The Demise of IP? 429
meetmeonaholiday writes "CNet has an interesting article on why intellectual property owners should worry. Melanie Wyne explains how open source and open standards will lead to the downfall of IP and hurt competition rather than aid it." From the article: "As part of the discussion between Massachusetts and software developers who would be affected by the state's mandate, the designer of the OpenDocument Format policy, Eric Kriss, flippantly stated: 'Here we have a true conflict between the notion of intellectual property and the notion of sovereignty, and I'd say that 100 percent of the time in a democracy, sovereignty trumps intellectual property.' This sounds positively pre-Boston Tea Party to me ... It reflects the currently fashionable idea that confiscatory government policy must be used to even the score (whatever that means), thrusting highly demanded, privately risked IP out of the hands of legitimate property owners and into the hands of other, favored actors to further 'develop' it."
Throw your Microsoft boxes into Boston Harbor! (Score:4, Funny)
Are we going to (hopefully) see thousands of people throwing boxes of Microsoft products into the harbor?
Who can organize this and when can we have the party?
(I'm serious!)
and bring your x-box 360s too!
Re:Throw your Microsoft boxes into Boston Harbor! (Score:4, Funny)
Dude, no fish deserves that.
Re:Throw your Microsoft boxes into Boston Harbor! (Score:5, Insightful)
The article reeks of the mindset you'd expect from Hilary Clinton.
Re:Throw your Microsoft boxes into Boston Harbor! (Score:4, Insightful)
You could counter that by saying it will give people incentive to invent new and improved ideas to be able to compete, but this is nearly impossible if these ideas are incremental improvements on existing ideas controlled by intellectual property laws. There's no usable base of knowledge to build it on, so these ideas could never get off the ground.
It's not an all-or-nothing proposition. The open source/open standards trend isn't intending to do away with the entire concept of intellectual property. The intention is to prevent the leveraging of a controlled technology for monopolistic purposes. If there is an viable open source alternative to a proprietary technology, that technology can never have complete control.
Re:Throw your Microsoft boxes into Boston Harbor! (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't pretend to be smart enough to know the answer to that question. You could take the side that thousands of developers working worldwide for the greater good will lead to greater things, or that if they do eliminate any proprietary companies that software will stagnate because nobody wants to put anything into moving forward. I don't think anyone can really show which way it would go - so articles like this can speculate until the end of time based on personal opinion until real long term facts become available.
Re:Throw your Microsoft boxes into Boston Harbor! (Score:5, Insightful)
So what this means is that someone with a lousy implementation can corner the market if they get the patent first. In fact, someone with no implementation can corner the market. The thing with the least value winds up being the thing that controls the outcome.
Go figure.
IA to replace IP? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Throw your Microsoft boxes into Boston Harbor! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly what happened when the fcc setforth new rules and protocols for the digital alert now used in the EAS system.
3 or 4 years later (the patent office is always that far behind) we all get letters from some legal beagle whose mother should have been spayed, demanding $1500/year royalties for use of "their" patented methods.
I don't believe that any of us broadcasters even took the time to compose a go get screwed message. We ignored it, and rightfully so, based on the fact that this was a government edict, and we damned sure weren't about to pay some slimeball to use what the government said we _had_ to use. We in turn threw it back into the equipment makers lap along with the commission, saying we wanted indemnification against this patent.
The equipment makers gathered up all their notes and presented enough prior art to predate this slimeball by over 2 decades, and that patent quietly went away. But to actualy have a publicly available "we made a mistake" notice to all who got that letter issued by the USTPO? You must be new here, never happened unless we wasted our dime and called somebody who might have had an interest in seeing it revoked.
I was all for sueing the idiots for damages if it was upheld on a rehearing, and there were some pretty big names in the business thinking along the same lines from the conversations I had with a couple of them.
There needs to be a balanceing of interests in both patent, and copyright arenas vis-a-vis the public interest. Today there is none, as in absolutely zip protections for societies ills directly caused by our draconion laws directly purchased by M$, Disney & Company, et all.
When its pretty much an established fact that the piracy effects only the middleman, and not the talent, the talent often being the beneficiary of the distribution of their work via pirate channels making it more popular at the concert box office, its no wonder that so few feel any remorse for the copyright violations they may commit, they aren't harming the artist in the least. Its time the talent got paid a reasonable fee per sale that IS NOT IN ANY WAY DISCOUNTED other than by pro-rated agreement, by the total production and advertising costs associated with the production of an 5 cent cd. In other words, everybody needs to accept an equal sized piece of the gamble including the guys in the middle as to whether or not this particular cd will or will not be a hit. That appears not to be the situation now as the talent is expected to shoulder it all, and a million seller can still leave people like the Dixie Chicks in the red according to the creative accounting so prevalently used.
Thats BS, pure and simple, usually found in pastures shared by cattle. Be carefull you don't step in it as it reduces your choices of where to go have dinner unless you are in the Omaha stockyards near Johnny's.
--
Cheers, Gene
Re:Throw your Microsoft boxes into Boston Harbor! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Throw your Microsoft boxes into Boston Harbor! (Score:5, Insightful)
I was right there with you up to the Hilary (sp) reference.
