Mike Masnick's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
from the yeah,-you-read-that-right dept
Okay, so every week we have someone do a "favorites of the week" post, but I've never had the chance to do one myself. So... I picked the shortest week of the year to do it myself. I'm not going to point to any of my own posts (that's cheating!), but I will say that I put a lot of time and effort into my comprehensive post on why SOPA and PROTECT IP are bad bills, so if you haven't read them... feel free to check it out. However, here are some other posts this week I really liked:- Neelie Kroes pointing out that copyright is working against its intended purpose in some cases (by Glyn). I had the pleasure of meeting Kroes a few months ago when she was touring Silicon Valley talking to entrepreneurs and others in the industry. While I don't agree with all of her policy ideas, she (1) clearly understood some key issues and (2) was very willing to listen and discuss more detailed ideas. It was one of a very few meetings I've had with politicians where I didn't come out of it frustrated. Nice to see that she's continuing to do good things.
- Nicolas Sarkozy going the other direction and saying that if we don't have stronger copyright laws "there would be no form of creation." We've been scolded in the past by copyright system supporters for daring to say that anyone ever claimed without copyright there would be no creation, but there's Sarkozy doing exactly that. Kinda funny that as infringement has grown and copyright has been ignored, there's been a massive explosion in creation. Reality apparently has no place in this discussion for some.
- Research from a company connected to Hollywood claims that piracy is a growing problem, but refuses to share any of the details or methodology (by Zachary). Given how frequently such studies have been debunked once the details are clear, it's not hard to put two and two together and suggest that there's nothing much of value in the report... unless you're an old studio wishing to hoodwink the press or politicians.
- The Tootsie Roll/Footzyroll trademark fight almost entirely for Tim G's middle paragraph. More like that, please.
- The look at how cracking down on P2P software only resulted in increased file sharing, by Glyn. An important point that we've tried to make in the past, but good to see more evidence to support that.
- The story of Supergiant Games connecting with a pair of fans in love by recording clips for the groom to use to surprise his bride at the wedding, by Tim G. Always love stories of companies willing to go that extra mile to connect with fans in unique and creative ways.
- Kellogg's not just backing down on its silly trademark bullying with a Mayan archaeology group over its use of a toucan, but apparently putting a real effort behind supporting the group (by Tim C). Too often we see bullies who won't back down, or if they do, do so with a quiet apology. Kellogg's seems to have realized it made a big mistake here, and gives every indication that they've learned a lesson and are taking things seriously.
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/doingitrite?
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Now that that's out of the way, it's amazing how often mankind can be actively encouraged to shoot itself in the foot for the sake of a few more imaginary trust-based stuff made of paper, isn't it?
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I'd love to know how you can reconcile the economic and business realities demonstrated on that show with the meme that copyright/patents/trademarks are not integral to business.
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Nigel
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But your response certainly was.
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The talented ones get a good reputation, more recognition and business. They become the "go to guy" for the latest and greatest.
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Additionally, I was expecting something about how low TechDirt has fallen now that Mike can no longer get any Kool-Aid drinkers to post on weekends.
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By benefiting society you benefit yourself.
So what is in it for the innovator? A better society.
We are not doing that, costs are going up, there is no much work to go around in the current system and resources keep getting scarcer, so it is time to rethink how we do things, it is time to create a society where individuals can become more independent of others so they can pursue what they like and we need to find a way of doing it without money.
This is the challenge for the future generations. To find a way where everyone is comfortable and have the minimum to survive. People need to find ways to continue to create wealth or in other words working with or without money, the only thing important is work, money is not.
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If an inventor/innovator (useless lawyer) doesn't like it, she doesn't have to 'invent', he can find other jobs instead. Others will invent and innovate better without these allegedly innovative lawyers.
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Yes. It's like watching a trainwreck. My advice to anyone who goes on that show: use it for marketing, but never, ever, take money from anyone on that show. The deals they negotiate are awful for the entrepreneur, and no one should ever agree to an investment after 5 minutes with an investor. Do you agree to marry your wife after a 5 minute date?
I'd love to know how you can reconcile the economic and business realities demonstrated on that show with the meme that copyright/patents/trademarks are not integral to business.
The only one who seems to really focus on IP stuff is Kevin O'Leary -- the show's certifiable "jerk." He makes for good TV, but his business acumen is suspect. You should look up his history. The show touts the fact that he sold The Learning Company to Mattel for almost $4 billion. What they leave out is that this acquisition was later called "one of the worst acquisitions in corporate history" resulted in a big payout to shareholders, and the unit that was bought for nearly $4 billion was sold off two years later for about $27 million. Yes. $4 billion to $27 million in about 2 years. All because Mattel didn't know what it was buying.
http://securities.stanford.edu/news-archive/2002/20021206_Settlement05_Goldman.htm
O'L eary is good at hype and bluster -- and pulled an amazing sales job on Mattel. But building long lasting, sustainable businesses? I'm not so sure I'd trust him.
