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 wyldeman007
Student
 
Registered: 06/03/06
Posts: 265
Loc: Minnesota
Last seen: 9 hours, 33 minutes
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 The ethics of intellectual property rights
#8594669 - 07/04/08 12:08 PM (3 months, 1 day ago) |
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For the longest time, I've had a pretty clear cut view on my position to intellectual property rights. I argue that one's idea can't be taken for anyone else's profit. If you look at what an idea is, you will find that it is composed of only information. This is important in that no one can actually own information. The medium to which the information is applied contains the possessive traits. Whether the information is contained in a disc, a persons brain, or has fallen into it's physical product, an idea isn't bound to the conceiver.
An idea is a replicator, or selfish meme that will do anything to propagate itself. Therefore nobody is able to own information. Make laws that prevent profit from an idea is absurd because information by nature cannot poses an owner.
All ideas aren't the same, there are ideas used for the sole purpose of innovation and advancement. These ideas are engineering solutions or inventions, and it is important that these original ideas are preserved, copyright in this case is mandatory. Other ideas are put forth to improve existing ideas and further our capacity of scientific understanding. Copyright in this case is extremely important because it protects the idea and shields it from perversions.
Other Ideas have no reciprocal value because firstly they remain information, and secondly the nature of such ideas promote nothing but the need to replicate. Entertainment essentially; music, television, some books etc are valuable in aethstetic sense but lack the intellectual impact of more prestigious ideas.
Human kind is an industrious race, the best and worst of our species feels the need to mass produce ideas to the highest potency of profits. As I stated above, some ideas are at the top of the intellectual hierarchy and some are undoubtedly at the rock bottom. Since there will always be profits so long as mankind adopt capitalist ideologies, I believe some ideas should not be profited from.
An inventor creates very efficient engine and publishes the blueprints. Shouldn't he profit from it? Yes, and here's why: Information has no owner, it is an entity to itself. The medium (universe), to which the information imprints itself may have an owner (the brain that reads the blueprints, or the engine the blueprints code for), but the information does not. As the original vector, the conceiver should profit because he/she was necessary step in the chain of events that led to the engine being built.
Ideas of the entertainment media however shouldn't have such an immense degree of profits because the information they produce by nature will be copied only to be copied again. Potentially, there is an infinite line of copies of the information and therefore infinite profits. Exploiting the nature of informational replicators in this way is unethical and counterproductive in my eyes.
I'm writing this because the recent actions of Viacom provoked a response: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2008/tc2008073_435740.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_top+stories
Some ideas deserve to be protected and others should only be protected for a limited time or not at all. How do we choose which ideas though?
Happy Independence day!
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"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here." - Richard Dawkins
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Boots
Disenchanted
Registered: 07/25/07
Posts: 1,103
Loc: Northwood, Ohio, U.S.A.
Last seen: 12 hours, 53 minutes
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Re: The ethics of intellectual property rights [Re: wyldeman007]
#8595053 - 07/04/08 02:01 PM (3 months, 1 day ago) |
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I disagree on one issue. Idea doesn't have an owner? What would you say to the man who had one single original idea that he never shared, wrote down, recorded, etc with anybody else? Wouldn't that belong to him, then?
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Ginseng1
Elegant Universe
Registered: 09/02/04
Posts: 2,153
Last seen: 9 hours, 29 minutes
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Re: The ethics of intellectual property rights [Re: Boots]
#8595993 - 07/04/08 08:54 PM (3 months, 1 day ago) |
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Quote:
Boots said:
I disagree on one issue. Idea doesn't have an owner? What would you say to the man who had one single original idea that he never shared, wrote down, recorded, etc with anybody else? Wouldn't that belong to him, then?
Nahhh...
IMO in all the universes, of all time, everything that can possibly exist already has, already does and certainly will.
The idea that anything is "new" or "original", that which can be rigidly labelled as being owned by something or someone, doesn't exist.
Everything is everywhere. And everything is one.
IMO!!
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"The universe is honest, humanity is not." - A star
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 johnm214
Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 6,356
Loc: Americas
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Re: The ethics of intellectual property rights [Re: wyldeman007]
#8596024 - 07/04/08 09:16 PM (3 months, 1 day ago) |
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Quote:
wyldeman007 said:
Since there will always be profits so long as mankind adopt capitalist ideologies, I believe some ideas should not be profited from.
Why are profits a given? If the information is what is valuable, it is possible that once known the expression is worthless if it can not be restricted to one person. i.e. take the mach three razor. What is the point in developing this if you can't keep competitors from stealing the good? The purchaser wouldn't care to invest the money to make it himself, and only mass sales can recoup the costs of development.
It seems unpragmatic to presume some ideas should not be profited from. What are you talking about specifically?