Actually, I would expect the opposite mindset from Hillary Clinton. This is the type of mindset that I would expect from someone who sells their vote to the highest bidder... someone like Tom Delay, or Orrin Hatch.
It's the sort of mindset you can expect from either Clinton, Delay or Hatch. Power begets power, and with the exception of a very select few who manage to stay grounded to their principals (Mandela, etc), those who have it want (a) to keep it and (b) expand it. Fearmongering is a damn good tool for doing so.
I'm sure some of these politicos started out with good intentions. But, every politician knows "You gotta break a few eggs
This isn't exactly a new phenomenon; it's only been going on for the past 10000 years or so.
I think you misunderstand... (Score:2)
She's saying that it's open source that is the despot here - she's suggesting that we should throw Linux CDs into the water, and keep MS products.
Re:I'm not sure the author understands what (Score:3, Insightful)
Shooting her. We have enough idiots in this world.
Re:Throw your Microsoft boxes into Boston Harbor! (Score:2, Funny)
Will that cool them enough to keep them from crashing?
Re:Throw your Microsoft boxes into Boston Harbor! (Score:2)
Felt like that had to be said.
who is the Initiative for Software Choice (Score:4, Interesting)
"Microsoft is a member of the Washington-based Initiative for Software
Choice, that has written to Australian MPs asking them to oppose open
source preference Bills
http://www.sam.org.au/club_news.asp?clubid=4685&n
"In August 2002, Microsoft became a member of the Initiative for Software
Choice. The ISC has close associations with the Computing Technology
Industry Association (CompTIA) based in Washington DC
http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/6927/print [linuxjournal.com]
"One editorial labeled Massachusetts' OpenDocument Format plan as the "domino" that will cause other governments and private parties to follow suit," Melanie Wyne
There *is* no mention of a 'domino` or any phrase to that effect on the linked to article. There is this quote thought:
"Heck, it's just standards...Outside of some politicians and some Microsoft-backed industry groups, there's an overwhelming support for this thing," he said. "It's kind of hard to argue against it." Bob Sutor, IBM
http://news.com.com/OpenDocument+format+gathers+s
"Through privately owned and developed IP, American and European IP companies have given back untold public benefit" Melanie Wyne
This is nonsence. It was because of the lack of IP legislation that companies prospered by utilising a common pool of knowlege. If it had been locked down we would have no national electricty grid, television, radio or a car industry.
What you are trying to do with your IP legislation is get a lock down on the developing markets. So they pay you to use their own software on their own computers.
Nonsense! (Score:4, Insightful)
The reality is that Open Standards/Open Source will foster competition rater than stop it -
M-
Re:Nonsense! (Score:5, Interesting)
As for open-sourcing all software aswell, that will be harder (ie, take longer time) but since the standards are open, they're forced to compete with functionallity and implementation aswell instead of just adding fluff (I heard MS Office 3000 XP Ultra Chrome Edition(tm) will be able to brew coffee for you when it finds the wordrate too slow), otherwise they'll fall behind and users will switch application.
(Hmm... guess I repeated myself somewhat with the last paragraph, ohwell)
Re:Nonsense! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nonsense! (Score:3, Interesting)
Selling shrinkwrapped software is an obsolete model that won`t last much longer.. If those for-profit companies want to survive they need to provide support services and distribution (so you pay for the convenience of having something on cd). You can`t provide support services for free, so there will always be money to be made here.. But with the software being free and open source, there will be competition in the mar
I think the submitter said it wrong... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Nonsense! (Score:3, Insightful)
Just a job, like any other job. Not one I agree with, but it's not clear to me that the majority of Microsoft boosters actually have a distinct emotional attachment to their 'cause', such as it is.
And hey, even if they do know about it, and are educated about it, do they actually hate it? Maybe they've considered all the angles and are (selfishly) only c
Biased nonsense! (Score:5, Insightful)
Phrases like: "failure by the EU Parliament this summer to pass patent legislation" (which I would formulate as "success by the EP to block patent legislation) show just how biased this article is.
And then she jumps straight from open standards (who could possibly object to that?) to piracy and the threat to copyrights and that sort of crap. Even open source software is still copyrighted (which is why Sony's use of it is illegal).
Tea Party? (Score:5, Insightful)
right. (Score:2, Insightful)
Backed By Microsoft Shill (Score:5, Informative)
Yet another shill decrying the evil of sharing information.
Re:Backed By Microsoft Shill (Score:5, Insightful)
"It reflects the currently fashionable idea that confiscatory government policy must be used to even the score (whatever that means), thrusting highly demanded, privately risked IP out of the hands of legitimate property owners and into the hands of other, favored actors to further "develop" it.
Man, wowweee, what a line.
'Whatever that means' nicely derogative in reference to 'even the score', by it's nature an inflamatory phrase, which as far as I can tell was applied to this by the Initiative for Software Choice. Nice trick: imply that your opposition is Evil/mean/cruel/selfish/etc by restating their position with inflamatory language, then attack their position based on that language that you used to restate it.
