Lessig On IP Protection, Conflict 217
cdlu writes "According to NewsForge [part of OSDN, like Slashdot], Stanford University law professor, author, and Creative Commons chairman Lawrence Lessig sharpened the definition of the ongoing legal struggle over intellectual property while talking at the Open Source Business Conference on Tuesday. According to Lessig: 'Contrary to what many people see as a cultural war between conservative business types and liberal independents, this is not a 'commerce versus anything' conflict. It's about powerful (business) interests and if they can stop new innovators'."
A threat to "developed nations" (Score:5, Interesting)
Hence, if we in the so-called "developed nations" don't fix our legal systems, third-world countries, where "intellectual property law" cannot be enforced for lack of a functional legal system, will become the leaders in creative industries, including IT, right?
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of us have been trying to open people's eyes to that for decades.
China and Brazil have already had their eyes opened on this score. They are both large, resource rich countries.
They might even have an ax or two to grind.
KFG
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:4, Insightful)
And, strangely enough, China turns out a lot of culture. How many of Holywood's best directors and actors over the past fifteen years have been from China or been influenced by the Chinese? A hell of a lot.
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:3, Insightful)
What part of 'Chinese' don't you understand?
Even if you were to limit it to just the People's Republic of China, then you'd still have to include Hong Kong. (The brits did give it back, after all.) And even then you'd get some saying that Taiwan is technically PRC territory anyway.
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:3, Informative)
Or vice versa. The only sticking point at all is that both involved parties recognize the other as part of China, and themselves as the only legitimate Chinese government.
KFG
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:3, Funny)
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would I exclude Taiwan and Hong Kong? Hong Kong's had even less "IP" law enforcement than China. Ditto for Taiwan. And Hong Kong's had the benefit of a non-tyrannical government for much of the time and, even now, China's adopting a largely "hands off" policy. That just makes my point stronger, not weaker.
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:4, Insightful)
The good news, Ford made it. The bad news, is it took a huge toll on him before he was able to sell his "horribly unsafe" car (usafe is the reasoning back then to quash his ability to sell cars.)
Already though Taiwan, Hong Kong, Brazil and yes... mainland China are starting to innovate by improving the technologies that they are "illegally" copying. Selling exact copies of a product to pay for the R&D dollars so that they can make their own improved product that they can uniquely call their own, and sell in the US.
What these companies do is extreme, and it's real innovation that's being squashed here - not the inflated innovation done by reverse engineering. Yet legal or not, these other countries will innovate on thier own.
What I'm saying here is ... just like movies the US is defininately way in the lead, but the rest of the world is catching up... slowly. There's no reason to allow large companies to save their short term profits by quashing US innovations forcing the the rest of the world to be catching up faster.
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:2)
Didn't the Americans do something similar early in their history? Maybe the Chinese might show us how dumb IP is, or, when they acquire a bunch of homegrown IP, they'll enforce it stronger than the likes of anything we've ever seen.
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:4, Insightful)
This is not a new idea either. It happened to Henry Ford back in 1906 when the other established car-makers tried to squash him.
Sorry bud, you'd have done better to cite Diesel instead. The Diesel engine was technically superior to the popular gasoline with spark plug engines, but the man was crushed under the burden of patent suits and died in poverty. The Diesel engine is still superior to gasoline engines, even if it smells bad, and remains in a niche market.
In any case, regardless of what you picked, the Wright Brothers very seriously and emphatically enforced their own patents. The result was that engineers had to work around their patents and ultimately built a better plane than the Wrights had, and built a foundation upon which solid planes were eventually built rather than the canvas pieces of junk the Wright brothers built. And the Wright Brothers sank off into la-la land. They should've spent less time enforcing their patents and more time fighting.
My only point is that there are plenty of examples where people have completely screwed up by enforcing their IP rights . What we need is proof that it's happening here and now, and crushing innovation and generally hurting society.
Not that I disagree with you, mind you, I just think we need more facts and a stronger argument and less historically based rhetoric. :)
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:5, Interesting)
China and Brazil have already had their eyes opened on this score. They are both large, resource rich countries.
Add India to that list. The Indian government was outraged at a US company patenting Basmati rice. That variety was developed in India by Indian farmers over a period of centuries. But some US corporation has filed a patent and apparently won the right to control the name 'Basmati Rice' and prevent even native Indian growers from using the name or selling this variety of rice in the US! Lots of other countries in the world are getting fed up with Stupid Lawyer Tricks in the US.
http://www.biotech-info.net/basmati_patent.html
http://www.poptel.org.uk/panap/latest/lost.htm
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:2)
Sadly that's how it is.
