Study Says Intellectual Property System Should Die
Written by Ben Jones on September 11, 2008A recently released study has claims that the current ‘Intellectual Property’ situation in the world is not working well. Driven by a fear of losing out, and bolstered by an attitude that profit is the aim of IP, progress is hampered. Not only by the entertainment industry, also in biotechnology where medicines are sometimes restricted or withheld, causing deaths.
When we write about “Intellectual Property” and copyright, it is mostly related to the entertainment industry. However, the problems are much broader than some would expect. A study, published by non-profit group The Innovation Group (and released under a Creative Commons license no less), doesn’t pull many punches about IP. Right at the start, it addresses the cause of the problem as many see it, from biotechnology to the music industry.
The current era of intellectual property is waning. It has been based on two faulty assumptions made nearly three decades ago: that since some intellectual property (IP) is good, more must be better; and that IP is about controlling knowledge rather than sharing it. These assumptions are as inaccurate in biotechnology , the field of science covered by this report , as they are in other fields from music to software.
The discussion throughout focuses on how this “Old IP” system harms innovation and consumers. It mentions how the music industry is lobbying for higher penalties for copyright infringement, while they refuse to try out new business models. Similarly, how the movie industry tries to ban and restrict new technology, until they realize they can make money off it.
Perhaps even more concerning, when it comes to biotechnology , medication, treatments, equipment , withholding information or purposefully restricting it will lead to deaths. One example the paper makes on this topic is the lawsuits 39 pharmaceutical companies brought against the South Africa government, for trying to act effectively to deal with the HIV/AIDS crisis there. Such restrictions have undoubtedly hastened the deaths of thousands if not millions.
This study is not alone in stating the problems with patents in research and development. In August, Kenyan medicine-men revealed that they have kept their traditional practices to themselves, because of the fear of patents. With the high costs, and excessive paperwork, filing patents on the techniques is not feasible to them, according to a report in Business Daily Africa. They are worried that companies that find the patent process trivial will patent their techniques, and prevent them from being used.
With them on this is the Pirate Party International, a collection comprised of all the national Pirate Partys) has mentioned that biopatents are a source of concern and an area they hope to change. Swedish Pirate Party Chairman Rick Falkvinge told TorrentFreak: “This shows yet again how Big Pharmacy practices are robbing people of their medicine; only now, they have managed to silence the critical word-of-mouth distribution of indigenous knowledge, through fear of monopolization of traditional medicine. It is high time for the patent system in general, and pharmacy patents in particular, to be exposed and abolished.”
Yet these arguments and studies appear to be falling on deaf ears. Today, a bill aimed at increasing the enforcement of these IP ‘rights’ still further , including the ability for the government to file civil IP complaints without the complaint of the IP holder , got it’s first reading in the US Senate’s Judiciary Committee. With only a few months left of this session of Congress, the lobby groups are almost certainly going all out to get them passed, despite strong opposition. Lost (or ignored) in this push is the intent of copyright and patents, which the US Constitution says is to promote progress, which as the study shows, it no longer does.
It also goes without saying that despite this talk of ‘old IP’ and ‘new IP’, there are those that refuse to use the term at all.
Previously: Pioneer’s Live Bittorrent Streaming Device
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71 Responses
Arguments and studies fall to deaf ears because nobody reads them. People will only hear when someone speaks loudly, yet has there ever been some protest against IP as it currently is?
This is essentially why I recommend a protest tactic that will most certainly get more noticed, perhaps even moreso in college campuses: have physical CDs, and drop them in random places where people can find them, with some message with the CD saying “Down with the RIAA/MPAA” or something like that.
I guess my idea can be summed up in the following sentence:
Activity is better than passivity at this stage, for it is better to actively resist and go against the RIAA with civil disobedience tactics than to passively merely stop buying from them.
Now this is slow news.Not that it is bad,but Intellectual Property prevents the world from being over run by communist’s.
“And There Was Torrents”
I said that.
There was an article on wired.com about something like this a little while back, the whole purpose of IP has changed and now its just a “means to an end” because of corporate greed.
One wonders how far we would be technologically if it were not for these greedy sons of bitches stifling innovation for their own selfish ends.
Current conservative estimates on the costs necessary to find a new drug, research its effects and side-effects and get it approved and commercialized are at $950 million. Given that it generally take 8 to 10 years to get the drug to market, that leaves pharmaceuticals with only 10 to 12 years in order to get their money back.
