The Guardian On Intellectual Property 240
mykdavies writes "The Guardian has an excellent article giving lay readers an overview of some of the problems being caused by the concept of 'intellectual property', including references to stories familiar to Slashdot readers, such as DVD Jon, the Sony rootkit, Amazon and Google business patents." From the article: "Even facts about the world can, in some cases, become the property of commercial companies. It was the promise of gaining patents on the human genome that lured investors into the private consortium that attempted to sequence it in competition with the public effort. Laboratory animals have already been patented, starting with the OncoMouse, an animal whose genome has been manipulated to ensure that it develops cancer."
IP is evil (Score:4, Funny)
Re:IP is evil.. think of the cancer patients! (Score:2, Interesting)
Patenting animals? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Patenting animals? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Patenting animals? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Patenting animals? (Score:4, Interesting)
applying patents to something that can self replicate and interbreed with a natural variation of itsself leads to a nightmare scenario in which you can be sued because a customer of the patent holder contaminated your stock!
Re:Patenting animals? (Score:5, Informative)
Just googling a little I found a bit from that's covered in the docu:
This monopolisation extends to effect the lives of us all, especially peasant farmers in the developing world. Monsanto planned to introduce its genetically modified seeds accompanied by its patented "technology protection system" which makes the seeds from this year's crop sterile. Critics call Monsanto's seed sterilising technology "terminator" and "suicide seeds". Wherever suicide seed technology is adopted, farmers will have to go back to Monsanto year after year too buy new ration of genetically modified seeds.
"By peddling suicide seeds, the biotechnology multinationals will lock the world's poorest farmers into a new form of genetic serfdom", says Emma Must of the World Development Movement. "Currently 80 per cent of crops in developing countries are grown using farm-saved seed. Being unable to save seeds from sterile crops could mean the difference between surviving and going under", she says. "More precisely", says Canadian journalist Gwynne Dyer, "it would speed the consolidation of small farms into the hands of those with the money to engage in industrialised agribusiness - which generally means higher profits but less employment and lower yields.
http://www.marxist.com/scienceandtech/genetic_eng
Also these 'terminator seeds' have been found in other crops by plants naturally crossbreeding and they've wanted to sue these farmers when the last thing they ever wanted were these terminator seeds.
Monsanto vs Schmeiser (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Patenting animals? (Score:2)
Why ? This isn't a case of the farmers business method (grow food, sell food, profit) becoming obsolete; people still have to eat, after all. This is a case of Monsanto trying to sabotage the farmers production facilities (the field where the food is grown) by conta
What's with all the mice? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:What's with all the mice? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What's with all the mice? (Score:3)
A mostly harmless ford in the river of time, surely.
How to use the Christian Right to fix IP (Score:3, Funny)
Re:How to use the Christian Right to fix IP (Score:2)
--Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy
B.
Omissions (Score:4, Insightful)
Other than that, though, it was a good read, covering more than just software patents, and is a good attention-raiser for this important topic. Maybe the mainstream media will finally wake up to the very real threat IP poses...
Re:Omissions (Score:4, Funny)
Soko
Re:Omissions (Score:2, Insightful)
When one person complains, you can ignore it.
But when seperate parties not linked to the first start to complain you begin to have a little more power or at least are able to make a bit more noise.
Re:Omissions (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the article makes a very good point when it talks about how the companies who are so vigourously in favour of IP would shy away immediately if it worked both ways. A typical example I often see posted here on
Stallman doesn't own the idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Stallman doesn't own the idea (Score:2)
"Most people don't understand that this is a problem yet; let the fact that they have a problem sink in before evangelizing the solution."
Incidently, do you have any idea what my position is vis a vis Stallman? I didn't think so.
Re:Omissions (Score:2)
No. That would make the article lose all impartiality, and look like a fund drive. Arguably there is a place for these, but not every journal article or discussion has to be a telethon...