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:3, Interesting)
You are sorely mistaken. Americans have been very innovative, but do not have monopoly in innovation. I very much expect the pirates of today to be the innovators of tomorrow.
In the 1980's, Taiwan was producing illegal Apple ][ clones (not just using the same ROM and DOS code, but literally the same plastic cases, some even with off-color Apple logos!). Today, Taiwanese businesses are some of the largest producers of
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:3, Insightful)
China
India
Pakistan
Brazil
When these guys get a decent legal system to enforce IP laws, they'll start getting stuff like workplace safety regulations, environmental regulations, etc. Then the megacorps will dump them like so many high-priced American white-collar workers.
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:3, Funny)
From the Committee to Re-Elect the President: "Don't change horsemen, mid-apocalypse."
From the Committee to throw out the President: "There wasn't a horseman named 'Stupid', stupid."
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:5, Insightful)
Intellectual property is an artificial concept, especially now that digital media allows us to make unlimited copies. A book reader is a physical device that takes time and money to manufacture on a per-unit basis. An e-book is an intangible bundle of electrons that can easily be pulled from Project Gutenberg, if no modern publisher is willing to release books in that format.
Of course, what actually happens is that there's demand for some modern book as eBooks, and if nobody provides it, then some fan will make one, and blam - free copies all over the place, and the publisher gets nothing more than a big headache.
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:4, Interesting)
Intellectual property is an artificial concept, especially now that digital media allows us to make unlimited copies.
It's always been an artificial concept. That doesn't make it necessarily a bad one.
free copies all over the place, and the publisher gets nothing more than a big headache
And the author also gets nothing but a big headache. What a great way to stimulate people into writing....
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:3, Interesting)
This issue goes right to the heart of copyright. The concept was originally a permission given by the state to a publisher. The idea of a copyright being about authors is more recent by something like a century.
Most authors want people to read their books first, profit hugely from them second.
If they can't published niether will happen
It's the publishers that are screwed when
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the author who's screwed having spent a year of his/her life writing a well crafted piece of fiction only to find there are copies available for free over [insert p2p of choice here] without any recognition going to the author for writing the piece in the first place.
Usually, the author has been paid by the publisher, and has probably given up all rights to said publisher. So p2p is more likely the publisher's headache. Most copyright laws are written to protect the publisher. Rather strange, I just finished reading (ok, skimming. This law stuff is hard.) the first copyright law of 1710. It did provide some protection for the author, much to the dismay of the publishers of the time. The part about this law that I really liked was that if there was a complaint about the price, the gov't could set a "fair" price. As I said in another post, If you want copyright protection, you must accept a price set by the "protectors".
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:3, Interesting)
I value Linux. I value a lot of the free newspapers I read online. I don't value them by paying money necessarily, but there's more to value than just money.
As an author I want as many people as possible to read my work. But I'd like to get something in return. Not to "profit hugely" but maybe a buck so I can buy a cup of coffee for having given someone a few hours
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:3, Insightful)
unless people are changing the author's name on the book, the author is getting recognition. It's not money, admittedly. Maybe this same person wrote the best book in the world, but people still overlooked it.
PLease, please, please, Read what some authors really think about this [baen.com].
Yes, Eric Flint seems to agree with you, but he also proves, well, I guess you should all go read it yourself. :)
Principle vs. practice (Score:5, Insightful)
[Copyrights, trademarks, patents, and publicity rights have] always been an artificial concept. That doesn't make it necessarily a bad one.
I agree with the principle behind copyright, that giving an author an economic incentive to create can promote Progress, but I disagree with its implementation in the U.S. Code as of today, such as the effectively perpetual term of monopoly, the breadth of the monopoly on musical works given that there exist a provably finite number of melodies [slashdot.org], and the breadth of the monopoly on derivative works that in the end prevents authors lacking deep pockets for a "fair use" legal defense from creating some satiric works.
I agree with the principle behind patents, that giving an inventor an economic incentive to invent can promote Progress, but I disagree with the poor job that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has done with respect to examining patents for obviousness given prior art.
Re:Principle vs. practice (Score:4, Insightful)
OK, here's a business model: First, find out what the courts have decided is too short a melody fragment to be copyrightable. This probably isn't quite the same in every jurisdiction, but it's likely under 10 notes. Let this be N. For example, the distinguished first phrase of Happy Birthday is just 5 notes, all the same length, so N is at most 4.
