Gordon, it's amusing that you and Chris Castle have realised there's an opportunity to misrepresent copyright as a natural right, but however successful you are in hoodwinking people into believing it is one, this doesn't actually change either the nature of information or human beings.
Saving copyright from people's cultural liberty (you call it piracy) is not something that can be achieved through propaganda. In fact it's not something that can be achieved by anything except the dismantling of The Internet and all other information technology.
My explanations of copyright and its demise refer to natural rights as an explanation of why individual liberty will dissolve the privilege of the press - not as a superior means of converting people to be against copyright. I'm not in the conversion business, but in the business of understanding and explaining the nature of intellectual work, why an 18th century privilege prohibiting copying is a doomed anachronism and how it is counter-productive in the free market exchange of intellectual work for money.
Re your quote from the ECHR:
(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
Note that it doesn't say "and a transferable reproduction monopoly must be granted to arise in each original work, that it may be sold by the author to a publishing corporation for subsequent exploitation"
Thus, copyright can be abolished, and nowhere in the ECHR does it say such a monopoly should be re-enacted.
The Statute of Queen Anne grants a privilege that annuls the right to copy in the majority of her subjects to leave the right, by exclusion, in the hands of a few - 'copyright holders'. It is not the recognition of a human right, but the derogation of one, the human right to liberty.
You're missing two of the twelve commandments (Moses thought them too complicated so lopped them off):
XI. THOU SHALT MARVEL AT ALL MY CREATION AND IN MY LIKENESS THOU TOO SHALT CREATE – THY DESIGN SHALL BE JOINED TO MINE AND ALL UPON EARTH THAT IS MADE IN ITS FORM SHALL BE SUBJECT TO THY WILL, FOR AS LONG AS THEE SHALL LIVE.
XII. THOU SHALT SCRIBE AND SHARE MY WORD, YET THOU MUST NOT SCRIBE, NOR SHARE AMONG A GATHERING, THE WORD OR GRAVING OF THY NEIGHBOUR WITHOUT HIS LEAVE, WHILST HIS BLOOD LAST.
For most monopolists liberty is a very difficult concept to grasp.
They tend to think it is the set of things that a kind government allows its people to do (people it otherwise owns as chattel). See Chicken or Egg: Rights and Government.
Well, sure. When I say technical solution I mean something that enables artists to be directly and financially incentivised by those who want them to produce more work - without necessitating giving grandmothers 3 year jail terms if they share their music collection.
That doesn't mean it continues to provide publishing corporations with 99% of the audience-to-artist revenue. For that you'd need an Internet tax, e.g. $100 per subscriber per month, of which $1 ends up in artists' pockets, and $99 in the cartel's. And I suspect an Internet tax is what they're aiming for - they just need to keep on winding up the pressure to ensure the 'compensation package' they will reluctantly accept is sufficiently close to the profits they require.
I suspect the cartel is so fixated on preserving copyright (or its revenues and/or channel control) that they don't realise they can actually sell their back-catalogue copyleft with negligible overhead and still rake in the revenue for years to come (until the catalogue is exhausted).
I've got a technical solution to the problem of exchanging intellectual work given an ineffective reproduction monopoly in copies. See http://contingencymarket.com
Trouble is, until everyone snaps out of the collective delusion that copyright can yet be made to work again, the credibility of anyone arguing that it's possible to exchange work directly (without having to print out copies and sell them at monopoly protected prices) is still at a pretty low level these days.
If two inventors independently invent the same device, both can truthfully assert the authorship of their own work - without denying the other's authorship (of which they may well be unaware anyway).
Similarity in such a case may be grounds for a patent claim, but it doesn't actually cause one work to interfere with another in terms of authorship or anything else (aside from who was first).
Plagiarism is when you falsely claim to have produced another's work.
An individual's exclusive right (aka privacy) is the only natural means they have of exchanging their work, whether material or intellectual. Abolishing the unethical privilege of copyright should not be seen to invalidate law to protect the individual's natural exclusive right.
Yes, it's possible to steal intellectual work via copying (via burglary). I'm not going to ignore the flaws in counter-copyright aphorism just because it's counter-copyright. That a burglar leaves an author with a copy of their manuscript doesn't negate the violation of the author's natural exclusive right in making and taking a copy.
Well animals do have rights, it's just that they haven't got round to creating and empowering a government to secure them.
Even so, I suggest you don't attempt to confiscate any object that a monkey considers their property - they won't listen to your explanation that because you don't recognise their rights, they should surrender what they have in their possession.
I withdrew an empty packet of biscuits from a Barbary ape once - and had my wrist grabbed and bitten for doing so.
