Topic: Intellectual Property - In All Fairness! - page 106. (Read 105893 times)

You miss the point.  If you want to make a movie, you need a way to get paid for people seeing it.  Right now, the way you get the money back is have the cinema owner pay you for each ticket sold.  But, if the cinema owners don't have to pay, they won't.  Under those circumstances, you will not be investing millions of dollars to make a move; why would you?  It would be easier to have the money put into bags and set on fire.

So, if we want entertaining movies, we have to have intellectual property laws.  Luckily we do  

So if i invest there needs to be some law that guarantees i recover my investment? That is bullshit. How about they start investing in ways to protect their investment instead of lobbyists. And how about they start investing in educating people why they need to pay for their creation instead of advertising? I can tell you this : If piracy didn't exist , the majority of people around the globe that use computers never would of used windows. Most just can't afford it. They downloaded it through torrents and that actually helped the companies , the same goes for music , and movies. I would like to see this great , genius , wonderful , creative , everything good in society , etc. companies to invest in something useful like a way to protect themselves from pirates , because that can only mean people won't be able to download their great creations and go with what will be available , like open source software , and real artists.
So no they don't need a law to guarantee they recover those millions of dollars. They need to prove that what they provide is worth paying for and people will pay.

And pirates aren't thieves because they don't deprive anybody of anything.

Thats the point.  Creations that costs many millions of dollars, such as movies and computer games, do need some kind of way to recover those millions of dollars.  Remove the IP protection and the whole business model disappears. 

Somehow, without copyright laws we still got great works of art, Beethoven, Shakespeare, etc. In fact, Shakespeare borrowed heavily from earlier fictional works which, under today's copyright laws, would have gotten his work sued into oblivion and we'd have a pretty huge loss on our hands. Artists produce art mostly for the enjoyment of the art itself. The average salary for an actor is something like $16,000 a year and that's including the megastars like Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford, etc into that figure. If you ignore the outliers, the average drops way down. The point is, there will always be great works of art and people to perform it. You might have to go see a play instead of a movie but at least we will be respecting the right of people to share information freely.

You're right that the movie industry represents an interesting case, perhaps more affected by IP laws the the other examples mentioned so far in this thread.  It will be interesting to see how it plays out as IP laws collapse and distribution methods change drastically.  Already we are seeing more and more advertising and merchandising and related spinoffs, as well as more streaming and other distribution methods.  Pre-pay by theatres to get new content is also emerging and "pay per view" type arrangements.   I don't know the industry at all but I suspect holly/bollywood budgets could come down as the industry is forced into an emerging free market economy.     

Wrong.  Stars Wars was made to be shown in movie theaters.  Copyright law means the owners of movie theatres have to pay Lucas for each ticket sold.  Absent copyright law, the owners of the movie theaters would pocket the money.  So Lucas would have lost every cent he paid to make the film.  But Lucas is not a fool - if there were no copyright law, he would not have made Star Wars.  The whole value chain depends on copyright.

I like your idea that there can be other ways to make entertainment profitable but really, if the film maker does not get paid by the owner of the movie theater, there will be no films. You may not care but a lot of people like their weekly trip to the cinema to see a Hollywood blockbuster and you have no reason to try to take that away from them.

Yes, and it would have been cheaper to do so.  People love star wars for the story and charachters, etc., not because LucasFilms LLC paid the government a fee.  Also, they are in no way "protected" from copies being made after launch.  They still plan to make a profit. 


Sorry but that is simply untrue.   Entertainment can make money by bringing it to people easier than the people getting themselves for free, by selling value-added memberships, subscriptions, virtual items, etc..  add-ons..  advertisements and merchandise.. the list goes on and on.  I don't think IP lawsuits will be the big money maker for this game.   Futher, many far better spoken and educated economists have contended that so-called "piracy" actually benefits the bottom line of software companies.   More people use it, there is more demand, more buzz, more sales. 

I have a great amount of respect for people who are willing to go out on a limb and try new things.  I'm sure people thought the open source movement was doomed to failure, but look at Linux!  Also, Cory Doctorrow's take on copyright laws is enlightening and gutsy.  I've never paid for his material but am determined to do so in the future once I am more financially secure as I really like his writing and value it.  Also, I constantly talk him up to my friends because I like his attitude and appreciate his writing.  It will be interesting to see how people like Doctorrow actually fare and if it becomes a trend that catches on.  Probably the only way of actually changing copyright laws (if you disagree with them) is to make them irrelevant. 

Correct.  And you have yours.  And I'm perfectly happy to agree that we disagree as to what is the best way to run a society rather than the tiresome "I am oppressed and a slave if I can't sell my own Coca-Cola" stuff you saw people posting earlier in a chain.

Well at least you're finally willing to admit that you aren't concerned about letting people suffer when it suites you.


That's your opinion. I think people deserve to be allowed to freely share information such as academic research and textbooks as well as make new art based on previous works. I also think that if your software is worth supporting, it will be supported, if it's not, well that's a real free market and that's just too bad.

Its a free market and if they can't get the starting capital, well, thats how capitalism works.  IP law is designed to encourage production not freeloading.  However, let me rephrase my statement.  I don't know of anyone who is disadvantaged by copyright law who deserves anything better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

So you don't think that people would benefit by being able to access academic papers or textbooks? What about artists that want to use previous works and derive new content from them? What about people that can't afford software but could make a living off of it and eventually afford to support it later? What about the people that have been sued into poverty because they shared some music?