Next, write a little program to generate all the tune fragments from N+1 to, say, 2*N notes. We probably can limit the melody to just an 8-note octave, or maybe make it 12 notes to be on the safe side. OTOH, we might want to include variants of the fragments with various notes of double length, to take into account rhythmic variations.
Apply for copyright on all of these fragments. Whether they all get processed and approved is irrelevant; you'll have applied so you can claim them.
When a new hit song comes out, compare it with your archive of melody fragments. It will match some of them. File suit for copyright infringement.
Profit!
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:2)
It's an attempt to extend contract law to overpower basic concepts of property.
It is fundamentally an attempt to achieve monopoly profit by forcibly - je jure instead of de facto - creating a "natural monopoly" - which is in no way "natural" - and, as current technology has demonstrated, is still subject to true economic competition.
Intellectual property is an oxymoron and supported by real moro
Digital didn't change anything. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:3, Interesting)
Physical property is an artificial concept too, if you care to think about it.
I think what you want to say is that IP scarcity is an artificial concept.
This has happened before (Score:5, Interesting)
According to this wiki [wikipedia.org] Hollywood was built this way:
Lessig the Grey vs. Creative Commons (Score:5, Interesting)
Given the recent Grey Tuesday brouhaha that followed the release of DJ Danger Mouse's Grey Album, it's worth pausing for a moment to take a look at the Creative Commons:
"We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them -- to declare 'some rights reserved.'"
Among the rights an artist may choose to reserve when configuring their Creative Commons license is "No Derivative Works," explained in cartoon here:
http://creativecommons.org/images/comics/10.gif [creativecommons.org]
Indeed, the Creative Commons' leading example musician is Roger McGuinn who: "chose the Creative Commons license that maximizes a combination of free distribution with artistic control and integrity." -- note that Roger McGuinn chose "No Derivative Works."
However, the Grey Tuesday movement seeks to take that right away. Notably, Larry Lessig (Creative Commons Chairman of the Board) commented in his blog:
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/001754.shtml [lessig.org]
"Should the law give DJ Danger Mouse the right to remix without permission? I think so, though I understand how others find the matter a bit more grey."
"Should the law give DJ Danger Mouse a compulsory right to remix? That is, the right, conditioned upon his paying a small fee per sale? Again, I think so, and again, you might find this a bit less grey."
So, what exactly does Creative Commons mean by "some rights reserved" -- would it perhaps be more accurate if they said: "some rights reserved until we can cook up a new compulsory license to take those rights away"?
Re:Lessig the Grey vs. Creative Commons (Score:5, Informative)
The fact is, if you look at this [creativecommons.org], you see that the license includes a notice that fair use is still protected, and that the CC license with "no derivative" clause does so in order to facilitate copying and sharing. It is still closer to Lessig's position than current copyright law.
I do believe and agree that in this area, compromise like what Lessig may be endorsing with the CC license (and like copyright law itself has been doing for the last hundred years) might create confusion about what the 'principles' of copyright law are. This surely will make some of us uncomfortable -- especially those of us who believe that copyright is supposed to make some sort of moral/logical sense, and not merely be a pragmatic engine for creativity.
However, as we've already seen, copyright does not operate under any principles except to enable more creativity than it disables. Copyright is not a moral law. It does not have unimpeachable logic that directs its content. Thus, Lessig need not either be totally black or white, and does not contradict himself by agreeing to less than he wishes for in his blog--since copyright allows [sorry, I can't help it] "gray" principles.
Re:Lessig the Grey vs. Creative Commons (Score:2)
Aw, come on! CC speaks in clear and positive terms about artists getting to make decisions -- "some rights reserved" -- and so on. One of those rights is "no derivative works" (which they themselves say can protect "artistic integrity").
And Lessig is clearly calling fot that same right to be taken away.
(obviously a CC license can't trump constitut
Re:Lessig the Grey vs. Creative Commons (Score:3, Interesting)
You'll have to forgive me, but I really don't see what the problem is. Lessig supports copyright to a limited extent, but (as evinced by his implicit support of unimpeded remixing) he believes in advancing creativity more than copyright as an end in and of itself. His words and actions on his blog support this, though it may indeed be argued to be count
Re:Lessig the Grey vs. Creative Commons (Score:2)
"Should the law give DJ Danger Mouse a compulsory right to remix? That is, the right, conditioned upon his paying a small fee per sale? Again, I think so, and again, you might find this a bit less grey."