Out of 10 000 potential molecules, less than 30 actually make it to clinical trials and only 1 will be commercialized. Even worse, only 1 out of 10 drugs are profitable from drug companies (able to generate over 950 million in 10 years)
While I do believe that patents on techniques infringe on innovation, I don’t believe that getting rid of the whole system would actually benefit the world. The whole problem is much more complicated than that and has nothing to do with copyright. I find copyright utterly useless in the age of the internet. The music industry does not spend 10 years and almost a billion dollars developing a CD (more like a week and couple of thousand dollars excluding marketing)
@3
How does it connect with communism? The fact is that everybody naturally already had the right to do whatever they could with ideas, but all IP does is ban everybody else from doing anything with those ideas other than the IP holder. It is a most unnatural restriction of thought. In no way does it protect the original owner from using it in whatever way he/she wants, only banning other people from doing things with their private property. Copyright is a gross violation of property rights, outlawing uses of, for example, one’s private computer to make copies of things, etc. When one owns a CD, one should be able to do whatever one wants with it, including making copies, or giving it to others, and what copyright does is violate these property rights by outlawing them.
It (IP) doesn’t need to be connected.
Intellectual Property and Communism are both brothers from the same whore.
The Evil Mind.
Capitalism on the other hand is one hardworking motherfucker.
The “Free” World
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Coming up in the US is an opportunity for us to use Corprate America to our advantage. Almost every consumer in the US knows of “Black Friday”, the day after Thanksgiving. This is the day consumers line up in front of stores as early as 24 hours prior to opening that Friday to get the best sales.
What I plan to do, and maybe if enough people do it as well it might actually have an impact, is burn all of the music and movies I enjoy, and give them out to people waiting in line, most likely with a little note that says “Shareing is not Stealing” and maybe a website.
Anyone can make boxes of media for the cost of bank cds or DVDs, and deliver to people anytime durring the night, all night, or if you are standing in line yourself.
Hopefully I don’t get arrested ^_^
You seem to be confusing communism with fascism. tard.
IP (including copyright) has an important role to play in markets constructed on capital efficiency. in markets typically found in the developing world IP is a moral travesty, there is no money to be earned in those markets, but there is plenty opportunity to support economic development and social welfare. giving free medicine to Africa does not cost you the opportunity of revenue because Africa does not have any money to give
traditional IP law is well understood to do what it was intended for, the problem comes when the law requires extension because for specific reasons it has become inoperable in a specific area. in this case we are discussing digital content and those specific reasons are that in the age of digital reproduction there is zero cost to the copying and distribution of digital content
it is economic illiteracy to legislate against cost externalities because the result will be greater externalities. in the case of carbon, a cost externality of power generation, the correct action was taken: assign ownership, provide a marketplace for trading, provide a court house to settle disputes. imagine if the decision had been taken to legislate against carbon production, a ludicrous thought. well, they are legislating against the production of free digital content, an activity which is fundamental to the market, ludicrous
you cannot buck a market. history is full of doomed attempts to counter market forces with legislation. an example our American friends will understand is the New Deal instituted by Franklin D. Roosevelt. many lawyers and economists influenced by Keynes worked under the New Deal, and believed that free markets, without proper regulation, would lead to disaster. during the 1970s, stagflation appeared to discredit this prevailing view and culminated in the election of Reagan in 1980 who set about dismantling many of the statutes and organizations created by the New Deal. since then, politicians on both sides tend to support free trade and limited regulation
it is pure ignorance to attempt regulate away a problem. filesharers have nothing to worry about because as long as they are chasing their own ghosts they are off the ball
http://www.h33t.com where filesharing can sometimes contain long words like cost externalities
copyrights were always a stupid idea in my opinion and they need to be stopped…
“How does it connect with communism? The fact is that everybody naturally already had the right to do whatever they could with ideas, but all IP does is ban everybody else from doing anything with those ideas other than the IP holder.”
Communism = Societal owned property (including “intellectual property”.)
Capitalism = Private owned property (including “intellectual property”.)
Copyright is capitalist.
The copyright/IP system needs to be rebuilt, but it should not be totally eliminated.
If someone spends a billion dollars of research money inventing a medicine, I think they should be allowed to have it for themselves for a couple years before I’m allowed to go just buy the chemicals and sell the same thing for half the price.
