Topic: Free speech is free data; free data is free speech. - page 2. (Read 4480 times)

I'll let someone else answer that one. I assume aggression would be allowed in the name of self defense.

The libertarian threat of nothing. People here are arguing all IP should be abolished, so counterfeiting would no longer exist or be a crime.  It would become a perfectly legal profession. Yes, I prefer the system where counterfeiting is a crime.

So you prefer the current system because it includes the threat of jail time rather than the libertarian threat of (honestly I don't know what comes after lawsuit for a professional con artist).

Go to walgreens and you will find personal drug tests for pretty cheap. These are ELISAs.

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In general:
There are some variations on this theme... the main point is a rabbit or whatever is made allergic to the drug then the antibodies it produces are harvested from blood. One subset of these antibodies are then stuck to either some strip of paper material or the bottom a plastic dish. Then a second antibody to the drug (or drug bound to antibody) is added which is attached to some colored molecule. If both stick in the same place the test is positive as made evident by the color localizing in one place.
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When the FDA tests batches they likely use these as their first screen. Once developed they can be produced and sold for very cheap. If you want further verification you need access to a GC/MS (gas chromatography followed by mass spectrometry). These machines have many uses and are used by private non-science organizations for e.g. testing soil for contamination before someone sells land. The ELISA kit you can carry with you. If paranoid, for further verification you could have your local pharmacist order some drug from where you are headed beforehand and test it using the GC/MS. There would also likely be a pharmacist's society to which each individual pharmacist is registered and liable. If government impediments to purchase of these kits are removed, this should protect you just as well as , if not better than, the current system.

Because the penalties for producing and selling fake drugs are huge. He has little to no incentive to sell fakes, when he has a choice between makes a good living selling the real stuff, or living his life in jail selling fakes. He also has no competitive pressure from other pharmacies selling cheap fakes. Thats why I generally trust them. Here. I would never buy my drugs in Somalia though.

And yes, I would be able to verify drugs with the proper tools.

I don't mean to seem so confident. Really I'm just playing devil's advocate. It is a complete gray area that requires discussion though.

The same way it works now... Think about it. Why do you trust the strange pharmacist in a strange city? What happens under the current system when a rouge pharmacist starts selling drugs he isn't licensed to sell (or substitutes or whatever)?

The answer to the last one is he gets his comeuppance once people figure out what he is doing.

What if he only does it to strangers, who will come intervene to stop this creepy small town murderer?

So do you personally know someone with tools/knowledge to verify medical drugs? Because I dont. And I do like being able to buy them in any pharmacy in any city I happen to travel to. Not only do I like that, my life actually depends on it.

Its bad enough its already a remote possibility today, even if completely illegal and with huge sanctions; it being completely legal as well as incredibly lucrative for some pharmacist to sell me lethal fake drugs, or some dealer to sell the pharmacists fakes, is not something I would look forward to. It doesnt take a lot of thinking to see this will happen often. After all, why wouldnt a pharmacist, particularly one thats about to retire or sell his pharmacy make a little fortune for a few months by selling fakes? So what if he gets caught; its legal.

Mind you, this is just drugs. It applies to anything, from aircraft spare parts to financial products.

The same way it happens now, experience and trust all the way down the supply chain, plus personally knowing people with tools/knowledge to verify. If upstream someone is protected by law (e.g. corporate personhood or they have powerful friends) it breaks down.

I see. Thats a very practical solution. How do you get to know the dealer? How does he get to know his dealer?

Know your dealer.

Curious; those objecting to IP rights, I assume you also object to trademarks? So it would be okay for any company to sell their hardware branded as "apple"? I could sell any drink as "coca cola", in identically looking bottles ? I could sell fake medical drugs under the same name as the real one, in the same box, even though they just contain calcium tablets?

Some of the pro-IP arguments remind me of anti-deflation arguments.

Q)Why would people spend money if it would be worth more later? Bla bla bla, some long academic argument.
----A) Because they want or need something.

Q)Why would someone develop a drug for a disease with out IP laws?
----A) Because they like finding out stuff or don't like seeing people suffering (especially themselves and family).

I do medical research. I understand how little we know about biology at the organism level, and would never take an "experimental drug" unless I was completely desperate. On the other hand, the current culture of medical science encourages publishing reports of positive results over negative. Most biologists, even the honest ones, do not appropriately analyze their data. This is a cultural problem. Most don't even know how or have the time to learn how to do this, they just do what has been done before (faulty or not). The people working for the FDA come from the same culture. Profit motive is no substitute for intrinsic motivation (the drive for the "truth"), neither is publish or perish. I don't know the right way to encourage proper science at a large scale but the current way is very inefficient and encourages subtle, even subconscious, manipulation of the results. The FDA's expensive requirements are an ad hoc solution to this problem, but likely not the best one possible.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I enjoy some of them myself. But I have noticed lately things seem to be getting a bit... derivative. I joke with my friends about how "apparently U.S. culture peaked in the 1980s" based on what Hollywood keeps running with.



Full disclosure: I'm not a doctor, and don't work in the industry. My info comes from what I've read and heard.