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Let me get this straight... you're basing your business knowledge on a reality TV show, and not on the opinion of an actual businessman, who essentially "swims with sharks" for a living? Okay, then.
Also, it's interesting that you should mention "Shark Tank," since it is based on a BBC program called "Dragon's Den," which was itself based on a Japanese show called "Tiger of Money." Not exactly a poster child for originality, is it?
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Thanksgiving
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Ha. The same thing happened with the BBC version. Rachel Elnaugh, one of the early "dragons," agreed to leave the show after her main business, Red Letter Days, went bankrupt.
Those who can't do, teach; those who can't teach, go on TV.
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Your scenario has been attempted before. It was called the U.S.S.R.
It doesn't work.
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Whether it is shark tank or any other entrepreneurial scenario, how can you pretend copyright/patents/trademarks are not crucial tools for profitable business ventures?
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Why don't you just go toss his salad, you lickspittle.
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A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. - Gerald Ford
I wonder what others feel about copyright...
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Because they're not crucial tools that businesses need. They exist as myths that gatekeepers use to hinder a business from being profitable in the long run.
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We don't pretend, we are fighting against it and make that very clear. The laws are a hot mess.
I will give you a hint. We are fighting, as well, for your ability to be an anonymous, pussy.(sorry ladies, if we have any)
Nigel
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The USSR's position on IP law was the government owns it all and will decide what is made and when.
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Yeah, most did credit you with the source, if not the link embedded in with their write ups.
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Sorry.
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Ideas belonging to everyone is the hallmark of a free society.
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in reply to this:
I say: "Yes and No". I think so-called intellectual property in the past served as catalysts for businesses rather than fundamentals. After all, didn't George Romero make a lot of money on "Night of the Living Dead" despite never copyrighting it?
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There are many, many other examples of the new powers rising above the old due to their ability to reorder their economy without political and economic gatekeepers in place to stop them.
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Too many lawyers attracted to any industry outside of criminal justice is a clue you are doing it wrong.
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You've been warned.
*cracks knuckles*
5 filesharing panics before the internet
Books - Economic history of copyright in Europe and the US:
Now, let's look at the US since we've gotten the introductions out of the way, shall we?
Effects of Copyright Piracy
Music - Hadopi cuts off nose to spite face
Games - Gabe Newell's consistent stance:
So, AC, you're not only wrong about past experience with piracy, but you're wrong about the service issue that piracy solves. Care to change your argument or do you stand thoroughly debunked based on just a smidgen of data that proves you wrong?
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i hpoe hitler pees in ur buthole
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You asked about the show. I told you about it. If you think it's, in any way, representative of the process by which startups get funding, you are sadly deluded. It's a TV show.
Whether it is shark tank or any other entrepreneurial scenario, how can you pretend copyright/patents/trademarks are not crucial tools for profitable business ventures?
Nothing to pretend. They simply ARE NOT crucial tools. Are they used by some? Sure. Do a few short-sighted investors think they're important? Yes. But that doesn't mean much. There are always some bad investors. As I've told many entrepreneurs, taking investments from someone who overvalues patents is likely to end badly. I tend to trust investors like Fred Wilson, Brad Burnham, Brad Feld and others who have pointed out how patents have done much more harm to their investments over the years. And those guys have invested in a ton of the hottest startups around.
Trust me, what happens on an extremely contrived reality TV show is not what happens on Sand Hill. It's why one recent study showed 80% of engineers are against software patents. They're not a crucial tool. They're a massive nuisance.
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How so? What the AC was describing sounds like a free market. A system of gov't granted monopolies sound a hell of a lot more like what happened in the USSR.
And, are you really suggesting that "to promote the progress" is a communist ideal? You might want to brush up on the Constitution.
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That is without any question a communistic way of viewing IP.
I wonder if the Congressmen you are trying to lobby are aware of what your beliefs are.
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The belief that you shouldn't saddle the market with unnecessary, harmful, regulation is the opposite of communism.
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So... You haven't read the Constitution, then, huh? Lemme quote it for you:
You see that 'limited time'? That means that all innovation is the property of the collective, whether you like it or not, except for during that limited time. When this was written it was 7 years.
Communism, my ass.
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Using the life expectancy of 1776, and zero increase in copyright length since, that would make copyright length today between 15-16 years.
However in Communism any innovation immediately belongs to the collective. That is the behavior and beliefs we see from your ilk.
Unquestionably communistic.
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Re: the Collective
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The founding fathers were communist :)
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Ok, what country is there with no IP?