Personally, I think DJ Danger Mouse should have the right to remix without permission and distribute it as long as no profit is made. Now, If DJ Danger
Re:Lessig the Grey vs. Creative Commons (Score:2)
And you do know that DJ Danger Mouse pressed 3000 CDs, yes?
Re:Lessig the Grey vs. Creative Commons (Score:3, Insightful)
And you do know that DJ Danger Mouse pressed 3000 CDs, yes?
From what I understand, 3000 CDs were pressed, and a number of these were sold on Ebay. As long as DJ Danger Mouse did not sell them (he had no arrangement with the Beatles or Jay-Z) he is okay (not making a profit), but the resale of these CDs (in this case, there is no "first sale" ) is not okay. That would be the same as if I took my mp3 copy and created a CD version and sold it -- not okay.
I'm not sure if DJ Dangermouse personally sold an
Re:Lessig the Grey vs. Creative Commons (Score:2)
If I take a popular single and speed it up 0.1%, does that qualify as a remix, and can I then distribute it as long as I don't make a profit?
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:5, Insightful)
But there are some parallels: A civilization that grew to prosperity based on free thought, progress, and advancement of knowledge. Conservative elements that grew to dominance and stifled the very free thought that made them great. As for coping with barbarians, perhaps there is a modern parallel for that too, in terrorism.
OSBC talks + Re:A threat to "developed nations" (Score:5, Informative)
1. He actually talked about developing nations, pointing out that although in theory these countries are given lesser constraints negotiated via the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in reality the U.S. is apparently creating bi-lateral agreements with these countries to strong-arm them into falling in line with U.S. IP practices. To hear Lessig tell the tale, this may result in some backlash on the economic front, as some of the countries are banding together to try to stand up to Uncle Sam
2. Lessig said in the Q&A that he's tired of hearing his words played back to him with the implication that he's against patent and copyrights. His talk actually reinforced them as a good thing, IF properly applied, i.e. in a balanced way.
He pointed out that the retention of IP rights gives the creator the ability to provide clear guidelines about the acceptable use of the work. He countered that, though, by pointing out that in the 70's IP law changed so that everything was by DEFAULT protected, vs. works having to be explicitly registered. One of the
3. The argument for limiting the duration of copyright of course builds off the whole notion of 'balance.' There was an interesting point Lessig made about the goal of well-managed businesses... that they basically try hard to be boring, i.e. to avoid major disruptions. It was interesting because the ending keynote speaker of the day wasClayton Christensen (Innovator's Dilemma, Innovator's Solution) from Harvard Business School who had models that showed why this kind of business behavior ultimately leads to innovative startup's 'killing off' the big guys. Seemed to reinforce Lessig's point that the 'boring companies' need the crutch of artificial (& ridiculous, IMHO) constructs in the law to prop them up.
C'mon, you goliaths, what are you afraid of? Can't take a little honest competition without the help of your legal teams? Now that Michael Eisner's powerbase is weakening, maybe we'll see some movement on this front?....
Short term vision, short term interest (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you say 'brain drain'?
Re:Short term vision, short term interest (Score:2)
<devilsadvocate>Just like it turned Britian into a third world nation?</devilsadvocate>
Re:Short term vision, short term interest (Score:3, Informative)
Illusion (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Short term vision, short term interest (Score:2)
In the long-term (< 30 years), there won't even be such a thing as a third-world nation because technology will have finally ushered in an economy of abundance. i.e. WalMart, Gilette, DeBeers, Agribiz, and host of other giant corps will be put out of business by cheap molecular manufacturing (a "3D printer" in every home/village), and not having a job won't mean starving, which is a good thing because very soon not everyone who WANTS a job will be able to have
Re:Short term vision, short term interest (Score:2)
Trust me, there are still ways to innovate and succeed -- you just need to think harder.
this is a difficult issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:this is a difficult issue (Score:5, Insightful)
with out this there is no real incentive for most people to do anything much.
Actually, history has shown this to be untrue. There has, historically, been more innovation in countries where the duration of "IP" protection, be it copyright or patent, is less than the average "apprentice to journeyman" cycle. This was the case in Germany and America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and they both lept ahead of Britain (which had much more stringent IP laws) technologically because of it. Likewise, much of our most innovative music has been given to us by people who didn't give a fuck about whether or not they got paid - they just wanted to make music.
Yes, there are practical issues... But any sane society should already handle taking care of those.
Re:this is a difficult issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:this is a difficult issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Also true. But from a more technical point of view, a patent/copyright length shorter than the typical "apprentice to journeyman" cycle means that you can use cutting-edge stuff however you want when you're ready to do work on your own. In other words, software patents (heck, most patents these days) should last a decade, MAXIMUM. And six years is more than enough in most fields.
