How to stop Piracy?

I think what cs_posting is trying to say is that there have been people making stuff up for thousands of years, and nobody ever had to make up an artificial category of "intellectual property" in order to get paid, until quite recently.

That's probably true, if you're looking at cave-man days. But then God created Thieves. The rest of the story I leave as an intellectual exercise for the reader. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

It's the entitlement attitude, that got engendered when the government started getting into the nanny business.

Thanks, Rich

In John's dictionary, the word "tacit" is apparently defined as "neither present nor even hinted at in the post I'm replying to"

I'm really curious where you came up with this idea that I was arguing anything along the lines of "those who originated the idea need to be granted the right to _use_ the idea" That's your invention, not mine.

thievery = nazism? hmmmm....

I'd say that the desire for a free lunch is basic instinct, right behind self-preservation and sex.

The fact that there is no free lunch (but plenty of plunderable lunches) is attributable to the second law of thermodynamics. I find it interesting, that people rarely link the laws of nature to human morality.

Of course. Consistency and ethics are inconveniences, obstacles to the free lunch.

Mark

Ah, I think I've figured it out. John is unable to comprehend the possibility of a system in which ideas are not ownable or treatable as virtual property. As a result, when I suggested that recognizing an inventor need not include granting them the right to use the invention as virtual property, he translated the rules of the ideas-as-property system to erroneously conlude that the inventor would not be allowed to make _practical use_ of the idea. Wheras the opposite is true - if ideas are not ownable property, then anyone can make use of them.

Since there's been a lot of jumping to conclusions, I feel the need to point out that I have not recommended a switch to such a system. What I have done is tried to point out that ideas as virtual property is a recent construct and not the only possibility - to the practical end of reminding everyone that these conventions are open to debate, and while they are unlikely to be abandoned, they are certain to be modified over time.

And it is indeed interesting to see that 'intellectual property' is not absolute. Actually there are different kinds like trade marks, patents, copyrights, and so on.

Which leads to the observation that there exist "intellectual things" which currently can not be owned. Things invented before is supposed to be one; trivial things another.

There must be a reason the ownership of this 'property' is not absolute.

And oh yes: please talk about the kind of ownership. "Intellectual property" as a term is very vague and a sign of lawyer-speak. "Gazweezmo version 6 is our 'intellectual property'" - yes, what about it is? The name? The copyright on the packaging? The copyright on the code? A patent on any oinvention that's inside?

By using the vague term, lawyers try to use the law they like best to apply to the whole - probably even to the product idea (like Philips' great 'you can't zap away from the commercials' invention).

Thomas

Thanks for your help on this issue CS. I will go out on a limb still further, and say that a switch to such a system looks likely and beneficial. More and more these questions are being brought up in mainstream press, e.g.

Two factors that I see leading to a paradigm shift on this issue:

1) Communication technology. As people are better able to communicate, those who would try to prevent communication to maintain an IP monopoly are left with little recourse but to model their business plans in a more capitalisitic fashion. Unenforceable legislation is doomed.

2) Corruption. As IP laws have grown and changed, the corruption has also grown. Now, it is easier to see the problem because people are using the system in more and more detrimental ways. Nobody minds too much if e.g. publishers can skim a little more profit, but when corporations don't let you re-plant your seeds or claim to own your DNA, and when certain prime numbers are illegal, it's clear something is wrong.

Cheers - shevek

Unless it is instantiated in a computer program.

What do you mean by "triggering Godwin"?

Godwin's Law: "As an online discussion grows longer, the proability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

Wher's the trigger?

Re-plant your seeds? How the hell do you do that? The seed becomes the plant. The seeds from those plants are not the same as the seed that grew them because they were grown from a hybrid seed. If you use seeds from those plants you will not get the same quality from the next generation. They revert to one of the varieties that comprised the hybrid, all of which are smaller and less hardy.

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

Sometimes this hybrid issue is a natural result of trying to include positive end-user charactersitics.

But sometimes it's an artifical issue introduced merely to prevent replanting part of last year's harvest. Google "terminator gene"

And sometimes it's purely a legal "virtual property" issue - ie, biologically possible to replant from the previous year's harvest, but legally prohibited - and enforced typically be seed company inspectors driving around checking unlicensed fields for plants with a proprietary characteristic, such as herbicide resistance.

--
And there\'s the crux of the matter.

Say I write a poem which strikes a chord in me and which I\'d like
others to enjoy, and I publish it with a formal copyright notice
attached. 

My intent is, clearly, since I published it with a note asking
everyone who reads it not to copy it and disseminate it without my
permission, to make some money off of it.

You seem to think that there\'s something wrong with that.

I\'d like to know why.

That's absurd, and is tantamount to saying that writing would have been impossible before the invention of the typewriter.

--
John Fields
Professional Circuit Designer

Conflicts like that can usually only exist while a system is in transition...

--
No, pirates.

Artists enter into deals with record companies.  The deals may not
be to the advantage of the artists, but that\'s just the result of
the artist\'s ineptitude at business.

Which is exactly my point - you are arguing against your unfounded assumptions of my views, rather than against the substance of what i've actually said.

In fact you don't seem to have challenged the substance at all yet.

Yes, because you ignored obvious counterexamples to your suggestion that certain types of intellectual property would not exist without protection; the counterexamples being that they were established fields of practice before they were protectable.

--
Finally?

That's your statement not mine!

Why do you keep constructing outrageous straw men to argue against?

Only in some systems are ideas ownable property. Apparently you aren't able to think in the context of systems where they are not, long enough to form sensible conclusions about how things would work in those systems.

"Ideas as virtual propety" is an artificial enough concept that while it has substantial merit, it cannot be applied without constantly keeping in mind the fact that it's an artifical creation subject to compromise, not a mandatory state of affairs. You cannot blindly apply physical property concepts to virtual property, because the "property-ness" of virtual property is limited by the compromise that grants it status as proprety. (some would say that the ownability of physical property is also a compromise - which is true - but it's a much less precarious one than that of virtual property)

Specifically, by dropping the "as virtual property" from my original, John constructed a new statement with a nearly opposite meaning of the original, then fradulently attributed his new statement to me so that he could argue against an outrageous straw man, rather than the reasoned arguments I actually presented.