Re:Backed By Microsoft Shill (Score:4, Informative)
I believe the phrase you're looking for is "Straw Man".
Ever notice the names of industry lobby groups... (Score:4, Insightful)
The Initiative for Software Choice is backed by Microsoft.
It is indeed. Also note that they are strong proponents of software patents (which are totally inappropriate--the solution to any problems with software IP should be addressed with copyright reform) and have lobbied for the retention of Microsoft formats as standards in government. Apparently merely the ability of non-MS employees to see the specs without paying a boatload of money for the privlege is as open as any of us deserve.
The issue is really being badly distorted. No government in the world has brought forward legislation to shut closed source applications out of competition--the closest any policy comes to that ANYWHERE is to simply require that at least one open source alternative be included in a bid/selection process. State legislation mandating the use of officially open-standard file formats makes no mention of open source at all. Microsoft, Corel, Sun or any other corporation is still welcome to provide software to governments under such a policy. All it requires is that import and export filters be available to support proper file format standards. This INCREASES choice and makes industry competition MORE open and fair. One would think that an organisation named "initiative for SOFTWARE CHOICE" would embrace such a policy.
Instead, this supposedly "capitalist-friendly" advocate of "choice" is fighting hard to preserve strong IP laws and shut out open standards. This is neither democratic NOR capitalist. Ms. Wyne and her compatriots at the ISC are really against choice and are essentailly promoting communist/socialist ideas: they advocate the protection and promotion of business models that perpetually rely on protectionist government legislation, and attempt to block legislation that threatens the position of protected monopolies by exposing them to genuine competition.
Really, it isn't like the government is forcing Microsoft to hand over all the specs to Office file formats so the govenrnment can use taxpayer dollars to develop compatible software to distribute to every citizen for $0. THAT would be "communist" or "pre-Boston-tea-party". I'd like to know what MS is so afraid of. With their resources it would be trivial for MS to make OpenDocument filters for its Office applications. Are they so insecure about their products that they need special legislative conditions to assure their market position? I happen to think that apps like MS Word and PowerPoint are great in terms of features and usability that can compete on their own merits without lock-in. Yes the competition would be more challenging if it were more easily made compatible, but is there something wrong with Microsoft that they cannot survive without 80 percent of the price of their software being profit margin and even higher percentages in market share?
The "Initiative for Software Choice" indeed...the choice of software vendors to lock-in users as they please perhaps. It is certainly not about true choice.
The summary says it all (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no logical outcome to the situation at all unless it's more of the same.
Straight Talk About Copyrights (Score:5, Insightful)
property" rights that protect creators, and give them an incentive to make
creative works that provide personal and public benefit. The truth is that
property rights exist to allocate finite resources, not to artificially
choke supply for the sake of incentive. Rather than protection, or a free
market property, copyrights are more like a regulation that micromanages how
people can use information. In practice, they are dangerous to rely on and
lock out more opportunity then they promote.
History has shown that just protection of property rights leads to strong
incentives, but coercion of incentive does not necessarily lead to just
property rights. Simply because an institution calls something a property
right, doesn't mean that it is. If, for example, an industry used the
government to artificially restrict the natural supply of food and called
shares of that monopoly a "property right", it would be very easy to see
how the artificial distortion of markets would not only cause opportunity
loss, but harm to society. Copyrights are a way for some industries to
use government to artificially restrict the natural supply of information
and force the market to center around information control rather than
service value. That causes opportunity loss, harm to society, and a burden
of enforcement that is too heavy to bear in the information age.
Normally copyright concerns would not be so eminent as they have been
effectively used for hundreds of years without failure. However, things are
different this time and faith in the copyright system is rather dangerous.
Just as the industrial revolution forced the commoditisation of the labor
market and the ugly death of the plantation system. The information age is
forcing the commoditisation of information and the ugly death of the
copyright system. It is not a coincidence that the speculative stock market
crash around 1857, regarding industrial technology is very similar to the
speculative stock market crash in 2001 regarding information technology. It
is not a coincidence that the slavery issue created a raging debate about
artificial "property rights" as copyrights have today. It is not a
coincidence the disproportional prosperity of the plantation system then and
the disproportional prosperity of the copyright industries today (That is,
unless one thinks hollywood is underpaid). Things like the harsh
punishments for merely teaching a person of color to read, vs copyright
crimes having punishments worse than rape today. These are all symptoms of
drastically changing markets and entrenched dying industries trying to
prevent change. As for those industries that thought that the entire purpose
and meaning of the industrial revolution was to leverage inventions like the
cotton-gin to expand their plantations for unlimited growth and profit - they
were deadly wrong in spite of all the money and intellect behind them. Those
industries today whom believe that the entire purpose and meaning of the
information age is to leverage inventions like the Internet to expand the
influence of copyright controls for vast growth and profit, well?
Well, over the next several years, the copyright system will not only be
changed, it will become effectively dead. All industries that center on
them will change or die a protracted death, and all institutions that rely
on a proprietary information infrastructure will be stuck in the mud as
they suffer numerous opportunity costs. The information age is doing for
information services what the industrial revolution did for production.