While the current state of copyright is horrid, there needs to be some sort of protection for those who sink tons of time/money into inventing something, or else we’ll have no more innovation, but tons of ripoffs.
I’m not saying communism is good but you dumbf/u/cks, I mean f/u/cktards, no wait, it’s US-Americans shouldn’t say a word about it. All you know about it, you know from 60 years of anti-communism and anti-Russia propaganda. In other words, you know shit, yes SHIT. Intelligent people just shut the f/u/ck up if they know SHIT. I’m not saying you’re intelligent.
Intellectual property is simply fascism. You don’t need anti-fascim propaganda to realize that fascism is bad. Yes BAD. BAD as in rotten burger. BAD as in no more super bowl. BAD as in end of all BBQ. You just don’t get it, do you?
@13
So patent trolls are ok? They are capitalists after all and not evil commie bastards.
I don’t see what your saying… Copyright is against the free market. It’s just further regulation on what we can buy and sell. It doesn’t sound very capitalist to me. It’s just more government regulation on the economy… which reminds me of socialism.
Quote:
“Current conservative estimates on the costs necessary to find a new drug, research its effects and side-effects and get it approved and commercialized are at $950 million. Given that it generally take 8 to 10 years to get the drug to market, that leaves pharmaceuticals with only 10 to 12 years in order to get their money back.”
Artephius, Thanks for showing us just how slow,wasteful and dysfunctional the current system really is…. Your comments give much weight to the argument for change…. The present system is outrageously wasteful has no empathy and very little good will (except for show) It’s all about maximum profit…. Down with the CorpRats Long live small business…
economic communism is also a capitalist system, based on an economics book called “Das Kapital” which has capital strongly at the centre of the agenda
ownership is irrelevant
the difference between Red and Blue is best described by degree of control. Red China = centralised control economy. Blue USA = free market economy
look at modern Russia and the majority of Eastern European states, privately owned centralised command economy, something akin to Feudal Monarchy
naturally the language of the media cartels is closer to centralised command economics than free market because they are a monopoly. how they envision it will work in a global marketplace is a mystery
what is important is the mechanism for appropriation of value. Microsoft appropriated the value of the PC revolution by selling pieces of paper (licenses) to millions of people for hundreds of dollars a pop. IBM failed to appropriate value in this story
the motivation of the media cartels is the appropriation of the value of digital content on the internet. but is there not a contradiction here? that which can be copied for next to zero cost has no value
therefore the target revenue structure is reduced to taxation. tax all users of the internet a levy for their digital rights collected by a redundant incumbent media monopoly
When automatic looms where invented they smashed them at first too because they made many people redundant, letterpress was seen as the devil’s work (zomg no more total control over knowledge!) etc … in the end they all lost. Studies wont change anything but time and force will.
As much as people want to hate on THE BIG EVIL CORPORATIONS, the truth is our world would be in sad, sad shape without the advancements of the medical companies.
Yes, the system should be reworked.
But, why should/would Genentech invest $5 billion into researching a cure for something if they’ll never be able to earn it back?
Redo the system, but there must be at least SOME incentive for people to invest into inventing things. Otherwise people/companies simply won’t do it.
“So patent trolls are ok? They are capitalists after all and not evil commie bastards.”
All intellectual property is capitalist.
“I don’t see what your saying… Copyright is against the free market. It’s just further regulation on what we can buy and sell. It doesn’t sound very capitalist to me. It’s just more government regulation on the economy… which reminds me of socialism.”
Capitalism vs socialism isn’t about control, regulation, etc. It’s about who owns property (capital); society/the state, or private citizens.
Don’t believe the cold war hysteria of “Freedom vs No Freedom”. That’s not what capitalism and socialism is about.
“Red China = centralised control economy. Blue USA = free market economy”
China is an extreme form of capitalism. Wal Mart, Nike, etc, other corporations are there exploiting the Chinese with capitalism.
@13, 22
Nope. Copyright is communist. It is essentially violating private property rights like the right to make copies of something.
To say that “ideas” are “property” is not saying that ideas belong to certain people. Indeed, even if a copy of a CD gets copied from one friend to another, the fact is that the RIAA had no part in it – the RIAA’s copy of the CD did not change hands, the RIAA still has their own copy of the CD, and own exclusive rights to their copy. But what copyright does is it tries to control what everybody else does with it – essentially communism. For an analogy, say that rice was copyrighted. Then people would be forbidden to take the seeds, and all seeds would belong to the “owner.” This takes away the right of the individual to own their own property of rice, and hands over all control to a central entity. This is communism. Same with copyright. It makes people give up their rights to their own property of their CDs, and hands over all control to the central entity called the RIAA. How could you get more violation of property rights than this? This is communism, pure and simple.