And what country has banned IP and has no government?
You're just making this up as you go along, aren't you?
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"IP abolition does not [require government]"
is not the same as
"IP abolition requires no government"
Parent AC's point is that without a government, there is no one to enforce the IP monopoly.
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There are no parameters, and as I recall the discussions of the time where more like "Monopolies are evil, but a necessary evil for content creators of the useful arts(meaning science) that should not extend the absolutely necessary time to accomplish the goal of incentivizing and not a minute more".
So using nothing it should have been 7 years which is pretty close to the bell curve showing the rise and fall of something with rare exceptions.
Further life + 95 years is not incentivizing progress is incentivizing parasitic behavior, is the same problem that communists had they centralized the decisions and on part had the power to dictate to others what to do and how to do it and we all know how that ended, which is very similar to IP laws, there should be no laws limiting markets in this regard.
But of course you are not an honest person, because if you were you would not be so intellectually dishonest.
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Communists tried they all failed.
And so IP law will fail too.
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All the greedtards seem to believe you should get a lifetime free ride for one idea, and if anything come close to that idea, then they extort money from those who ARE actually working hard and producing something. Sorry to break it to you, the only freetards out there are the ones that use patents to avoid actually working hard. THEY want a free ride. THEY dont want to innovate. THEY dont want to work hard. THEY are the true freetards that leech off of society.
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This can't be repeated often enough. Even in a piracy-free fantasy land I won't have any more money so I won't be spending any more on content. I already spend all I'm willing and able to spend on entertainment, so any efforts to prevent me from accessing unauthorised content is money down the drain. Give me a reason to purchase more, i.e. better content and/or lower prices, and I will. Don't, and I won't. This is not an "attitude of entitlement" as some will accuse, it's just a simple economic reality.
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WTF?
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I don't believe that at all. What gives you that idea?
Look, if I own a chair, and you own a copy of the chair, does that mean we collectively own the chair? Of course not. It mean that each of us own our own chair.
That is without any question a communistic way of viewing IP.
You can't be that clueless.
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Or more likely, intellectually dishonest, which you have a long record of being.
Your stance is simple: upon creation, an innovation or work becomes the property of the collective.
Give me examples of you *not* believing in this communistic principle, as I can give thousands of examples of you complaining about the basic precepts that surround copyright/trademarks/patents and how they protect the rights of the innovator and creator.
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Re: WTF?
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No, your argument is intellectually dishonest and misleading.
Give me examples of you *not* believing in this communistic principle, as I can give thousands of examples of you complaining about the basic precepts that surround copyright/trademarks/patents and how they protect the rights of the innovator and creator
You're full of it... Copyright law has not protected innovators or creators in the last 100 years. I'll even argue that the public has gained little societal benefit from copyright enforcement, which is still a government mandated monopoly. Where is your proof that copyright has increased knowledge and learning or protected the innovators and/or creators?
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lol. you're an idiot.
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Re: WTF?
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That length of time sounds very reasonable, especially compared to the hundred-plus years that this comment is covered.
However in Communism any innovation immediately belongs to the collective.
In our republic, any innovation immediately belongs to the collective, which is why we're able to decide who gets the limited use rights for a limited period of time.
Communistic, my Aunt Frieda's left testicle.
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You would think that only if you were clueless.
Or more likely, intellectually dishonest, which you have a long record of being.
Ah, ad hom. So convincing. I am intellectually honest to a fault. Being intellectually dishonest would not serve me well as my readers would call me out on it.
Your stance is simple: upon creation, an innovation or work becomes the property of the collective.
That's not my stance, never been my stance, and never will be my stance. Why must you lie? Are you really so desperate that you now need to make things up?
I do not believe that anything should ever become "property of the collective." I am a strong believer in both property rights and the free market. You, on the other hand, appear to be a believer in centralized gov't granted monopolies. I have trouble understanding how my view is somehow more "communist" than yours.
Give me examples of you *not* believing in this communistic principle, as I can give thousands of examples of you complaining about the basic precepts that surround copyright/trademarks/patents and how they protect the rights of the innovator and creator.
Your confusion should not allow you to falsely put words in my mouth. You seem to confuse *actual* property rights with artificial monopoly rights. And, because of that, you appear to falsely believe that my belief in real property means "for the collective." I have never argued that any idea, innovation or content belongs to "the collective."
Since I have never suggested that I'd say that pretty much every post on Techdirt goes against that idea. As for your claim that you can give me thousands of examples of me "complaining" about copyright/trademarks/patents, that's absolutely true. But complaining about systems that do more harm than good is me complaining about artificial gov't monopoly grants, not arguing that anything belongs to the collective.
I'm not sure what made you make such a leap, but I assure you that it is wholly inaccurate.