Re:Omissions (Score:2)
At least... (Score:2, Funny)
Stallman wrote a good piece on "IP" (Score:3, Informative)
"Did You Say "Intellectual Property"? It's a Seductive Mirage [gnu.org]"
Re:Stallman wrote a good piece on "IP" (Score:3, Informative)
In defense of Celera Genomics (Score:2)
It argues against "IP" in a pro-business way (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I notice that there is very little variety in the links at the end of the document. Maybe they should point to a few different places---the FFII website might be a good start, as they seem to come out as being friendly to (small- and medium-sized) business IMO, and they're European.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
IP Can't be protected (Score:5, Interesting)
China, as an example, has shown a complete lack of respect for the copyrights on software, and I see nothing to convince me that they are going to pay any attention to north american IP laws when push-comes-to-shove...
At some point the 'powers' are going to have to realise that ideas are not the same as physical property, and can not be treated the same.
All new knowedge is built on the work of those that came before. The rate of increase of new ideas is directly related to how quickly the new idea can be passed on to. So why is it that now when the dissemination of information is essentially instantaneous and free we are working hard at creating artificial barriers to impede progress?
China copys rock'n'roll? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure there are always going to be a few people in the coastal cities, the oxymoronic Chinese super-hip people of Shanghai and Hong Kong who follow the latest western trends, but the average person? I don't get it.
Why would a factory wor
Re:China copys rock'n'roll? (Score:2)
The Americans and the Europeans are obsessed with it because of copious the pirated Chinese CD-s (and other merchandise) making its way to Europe and America.
Re:China copies rock'n'roll? (Score:2)
On the other hand, there have been reports of fake brand-name clothing (and other merchandise, like power tools) being found in cargo containers from China. So it's a bit naive to suggest (like that poster did) that
Re:IP Can't be protected (Score:2, Interesting)
Certainly many people contribute without expecting anything in return, but such attitudes can only reach so far, especially when creation of an "idea" requires the involvement of material goods that aren't cheap.
Never mind the time aspect, and that people need to eat.
Re:IP Can't be protected (Score:2)
Certainly many people contribute without expecting anything in return, but such attitudes can only reach so far, especially when creation of an "idea" requires the involvement of material goods that aren't cheap.
Never mind the time aspect, and that people need to eat.
Hey Microlith, long time no see. This is not to defend the GP for not offering alternatives
Re:IP Can't be protected (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been saying this for awhile. IP doesn't mesh with capitalism. The latter is a system to regulate the distribution of scarce goods. Ideas are not scarce. All IP schemes attempt to introduce artificial scarcity into ideaspace, but the truth is that these are artificial measures only. Any community that decides not to impose these measur
Re:IP Can't be protected (Score:2)
That's perhaps the most insightful point I've ever heard on the issue.
The reason people use IP is because they don't know what else to do with ideas. That is so true. Some moron sitting around has an idea and the concept that their brain actually functions is so astounding to them that they make it their life work to guard and protect that idea--like they have nothing better to do with their life.
That is so much the IP trump
Re:IP Can't be protected (Score:2)
Because certain information actually take a lot of work to produce, and if the costs can't be recovered they won't happen? It is always cheaper to reproduce without paying anything for the original, and that has been the case since the first printing presses and the first notions of copyright began in the 1700s. I'm not talking about the lat
Enemies of human civilization and democracy (Score:2)
Their crimes are even worsened IMHO by the way they corrupt western democracies: bribing politicians and buying laws for the
Re:IP Can't be protected (Score:2)
IP in the USA (Score:5, Insightful)
Government: Look here, we have some nice (new) laws to make you feel better.
People: *yawn* Who gives a fuck?!?
Government: Ok then, lets up the ante...
Small group: Hey, that's not right.
People: *yawn* Who gives a fuck?!?
Government: The "small group" didn't elect me *rinses* *repeats*
Small group: Ok, now I'm mad, I'm calling shenanigans...
People: *yawn* Who gives a fuck?!?
Government: Just one more tweak, then we can retire...