However, the copyright system doesn't center around the supply and demand
of service, but an artificial supply restrictions on information that
services bring about. Over the coming years as information becomes
commoditized and service value becomes more important than th
Easily refuted (Score:2, Insightful)
Without copyright, there are no licenses, which is almost the same as using the BSD license. So the fact that open source projects tend to prefer GPL to BSD means that even open source advocates appreciate the value of copyright.
Ironically, Richard Stallman's greatest contribution may have been to illustrate the power of copyright protection.
Re:Easily refuted (Score:2)
A license is simply a contract between two parties. The existence of copyright law, or lack thereof, does not disallow protective and/or limited licensing agreements.
These two concepts are not intrinsically linked, though some would like us to continue to believe so.
Re:Easily refuted (Score:2)
Re:Easily refuted (Score:2)
It would be impossible to create the same kind of thing as the GPL purely through contracts, because of the communal nature of the GPL (who would have the right to enter into a contract for linux for example). Additionally, breach of a "GPC" would only require payment of damages, and as breaching the GPL does not cause fiscal damages, it would be unenforceable.
Re:Easily refuted (NOT) (Score:2)
The strongest argument in favor of copyright protection is the GPL.
Ever hear of fight fire with fire? I doubt RMS who created the GPL would agree.
Without copyright, there are no licenses, which is almost the same as using the BSD license
With the BSD license, I can fork of my own proprietary license and sue people who copy it - that is anything but like a copyright free world.
Re:Easily refuted (Score:4, Insightful)
Second, "traditional" retail software companies (e.g. Microsoft) wouldn't be able to survive in that environment anyway. Very quickly, companies would be forced to adopt business models that don't require selling the software per-copy. Instead, companies would have to sell services and support -- take IBM, Red Hat, MMORPGs (with their monthly access fee), etc. as examples.
Re:Easily refuted (Score:3, Insightful)
Not so simple (Score:3, Interesting)
However the fact that such applications exist does not demonstrate that copyright is benign, anymore than the abuses of the RIAA (for example) are sufficent to demonstrate the malignity of the mechanism.
What is required to evalu
Re:I don't understand (Score:2)
Because society can exist without the government playing big brother to everything.
Don't gasp so hard. I know it's a novel idea in this day and age. Almost unthinkable.
Brainwashed fools.
Re:I don't understand (Score:4, Insightful)
That's because it doesn't work for any practical density of people.
The moment you get enough people together, sooner or later someone is going to disagree about "what's fair". Eventually, people will conclude that they need to write down "what's fair" in as unambiguous language as possible (putting aside the ridiculous obfuscation of the current legal language).
People will, of course, still argue about what that "unambiguous language" actually means. They will need some sort of abitration mechanism to try and clarify the meaning of "what's fair" in a manner that other people will understand.
Then someone else will decide that they don't want to play by "what's fair", whether it's written down and unambiguous or not. People will inevitably conclude that there needs to be some kind of enforcement mechanism to keep people-who-don't-follow-what's-fair from destroying the society.
And of course, often forgotten, is you need some kind of mechanism to make sure that elements of the other three mechanisms don't abuse their purposes for their own benefit.
I'm deliberately using the word "mechanism" to indicate that a strong central government isn't absolutely necessary to provide these societal services. If you can figure out some individual-based set of rules that implement these "mechanisms" in such a way to cause an overall stable society, then congratulations: you're a genius! You're going to have to be a little more specific than "if you get rid of government, people will automatically play fair" though, since that gets proven not to work quite frequently throughout world history.
Re:I don't understand (Score:4, Interesting)
Oddly enough, this is precisely what the Communists originally claimed. "State Capitalism" was supposed to be a transitory phase leading to a society ruled by perfect brotherhood. All you had to do was get rid of the evils of capitalism, and everyone would live in perfect harmony. Communism was pure Castle in the Sky bullshit; real pretty, nice to dream about, but absolutely no way to get there. What the Russians got was Stalinism, which was just more of the same old tyranny.
It's amazing how often the people on extreme right mimic the old extreme left. Subsititute the word government for capitalism in old communist rants, and you could pass a lot of them unchallenged on libertarian sites. But then, it shouldn't be too surprising, given that most of the neo-cons are ex-Marxists themselves. Same utopian shit, different bucket. The pendulum swings to the extreme yet again.
Wouldn't it be nice if we actually took the time to understand and solve our problems instead of coming up yet another utopian panacea doomed to failure?
Just a quick bit of history: a society without a government is called anarchy. It inevitably ends up being ruled by the guy with the most guns and the biggest gang (see Stalin.) People would rather recognize one big tyrant who robs them in a systematic fashion than a whole army of little tyrants who just kill them indescriminately. This is how kings and governments came to be in the first place.
A good government is one that rules the least because it recognizes where the society is going and works with it rather than against it, enforcing the social contract but not trying to dictate it. A bad government tries to impose an unnatural or outdated social contract. Successful revolutions happen when the society has moved on but the government hasn't--the "new order" already exists. Unsuccessful revolutions happen when some revolutionary group seizes power and tries to create a new order by destroying the existing one. What this means is that things can get much worse very quickly, but they usually don't get much better very quickly. Progress takes a lot of time and effort.