Fortunately, monkeys haven't yet been brainwashed to believe they have a right to control what others do with their published photos.
Though again I suspect that if a monkey took possession of the apparently abandoned camera they used, they would not give it up without a fight. So, that's probably the best basis to judge this on. If the monkey didn't claim possession of the camera then the photos they took should be unprotected by copyright, otherwise if they didn't willingly surrender the camera, they didn't effectively consent to the publication of their photos thereon.
It is not a matter of intention, the Constitution can only recognise the rights that exist and empower Congress to secure them - or empower Congress to grant privileges (such as letters of marque, or monopolies in literary works).
I daresay it would have been far better if the clause had been struck off and Jefferson's suggestion of empowering Congress to grant monopolies in the Bill of Rights had been adopted. At least then, the monopolies could be more easily repealed in a further amendment, as with the 21st amendment's repeal of the sumptuary law of the 18th.
Rich, I am talking about the Framers' language and its semantics being Paine's - I am not saying the Framers were all Paine's sock-puppets. And this is only to emphasise that the Framers did NOT have our 21st century language or perspective (one polluted by copyright and its corruption of our understanding of rights).
The clause cannot refer to any other kind of right because no other kind of right exists in the context of the Constitution - it can only refer to natural rights because only natural rights exist.
What promotes the progress is recognising this right and empowering Congress to secure it (for a time limited to the duration of the natural being in possession of it).
Paine provides us with the semantics of the language in which the Framers understood the clause.
Madison wrote the clause.
Madison wanted copyright (& patents) granted.
Madison knew the clause, in the form of securing a (natural) right, would be unchallenged by other Framers.
Jefferson suggested explicit granting of monopolies - Madison ignored that.
Congress/Madison re-enacted the Statute of Anne, the privilege of copyright.
If the clause had empowered Congress to grant copyright it would have done so as clearly as it empowers Congress to grant letters of marque. But then, such a grant of an instrument of injustice (not even for use against a wartime enemy) would not have been ratified. Madison had to write an ethically innocuous clause in order to later insinuate sanction for the unethical privilege he intended Congress/himself to assume the power to grant.
If you read the clause with Paine's semantics (rather than our modern copyright indoctrinated ones) then Congress has no power to grant copyright.
It takes extreme wishful thinking to misinterpret power to secure a right (to exclude others) as power to grant a privilege, power to annul a right (to copy a published work in one's possession).
But, this wishful thinking has been drummed into anyone likely to appraise or question copyright at the earliest opportunity to ensure they accept copyright's Constitutional sanction as unassailable.
Rich, I dealt with Madison's wheedling about the clause in my article. Notice that "The utility of this power will scarcely be questioned." and "The copy right of authors has been solemnly adjudged in Great Britain to be a right at common law." are completely unrelated statements.
Of course Madison wanted to insinuate that the clause would empower Congress to grant copyright, but it did not actually do so, nor could it.
And Thomas Jefferson wringing his hands over patents is entirely unrelated to the clause - especially given the clause was drafted in 1787 - a tad earlier than 1813.
Be careful to distinguish between opinions/statements concerning the granting of monopolies and opinions/statements concerning the Constitutional clause. They are quite distinct concerns, even though monopolists since would like to conflate the two.
The Constitution is a provision of strictly limited power from the people to Congress. As such it must be explicit. Congress cannot interpret it as ambiguous or aspirational in order to obtain more power than that which is explicitly provided.
Our distorted 21st century language may well tend to distort our modern interpretation, but the Constitution must be read with 18th century English and terminology.
The Constitution could not provide Congress with power to abridge the people's liberty.
This is why there is an apparently unresolved conflict between freedom of speech and no law abridging it - which resolves when you recognise that 'exclusive right' is a natural right.
It is possible that you have been educated with a revisionist interpretation - more likely given extreme interest by the copyright & patent lobby to establish their privileges as Constitutional.
Yes, US Copyright (A blatant copy of The Statute of Anne) was passed by Congress (James Madison with his Congressional hat on) in 1790, thus it was a privilege (as SoA was recognised to be in England) granted by Congress with power assumed but not actually provided by the US Constitution. Copyright is unconstitutional.
Remember, Jefferson actually suggested including an explicit grant of monopolies in the Bill of Rights (Constitutional amendment). Why would he have suggested that, if power to grant monopolies was already Constitutionally provided? Madison didn't adopt his suggestion because he knew that monopolies couldn't be granted by a Constitution/amendment (or would soon be repealed), that they would stand longer if power to grant them was inferred.
