How to stop Piracy?

No, that impractical scheme is barely even tangential.

That you are jumping to such odd conclusions reinforces my suspicion that you really haven't thought through how things would work if ideas were not ownable property. Yet we have many examples of such things working: the linux operating system for example. While that particular idea forum is constructed using contemporary IP law, it's goal is nearly opposite - IP law is used as the building mechanism only because we live in a society with IP laws. If we lived in an "information wants to be free" society, the license terms would be different, or even unecessary, because the kinds of freedom the current license is designed to preserve would already be the law of the land.

You'd probably be suprsied to learn that individuals and companies from large to small are making money in that corner of that world that's been imported into our present one - despite having surrendered ordinary property control of their ideas (at least within the context of that and compatible uses).

You mean like, the French train system? Or the soviet union's gas companies? Those monopolies are anathema to socialism and communism? Maybe you mean like Cuba's health care monopoly? Or perhaps China's telecommunications system?

I don't think so. Government enforced monopolies are very much socialistic or communistic, as I understand these terms.

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The problem is that most genetic patents are made on pre-existing sequences. Sure, a lot of work went into doing the sequencing, but doing that work was the choice of the workers. If they didn't see fair compensation coming, why did they do that work?

You have it exactly backwards. Last time I checked, socialism was not defined as information placed in the public domain. I'm only suggesting that we allow competition. IP laws currenty forbid it, in a government controlled system.

Not that I'm entirely against socialist institutions, for example public libraries and roads, but in this case I'm making the case against one of them: so-called intellectual property legislation.

You have to at least admit that this is a case of governments deciding the course of industry and distribution. Doesn't mean you don't like it or you don't think it's a good idea, but at least admit it's socialist.

Cheers - shevek

OK, so communism and socialism suggest that the means of prouction should not be controlled by a central government? That's news to me..

It belongs to the patent holder under current laws.

I am advocating a meritocracy or free market as opposed to this handing out of production rights at the discretion of the authorities.

The thief is the one holding unfair monopoly rights in my opinion.

For one, it's a piss-poor business plan. Everyone can copy it if it's good it will be around the world in a heartbeat.

Sell it to a publisher first and get a good contract.. or use it as a stepping stone for a career.

Really? "If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants"

Newton * Letter to Robert Hooke (5 February 1675)

Fair enough. I certainly don't stand at a point to criticize your amazing contributions!

Thanks, there's a concrete example.

How about some more details? Did the patent law explicity benefit you, i.e. were lawsuits involved? Was your monetary gain entirely dependent on enforcement of intellectual property rights? Did you sell the design for these ping-through devices to a production company, did you have a contract with them that gave you a cut of all sales? That kind of arrangment doesn't require IP laws..

Cheers-

No, that is not my position at all, but you jumping to wild conclusions.

My position (the cliff notes version, since you apparently couldn't understand the full version) is that ideas are not completely ownable. In some ways they are, and in some ways they are not - and in any dispute over ownership of ideas or ownership rights to ideas, the first question that has to be answered is if the subject idea can even be considered ownable property in the narrow context of the specific issue that is to be decided.

--- I wasn't talking about business, I was talking about morality. Your position seems to be that you condone the theft of intellectual property, so I assume you think having my work stolen is OK. _Is_ that your position?

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--- Or neither.

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--- Oops... I was thinking brightly colored pebbles.

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--- The business arrangements I made have nothing to do with the discussion other than that the people I was dealing with at the time felt that the IP protection afforded by a patent was important enough that they wouldn't proceed without one.

The reason, of course, was that if someone infringed the patent there was legal recourse.

-- John Fields Professional Circuit Designer

Your response here reinforces my suspicion that you're sarcasm-impaired. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

...

OK, that's clear enough.

And, it happens to be wrong.

If you're not the owner of your own creations, then, pray tell, who exactly is?

Thanks, Rich

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Hmmm... well, then, what did you mean by "radical ideas"?

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Geez, that sounds pretty close to my wild conclusions.

Let\'s see...

There needs to be someone or some body who\'s going to decide on
whether an idea is ownable, and if it is, who owns it. 

Did I miss something?

Yes, in the US that would be congress, patent examiners, the courts, international treaties, and their dispute resolution organizations.

Yes. Your conclusion (below) reaches far, far beyond my position

The principal difference being that you add the rather outrageous idea of an inventor needing permission from some nebulous body to make use of the un-ownable properties of their idea.