Copyrights are a little trickier, but seven years seems to be reasonable.
Re:this is a difficult issue (Score:2, Interesting)
While the most recognized creative endeavours probably were not done with a profit motive (or at least not m
Re:this is a difficult issue (Score:3, Insightful)
I see, so there's still a financial incentive for Elvis to produce music? Kind of useless since he's dead,
This is how copyright currently works (Score:5, Informative)
Ummm, this is how Copyright currently works. I create my work (establish the expression of an idea in a fixed medium; original content), send a copy along with $20 to the Library of Congress (the qualified third party), then I show others the work in a gallery, on the radio, in a theatre, or wherever (shared to the public) and the public can come and view, listen to, or whatever as long as they don't infringe upon my five basic rights to distribution, derivatives, public performance, public display, and copying (work protected as a whole as to its ownership).
No it isn't... (Score:5, Informative)
send a copy along with $20 to the Library of Congress (the qualified third party)
There is no need to send your copy to the Library of Congress to receive copyright protection. You only need to send your copy if you want to sue someone for infringement, and you want to collect monetary damages. Oh, and you don't need to send the whole thing, just part of it will be fine.
Welcome to 2004 - where have you been for the last 20 years?
Re:No it isn't... (Score:2)
Re:No it isn't... (Score:2)
Except, and this is really interesting, you might not be able to waive your rights to your own work. The GPL and BSDL are probably still leagal... But, according to Lessig, its somewhat unclear about whether an author can intentionally put a work into the public domain, or even use an "effectively public domain" license. As copying the work might still be a Federal offense in the USA.
Re:This is how copyright currently works (Score:2)
As has already been mentioned, the $20 fee is not necessary but it does grant you specific rights should legal issues arise. I could just as easily send a copy of the copyrighted works in a sealed envelope to myself and never open it until needed. While this won't give you the full rights registering with the Library ocCongress would, it does establish a date of creation that courts will recognize.
"You can give people the right to distribute, derive, perform, display and/or copy your w
Is it our right to restrict the use of our ideas? (Score:5, Insightful)
I do not understand why individuals and companies consider it a right to be able to control the use of their invention or demand extravagant or prohibitive compensation for its use. An idea or work of art, once formulated should be equally available to everyone to build upon. Determining what is or isn't prohibitive is trickier though I think we'd be able to do better than the current broken system.
Re:Is it our right to restrict the use of our idea (Score:2)
For example, you have an idea for invention. You borrow $100,000 for R&D to invent a widget. You sell them at $10 each to cover your expenses (which includes loan repayment). Your competitor copies your idea and produces widgets and since he/she does not have a loan to repay, your competitor sells the same widget for $5. You'll end up going bankrupt due to the poor sales.
Re:Is it our right to restrict the use of our idea (Score:2, Interesting)
I've suggested before on
Re:Is it our right to restrict the use of our idea (Score:3, Insightful)
"I do not understand why individuals and companies consider it a right to be able to control the use of their invention or demand extravagant or prohibitive compensation for its use."
This is the free market economy at work. If I create a work and charge too much for it, it won't sell. If I charge too little, I don't make enough to stay in business.
I ocasionally with a well-respected analyst firm that publishes an annual seven-year forecast report for a particular industry. This report is eight page
Re:Is it our right to restrict the use of our idea (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not advocating traditional price controls, socialism or communism at all. What I'm saying is that you shouldn't allow one company the option to restrict the use of intellectual property by another company. Intellectual property is not the same as physical property and it is only the fact that we didn't have the technology to copy things at will that made the existing systems, which do treat them in t
Re:Is it our right to restrict the use of our idea (Score:2)
But it's not a free market, it's a monopoly market - that's how copyright works...
Re:Is it our right to restrict the use of our idea (Score:5, Insightful)
But the truth is, most of the good stuff out there was not created by people looking for an incentive - it was created by people who _loved_ doing what they did, and hacked it to their advantage.
All of the world's greatest works, and greatest genuises never worked for money or incentive - that helped, sure, but it was not the goal. The purpose was to innovate for the love of the subject, for the very sake of innovation itself.
Look at Nikolas Tesla, or any of the really great inventors. Or physicsts and mathematicians. Or even musicians. The real good ones do not really care about the money - they do it because they love playing music - its their life, and its in their blood. Sure, a little incentive helps them move on, but with or without it they will do what they do simply because it gives them happiness.