In the case of copyrights, a new order is taking shape. Large corporations are attempting to use government enforcers to oppose this, and even to roll back existing rights (people have been taping each others albums for 30 years now.) This will fail. The only question is whether there will be anything left of copyright when the dust settles. The longer it takes for the elected leaders to pull their heads out of their asses, the harder the fall will be when it comes.
Re:I don't understand (Score:2)
Contracts and law can exist outside government enforcement. Government has a monopoly on force, otherwise known as sovereignty. In the absence of sanctioned sovereign force, you find yourself in a quasi-lawless space analogous to international law. Contracts become analogous to treaties in this space.
Treaties are "softly" enforced by reputation and fear of retaliation (or, in the case of the World Trade Organization, trade sanction
Re:Easily refuted (Score:3, Interesting)
I am aware of the FSF's position, but I have never heard a decent response to the above argument.
Re:Straight Talk About Copyrights (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd just like to address a particular point you raised there.
I truly hope this is not true. The principle of copyright is sound: to encourage those with the ability to produce useful and/or entertaining works to share what they create for the benefit of others. It is the corruption of this system, such that giant middlemen like the megacorps of the publishing and media industries reap all the rewards while effectively dictating terms to both sides through a complex monopoly, that causes pretty much all the problems we see today.
The solution to this, IMHO, is simple: copyright should not be transferrable, and should remain for the duration with the creator(s) of the work. Instead, the law should allow for exclusive licensing agreements, and probably restrict them to a relatively short period to avoid the same sorts of abuse we have now where anyone wanting to get published has to accept terrible terms from the megacorps in exchange, or go independent and take their chances.
The analogy you suggest, between the information revolution and the industrial one, is probably rather closer to the truth than most of us would like. Consider that in days gone by, skilled craftsmen and knowledgable traders could bring quality goods to society who wanted them, while still catering for those who just want cheap 'n' cheerful. In contrast, in today's industrialised economy, almost everything is cheap, nasty, mass-produced rubbish (or at least nasty and mass-produced). It's hard to find a skilled craftsman even if you want one and are prepared to pay for his services.
Right now, most software is released full of bugs, and the fact that some consumer device you've paid tens, hundreds or even thousands for doesn't actually do what it's supposed to is just "the way it goes". No-one who has a better way of doing things has much chance of getting into the market and taking on the big players. As a consumer who prefers quality to quantity, I find there's no-one competing for the quality end of the market, because the money isn't there to go up against the mass-market industrial firms.
If the system were fixed, the effective cost of entry would become lower, more niches for smaller players would become viable, and those with a superior product could ask and receive a fair price for it without disadvantage or risking having their market wiped out by the big players on a whim. In time, they could increase their market share, driving standards up for everyone.
However, if the system were disolved rather than fixed, you would embed today's status quo just as various other industrial firms have done, and the concept of a quality product would be just as dead in software and high tech goods as it is today in average consumer fare. Perhaps that's what the market wants in its short-sightedness, but it's certainly not what I want, nor in the long term interests of society.
Re:Straight Talk About Copyrights (Score:3, Insightful)
In my opinion, if it is necessary to have a term to refer t
Capitalism. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Capitalism. (Score:2)
How is this society at all capitalist in any definition which separates capitalism from communism?
Re:Capitalism. (Score:2)
Re:Capitalism. (Score:2)
Such as standardizing them through a government body?
You have failed to distinguish your conceptual understanding of capitalism from communism.
I'm not arguing with your viewpoint. I'm telling you to quit bashing capitalism. Every ill which you attribute to capitalism is really a manifestation of communism within our current society.
Re:Capitalism. (Score:2)
Re:Capitalism. (Score:2)
Re:Capitalism. (Score:2)
You don't understand capitalism at all. Money represents labor *AND* the ability to make decisions ("dollar votes"). In your perfect world where you fix computers everyday -- I have no ability to make a decision about *WHO* fixes my computer, because I have no money with which to provide an incentive for someone to provide a service I need. Therefore, you have
Netcraft confirms it (Score:5, Funny)
confiscatory government policy (Score:5, Insightful)
Replace "IP" with "government mandated monopoly" (which is what "IP" really is) in the article to realize just how silly it is. "Confiscatory government policy thrusting privately risked IP out of the hands of legitimate property owners"? Sounds just like what the government does when a patent is enforced against someone who has independently developed a piece of software.
There is a time and place for government protectionism, and some forms of "IP" do serve a greater good. But what the government grants, the government can take away. Ms. Whine^H^H^H^H^HWyne would do well to remember that.
"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth" (Score:2)
That's all that's happening here. Nothing to see, please move along.
Re:"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth" (Score:2)
The same can be said about land ownership and capital ownership.
It's a dangerous and historically a big mistake when people start treating property ownership less as a right and more as a "favor" granted by gover
Re:"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth" (Score:2)
Oh, and just who is doing whom a favor here?