People: Huh what's happening?.... Get out the guns, it's time for a revolution
Re:IP in the USA (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:IP in the USA (Score:2)
That gives the militia (i.e., the people) the right to ensure "the security of a free State" by force. I would argue that this affirms our right to fight against any entity who threatens our freedom, even if that entity is the government itself (that is, if it becomes so corrupt that it no longer represents the will
Re:IP in the USA (Score:2)
Who would fight?
Re:IP in the USA (Score:2)
Nothing like having good critical reading skills, eh?
Of course, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're thinking something along the lines of "but the government is the people!" Well, indeed that's true, which is why all revolutions can also be described as civil wars. The difference in terminology is just a description of which side won.
Re:IP in the USA (Score:2)
'On [the robot's] world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.'"
'Odd,' said Arthur, 'I thought you said it was a democracy.'
'I did,' said Ford, 'It is.'
'So,' said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, 'why don't the people get rid of the lizards?'
'It honestly doesn't occur to them,' said Ford. 'They've all got the vote, so they all pretty
DVD jon? (Score:2, Funny)
Tom
Well reasoned, clear-headed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Excellent read. The first article I've read that actually covers the investor-patent relation as a trade market independent of the 'inventor'.
It also makes a clear distinction between the right to copy and concepts of ownership without overt use of analogy and metaphor.
The final point, that Intellectual Property is itself an idea that can be manipulated, distributed and copied, also offers fresh perspectives on what is often accepted as an ancient and unnegotiable moral framework; one in fact enforced by laws that are invented to make allow for the idea of IP in the first instance.
do patents promote progress? (Score:4, Informative)
When you look at the great inventions, people mostly didn't do it for the money. I talking not about things like the light bulb but the fundamental research that went into most of the break through discoveries in science. Take just about anything, the vacuum tube, the transistor, integrated ciruit, the Internet, etc. and you'll find the incentive came, not from being able to get rich from it, but by the desire to create and discover. That people can make a living from their discoveries and inventions is great but it's not essential for progress.
Re:do patents promote progress? (Score:2)
But when you count the inventions, I'm sure you will find that most of them were paid for by a company. Your avarage hired reasearcher far outnumbers the genious inventor.
It's not property (Score:3, Insightful)
Hence we need a system for dealing with those conflicts, by deciding who gets to sit in the chair or eat the bread. And the system we use is the property system. We assign control over such things to individual people, and call those items "their property".
With ideas, the sort of things which are covered by patents and copyright, these conflicts do not exist. When you have an idea, everyone can make use of it without limiting its functionality. Hence there is no such problem to solve. No reason for such notions of property to exist. The notion of "intellectual property" is therefore an absurdity.
The purpose of copyrights and patents is completely different to the purpose of property. Deliberately implying otherwise is deception.
And if anyone needs to make use of deception when putting their case forward, it's a good sign that their case isn't strong enough to stand on its own merits.
(Also, copyrights and patents are a really stupid way of trying to get people to create ideas. Giving up your freedom is very seldom a good plan, and the limitations on freedom imposed by copyrights and patents have two obvious effects; they create more power, which by its nature centralises and then corrupts those who hold too much of it, thereby creating entities which hinder the growth of the very thing which we're supposed to be encouraging, and they cripple the end result, meaning for example that your new drugs are only of limited use, because only the relatively wealthy can use them. I can't immediately think of a field in which we wouldn't be better off in the final analysis if we used other non-freedom-removing means of paying the people who we need to pay to keep things moving, and in many fields we'd be better off with no such system at all over the current system.)
Re:It's not property (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps it's because I'm an ardent capitalist that I find the current situation of economic incentives appealing. There are areas of expertise that require multi-million dollar installations, or highly specialised staff (read: well paid) in order to cause additional advancement. We are, fortunately, past the point where a guy can get hit on the head by an apple to have a revelation.