Quote:
An inventor creates very efficient engine and publishes the blueprints. Shouldn't he profit from it? Yes, and here's why: Information has no owner, it is an entity to itself. The medium (universe), to which the information imprints itself may have an owner (the brain that reads the blueprints, or the engine the blueprints code for), but the information does not. As the original vector, the conceiver should profit because he/she was necessary step in the chain of events that led to the engine being built.
Are you claiming htis idea is contrary to modern IP law in the US? I don't think it is. It's always the expresion of the idea that is protected, not the idea itself, or the raw facts.
Quote:
Ideas of the entertainment media however shouldn't have such an immense degree of profits because the information they produce by nature will be copied only to be copied again. Potentially, there is an infinite line of copies of the information and therefore infinite profits. Exploiting the nature of informational replicators in this way is unethical and counterproductive in my eyes.
You say it shouldn't have such a potential. Why? It would seem the same reasons to protect steam engine designs are sufficient to justify protection of movies. I agree copyright terms are too long in the US presently, but so what specifically are you arguing? I don't think the profit potential or actual gain should figure in to what is protected.
I guess I don't get what your saying.
How would you change things from, say, the US model of IP law?
I think IP law a pretty good set of principles and faithul laws. I think it is quite just and fair.
I also think that the terms of copyrights are too long, but whatever. I think 30 years should be plenty of time, unless someone can show me why not.
Perhaps an extension as available in much of the IP laws could be sought for ten year periods up to a maximum of 60 years if the owner an demonstrate need, i.e. unrecouped production costs that can be proven, signifigant advances in the art, or continued commercial viability at some fraction of the peak sales for th product at any time in either value or number of units sold, at above a nominal fee of course.s
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wyldeman007
Student
Registered: 06/03/06
Posts: 265
Loc: Minnesota
Last seen: 9 hours, 33 minutes
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Re: The ethics of intellectual property rights [Re: johnm214]
#8597133 - 07/05/08 11:41 AM (3 months, 21 hours ago) |
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Quote:
Why are profits a given? If the information is what is valuable, it is possible that once known the expression is worthless if it can not be restricted to one person. i.e. take the mach three razor. What is the point in developing this if you can't keep competitors from stealing the good? The purchaser wouldn't care to invest the money to make it himself, and only mass sales can recoup the costs of development.
It seems unpragmatic to presume some ideas should not be profited from. What are you talking about specifically?
I argue that fabrications which use resources to rectify the final form of the idea are acceptable for profit venture. What I am saying, is that profiting from a product is alright, but profiting from raw sensory input is unethical. With a few exceptions like scientific theories, and engineering innovation, information should have no financial value. Information is worthless until application to the medium, it's like a wave, without a !medium, essentially it's nothing.
In the case of the razor, Mach 3 doesn't sell the idea or information, it sells a product which very well should be protected for profits. Some of the "products" companies will sell for profit, aren't products in the sense the razor is. The only difference is that the razor takes a certain amount of resources to become a product. Music for example consisting solely of information, requires almost no resources to produce one unit.
Quote:
Are you claiming htis idea is contrary to modern IP law in the US? I don't think it is. It's always the expresion of the idea that is protected, not the idea itself, or the raw facts.
His idea should be protected by modern IP laws, I confess to being slightly redundant.
Quote:
You say it shouldn't have such a potential. Why? It would seem the same reasons to protect steam engine designs are sufficient to justify protection of movies. I agree copyright terms are too long in the US presently, but so what specifically are you arguing?
Entertainment and other things of subjective importance, 1. They lack reciprocal value and
2. they exist only as information
I believe that product should be tangible or useful or both. Entertainment can't be either one, therefore should it shouldn't have the same privileges. I disagree about how you claim I say entertainment shouldn't have an infinite potential of value. I only say that entertainment ideas should have a profit ceiling, such a things value is subjective. Interestingly enough, I believe that a songs value would go up if the record company's profits went down.
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I don't think the profit potential or actual gain should figure in to what is protected.
I agree with that 100%, what I am arguing is that some things like movies, music etc. should have a separate IP law. Not all ideas are created equal! They should not all be treated the same in the first place.
Quote:
How would you change things from, say, the US model of IP law?
I think IP law a pretty good set of principles and faithul laws. I think it is quite just and fair.
I also think that the terms of copyrights are too long, but whatever. I think 30 years should be plenty of time, unless someone can show me why not.