When someone creates a new invention or a new song or a new story, they're the ones doing a favor for the rest of us. We thank them by giving them a temporary monopoly on the creation of the think they'vs created.
Massachusetts decision has nothing to do with OS (Score:5, Insightful)
Massachusetts wants their documents in a format that they can guarantee they will be able to use 10, 50, 100, 500 years from now. They could have used a patented standard except that no suitable patented standard even exists.
Re:Massachusetts decision has nothing to do with O (Score:2)
hmmm...
First off, how does open source as an option interfere with these stated goals? I think that every open-source project would like to be considered for use by guvs and corps alongsid
The Demose of IP? (Score:3, Funny)
Um, right (Score:2)
The suggestion that the IP debate is balanced against IP owners seems ludicrous to me. See this article [foreignpolicy.com] for more more arguments (Bugmenot [bugmenot.com] - countrywise/globalportal).
Is it just me... (Score:5, Funny)
All together now (Score:5, Interesting)
Your patent does not make you a unique and beautiful snowflake. The gov't does not usually invalidate patents outright. More often than not, they force you into a compulsory licensing scheme.
OMG ITS COMPULSORY!!!111
Calm down. Some governments won't even bother to license it.
Asian bird-flu example. [bbc.co.uk]
If the government feels that its national security is more important than your patent, it can and will take your "IP". In a small fraction of cases, [newscientist.com] the government says "You can't patent that idea. It is to sensitive." And guess what... you can't file a patent.
Ultimately, patents are a gift from the government to you.
*In this case I'm not including copyright...
even though its a privilege granted by Congress,
it has the word 'right' in it.
What a load of cobblers... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course IP people have to worry this is why Copyright now goes on pratically for ever, why patents are granted for the bleeding obvious and why no actually owns anything they buy these days they just license it.
The Economist had a more interesting, and realistic, section on this a couple of weeks back, they were saying there would be MORE IP economy not less, but that things like opening up IP often helped areas.
To imply that the US Goverment, the creator of the world's most corporate friendly IP regime is in-fact loosening the controls is about as barking as it gets.
To then follow that up with a complete misunderstanding of the importance of standards for communication and information sharing (802.11x anyone?) and imply that specifying open standards is a constraint on IP put this article right in the "honey-nut fruit loops" category of journalism.
Specifying standards is about creating commodity marketplaces and reducing the cost of entry, and as any free-market economist (as opposed to close market politicians pretending to be economists) will tell you, reducing the cost of entry increases competition, standardising a market has the ability to decrease the cost of an individual good (product) but raise the total value of the market. 802.11x is a great example of this, and so is Apple v MS in terms of how the protectionism of Apple created a SMALLER market for them as they insisted on total control of their IP.
Releasing IP is often smart for business. Morons who have political opinions masquerading as journalists really irritate me.
So standard electrical plugs destroyed capitalism? (Score:5, Insightful)
So having standard electrical plugs, standards for phone jacks & POTS [wikipedia.org] destroyed creativity and wealth. I see...
When I think of the number of coroporations that benefited from ignoring patents in the 19th century, like Nestle, I find this argument of stronger IP = stronger economy a lot of bull[crap].
Re:So standard electrical plugs destroyed capitali (Score:2)
Germany could've popped right back up if the US companies hadn't decided to ignore proper ownership rights.
Re:So standard electrical plugs destroyed capitali (Score:2)
Well, I suppose it depends on what you define as recovery. Certainly I'd like to see the criteria the GP uses here.
But I'm even more interested in how he managed to gauge the extent of that recovery in that parallel universe in which german patents were honoured by the US. Assuming he's not just making stuff up at random, that is.
Re:So standard electrical plugs destroyed capitali (Score:2)
Wait. Are you saying that corporations stealing IP is a GOOD thing because it creates companies like Nestle?
Re:So standard electrical plugs destroyed capitali (Score:2)
Um...
All of these were developed, and patented, by corporations that did (and still do) invest heavily in R&D, and profit from their extensive patent portfolios. Two of the three technologies you describe hale from the legendary Bell Labs, which is probably still the most prolific sou
Re:So standard electrical plugs destroyed capitali (Score:3, Insightful)
Standards are useful; but yes, they do also stifle creativity and invention. With all the electronic equipment we have these days, running 60Hz 120V AC (or whatever your local standard is) through our walls is rather suboptimal; if we could supply 12V DC to our equipment instead of having an AC/DC converter inside every box, we could obtain significant savings in equipment costs, reductions in po
IP myth (Score:2)
That may be true but it's also possible we may have had the same results without them. Look at the big picture. Take any major technology breakthrough in history: Europeans crossing the Atlantic, the vacuum tub, transistor, integrated circuit, atomic bomb, computer, space travel; you'll find massive government funding.
The idea that competition creates new technology seems to be a Wall Str
Re:IP myth (Score:2)
No, most truly significant and important discoveries come from bright people. They exist in both the private and public sectors.
And I've seen no evidence that universities are less competitive than private companies.