Duh!!!
@22
WRONG. Copyright is all about control. It is all about whether a central “rights holder” has the right to control what millions of OTHER PEOPLE do with their own copies (i. e. don’t copy, don’t publicly perform, etc.), then it is all about control. It is certainly not about what one does with one’s own copy – it is rather about what one does with other people’s copies. Protection of property rights? I don’t think so. It essentially makes people give up all claim to property rights to a central authority.
@20
Force = copying CDs and leaving them in random places where people can find them. Simple civil disobedience.
I have been saying for ages how the p2p controversy is but the tip of a huge iceberg of human rights worldwide. This study includes big pharma’s nastiness.
If you don’t believe that the filesharing ‘issue’ isn’t a symptom of Global Facism, or an outright grab at levers of control of information, I’m not sure what better parallels could be drawn than the p2p = open pharma concept.
Information, and I really am not talking about WALL*E or some band’s CD, is going to be a restricted resource. Think: the whole web will require a licence, and it won’t be a complete listing of web resources they’ll be giving you. Just what they want you to hear and see.
But they will use this P2P issue to develop closed systems of interaction, and to cajole us all into accepting it.
I just wish people, when they decry their lack of access to movies and music and software would consistently include SUNDRY INFORMATION in their list of demands. Every time. Then it might be regarded as something other than what they are seemingly calling hedonistic theft, or whatever they are coloring it in as these days.
Copyright is capitalist (ostensibly) in it’s origins, but it’s abuse is one of many forces that transform Capitalist societies to fascism. IMO…..
Socialism is not gonna get you high speed internet, btw.
Nor will communism…
We live is an age of barely concealed fascism…
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Speaking of the control of information, already…. ;)
@ s2pid
I hope that was a sarcastic comment. I’m pretty sure the world ran fine (well as fine as pure capitalism runs, like a nicely sludged engine for anyone not rich) during the Industrial Revolution without IP. Not to mention real communism (not what’s in China
or what the USSR was)
While we’re at it, communism isn’t perfect, but it’s just as bad as capitalism if you think about it, neither works they way it should and both look good on paper. Just because the “World Police If It Puts Us Higher Than Others”
was at war with the USSR almost 20 years ago doesn’t mean we still are, and *gasp* communism isn’t out to destroy the world, grow up.
Anyway, what’s more important, the intangible imaginary value of money or gold (value varies amongst people, hence intangible and imaginary) or human lives that are, god forbid, something we can actually touch. Quite frankly, any pharmaceutical company that thinks turning a bigger profit is more important than helping people should be shut down, or put in control by people who have their priorities straight. They can have all the money in the world, but it won’t make a difference when everyone’s dying because it’s not profitable to make medicine anymore.
@26
Agreed!
Everone , do this.we need to fight the man as people, as one.
Force = copying CDs and leaving them in random places where people can find them. Simple civil disobedience.
I’m taking part, i’m on the peoples side, which side are you choosing?
1. The first “copyright” law IN THE ENTIRE WORLD was the “Statute of Anne” — an attempt by the British Crown to “privatize” censorship. (Gee, sounds a bit like those Rent-a-thug “Contractors” from Blackwater, hmmm?)
Truth be told, IP law was NEVER a “good idea”. The only thing that made it LOOK like a “good idea” was that copyright terms were, at one time, a relatively short time — thus, the effect of the coercive monopoly really couldn’t be that far-reaching or long lasting. Patents? Same deal — they only allow the holder (NOT necessarily the person who actually “invented” the thing, mind you) to prevent the competition upon which a genuinely “free market” depends for 20 years. Eventually, patent “protection” expires and other companies can start offering equivalent products. This moderates the price immensely. “Generic” drugs tend to be far less expensive overall, which is what “market competition” is SUPPOSED to do — curb any particular player’s attempts to charge more than the market will “bear”.