Perhaps an extension as available in much of the IP laws could be sought for ten year periods up to a maximum of 60 years if the owner an demonstrate need, i.e. unrecouped production costs that can be proven, signifigant advances in the art, or continued commercial viability at some fraction of the peak sales for th product at any time in either value or number of units sold, at above a nominal fee of course.s
To recap, all ideas aren't created equal, some have a reciprocal value, some lead to tangible products and some lack both of these traits. Ideas that contain one or both of these traits should apply to modern IP laws. Ideas that are neither of these, should be subject to other laws, for they have a boundless potential from their conception. I'm no lawyer, but the basic principle of the laws applying to nonreciprocal-intangible objects of infinite financial potential, should NEVER allow for the monstrosities of the music industry or media companies. They are undermining the original intent of IP law, they have now become a massive vacuum of consumer resources, very unhealthy for the economy.
So I'm sorry if I didn't answer that, I admit I don't know the first thing about the legal policies regarding lawmaking. It would, I hope encompass the intent of what I said though.
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"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here." - Richard Dawkins
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johnm214
Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 6,356
Loc: Americas
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Re: The ethics of intellectual property rights [Re: wyldeman007]
#8604741 - 07/07/08 04:21 PM (2 months, 29 days ago) |
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Don't worry about not knowing legal stuff, doesn't matter. Law should be based on sound theory.
I'm partial to US IP law. I think its quite elegant and equitable.
Quote:
I argue that fabrications which use resources to rectify the final form of the idea are acceptable for profit venture. What I am saying, is that profiting from a product is alright, but profiting from raw sensory input is unethical. With a few exceptions like scientific theories, and engineering innovation, information should have no financial value. Information is worthless until application to the medium, it's like a wave, without a !medium, essentially it's nothing.
I think we agree to a point, and so does the law.
The idea isn't protectable in the case of copyright, say, on a movie or book, only the creative expression.
You can't copyright the idea of, say titanic. You can't say someone else can't make a movie about a ship sinking and the human drama antecedant to that. Copyright only covers the creative expression of these ideas.
So while you might wish to share the copyrighted work that encourages democratic action, nothing is stopping you from this. You just have to incorporate those ideas into your own work.
\
Its like the case of a telephone book. Did yo know the law doesn't recognize the numbers as protected? I can copy the local telephone book and use there numbers and addresses, people and sell my own. WHy? Cuz the idea and facts aren't protected, only the creative expression. So no one can stop me from copying the book, cuz its pure fact. They can only stop me from copying the creative elements, say, a forward by the phone company executive or the adds with prose and drawings.
I think this is quite fair. The ideas are free. The work and creative aspects aren't. You get your copyright, but only on the creative work, not the ideas.
I think this addresses many of your closing points as well: copyright doesn't protect ideas, only the artistic fluorishes, and this seems a nice balance between encouraging the public to use facts and data, while preventing them from claiming anothers prose and artistic elements.
Quote:
Entertainment and other things of subjective importance, 1. They lack reciprocal value and
2. they exist only as information
I believe that product should be tangible or useful or both. Entertainment can't be either one, therefore should it shouldn't have the same privileges. I disagree about how you claim I say entertainment shouldn't have an infinite potential of value. I only say that entertainment ideas should have a profit ceiling, such a things value is subjective. Interestingly enough, I believe that a songs value would go up if the record company's profits went down.
I don't think the government should assign worth to an idea. Is a book that encourages democratic revolution of low value? Who decides its worth more than the porn book? I think all should be treated equally, let the market sort out to profitable vs unprofitable.
Who cares that others may profit from a work of little objective value? Why would you seek to enter it into the public domain? The same things that speek to the need to protect it for the author speak to the need to release it to the public, i.e. the intrinsic worth.
I think money is a good way to measure worth commercially, and I don't think government should be in the buisness of determining idea's merits.
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zouden
Neuroscientist
Registered: 11/12/07
Posts: 2,466
Loc: Australia
Last seen: 51 minutes, 55 seconds
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Re: The ethics of intellectual property rights [Re: johnm214]
#8604766 - 07/07/08 04:26 PM (2 months, 29 days ago) |
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The idea of copyright is fine, and a good one. But why should it last 70 years after the artist's death?
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9/11 was sketchy but I mean come on
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Boots
Disenchanted
Registered: 07/25/07
Posts: 1,103
Loc: Northwood, Ohio, U.S.A.
Last seen: 12 hours, 53 minutes
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Re: The ethics of intellectual property rights [Re: Ginseng1]
#8605106 - 07/07/08 05:54 PM (2 months, 29 days ago) |
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Quote:
Ginseng1 said:
Quote:
Boots said:
I disagree on one issue. Idea doesn't have an owner? What would you say to the man who had one single original idea that he never shared, wrote down, recorded, etc with anybody else? Wouldn't that belong to him, then?
Nahhh...
IMO in all the universes, of all time, everything that can possibly exist already has, already does and certainly will.
The idea that anything is "new" or "original", that which can be rigidly labelled as being owned by something or someone, doesn't exist.