My only real concern with these pro
Re:It's not property (Score:2, Insightful)
If the government granted personal monopolies on the supply of food for the sake of incentive, and then called shares of that monopoly a "property right" - any true capitalist could easially see:
1)That it isn't really a property
2)That it destroyes more opportunities than it creates
3)That is is harmfull to free markets and society
Well the same is true with patnet monopolies. While it is true th
Re:It's not property (Score:2, Interesting)
1. Any non-tangible thing (i.e. ideas, art, music, computer programs) cannot be patented.
Those are to be copyrighted which means that nobody can directly copy your work but create something that can compete in the market against the first person. That's capitalism. IP patents would lead to situations where there would only be one rock song, one love movie, and one spreadsheet program. That would be a monopoly, which are the dearth of capitalism.
2. Copyrights need to expire
better ways (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Make everyone shareholders. I think this idea is no better than what we have now, and probably worse. Anyway, set a "release" price on new works (ideas, art). When enough people have collectively put up enough money to meet the price, release it to these people only. They are now shareholders. Whenever outsiders want in, they buy shares
A Violent Protest Against Patents (Score:4, Insightful)
There seems to be this attitude that the suffering of slaves prior to 1850 was something that only happened back then. That it has nothing to do with now, that we are more civilized, more modern, more mature, and more sophisticated. With it comes the arrogance that what happened then, means nothing now, that what happened there has no value here, that the great torment and suffering back then can safely be ignored now as we blow off history and all the values that go with it in terms of understanding, freedom, markets, property, technology, and the coming replication age.
Surely anyone who claimed that there is no "incentive" go grow cotton without slaves on the plantation would be considered a barbaric. But if someone claims that there is no "incentive" to create intellectual and knowledge works without patents, then society calls them enlightened. If someone had said that the great wealth of America rested on slavery as a property right and the plantation system, they were a foolish idiot. But if someone says that the great wealth of societies in the coming replication ate rests on "Intellectual Property", then they are called wise. Anyone who says that slavery was about property rights and not control, is a liar. However, if they say that patents are not about control, but "Intellectual Property" then they are considered trustworthy. How about - if you don't like slavery - don't own slaves, and if you don't like patents no one forces you to buy those creations. How about - if you don't believe in slavery, you must be an anarchist, if you don't believe in patents you must be some kind of a communist. How about - you are a thief if you free slaves from the plantation, you are a thief when you copy "Intellectual Property".
So why are we spoon-feed these poor logical explanations over and over again? Because, like the assassin who befriends and mis-places his victims heart medications, rather than pull out a rifle and pop a bullet in the head. Like the rapist who drugs his victim, rather than attack her overtly and violently where all the scars, blood, and bruises can be detected. Patents are the pinnacle of quiet violence, they seem so innocent, they seem so sincere, and it is so hard to see any direct evil. After all, what could be less harmless then providing an incentive to inventors, right? But do they really promote invention - or just lock out and tie up inventions and discoveries that were likely to happen anyhow? Do they really help inventors, or do they hinder collaboration and sharing in a way that would put a police state to shame?
Perhaps the old lady has none to blame when her patented medication is too expensive to afford anymore. Who can the workers blame when the patented technology they bet their career on becomes useless as society migrates to less controlling technologies. Who can a child in Africa blame when they are dying of AIDS, and there are no generics to treat it! Who do we blame when researchers seeking a cure for cancer encounter massive obstacles to sharing individual research for fear that their peers will get one up on them, get a key patent, and lock them out! What do you do when a company buys up a patent on a safety device, but then decides not to use it nor let their competitors use it, other than watch people die who might not have otherwise. And all to often people just assume that every manufacturer having incompatible parts and appliances with every other manufacturer is a natural part of a free market, but is it? And does that really help our environment?