Patents and Copy’right’ serve — in a very real sense — to prevent a “market” from happening by placing artificial restraints on who is “permitted” to compete. True, the “first sale doctrine” fosters the APPEARANCE of a “free market”, in that it people are “permitted” to re-sell previously-owned copies at a price of THEIR choice and without the copyright “owner’s” permission — but this little “loophole” is one of the things that the Media/software corporations really want to destroy. Monopolists want, well, monopoly — for as long as possible, and backed up by as brutal of punishments as they can realistically achieve. THAT’S why penalties for non-crimes like “copyright infringement” are so much larger than for REAL, violent offenses like physical assault and rape.
Make no mistake: NOBODY benefits fro IP “law” except for the corporate vermin who manage to buy up all the “rights” to everything, so that we all pay — and pay — and pay.
Studies? Associate Supreme court Justice Stephen Breyer published “The Uneasy Case for Copyright” back in the 1970s, and almost nobody gave a shit.
The ONLY thing that’ll change the current IP regime is the fact that there is a vast (and growing), planet-wide “movement” on a multitude of fronts, rapidly making the current “laws” — AND those corporations relentlessly milking them — look ridiculous, if not downright evil.
Groove on, Y’all.
@25
And then, in the case of software usually, you are FORCED to agree with an EULA, which can be draconian in itself. Although, an EULA isn’t as strong as copyright law as it is an agreement, and they aren’t always enforceable.
Daniel Says:
“But, why should/would Genentech invest $5 billion into researching a cure for something if they’ll never be able to earn it back?”
Making up a number is no way to win an argument but I’ll make it easy for you… They should not spend that kinda money at all…. Not for the modern day drugs that cure you ONLY if they don’t kill you first…!!! If $5 billion is involved then lets feed some starving kids… clean up the environment so we don’t get sick…
and lets make people who are so sick that they need a 5 billion dollar pill comfy so they can die without pain and in dignity..
Why should somebody care about others of little or no perceived value to one’s own survival? If an entity has power then why should it not use it to promote it’s own interests? If an organisation can leverage it’s power to enforce control as a means to promote it’s survival, then why shouldn’t it do so?
Of what interest are some peoples with HIV/AIDS to the wellbeing of a corporation such as a drug company if not for profit? Would it serve corporate interest to lose control over use of the property in order to allow for competition to gain strength, and as a consequence to potentially threaten as a challenger? Why give your power away?
I don’t see what’s so difficult to understand. Entities with power tend to use it to serve selfish interest. That’s nature itself. Media companies rely on control of the property to profit from it and in all-likelyhood really don’t give a shite about helping some poor little man. But why should they? They’ve attained a position and they damn well would like to keep it. What may they stand to gain from relaxing their control over the product? They’re a business designed specifically to profit. The more profit, the more power, the more assured their survival.
How many people you know willing to give up their niceties for the wellbeing of others for little or nothing in return?
@35 people with an attitude like that don’t deserve to live on this planet. There are so many problems created by that kind of mentality. I can’t wait for the collapse of capitalism and a new better society is born. It’s coming soon. There will major changes coming our way.
“I have been saying for ages how the p2p controversy is but the tip of a huge iceberg of human rights worldwide. This study includes big pharma’s nastiness.”
P2P is also what potentially can solve many things. Simply put, liberation of P2P will be a liberation of information in general, which will doubtlessly help many human rights causes worldwide.
Now I feel so sick whenever i hear bout d RIAAs or MPAAs..
p2p = end of censorship.
You can close down a central server. You cannot close down the entire internet. Beauty of decentralization.
Twinkle Twinkle little star… or that long range communications satellite.
Even in North Korea, you can have access to the uncensored intermess.
I think ultimately, there needs to be some IP in the world, but the kind that runs now is over the top.
Open Source is a perfect example of how it should be done. As long as you reconise the creator of a peice of work, you should be able to build on there progress. Ultimately the western world is strangling it’s own development, where we’re teaching people to use microsoft, places in the third world are using linux and growing up to be better with the limited technology they have.
There’s nothing “capitalist” about government granted monopolies.
Read Atlas Shrugged, people.
Rearden Metal FTW!
Can someone in the know explain something.
Who owns the copyright of the works on a music cd? The Artist or the RIAA ?
I thought the artist owns the rights, but RIAA is the distribution rights? So, how can they sue for copyright infringement then?
Kevin – No, generally the artist transfers the rights to a large corporation (SONY BMG, etc) to market, publish CDs etc. The RIAA is an organization utilized by many of these corporations to protect their IP. The artists no longer hold the copyright to their works. The assignee (the corporations and the RIAA) can sue to protect the rights that they purchased from the artist.