Everything is everywhere. And everything is one.
IMO!!
I agree with the idea of no original thought, but for all intents and purposes, I still say that credit can be given in most cases.
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johnm214
Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 6,356
Loc: Americas
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Re: The ethics of intellectual property rights [Re: Boots]
#8612573 - 07/09/08 11:03 AM (2 months, 27 days ago) |
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Quote:
Ginseng1 said:
Nahhh...
IMO in all the universes, of all time, everything that can possibly exist already has, already does and certainly will.
The idea that anything is "new" or "original", that which can be rigidly labelled as being owned by something or someone, doesn't exist.
Everything is everywhere. And everything is one.
IMO!!
relevance?
US IP law, and I presume other countries as well, though not sure, doesn't recognize ownership of facts and ideas, only creative expresion of them. You can't copy my movie's plot and creative elements, but you can make your own movie with the same message or basic plot elements so long as you don't appropriate the creative fluroishes of the plot/ideas.
Quote:
Zouden said:
The idea of copyright is fine, and a good one. But why should it last 70 years after the artist's death?
I don't know, and disagree with it.
I think this is just the rights holders' interest trumping rationality and public good.
30 years is plenty enough time to get whatever profits suffice to motivate others to make similar works and to benifit the original producer sufficiently.
It's bullshit, but the underlying scheme is quite fair, I think, besides the actual length.... There is no reason Psycho shouldn't be public domain by now. 40+ years is enough
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zouden
Neuroscientist
Registered: 11/12/07
Posts: 2,466
Loc: Australia
Last seen: 51 minutes, 55 seconds
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Re: The ethics of intellectual property rights [Re: johnm214]
#8613780 - 07/09/08 04:27 PM (2 months, 27 days ago) |
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Yeah. I don't see why the children of the author deserve to keep getting money for seventy years after the author dies. I say, 30 years (like you) or at most, until the author dies.
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9/11 was sketchy but I mean come on
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero
Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 16,170
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 1 hour, 23 minutes
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Re: The ethics of intellectual property rights [Re: johnm214]
#8620496 - 07/11/08 04:09 AM (2 months, 26 days ago) |
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> You can't copyright an idea
You sound like my IP laywer... (That seems to be his mantra.)
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Just another spore in the wind.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 10,029
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Re: The ethics of intellectual property rights [Re: Seuss]
#8620544 - 07/11/08 05:33 AM (2 months, 26 days ago) |
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last night we went out (my wife and I) to the Scream Literary Festival ( http://www.thescream.ca/ )and listened to 'collaged and copied' ideas and performances from
7 authors that "steal" created material and use it as their own, including one - Kenneth Goldsmith ( http://www.ubu.com/contemp/goldsmith/index.html )- who repackaged an entire N.Y. Times newspaper as a published paper bound book -
a night of appropriation art
they were terrific performers.
most of the appropriation was either obvious and harmless or harmless and natural.
we are at a strange turning point technologically and legally when everyone is equipped with phone cams and laptops and printers and the most natural thing is to access and duplicate and collage new media and information from what is available.
the issue of counterfeiting relates to Money
the issue of access to private personal records relates to Privacy and Eyes Only Access.
entertainment is not an Eyes Only Access situation.
I see criminalizing of the copying of non-Eyes Only Accessible material as an artificial practice and as a money grab, and a future casualty of digital technocracy.
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johnm214
Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 6,356
Loc: Americas
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Re: The ethics of intellectual property rights [Re: Seuss]
#8620545 - 07/11/08 05:34 AM (2 months, 26 days ago) |
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you have an IP lawyer?
you get more interesting all the time
what do you think about IP law? I think its pretty good, and one of the better areas of law... makes sense
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero
Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 16,170
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 1 hour, 23 minutes
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Re: The ethics of intellectual property rights [Re: johnm214]
#8620581 - 07/11/08 06:09 AM (2 months, 26 days ago) |
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> you have an IP lawyer?
Used to when I lived in the US and owned my own company. He represented large companies, such as Qwest, and my little company was his 'pro bono' client (not free).
> what do you think about IP law?
I approve of it mostly. I don't agree with software patents (as they currently work). I don't agree with the length of time copyright/patent protections last (they are too long). I also don't feel that IP rights should extend past the death of the creator. (For example, once Theodor Geisel died, the copyrights for his books should have ended, or been drastically reduced.)
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Just another spore in the wind.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 10,029
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Re: The ethics of intellectual property rights [Re: Seuss]
#8620598 - 07/11/08 06:33 AM (2 months, 26 days ago) |
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ip law is great for lawyers
I have 2 us patents
cost a fortune
never earned a dime
why do I have patents?
legal marketing!
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