As people die because patents are either too costly and alternatives too sparse, and the needy go without, not because of genuine shortage, but because artificial human made restrictions. We must ask what will our role be in the pages of history as society enters into the replication age? Will it be like the lost souls who thought that the slave states could peacefully get along with the free states who today think that patents can peacefully co-exist with freedoms. Or will we be like the plantat
Re:A Violent Protest Against Patents (Score:5, Informative)
Re:A Violent Protest Against Patents (Score:2)
Re:A Violent Protest Against Patents (Score:2)
Maybe you take issue because you equate it to a repost troll, or something? I certainly don't! It's on-topic, it adds to the conversation, and -- apparently -- it needs to be repeated to get through to people.
Re:A Violent Protest Against Patents (Score:2, Insightful)
FYI, it is arguable that over a million people in Africa died of AIDS that wouldn't have otherwise - if the African nations were not sued in the world cort for patent violations when they tried to make generics. And people being locked out from using safety devices, and pharmacuticals that have toxic side effects because non patentable cures are marginalized - these are not stores. They are murders and suffering that is happening now.
Extreme examples would be that of an AIDS vacine never being created
Re:A Violent Protest Against Patents (Score:2, Interesting)
These "peers" you speak of work for large corperations devoted to MAKING MONEY....But hey I'm sure they value their jobs money and freedom more than the lives of countless millions.....
Free markets are not about choking off supply by creating artificial restrictions for the sake of profit, but about freedom. When people are free from controll, they tend to use that freedom as an opportunity to create wealth and prosperity where non existed before. That's what pays for the jobs, and the business. An a
Re:A Violent Protest Against Patents (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A Violent Protest Against Patents (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A Violent Protest Against Patents (Score:2)
Re:A Violent Protest Against Patents (Score:2)
"illegal to copy your own CDs... to ipod"? WTF? (Score:2, Informative)
Just wondering... isn't that covered under fair use (and perfectly legal as a result)? Can someone clarify this for me?
Thanks.
Re:"illegal to copy your own CDs... to ipod"? WTF? (Score:3, Informative)
He is simply wrong on that point.
Re:"illegal to copy your own CDs... to ipod"? WTF? (Score:2, Interesting)
The way I read "fair-use" in the US, is that it is protection granted to comment on works. I don't see how copying the entire work onto a different media would be included in that definition.
From stanford.edu [stanford.edu]:
Fair use here in Canada though (not looking for a backing link, but I'm sure of this) does allow making of "backups" or alternate copies of something once you
Re:"illegal to copy your own CDs... to ipod"? WTF? (Score:4, Informative)
(aka "the Betamax case")
Essentially, the court found that home time-shifting is a fair use, which is not exactly the same as making "backups", it is extremely similar.
More on point might be American Geophysical Union v. Texaco, Inc., 60 F.3d 913 (2d Cir. 1994). In that case, the court found that making unauthorized copies of journal articles was copyright infringement. The copying there was much more similar to P2P, where there was a library with a single (or a few) copies of the journals, and researchers from texaco were making hundreds of copies so that they could each have their own at their work areas. But the court did state that if the purpose of the copying had primarily been so that a researcher could take the photocopy into the lab and not accidentally damage the original, it probably would have been fair use.
Section 107 of the Copyright Act outlines some specific instances of fair use (criticism, comment, news reporting, etc.), but does not limit fair use to only those purposes, instead codifying the judicial doctrine of fair use (the 4-part test somebody noted above).
Usual disclaimer applies: IANAL, just a well-meaning law student studying hard for his Copyright final.
Re:"illegal to copy your own CDs... to ipod"? WTF? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is even part of the DeCSS case, where you have a right to archive your own DVDs, the copyright holder isn't obligated to give you a legal method to do so.
Another "fine line" regarding Fair Use: Borrowing copyright material for parody is considered Fair Use, but satire is not. Look that one up for fun and profit.
Re:"illegal to copy your own CDs... to ipod"? WTF? (Score:2)
It's not even a protection really.
What's so great about the current copyright law (in the U.S.) is that Fair Use is (just) a defense. Essentially, that means when it comes to copyright infringement you are guilty until proven innocent.