So you know the issue; in my case, I'd have to fire people.  I don't care about cracks as thats part of Internet life.  But I do think that the guys who replace the auth and sell against you are thieves.  You may feel its OK but I see no reason why I should be firing decent guys so a scammer can make money.  What really annoys me is that they send their customers to me for service so not only do I lose the sale but my support guys can be diverted from legit customers if they don't check properly.

Anyway, as I said, I am biased :p but its not a big deal because I don't know of anyone who is disadvantaged by copyright law.  If you think its wrong, at least its victimless.

I'm a programmer too. I've made over a million dollars in the last few years alone selling my software. Piracy hurts me deeply in that narrow sense but I still think copyright laws should be abolished. I was a libertarian first and went into examining the issue, hoping I could make it fit with my libertarian ideology but I couldn't. In the end, my principles won. I still think that using software without paying what it's worth to you is immoral but it shouldn't be illegal.

If we are arguing about whether or not IP is a good thing, that's fine.  I'm perfectly aware that patent law is a mess and that every day I break someone's patent because some idiot in the USPO has granted a software patent on something that seems esoteric to him but is blindlingly obvious to a first year Computer Science student.  There is a strong case for reform and for rolling back 1000s of obvious patents.  However, if someone wants to pay for research, for example ARM, society should encourage them as what little growth we have comes from innovation.

Moreover, I do like the reliability of brands.  For example, I don't see that I lose anything by not being able to open a restaurant called McDonalds with golden arches but I gain the certainty that wherever I go, there is a burger I can count on and a free clean public toilet.  Same applies to Coca-Cola, Stella Artois and 1000s of other consumer goods.  The trademark system seems to me to be fine.

Copyright; well I'm a programmer and see no reason to work for free.  Without copyright, I can't have a website selling my software as it will be available for free on download.com  So I'm biased.  But I don't know of anyone that thinks they are disadvantaged by copyright law.

So I think its a good thing for society.  You don't.  I doubt either of us are going to change our minds about that.

Shame, censure and ostracism...how would we inflict that?  One possible way would be to send inspectors onto the property, haul the self-righteous owner (and they are often very sure they are only "within their rights") in front of a public hearing, have the hearing publicly condemn them and impose a penalty and confiscate their animals.  That seems like a reliable mechanism to me.  Perhaps you have something better in mind? 

I take it from this special pleading that you are comfortable with members of a society whose rules I disagree with declaring me to be a member and enforcing them upon me against my will. I take personal offense, and do not plan to continue this conversation.


No. Shame, censure, and ostracism can reduce cruelty. Advocating "might makes right" institutionalizes it.

A society that collects stamps is completely different in scope from an entire society such as the English, or the Turks or Israelis.  You can choose not to collect stamps.  You can't choose the nation/state/society you are born into.  BTW, I have moved into American, Turkish and English society so I know what it means to find yourself in a place where the values are alien.

Ought possessions be acquired by anything other than homesteading or voluntary transfer?

Yes of course.  I've had what we call "rescue dogs" which have been confiscated from their owners, neutered and offered to people who want to offer them a better home.  My right to live in a society that abhors cruelty trumps the original owners right to beat and starve his dog.

Don't you agree?

Question: how do you feel about members of a society whose rules I disagree with declaring me to be a member against my will? Because you're arguably about to do that to me.


I have purposefully avoided the word "rights" in favor of asking how things ought to be, and honestly I don't feel like you've satisfactorily answered. And if you intend all those "we"s to include me, I resent the imposition. I am and have been a member of many societies—relating variously to academics, professions, hobbies, and interests—and none of them presumed to include me as a member before receiving my explicit request to join, or to enforce their rules upon non-members. I do not allow anyone copyright or tenure, I am not willing to forcefully seize another person's animals, and I refuse to sidestep guilt by allowing others to do so in my name.

Please, put aside for the moment your understanding of "rights" and answer me both the above question and this one:

Ought possessions be acquired by anything other than homesteading or voluntary transfer?

The alternative to intellectual property is to have no intellectual property at all. That is the proposal, and I believe it has merit. Are we not arguing the merits and demerits of IP?

Arguing about what type of intellectual property we should have, in my opinion, is similar to the assumption that if we just switched blacks for whites that slavery would be so much better. I don't want to pick the lesser of two "evils", I don't want "evil" at all.

A thousand years ago, IP didn't exist, that's a relatively recent development. Monopoly predation has, in some form or other, of course, always existed, but that isn't the point. Unless what you're trying to say is, as long as your ignorant of your "offenses" you can't or shouldn't be held accountable for your actions. Consider yourself informed.

However and notwithstanding that, I do believe there are eternal "truths". I don't know what they all are, and I have no problem accepting new ones when they come along, but I sure as hell won't concede the fact that laws are dependent on length of existence, or that an object is unlawful based on on it's composition, or function.

An object, in and of itself, isn't "evil", "objectionable" or "offensive", it's the use of that object as a tool which can bring harm to others; and please don't say that competition is offensive, it isn't, it's about freedom of choice.