@44
Indeed. They can even sue the artists. That’s why there’s the term saying that the band is ’signed’ meaning they signed away their rights and music and all to a company for a chance to market/produce/distribute music in an attempt to become well known and so on. In return for investment the company then gets to keep the majority of the money.
The problem is that in this day and age, it isn’t really necessary to ’sign’ in order to be heard or become famous. (as a sidenote, supposedly GiR2007’s music from his video called ‘Pancakes!’ on Youtube hit #3 chart on the radio in Isreal) All of these issues stem from these companies trying to keep an iron grip on their revenue stream when they are using a model that is fundamentally obsolete.
Oh, and depending upon the contract, just like books, sometimes there can be a set amount of time before the rights to a certain album/book transfer back to the creator. There can also be things in the contract promising future albums/books with the same arrangement as the last one. Sometimes even deadlines or staying with the company fot x number of years.
Sharing is a Good thing
-God
IP and copyright is all about money. Always has been always will be, after all it’s what makes the world go round.
I think alot of the worlds problems would be solved by shooting the people in power and starting anew. Sadly this probably isn’t going to happen any time soon.
We’re all fucked in the long run with all these money hording lawyers and corps’ reaching for ever fatter pay packets, And they really couldn’t give a damn where and how they get them.
REVOLT!
daniel, you’re barking your logic and reason up the wrong tree…
as for all the copyright anarchists who begrudge the rich, part of me hopes you get what you want: a world with absolutely no protection for content creators. where the best case scenario for musicians is to be treated like common street performers. throw some spare change in their guitar case if you have the inclination…where movies are all made on shoestring budgets because no one is going to sink millions into something that will just end up being stolen.
i hope you get what you want. a world where artists can’t eat and innovation and culture have been completely and utterly stifled.
hmm, hopefuly a step in the right direction. maybe this will improve the chances of change in the US Govt’s attitude towards this issue.
pfft, yeah right, they beleive what they want tp beleive.
“Quite frankly, any pharmaceutical company that thinks turning a bigger profit is more important than helping people should be shut down, or put in control by people who have their priorities straight.”
That’s capitalism. All companies are like that, it’s their nature.
For some reason, I’m totally not worried. For some reason, I’m 90% sure that copyright restrictions will reach ridiculous heights and then it all will just crash on itself. So lets just keep on downloading :p
for some reason i hope you get sued for some reason.
for some reason.
(/idiot redundancy off)
I think the best idea is to allow intellectual right continue but released to the public for educational purposes. If a person/organisation wishes to use it for profit, they should pay for it.
Very easy. That way Intellectual holder have a means to further expand both market and profit. And it works off the current system.
My uncle has created an application generator for IT systems, he spent 20 years coding the thing. Now if i was in the same shoes, i would release the product for educational purposes only and those who wish to make a profit will pay royalties. Its a win-win situation.
@44 . Sorry about the profanities but that’s just fucking disgusting what the RIAA and their mob do to artists.
Screw them and their kind. Artists can do just find without them. And whomever said about artist not being able to eat and getting coins by street performing, that’s just a ridiculous statement. Besides, i’ve heard of street performers getting several hundred dollars a day. Nothing to a big wig in some cushy office, but to the normal person, that’s a lot of money.
Anyway, i’m off to burn some latest cd’s and leaving them for people free in public places. Enjoy not getting a cent all you RIAA pricks. I’ll never buy one of your cd’s or movies ever again.
Yeah, it is a bit barbaric isnt it?
Jiff
http://www.anonymize.us.tc
I didn’t need any “study” to know that i.p kills millions of people and make the life of the rest bad enough because i.p is like draining a pipe of money without really giving anything in exchange.
Patents on AIDS medications have killed millions of people and AIDS is the result of capitalist activities in Africa anyway.
@49 and similar…
I am not advocating copyright of movies/music/media. I am referring STRICTLY to the examples posed in this article about things like biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, i.e. things that clearly make a positive impact in our world by saving lives, but still cost a shitton of money to research, with no way around it.
You can’t invent a genetic cancer treatment on a shoestring budget the way you can get GarageBand and create a song, it’s not the same thing. For those companies that spend lots of time/money creating legitimate products that cure illness and such, I think they should be allowed to earn back their investment and feed their employees, don’t you?