An author's exclusive right to their writings is the same as any individual's right to exclude others from their diary and any other private manuscript they would rather others couldn't read, copy, or otherwise distribute. This right is natural, and the only one the Constitution can recognise. Even in England there was an attempt to confuse this right with a printers' guild reproduction monopoly, even to suggest that such a monopoly was perpetual, but that copyright actually reduced it for the public good (preposterous!).
Although we may both agree that copyright is an ineffective anachronism to be abolished, and concur with Thomas Paine that such privileges are instruments of injustice, it remains important to explain to people that copyright is not a natural right, was not actually recognised by the US Constitution, and should never have been granted in the first place - despite its seductive allure. This helps explain why it should be abolished as an unethical privilege, and that as such it can not be reformed. It is not a matter of shortening its term, reducing statutory penalties, expanding fair use, or permitting format shifting. The entire statute is an abomination.
That said, there remain natural/moral rights relating to intellectual works (natural exclusive right, truth in authorship, representation, integrity, etc.). Congress does and should have power to secure an author's (natural) exclusive right to their writings, i.e. against theft (copying by a burglar, etc.).
When it comes to people being bankrupted and imprisoned, it's pretty critical to recognise that the monopoly of copyright is not the Constitutionally recognised right of the author to exclude others from their writings.
If you've grown up with 21st century English and its corruption of 'right' to mean a state granted privilege, you'll have difficulty recognising the natural meaning of the term in its 18th century context.
Greevar, you do realise that rights precede legislation don't you? The Constitution cannot refer to man-made law that precedes it, because there isn't any. There are no tax provided 'positive rights' or legislatively created 'legal rights' because these don't exist and the Constitution cannot refer to the future - it can only stipulate the strictly limited power that the people provide to the government/Congress.
The exclusive right (not rightS) that the Constitution empowers Congress to secure already exists. It is not referring to, and could not refer to, a privilege yet to be granted (copyright).
There is no implication by the Constitution that Congress can grant monopolies (the Constitution is explicit - it is dangerous to permit Congress to assume power via implication). The idea that the so called 'copyright clause' implies Congress can grant monopolies is implanted in the naive via indoctrination, brainwashing, especially when cartel lawyers prefer to describe copyright as an 'exclusive right' (rather than a state granted privilege).
Even you talk about 'rights' expiring, so you should recognise this bug in your language/thinking. Rights do not expire (unless you're talking about privileges - described as 'legislatively created rights' or just 'rights' for short).
You also admit that these 'rights' are held. If you recognise that people are born with inalienable rights (not held or transferred), then you must also recognise that what is held is not so much a right as the annulling of a right, i.e. a privilege. The right to copy exists in all the inhabitants, but the 1790 US Copyright act, by annulling the right to copy in the majority, leaves it, by exclusion, in the HANDS of a few. That's why 'copyright holders' are so called, they hold in their hands a right that has been legislatively annulled in the majority. Even so, as millions of infringers have discovered, they still possess the natural right to copy despite it being annulled in law.
It provides Congress only with the power to secure an author's exclusive right. It doesn't provide carte blanche to enact any law that may somehow relate to an author's writings, e.g. a reproduction monopoly.
Most assumed it did of course, so didn't bat an eyelid when the Statute of Anne was re-enacted by the US.
It is strange that however unjust copyright demonstrates itself to be that people refuse to believe it wasn't granted by the Constitution.
We have a privilege that enables the holder to threaten others with extreme penalties unless they settle, and people are surprised that patent exhibits all the characteristics of a protection racket. Indoctrination sure does work.
It won't get better. Patent cannot be reformed to work less like patent. You need to think in terms of repeal, not reform.
If you want to offer someone a reward for curing cancer then offer them a reward for doing so. Don't get confused by the idea that suspending mankind's liberty to utilise discoveries or inventions is somehow going to advance progress.
The monopolist can get wealthy by producing a palliative that they can keep on selling at monopoly protected prices to people who never get cured, so it's not surprising monopolies are attractive, but if it's progress you want, they're completely counter-productive.
Copyright was actually created for the state - not the people (pretext otherwise is easy).
The people pay through the nose for the expense of enriching the press (monopoly priced copies, loss of cultural liberty, cultural loss through lost opportunity), and an enriched press is a beholden press. And a beholden press is quite happy to protect the state that enriches it. Though these days, it is more a case of an enriched government is one beholden to protect its lobbying publishing corporations.
It is just as foolish to support copyright in the belief it helps the people as it is to support it in the belief it helps the artist.
On the post: If Even The Death Penalty Won't Stop Infringement... Perhaps A Different Approach Is Needed
Re: Re: Re: Re: Crime and Punishment
Perhaps you would be so good as to point out these contradictions?