Oh, and plenty of universities are ca
Times are Changing (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now, you need to understand that if you use proprietary, closed document formats, your data is being held to ransom. If Microsoft bring out a new version of Office, your choice is: buy it, or get everybody else in the whole wide world to save their files that they want to send you in the older format. Which really doesn't sound to me like much of a choice. Finally, someone who gets it: some things are more important than money. The right of all the people to access government documents is more important than the {supposed} right of one company to make money by charging the people a fee -- no matter how small -- to access government documents. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and the needs of the few outweigh the whims and caprices of the many.
As for mentioning the Boston Tea Party
article written by Initiative for Software Choice (Score:2, Informative)
I seemed to vaguely remember something about ISC and MS so I searched and got this explanation of Initiative for Software Choice [odfi.org].
IP = Taxation Without Representation (Score:5, Interesting)
IP protect file formats means MS is taxing us for the right to communicate. Every email containing a word document I receive is tantamount to saying I can't communicate unless I pay MS (and by that token, contribute to the US economy :-) ) for the privilage. Every JPG copied to a FAT formatted solid-state drive which is taxed by MS represents a limitation on Free speech etc.
That's why OpenStandards are the opposite of pre-Boston tea party, in fact they are the Boston tea party.
Chuck the tea in the river, let's brew our own!
Cry me a River (Score:2)
The idea that, once Microsoft has wiped out all its office software competitors, governments the world over should pay what MS thinks office software ought to
I'll feed it... (Score:2)
This policy has pitted those in favor of government mandates to meet "larger considerations" against others in the industry who favor a more market-oriented approach.
The approach of MA is market based. Anyone can play.
Others believe that it represents a mandate for a single type of software model, one purposely imposed to limit competition, not strengthen it.
No, it makes the competitors compete in a way that is favourable to MA, not the
But nobody is stealing M$'s IP (Score:2)
How is this stealing Microsoft's IP? How is this weakening IP laws?
Special interests protecting monopolies (Score:2)
We are seeing expensive proprietrary products (Windows) being replaced by cheaper commodity alternatives (Linux/BSD). The same process has been going on for 200 year since the start of the Industrial Revolution. The encumbents always oppose newer and cheaper technology that is seen as a threat.
But we're very much awake now to these tricks. There's no stopping the replacement of old proprieta
IP brings innovation (Score:2, Interesting)
Open Office and many other open source projects are modeled from
intellectual property.
If there was a Boston Tea Party of sorts and people threw away
or refused to use or own software that wasn't open we would
rely on open source to lead the way. I wonder if advancements would
equal or match those from for-profit software companies.
Re:IP brings innovation (Score:2)
Microsoft's "embrace & extend" is all about creating monopolies.
Current State of IP (Score:2)
Deep bull... (Score:3, Insightful)
ANY CUSTOMER should be in the same boat: they should be picking a product based on THEIR business requirements, not Microsoft's wants. That they've been able to dictate formats for this long only reinforces their monopoly status.
Ignorance or Dishonesty? (Score:2)
But there's also something bigger going on. It points to a perfect storm that can't be good for those who depend on intellectual property, or IP, to prosper.
Just like locks can't be good for those who depend on theft to prosper. This is infantile.
"Here we have a true conflict between the notion of intellectual property and the notion of sovereignty, and I'd say that 100 percent of the time in a democracy, sovereignty trumps intellectual property."
This sounds positively pre-Boston Tea Pa
Is being "pre-Boston Tea Party a BAD thing?" (Score:2)
I work at print shop where we have a first come, first serve policy. It doesn't matter how big your job is, how much money you're going to spend, everyone gets in line and the jobs are done in order. I once had a customer who placed a relatively small order who was shocked
What a ridiculous interpretation... (Score:2)
This is completely different from real property, which can actually be defended by its owner. "Intellectual" property, however, is completely dependent on an all-powerful government entity and obtrusive laws for enforcement. And, even then, a large percentage of people just completely ignore IP anyways, and get away with it.
I'd say the best way to prove t
2 technical questions (Score:2)
I've got a couple of technical questions about TFA (which I have read).
First, and most importantly, when Ms Wyne writes that "Eric Kriss flippantly stated 'Here we have a true conflict...'", what is the technical meaning of the word "flippant" in the context of IP - FOSS discussions?
I think this might very well be the first time anyone has taken the word "flippant" from if its native context (of discussing behaviors at cocktail parties) and used it in the realm of communications and data standards. So I
The big problem... (Score:2)
Software patents, copyright extensions beyond the end of time, DMCA or similar provisions against "morally fair" use (as opposed to "legally fair"), all of these things are serious, and important, and deserve fair consideration by everyone involved.
As soon as the argument starts involving copyright for creative works, though, all of the fair and logical points you want to make get t
The hidden costs of IP (Score:3, Insightful)
There are other ways for content producers to make money for their work. They may not be as potentially lucrative as today, with an effective subsidy provided by government's artifical intellectual property rights, but there will be lots of opportunity -- especially once money stops going towards enforcing the current IP system and is instead spent directly on entertainment.