I do not advocate IP law the way we have now at all. I have said that many times. I am not saying the system is good. I’m just saying, if we tear it all down, we still should at least put something in place for situations like this.
@34, are you REALLY refuting my argument by just saying that people aren’t worth expensive cures? That if it costs Genentech billions of dollars to find a cure for something, they should just give up and let people die instead? Man, this problem goes deeper than I thought with some of you people. Wait until your first kid gets leukemia in high school and then see how you feel about that one.
“I think they should be allowed to earn back their investment and feed their employees, don’t you?”
This isn’t about us “allowing” them to do anything. It’s about the government pretending that people can own ideas and forcing everyone else to go along with that so the company can make more money.
Well maybe, except if we take away all the incentives for companies to make cures to diseases, they might not do as good of a job of doing that.
I’m still waiting for some to answer the question — why is it OK for some company to sink tons of money into a cure for something, only so that someone like me can go find the recipe, cook it up in my garage, sell it for 10% of the cost (since I didn’t actually have to invest in any sort of research, or hire doctors or anything) and put them out of business?
Why artificially preserve the weak?
Survival of the fittest works.
daniel, they don’t have an answer. this should be abundantly clear by now. pirates have laughable idealism and silly pseudo revolutionary fantasies and for them that’s enough. it doesn’t matter to them that none of it makes a modicum of sense. “everything should be free, man! down with corporations!” etc
it really is no use trying to be common sense to the table.
Word of mouth is what hurts people when it comes to healthcare. Preventing medicine men from practicing is what I would call progress.
> yet has there ever been some protest against IP as it currently is?
It’s taking place on The Pirate Bay right now. It sends a message to arrogant companies like EA and Politicians like Biden who take bribes from the RIAA that we’re sick of their sleazy ways. We’re sick of them writing laws that advantage Disney, extend copyrights that should have expired long ago. We’re sick of public domain rights being stripped. We’re sick of patent lawyers and politicians in the pocket of their biggest donors.
The people have spoke and said ENOUGH. Lets make the RIAA an election issue.
The best way to reform the patent system is basically to allow everyone else to sell it, as long as they pay a royalty to the patent holder, and in addition, to allow non-profit uses like how the government of South Africa is using it.
“I’m still waiting for some to answer the question — why is it OK for some company to sink tons of money into a cure for something, only so that someone like me can go find the recipe, cook it up in my garage, sell it for 10% of the cost (since I didn’t actually have to invest in any sort of research, or hire doctors or anything) and put them out of business?”
As long as you pay the patent holder some royalty, it should be okay.
@daniel
Look at this earlier post:
“My uncle has created an application generator for IT systems, he spent 20 years coding the thing. Now if i was in the same shoes, i would release the product for educational purposes only and those who wish to make a profit will pay royalties. Its a win-win situation.”
There’s your solution, now stop ignoring it.
There is no such thing as “intellectual property”.
How can someone own (!) immaterial things?
Try to explain that?
Only material things can be owned. And the can only be owned by persons (which own themselves and therefore can own other things).
Self-owners can own material things in the world (by appropriation) and the can make contracts with other self-owners (in which way the can also acquire property owned by others).
Ideas cannot be owned. Procedures cannot be owned. Formulas cannot be owned. And so own.
To think ideas can be owned means that you are a socialist who wants to impede the rights of rightful property owners.
Vote McCain and th@ sexy MILF.
Somehow they don’t patronize “Sharing an Caring” individuals.I think maybe they’ll convert Intellectual Property to Shareware
C’mmon Moderate me already
I’m always amazed at the response people have to IP issues.
For the stupid communist argument people: your idea of eliminating IP is a very communist idea, in the literal sense of the world. You want to share ideas and allow knowledge to advance without limitation. IP is a very capitalist idea: allowing people to make money off of their inventions.
And what’s so wrong with copyright? Giving someone some say for the expresison they create. If I write a song, what right do you have to it? I wrote it for me. Not for the public good.
And pharamceutical companies have advanced the science we all live by through the patent system. It’s worked.
And I guess that’s my big complaint with the anti-IP crowd: How can you say it doesn’t work? Look around. all the content you love? Made with copyright. Funded with copyright. All your technology? Made and patented. Funded through a patent. The IP rights that you want to eliminate help fund further advancement of society.
Let’s not be too hasty in throwing that out the window.
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