My take is that the bulk of drug "development spending" comes from two things: mandatory FDA payments to the U.S. govn't, and regulations on the drug manufacturers.

The regulations should be easy to see. Even if you believe industries should be government-regulated, a look at the regulations in the drug industry should raise an eyebrow or two. Many seem to be there for the sole purpose of squashing newcomers to the market (who would force costs lower via competition.) It reminds me of how certain simple medical utensils could be made at lower cost, but due to the fact they have to be "medical grade" (which often doesn't mean much) regardless of the actual product use, you wind up with $200 bottles of aspirin and other nonsense.

The FDA approval payments aren't as often discussed. It seems that drug companies need to pay huge sums of money to the FDA to get a drug approved. Which sounds reasonable, until you examine how little the FDA actually does to check the drug out themselves. Again, an example from another governmental arena: in many states, you have to get your car "approved" for driving once a year. You can pay ridiculous sums of money, and in exchange for the "service" to society a bureaucrat walks out and essentially looks under the hood and kicks the tires. Apparently the FDA does the equivalent, if not less.

Maybe we should all take a philosophy 101 class and then come back and have this discussion.

Nice way of avoiding a response.

I have no problem with respecting everyone else's person and property.

- I do have a problem with someone else selling a product that is exactly the same as mine.
- I do have a problem with someone else selling a product that looks exactly the same as mine, and under my brand name, but has reduced functionality, thus ruining my brand.
- I do have a problem with pharmaceutical companies not being able to recover the costs of medical research through 14-year monopolies provided by patents, thus severely limiting the amount of medical research done in the first place.
- I do have a problem with movies and music not having protection, as it will mean a lower quality and selection of movies and music will be available to watch.
- I do have a problem with companies not wanting to innovate because their ideas would be stolen by competitors.

I don't really care about your theoretical conflict of private property rights and intellectual property rights.  They are incompatible, yes, but I am fine with the current compromise between the two.

I don't really see how the rest of what you said is even relevant to this discussion without specific examples.

There was another thread equal to this one that's almost 100 pages long that already covers what we're just getting started into. I'm sure we can all dispense with the formalities, read that, and move on.

If you're going to have private property rights then they will conflict with the logic of intellectual property. They are incompatible concepts. Any amount of argumentation about the justification of the benefits to society don't make the idea any more logical, consistent or relevant, and they certainly don't level the playing field any. In fact, they do the opposite.

If it isn't logically consistent, somebody's going to get burned. It will always happen. History is riddled with people who can't seem to make the connection between the yours, mine and ours concept. You muddle that up, and society and your precious investments will all eventually go down the drain. The system has already been gamed. Special privileges given for special persons backed by a powerful political structure is always going to result in a mixed bag.

I just ask that everybody respect everybody else's person and property. Not real difficult to comprehend. Let's not turn it into rocket science.

So let's call it out for what it really is. It's primarily a legal censorship tool. It is a monopoly on specific production, distribution and sales; which when enforced against others, results in the expropriation of the property of the "infringer". IP isn't ownership of an idea since it is physically impossible to "own" due to it being a theoretical concept.

IP is indirect ownership of the property of legal infringers whose property composition resembles that of the monopoly holder. Crazy twisted in my opinion.

Why would people try to innovate if they can't make money off of it?  Anyone with an invention would just keep it to themselves or a big company would just rip off their idea and put it on store shelves before they were even halfway to market with it.  People would be much less likely to innovate if their ideas wouldn't be protected.  In fact, I would expect to see a lot more fakes, ripoffs, and copycats than anything.  They're easy to make, and easy to make money off of.  We don't see a lot of them right now because law protects the rights of the company with the "real" product.  Can you imagine how many iPhone-like phones would come out that looked and acted exactly like the normal iPhone, but had less functionality?  Maybe lower battery life, or a slower processor?  But the average consumer wouldn't notice, so the copy-caters would make money, while Apple gets a ruined reputation from mistakes made in the copycat products.  Yeah, sounds lovely.

Patent research is something that any inventor puts time into before going into production, or even heavily investing in creating a new product.  It's not hard to do (the patent database is publicly available), and it ensures you don't run into such a situation where someone across the continent invented the same thing you already did.

As far as I know, that sort of situation hasn't arisen (where medicine has not been created after research proved a success), so I don't know why you are using it as an example.

I don't think innovation would go away. People adjust their behavior and their tactics based on the prevailing market in which their environed. If everybody was free to emulate their neighbor, a lot more people would be trying things and spending a lot less time trying to set traps for the competition to fall into.

There would likely be more tinkering, adjusting, inventing and incremental innovation as opposed to worrying about being sued because some yahoo half a continent away who happenstanced upon a concept before you and decided to get governments "blessing" to prevent and exclude all others from it's use now has you dead to rights. Now you're in violation with the law, and you may not even know it.

The same IP laws can be used to "harm" others too. What if I invented a cancer cure pill and I were able to patent it (legal exclusion and proscription)? Let's also suppose that it's relatively easy to replicate. I just happened to figure it out and you didn't. So I decide instead of making a bazillion dollars once, I decide I enjoy watching people suffering and dying before their time. There's always a flipside to every coin.