GRATUITOUS SPAM: I'm personally involved with one agency that is using alternative economic models for paying content producers. Check it out here [viralvideosolutions.com].
FUD through Astroturfing !? (Score:4, Insightful)
"It reflects the currently fashionable idea that confiscatory government policy must be used to even the score (whatever that means), thrusting highly demanded, privately risked IP out of the hands of legitimate property owners and into the hands of other, favored actors to further "develop" it."
"confiscatory government policy" ??? Mandating a standard (open) document format for government use is "confiscatory" policy? What in heavens name is "confiscated"? Not the holy IP anyway.
What is "confiscated" is the possibility for the currently dominant Office software vendor to maintain a lock on office software through proprietary document formats. And how is that bad? Every software writer on the planet can use the Open Document standard for free. Including the current heavyweight. Funny thing is ... if the document format becomes standardised, then you loose an argument for buying the next version of MS Office. Competition will be more on price and performance. Bad news for Mircrosoft, the firm wich currently has market dominance, good news for everyone else. If that is "confiscatory" then I can live with it.
But who is this Initiative for Software Choice anyway? According to the Economist, the Initiative for Software Choice, is a Microsoft-supported lobby group that also made itself heard to decry the adoption of Linux in Munich. (see http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm ?story_id=2054746)/ [economist.com]
Ah, now it starts to make sense. If you want to villify something in US public perception, call it "Socialist", or even better "Communist". "Anti-property" will do nicely too. If you can make that stick, then you have them on the defensive no matter what. In the absence of credible evidence try the next best thing ... and call it "confiscatory government policy".
What better way to try and rub off a scary association onto Open Document than to have an innocuously sounding "initiative" worriedly denounce it as "confiscatory". It doesn't make sense but that it doesn't matter. PR pieces don't have to make sense, they have to make a splash.
Well done Initiative for Software Choice, and well done News.Com for publishing it without comment or research!
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Competition isn't the issue (Score:2)
Can Open Source hurt competition? If you define competition as only existing between corporations pushing their own product then I suppose so. However, if you do not use such a narrow definition, corporations will have to compete against open source in some sense or embrace it.
No one is going to argue that Open Source prevents innovation, I would agrue it stimulates it. However
well, well, well... (Score:3, Interesting)
she takes something perfectly innocent and beneficial (a government demanding open file formats), equals it to a criminal activity (large scale piracy. and i mean the industrial level piracy we see in chinese sweatshops, not P2P) and distorts completly another fact (the eminent domain issue. a clear case of a corrupt government selling itself to real estate corporations) to paint a completelly wrong picture of the whole IP situation.
let me explain.
Massachusetts government IS NOT stealing IP from anyone, is not overcharging anyone, is not opressing the people or the corporations, it's only doing what it's suposed to do, protecting the people's right to access data in the future by adopting well documented file formats. if she feels microsoft was wronged here, is microsoft's own fault. they don't have to pay royalties to implement the OASIS file formats in their products.
it's not, as she says, "confiscatory government policy (...) used to even the score". it'd be confiscatory policy if Mass. had forced MS to open source MS Office at gun point, and this is not the case.
fortunatelly, i live in a country where being socialist (or in my case, anarchist) is not seen as a deadly sin, so i don't have to cope with trolls like melanie.
Re:Who is John Galt? (Score:2)
Re:Who is John Galt? (Score:2)
Where is a "Randroid -1" mod when you need one?
Re:Who is John Galt? (Score:2)
FYI, copyrights are the anti-christ of free markets. I speciffically hate copyrights, because I am very libertarian and love free markets. As I said earlier http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169258&cid=141 07894 [slashdot.org] If the government choked
Re:Who is John Galt? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Who is John Galt? (Score:2)
You can skip the book and head straight to the neurotic wind-bag who wrote it. Ayn Rand [wikipedia.org] and her Objectivism [wikipedia.org] is the cold hearted selfish ideology that inspires NeoCons today (their union with the religious right is self-serving and only mildly ideological)). What is interesting that Alan Greensapn was affiliated with Ayn Rand. Frankly these people are worse than Scientologists.
Who is John Galt? A bloody fucking idiot.
Nice! The confirmation word I had to type is 'satanic'.
Re:Who is John Galt? (Score:5, Insightful)
MASS isn't stealing anything.
MASS is saying "we will buy your product if you meet this standard".
Governments spec out contracts all the time.
MS arguing they won't support the MASS requirement is like arguing in favor of building a government vehicle with custom bolts and nuts that require custom tools vs building it with standard nuts and bolts that use standard tools.
Because MS was the biggest nut and bolt company- they have gotten away with murder over the last 10 years making things more and more custom instead of more and more standard.
----
As far as libertarianism goes- Microsoft is not John Galt. Microsoft is larger than many governments while John Galt is an individual. This is the failure of libertarian philosophy- it breaks down when one party can destroy the other party with impunity because of wealth differences. I personally think libertarianism is a good basic philosophy but it breaks down when more than 10 to 15 million dollars concentrates under any one person/groups control. Without many competing small groups, you basically collapse into nobility and peasents.
Re:More Instant Microsoft Hate (Score:2)