized copying (17 U.S.C. 106) not be necessary to stimulate an optimal level of new creations, but that 106 appears to have a net negative effect on such output! It observes that the higher revenues that 106 generates for popular creations are, in the lottery-like entertainment markets, generally used for promotional efforts (rent seeking), and that such marketing crowds out many borderline creations. The article also identifies and explains how new technologies and social norms provide many viable business models for financing new creations relying on only a heavily abridged version of 106. Hence, the article questions whether the current 106 could survive the intermediate scrutiny standards of the First Amendment, given the lack of evidence that the benefits of 106 exceed its costs.
This is a fantastic paper. It is full of references and numbers a lot of hard work and scholarship obviously went into it.
For support for eliminating copyrights or greatly reducing their terms, see Richard Stallman, especially here:g e&NodeID=650 [memes.net]
http://www.memes.net/index.php3?request=displaypa
and also Brian Martin's essay "Against intellectual property" (part of a large book -- _Information Liberation_)i l03.html [uow.edu.au]
http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/98il/
You can also see lots of other ongoing discussion here on Lawrence Lessig's blog here http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/blog/ [stanford.edu] and in his two books.
Here is a paper by an intellectual property lawyer against the current system: http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/anarHere are some of my own comments on the situation: http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/mt/mt-comments.cgi?en try_id=898 [stanford.edu]
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/mt/mt-comments.cgi?en try_id=889 [stanford.edu]
In the absence of intellectual monopoly (Score:2)
Second, the manufacturers or publishers who would be able to undercut everyone elses price in the drive toward marginal pricing would the ones with the most efficient manufacturing and distribution system. This would tend to be the largest processing plants in better connected areas and with a highly educated but cheap workforce available. Consolidation would occur similar to how small hardware stores folded when a Home Depot is built nearby and the area affected by the consolidation would be determined by that manufacturers distribution network.
From the second chapter: If, in fact, demand is elastic, then price falling to zero implies (because so many units are sold) revenue increasing to infinity. So in this case, improved reproduction technology would increase rather than decrease the rents accruing to the innovator.
Excuse me, Levine and Boldrin, I haven't gone over all your math but I think maybe you need to bone up on L'Hopitals Rule. Additionally, that last statement there brings up an interesting point. They even stated that, 'conventional wisdom would be right in ignoring economic value of being first if technological advances were such that the time one had to wait to purchase the good at a near zero price became negligible.' So take a look at recent advancements in nano-technology and consider the possibility that a few decades from now replicating an object might be as easy and commonplace as copying an mp3 file today. Should we change our IP laws just in time for the new paradigm to be useless?
Quite a difference between IP and IM (Score:2)
Kjella
Re:Dude, you're getting a cell (Score:1)
Re:There's already been some research (Score:2)
They built something like a dynamic economic model of patents and innovations and looked at the results.
From the conclusion: "Intellectual property appears to be one of those areas where results that seem secure in the context of a static model are overturned in the dynamic model. Imitation invariably inhibits innovation in a static world; in a dynamic world, imitators can provide benefit to both the original innovator and to society as a whole. Patents preserve innovation incentives in a static world; in a dynamic world, firms may have plenty of incentive to innovate without patents and patents may constrict complementary innovation."
An example of what they are talking about is reasons to contribute fixes to free software projects: someone else maintains it in the mainline, you get more testing, you get more improvements, you get people trained on the fix at no cost to you you can later hire, the fix becomes a standard making communications about it easier, everyone's file formats with the fix are easier to interchange, you don't have to keep patching the mainline to use your fix with every new version, etc.