Now, thats whats wrong with today's culture. People are not willing to do anything without compensation. We expect something in return. Look at the trash quality of music today - its only because the morons who are making it are interested only in making money and fame, and not music in itself. Why do so many patents exist? People are not willing to innovate because they love what they do, they are willing to innovate if they can profit and get something in return.
I feel that this is a very bad trend, and a very bad notion. If you notice where true innovation comes from, even today it is only from people who do not care about what they get in return - take Linus Torvalds for example. What he did was simply for the love of what he did best - nothing more.
Unless this attitude changes, and people accept that knowledge belongs to humanity - you may profit from it, but thats not the reason you should be doing it - we are fucked.
Re:Is it our right to restrict the use of our idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Man does not live by gratification alone. If we don't ensure that the innovators, inventors, and creators get some monetary benefit out of the work they create, then they're simply going to wind up spending a lot of their time doing other crap so that they can put food on the table.
That's simply a waste of their talents. I'd rather be encouraging some crap inventors simply so that the truly talented ones could be spending the majority of their time doing what they're best at.
Re:Is it our right to restrict the use of our idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep. As long as the "crap" inventors don't use the incentive we gave them as leverage to sue the "truly talented" ones into poverty. Is that better or worse than simply not providing incentive to begin with?
It almost seems like anti-incentive, to know that I could get sued for reverse engineering an API to implement a program that works with it, or by
May need to rethink compensation model (Score:3, Insightful)
It always seems that most arguments over IP tends to resolve around the issue of compensation. Yet both sides seem to be missing two fundamental assumptions they are both making in the economics of intellectual work.
I think we all need to challenge both of those axioms. I find myself in a particularly unique position (on /. anyway it seems) of being both mostly conservative with stro
As Bill G himself put it. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
"Microsoft is just one good idea away from oblivion."
I may not have the quote exactly right, but the idea expressed is correct.
Therefore, to protect one's future, if one is a power player, one must protect innovation from outside the company. Excessive innovation from inside the company is, more often than not, antithetical to profits.
As an example from outside IT, a Trinity factory oval racer who used to practice at my track once told me the story of his first race for the team. He not only won, but he broke the track race record by two seconds.
When he got off the driver's stand, glowing with pride and accomplishment, the team manager stormed up to him and said, "Don't ever let me see you do anything like that again, or your fired. We came here with seconds in hand. You only needed to win by one second, not half a lap. Now every other team knows how fast we are, and they're all going to go home and figure out how to go just as fast before they come out to a major meet again. You just threw away a full season's advantage by showing off. And a full season's sales advantage that goes with it."
There is no advantage to an established company in offering too much "advancment" to the public. Especially if they can get the public to buy chrome as advancment.
Anybody from outside who offers advancement when the public is willing to buy chrome simply needs to be stopped.
A large and powerful corporation, again using Microsoft as the obvious example, by necessity becomes conservative. They have little to gain. They can live off of the the return of their outside investments, effectively, for eternity. They can only lose.
They don't like losing.
If they can create a conservative general atmosphere in society and at law that favors them, well, they don't have to because they can't have any real competition.
Other powerful corporations aren't real competition in innovation because they're all playing by the same rule sheet. Only try to win by one second, so you can sell the other seconds you've already got later, when people get tired of this year's chrome.
KFG
Re:As Bill G himself put it. . . (Score:2, Insightful)
Exactly.
KFG
Bush / Blair parody (Score:4, Funny)
A big step in the right direction... (Score:4, Interesting)
Want to keep it, fine. Sell copies at a profit, fine. License it out for commercial use, fine. Sell ownership to the big immortal mulitnational that owns everything else? Sorry, not permitted.
This doesn't kill the distribution and marketing industries, just puts them in the service of the artists, instead of the other way around. Bang, no more monopoly is possible, yet artists get rewarded.
There would no longer be a motive to remove things from circulation the way the big media companies do... that only comes from the fact that song a and song b are competing for market share, but media company x owns both, so they kill b to focus on a. If ownership fell only to the creators, they'd be more inclined to give away the non-marketables as a way of promoting themselves.
I leave the excercise of how to deal with collaborative works for someone who isn't sleep deprived and fuzzy-eyes from too much coding
What it really comes down to... (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't believe me?
I think SCO is a very good example, in many ways.... hell you don't even have to invent or create to anything to make your claim to fame and fortune....
What should be happening is that the term length should be getting shorter and control should be being removed....
How does an inventor or creator get a return?
Far better than they are now!!!