If I use a piece of TV in a film I've made (and have publicly displayed or distrib
Re:"illegal to copy your own CDs... to ipod"? WTF? (Score:2)
"Fair use" is an American term. There's no such thing in most of the rest of the world, including Canada. The Copyright Act here gives you various specific rights to backup computer programs if you own the original and to make personal copies of audio recordings whether you own the original or not, but there's no general right to m
Re:"illegal to copy your own CDs... to ipod"? WTF? (Score:3, Informative)
The Rio merely makes copies in order to render portable, or "space-shift," those files that already reside on a user's hard drive.
It relies heavily on the time-shifting analysis of Sony. I shoulda included it in my reply below...
Re:"illegal to copy your own CDs... to ipod"? WTF? (Score:2)
Unless of course there is a access restricition on your audio recording. The DMCA (and from what I remember the EUCD as well) doesn't have a Fair Use exemption for circumventing access restrictions. So even though it would be perfectly legal to copy the audio itself, it is illegal to break the access restriction.
I should, for honesty's sake retract a bit: if you as a private person figure out on your own how to circumvent the access restriction, you might have a defense (jurisprudence to this effect does n
Re:"illegal to copy your own CDs... to ipod"? WTF? (Score:2)
Re:"illegal to copy your own CDs... to ipod"? WTF? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:"illegal to copy your own CDs... to ipod"? WTF? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, as long as it doesn't require you to circumvent an effective copy protection. Remember, fair use is only a defense against copyright violation, not circumvention.
Patent for $ (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Patent for $ (Score:3, Informative)
Riddled with errors and unsupported statements. (Score:4, Interesting)
I must say, this is one of the worst articles on IP I've ever seen. Whoever thinks it's 'excellent' is just hankering for some anti-establishment echo-room action rather than reality. I don't think I have time to cover them all, but here are just a few.
This is baloney. It's been quite a while since the constitution was written, and right there in Article 1 section 8 clause 8 is the statement by the framers that is the basis for our patent system. Ideas could be owned in 1789, and long before that as well, as England also had a patent system.
Not to mention the fact that money is an idea, equitable servitudes are ideas, usufructs are ideas, loans are ideas, contracts are ideas, and, now this will really blow your mind --
options on options...
well, you get the idea.
Facts about the world, laws of nature, or abstract mathematical statements or equations, cannot be patented.
Gene sequences may seem to be getting close to that line, but you can only patent a gene sequence that you can extract and replicate; it's analogous to extracting and purifying a chemical compound from a naturally occurring mixture of substances, in effect making available a new substance that no one could put to practical use before.
An animal that's human-engineered is certainly not a 'fact of nature' -- it never existed before someone made it. It's a result of engineering just as much as an electric circuit or a toaster. It's just alive.
This is one of those completely unsubstantiated statements. I tend to think that many of the drugs that the developing world uses were developed at least partially due to the patent system. At any rate, what's really clear is that they ALL come from the U.S. and Europe.
I would just like to point out that both sides have lawyers -- this makes it sound like lawyers are the enemy. In fact, lawyers are just the guys that help their clients get what they deserve under the law.
People with more money have always been able to hire better lawyers in our legal system, and that problem has nothing to do with intellectual property.
The system is supposed to work this way. It incentivizes companies to research and patent things as fast as they can, pushing the limits of technology, and then disclosing them to the public. Otherwise, they might do less research, and might keep their research secret, thereby keeping it from the rest of us much longer than the 20 year life of patents... Sometimes reverse engineering is possible, but sometimes it's not.
How about so I can pay my programmers? How about so I can invest i
Re:Riddled with errors and unsupported statements. (Score:2)
Most of you probably already know that this is not true.
Only because a CD must (remotely) abide by the Red Book standard, which never included an "effective copy protection". But if you install crap like Sony's rootkit, I imagine circumventing that, or accessing the DRM'd PC versions of the music would be considered a crime. Using Hym
Re:Riddled with errors and unsupported statements. (Score:2)
---------------
No, that's baloney. If that were the case -- if "Intellectual Property [sic]" was prope
Re:Riddled with errors and unsupported statements. (Score:2)
Regarding takings of property, the expiration of a patent is not a taking because the right that is granted is limited to 20 years from inception. The government is taking nothing away when the patent expires, because no right was granted that extends beyond 20 years.