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If this isn't the most classic, condensed example of Masnick talking out of both sides of his mouth, I don't know what is.
The entire point of copyright/trademarks/patents is so that innovations and creations do not end up immediately belonging to the collective upon inception.
LOL
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Maybe - But the USSR was not communism - what you describe is the free software movement - which is a successful model.
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Unquestionably communistic.
Maybe - but there is nothing wrong with communism. The problem is that people assume that regimes that claim(ed) to be communist actually are/were.
The regimes you detest were not really communist - they followed a particular branch of communist theory called bolshevism - the belief that communism could be best implemented by a single large organisation that controlled everything. In practice they were unable to implement communism by that means and relapsed very quickly into a form of authoritarian government tha had almost nothing to do with the ideals of communism.
In so doing they gave communism the bad name that enables you to use it as a term of abuse for anyone whose ideals are more altruistic than your own. Kindly learn the real history of the subject before you use the word again.
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OK Here's one from the Wikipedia article on Frank Whittle:
"Still at Cambridge, Whittle could ill afford the £5 renewal fee for his jet engine patent when it became due in January 1935, and because the Air Ministry refused to pay it the patent was allowed to lapse. Shortly afterwards, in May, he received mail from Rolf Dudley-Williams, who had been with him at Cranwell in the 1920s and Felixstowe in 1930. Williams arranged a meeting with Whittle, himself, and another now-retired RAF serviceman, James Collingwood Tinling. The two proposed a partnership that allowed them to act on Whittle's behalf to gather public financing so that development could go ahead.[3]"
So, if patents are so vital to the financing of tech based business ventures how come Whittle was able to get funding for his ideas after he let the patent lapse??
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The entire point of copyright/trademarks/patents is so that innovations and creations do not end up immediately belonging to the collective upon inception.
They do not belong to the collective on inception. They don't belong to anyone because they can't be owned. They are naturally available to everyone who gets to hear about them from the time that they acquired the knowledge. So if you want to keep your ideas to yourself don't tell anyone - plenty of innvoations are treated that way - even in a world with patents that are supposed to encourage disclosure.
Let's get this straight. You cannot "own" an idea. This is not a politcal argument or a slogan - it is a fact like the value of pi. If you disagree with it you are just being palin stupid.
What (so called) IP law does is to create monopolies. Having a monopoly is not the same thing as owning something. Pretending that it is is just sloppy thinking.
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I meant to write "plain stupid" - but then again....
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Thanks to copyrights/trademarks/patents.
They don't belong to anyone because they can't be owned.
Copyrights/trademarks/patents allow people to control their creations/innovations.
So if you want to keep your ideas to yourself don't tell anyone - plenty of innvoations are treated that way
Oh that sounds like a great way to move society forward...
Sorry, but that's exactly why copyrights/trademarks/patents exist: to promote progress without fear of being exploited by those less talented. IOW, leeches.
Let's get this straight. You cannot "own" an idea.
Where did I say you could? You're just using weasel words now.
Having a monopoly is not the same thing as owning something. Pretending that it is is just sloppy thinking.
And controlling something is not the same thing as a monopoly. Pretending that is just sloppy thinking.
Learn the definition of monopoly.
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Only an idiot would think that not having IP means "the collective" owns anything.
Again: you own a chair. I own a copy of the same chair. Do we collectively own the chair? Of course not.
Stop being an idiot.
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Crafting a new chair increases the wealth of chairs. Stealing a chair does not.
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Thanks to copyrights/trademarks/patents.
No - thanks to non-disclosure.
Copyrights/trademarks/patents allow people to control their creations/innovations.
But not to own them - and the control only extends as far as laws can be enforced.
If I own a chair I can physically control it and stop others sitting on it. If I hold the copyright on a song I can't stop the postman from humming it on his rounds.
So if you want to keep your ideas to yourself don't tell anyone - plenty of innvoations are treated that way
Oh that sounds like a great way to move society forward...
Yes - and it happens like that NOW, WITH the patent system.
People only patent things when they are pretty sure that someone else will have (/already has had) the same idea.
So the patent system fails - by your own admission.
Sorry, but that's exactly why copyrights/trademarks/patents exist: to promote progress without fear of being exploited by those less talented. IOW, leeches.
and it fails miserably. All it does is to provide another mechanism for the leeches to exploit the talented.
And controlling something is not the same thing as a monopoly. Pretending that is just sloppy thinking.
Learn the definition of monopoly.
I rather think it is you who needs this education.
From the free online dictionary.
"1. Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service: "Monopoly frequently ... arises from government support or from collusive agreements among individuals" (Milton Friedman).
2. Law A right granted by a government giving exclusive control over a specified commercial activity to a single party."
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