Just because you can invent or create, there is no proof that there is some magical power included or connected to such that says you will know best how to market or distribute it....
If such marketing and distribution is open to all to do, simply paying back to the inventor or creator, some reasonable percentage
*YOU* Can Change the Copyright Laws (Score:5, Insightful)
Congress could repeal the copyright laws tomorrow, if you could get enough votes to do so. That's more of a possibility than you might think, if you consider that more Americans use peer-to-peer networks than voted for George Bush.
My article suggests a number of steps you can take to bring about much needed copyright reform, ranging from speaking out [goingware.com] to practicing civil disobedience [goingware.com].
I want every American peer-to-peer network user to read my article by the time of the elections. Presently it gets about 2000 readers a day, but needs to get read about a hundred times more frequently to achieve my goal. If you feel as I do that what I have to say is important, then you can help by linking to my article from your own website, weblog or from message boards.
You'll see from my sig that I've been asking readers to Googlebomb it with the phrase "free music downloads". This has been pretty successful so far, with my article now ranking #3 at Google for that query [google.com]. It's getting about 800 search engine referrals each day for "free music downloads".
My article has a Creative Commons license if you'd like to mirror it.
Election latency (Score:3, Informative)
Congress could repeal the copyright laws tomorrow, if you could get enough votes to do so.
Actually, repealing huge chunks of Title 17, United States Code, would take two years and about 10 months, as that's how long it would take to cycle out a majority of representatives and senators in the Congress. Those who have held their offices since 1997 or before have showed by their unanimous consent to the Bono Act and the DMCA that many of them are so bought-and-paid-for that they won't listen to letters fro
Re:*YOU* Can Change the Copyright Laws (Score:3, Insightful)
Lwssig's has got it backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
We need to work together (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the general public really believes that money is the sole incentive of technical creativity. I agree money can be a good incentive if you're selling televisions or computers, but the real underlying work that went into the ability to produce these things was done, not for profit, but more because people were compelled by the process of discovery.
The integrated circuit is a good example. Most of the fundamental research that went into the chip came from a lot of painstaking research in solid state physics and was carried out by researchers in university labs making less than they would working for a Fortune 500 OEM.
People really are capable of doing things just for fun, because they're interested in them, or just like knowing how things work.
However, people do need to get paid. But the question here should be, how do we bring people together to create technology? Wouldn't it be great to get all the top cancer researchers together and see if they could make some headway on understanding tumors? But how do we meet their needs, keep them happy, make sure they are adequately compensated, etc.? Though this may be difficult to accomplish under our current economic system, I think you'll agree it's something we need to work towards as it seems to me a much better approach than saying, "we have a pattent system, and if you can find the cure for cancer, you can make a lot of money." This seems so inefficient as comapanies tend to scramble over each other, reinventing the wheel, keeping their research secret and trying to make as much money as they can.
Thoughts?
The mainstream media should pick up on this (Score:3, Informative)
Incase somebody's planning to publish it, I would like to (as I have done earlier) point to the RMS's essay: The Right to Read [gnu.org] cached on Google here [216.239.53.104] (incase gnu.org is down -- they're moving [slashdot.org] their machines to another location).
Some of you might have seen the essay earlier, but I think it deserves a much wider audience.
Expanding Creative Commons (Score:4, Interesting)
It might be a good idea for Creative Commons or a group like them to move into the patent arena in a big way. Two ideas would be particularly helpful.
1. A "prior art" registry. It would include ideas their posters think is new with bullet-proof date stamping and public access. This would keep those ideas from being patented. It would also allow people to post descriptions of prior art they are aware of dating back several decades, along with contact information where that prior art can be documented. That could be used to fight dangerous existing patents or patents-to-be. With a bit of pressure, patent office examiners could be forced to use the database before issuing a patent. It would save a lot of grief.
2. A open source patent portfolio with a GPL-type license. Corporations could acquire the right to use patents in the portfolio in exchange for licensing the use of their patents in open source. This would approximate how corporations like IBM avoid patent suits. Patents could be obtained by donation or by developing ideas into patents.
Acting now could save a lot of trouble later.
--Mike Perry, Inkling Books, Seattle
http://www.InklingBooks.com/
Being informed: the dmca-discuss list (Score:5, Informative)
http://lists.anti-dmca.org/mailman/listinfo/dmca_d iscuss
To be informed of all patent, copyright and other related news, subscribe to this list. You can also throw your two cents in the ongoing discussion, or just enjoy the articles.