Re:Riddled with errors and unsupported statements. (Score:2)
Re:Riddled with errors and unsupported statements. (Score:2)
The definition of the property simply includes a time limitation.
This is like a life estate in real property - a life estate is the title to some real property until you die. This is a true property right, but it's limited in duration.
Re:Riddled with errors and unsupported statements. (Score:2)
First of all, no, the definition of "property" [wiktionary.org] does not include a time limitation! In fact, not even the legal definition [law.com] says anything about limited times. Nor, incidentally, does it include anything about "Intellectual Property [sic]." [law.com] Gee, I wonder why that could be?
Second, if it did, then it would be unconstitutional. No, I th
Re:Riddled with errors and unsupported statements. (Score:2)
Patents (originally) were/are not monopolies on ideas, but on inventions. Those are not quite the same [ffii.org]. And origin
Re:Riddled with errors and unsupported statements. (Score:2)
Regarding your first question regarding human DNA, the Constitution prohibits involuntary servitude. If the Supreme Court were to decide the case where a child born to a mother who had gene therapy also ended up with patented genes, the court could strike it down as involuntary servitu
Re:Riddled with errors and unsupported statements. (Score:2)
That really chaps my ass. People go to expensive colleges for years just to learn how to look up and interpret the laws, and yet I'm accountable for knowing and understanding every bit of it?
It flies in the face of common sense. Who the hell came up with this asinine legal principle?
Oh yeah... lawyers.
Huh? Problem Caused by "Concept" of IP? (Score:2)
The problem is a lot of people are justifying abuse of property they do not own and the exercise of rights they do not have by pointing to legitimate concepts of openness that have been deliberately bastardized to serve their own selfish interests.
All information is unfree at the moment of creation. Whatever degree of right and ownership th
Re:familiar (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:familiar (Score:2)
I don't say they should have let it die but a once-a-day post containing all Sony rootkit news would have been more than enou
Hopefully, before disclosing this to the public... (Score:2)
Re:Hopefully, before disclosing this to the public (Score:2)
Thanks! (Score:2)
Re:We need to send pirates a message (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps the problem is that you are in a very very small niche market, and being so you are more vulnerable to economic changes. Perhaps a switch of the demographic of your base area. Perhaps the economy in general.
Perhaps people like me who rely on free music (like from Jemundo and such), and iTMS to cut out the middle man, an
Sheesh. (Score:4, Funny)
What's funny is this has worked so well in our War on Drugs that our prisons everywhere are bursting at the seams! What portion of society do you exclude before the rules have to change?
Re:We need to send pirates a message (Score:2)
Don't bother with it. It's part of a string of stories this poster post around the internet, hoping to get some semblance of attention. Hitting google I see this exact story has been posted multiple times on Slashdot, kuro5hin, digitalmob, etc.
He is likely just paid to keep posting the same story over and over again. Similar to the post about the female business owner who found open source more expensive. That one pops up fairly regularly too.
Unfortunatly this gu
Re:We need to send pirates a message (Score:3, Insightful)
I have not pirated any music over the internet...ever. Yet I stopped buying CDs:
1. I found out some are disabled for my digital devices.
(I buy music for simple enjoyment, for FUD, hassle & frustration)
2. I discovered new artists at the free legal download sites.
3. I discovered commercial-free, announcer-free internet radio, like SomaFM.
I might resume buying CD's when music companies can gurantee they'll work and will acce
Re:We need to send pirates a message (Score:2)
This argument is fallacious. Can you show amongst consumers that also buy above items that CD sales are down?
Common sense (not a factual assertion) would say that the market segment that is still buying designer jeans and jackets, jewelry and
Re:First Brain Fart (Score:2)