In actually, things work the opposite way. An inventor needs the assistance of government to enforce his ownership interest in the ownable properties of the idea by preventing others from legally using it without his permission. Absent that government cooperation, and for the aspects of the idea which the government does not consider ownable, there are no legal impediments to the use of the idea by the inventor or anyone else.

Since people seem to get so distracted by trying to identify the owner of things that are not ownable, I'll respond with three questions:

1) Who owns pi?

2) Who decides what I can do with it?

3) Is this state of affairs the result of action taken by a government or other entity, or is the the result of government declining to become involved in regulation of pi?

(as a side note, because our language often uses the same structure to represent genetive and possesive relationships, the occasional oddity alsong the lines of "their own un-ownable idea" actually is meaningfull)

They haven't always so declined:

Cheers! Rich

Rather obviously, to the extent that an idea is not ownable, no one owns it.

We can only argue about the ownership of the ownable properties of the idea, along with the question of what properties of the idea are ownable.

John Fields wrote: [snip]

You seem to think the "property" referred to in the phrase "intellectual property" is the idea or expression itself. I always thought the "property" was the exclusive right. It's that exclusive right which you can buy and sell in the same way as real property, not the idea itself.

I didn't realise there were people who thought ownership of ideas was somehow "natural" in the same way that the ownership of real property is. Apparently there are. I find that utterly terrifying.

Incidentally, the law doesn't support your position that ideas are inherently property. It considers only a subset of ideas as in any way worthy of exclusivity. Even then, the exclusivity granted falls far short of the exclusivity granted to real property - it's time-limited for one thing.

Would you prefer complete parity between ideas and real, physical property? In other words: Perpetual copyright, perpetual patents and no minimum standard required to be granted either? It seems to me that's the logical conclusion of the equation of physical property and ideas. And that's why I find equating the two terrifying.

Personally, I don't see why and idea has to "belong" to anyone.

Tim

p.s. I'm not against copyright and patents. But they are a balancing act - the idea behind them is that they produce a net benefit to society by encouraging the creation of new works and inventions. For there to be a net benefit the artificial monopoly must only be granted in limited circumstances (for genuine innovations, for example) and for limited time. I'm deeply concerned about the seemingly relentless expansion of both the circumstances under which a monopoly is granted (the patenting of just about any old crap) and the increase in time the monopoly is in place (How many more works are being produced as a direct result of the extension of copyrights to life + 70 years in the US? My bet is exactly zero.).

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Shares are your votes in a pigologocracy.

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Since you stated, above, that an idea needs to be presented to an
authority of some kind in order to determine whether it\'s ownable or
not and, if it is who its owner is, it follows that the use of the
idea must be curtailed until that determination is made.  After all,
if it turns out that the inventor isn\'t the owner, and someone else
is, it just wouldn\'t do to allow the inventor to infringe on his
invention, now would it?

I agree that that\'s an outrageous premise, but it\'s not mine, it\'s a
logical consequence of your argument.

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I feel that an idea is the property of the person who "gets" the
idea until they divulge it.  Why else would we say, "That was my
idea." or "That was her idea."?

I don\'t find that terrifying at all.

I meant radically free market ideas. Elimination of state-mandated IP monopolies is a radical change that will not happen overnight, as industry restructures and the patent offices change their mission to focus on the library aspect.

I agree that's what a patent affords the patentee. The argument I've been giving here is that such a system is detrimental to the economy and human progress, and is anethema to laissez-faire economics and capitalism.

This is indeed a potential problem. If you can keep the prices down as you say, and produce good products still, you will drive out all competition. Then, you can raise the prices. Then, when competition returns, you can lower prices again to drive them out of business.

We could also debate anti-trust laws here, but as far as IP laws go, they mean that you will control everything from the start - by law. Hardly an improvement!

Touch=E9.. I set myself up for that one.

No, you have it exactly backwards. Unless someone else claims a recognized ownership right, there is no legal impediment to anyone doing anything with the idea.

I'm really struggling to figure out why you missed this, given that it's already how our system works.

Well,

Whenever someone tries to impose a 4 year minimum prison term for copying or brand falsification you know something is wrong. They are trying now in the EU. And I hope it will backfire.

Take a t-shirt with you from holiday, get caught at customs, and face 4 years in prison. Minimum - no haggling.

Doesn't even have to be a falsification: parallel import does the trick as well. Even then: try going to a third world country and finding a shirt _without_ a major brand name on it.

Thomas