Re:Being informed: the dmca-discuss list (Score:2, Informative)
http://lists.anti-dmca.org/mailman/listinfo/dmca_d iscuss [anti-dmca.org]
"powerful business interests" are not all the same (Score:3, Insightful)
If we all have something in common, I suspect we could identify it as respect for creativity.
Re:He sometimes doesn't sound so revolutionary (Score:4, Informative)
Re:He sometimes doesn't sound so revolutionary (Score:5, Insightful)
Revolutionary doesn't necessarily mean coming up with a different system -- it can be a revolutionary use of the existing system which is what Lessig has done.
In fact, he is even more of a genius for finding creative ways to use existing IP law to meet his ends (of course taking enormous inspiration from Stallman et co. in the software space).
Re:He sometimes doesn't sound so revolutionary (Score:5, Insightful)
If copyright was instituted correctly and as the founding fathers intended it would encourage a continuous upgrade of ideas from everyone, including the original author. For instance, if a writer of a novel would have to keep on writing in one way or another. When corps cry about the importance of copyright, it's often forgotten that a fiction writer, for example, could just release a new edition of their work that might have a new introduction or new essays about the work or even slight revisions on the story and this would be a BRAND NEW copyright, giving them a new 7 years (or whatever) for the new work. A nonfiction writer could also add evidence or do other rewrites to their work and they would likewise get a BRAND NEW copyright, or a new author could then build on the previous ideas brought forward freely. As you can see, this "classic" copyright encourages continuous work while our version of copyright encourages you to sit back and collect the dough for the rest of your life.
So he's not really anti-copyright or anti-license. He's against using it in a way that goes against what its original intent. So in a you're right.. he's not revolutionary. He wants to go back to the original rules. I for one agree with him.
Re:He sometimes doesn't sound so revolutionary (Score:5, Informative)
"When I saw him speak, he pointed out that copyright was set up to encourage writers (and at first it was ONLY writers) to continuously work and release stuff out into the creative commons, where in a limited period of time (conservatively, more list 7 years instead of the lifetime of the artist) it would be released out to open for everyone to use freely."
To amplify the above, this happened in 1790, and books, maps and charts were the universe of items that could be copyrighted. The term was 14 years with the priveledge of renewing for another 14 years.
It wasn't until 1831 that musical works were added, to protect against unauthorized printing and selling of sheet music. The term was increased to 28 years at the same time.
Plays were added in 1856 and photos were added in 1865.
The complete history is here [copyright.gov].
Re:He sometimes doesn't sound so revolutionary (Score:2)
That means, to me at least, that a 58 year copyright is probably not unreasonable (in comparison) as thats 75% of the life span of a typical person today.
Re:He sometimes doesn't sound so revolutionary (Score:3, Informative)
"Don't forget that, according to this online info the average human lifespan in 1790 was about 37 years. So a 14 year copyright with a right to renew for 14 years is 75% of the life span of a typical person at the time."
We are getting off-topic here, but "average" and "typical" have different meanings in this context. When somebody quotes that the average lifespan of a person in some forgotten century was under 40, they are referring to the arithmetic mean, and not stating that the typical person dropp
Re:He sometimes doesn't sound so revolutionary (Score:3, Interesting)
Uh, copyright term should have *shortened*, to reflect the ever decreasing costs of reproduction and distribution. Remember, it's meant to be a way to make a reasonable amount of money off "intellectual property", not give some entity monopoly control for a proportion of a lifetime.
Personally, I think copyright length should be determined by ROI, not an
Re:He sometimes doesn't sound so revolutionary (Score:2)
Re:He sometimes doesn't sound so revolutionary (Score:3, Informative)
Re:He sometimes doesn't sound so revolutionary (Score:3, Informative)
Lawrence Lessig is working to craft systems that increase the control that a creator has over his work, which today means working to reduce the opportunities that companies have to take that contropl away and giving creators the legal tools neccissary for them to colaborate and share without giving away all of their rights to their original work.
Eliminating licensing, co
Re:Information wants to be free! (Score:2)
The following is public domain. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The following is public domain. (Score:2)
I.P.? (Score:2, Interesting)
How can it be property if I still have it after I sell it to you?
How can it be theft if I still have it after you've taken it?
Maybe the language isn't there yet, but "property" and "theft" are not terms that make any sense in when it comes to copyright and patents. All the property talk does is confuse the and prejudice public opinion. The term "I.T." needs to be abandoned if there is ever to be any smart public debate ab
crud (Score:4, Informative)
Re:This Lessig guy is smoking something potent (Score:3, Insightful)