On the post: If Even The Death Penalty Won't Stop Infringement... Perhaps A Different Approach Is Needed
Re: RE: Crime and Punishment
Saving copyright from people's cultural liberty (you call it piracy) is not something that can be achieved through propaganda. In fact it's not something that can be achieved by anything except the dismantling of The Internet and all other information technology.
My explanations of copyright and its demise refer to natural rights as an explanation of why individual liberty will dissolve the privilege of the press - not as a superior means of converting people to be against copyright. I'm not in the conversion business, but in the business of understanding and explaining the nature of intellectual work, why an 18th century privilege prohibiting copying is a doomed anachronism and how it is counter-productive in the free market exchange of intellectual work for money.
Re your quote from the ECHR:
Note that it doesn't say "and a transferable reproduction monopoly must be granted to arise in each original work, that it may be sold by the author to a publishing corporation for subsequent exploitation"
Thus, copyright can be abolished, and nowhere in the ECHR does it say such a monopoly should be re-enacted.
The Statute of Queen Anne grants a privilege that annuls the right to copy in the majority of her subjects to leave the right, by exclusion, in the hands of a few - 'copyright holders'. It is not the recognition of a human right, but the derogation of one, the human right to liberty.
On the post: If Even The Death Penalty Won't Stop Infringement... Perhaps A Different Approach Is Needed
Re: Re: Crime and Punishment
On the post: If Even The Death Penalty Won't Stop Infringement... Perhaps A Different Approach Is Needed
Re: Re:
They tend to think it is the set of things that a kind government allows its people to do (people it otherwise owns as chattel). See Chicken or Egg: Rights and Government.
According to natural rights on the other hand, liberty is freedom, with only acts that impinge upon others' rights (existing prior to any government) prohibited. See http://zine.openrightsgroup.org/features/2011/rights-precede-laws
[Got to go...]
On the post: Who Do You Trust On Whether Or Not PROTECT IP Will Break The Internet? The Guys Who Built It... Or The MPAA?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
That doesn't mean it continues to provide publishing corporations with 99% of the audience-to-artist revenue. For that you'd need an Internet tax, e.g. $100 per subscriber per month, of which $1 ends up in artists' pockets, and $99 in the cartel's. And I suspect an Internet tax is what they're aiming for - they just need to keep on winding up the pressure to ensure the 'compensation package' they will reluctantly accept is sufficiently close to the profits they require.
I suspect the cartel is so fixated on preserving copyright (or its revenues and/or channel control) that they don't realise they can actually sell their back-catalogue copyleft with negligible overhead and still rake in the revenue for years to come (until the catalogue is exhausted).
On the post: Who Do You Trust On Whether Or Not PROTECT IP Will Break The Internet? The Guys Who Built It... Or The MPAA?
Re: Re:
Trouble is, until everyone snaps out of the collective delusion that copyright can yet be made to work again, the credibility of anyone arguing that it's possible to exchange work directly (without having to print out copies and sell them at monopoly protected prices) is still at a pretty low level these days.
On the post: Rich Fiscus' Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Similarity in such a case may be grounds for a patent claim, but it doesn't actually cause one work to interfere with another in terms of authorship or anything else (aside from who was first).
Plagiarism is when you falsely claim to have produced another's work.
An individual's exclusive right (aka privacy) is the only natural means they have of exchanging their work, whether material or intellectual. Abolishing the unethical privilege of copyright should not be seen to invalidate law to protect the individual's natural exclusive right.
Yes, it's possible to steal intellectual work via copying (via burglary). I'm not going to ignore the flaws in counter-copyright aphorism just because it's counter-copyright. That a burglar leaves an author with a copy of their manuscript doesn't negate the violation of the author's natural exclusive right in making and taking a copy.
On the post: Monkey Business: Can A Monkey License Its Copyrights To A News Agency?
Re: Copyright
Even so, I suggest you don't attempt to confiscate any object that a monkey considers their property - they won't listen to your explanation that because you don't recognise their rights, they should surrender what they have in their possession.
I withdrew an empty packet of biscuits from a Barbary ape once - and had my wrist grabbed and bitten for doing so.
Fortunately, monkeys haven't yet been brainwashed to believe they have a right to control what others do with their published photos.
Though again I suspect that if a monkey took possession of the apparently abandoned camera they used, they would not give it up without a fight. So, that's probably the best basis to judge this on. If the monkey didn't claim possession of the camera then the photos they took should be unprotected by copyright, otherwise if they didn't willingly surrender the camera, they didn't effectively consent to the publication of their photos thereon.
On the post: Rich Fiscus' Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I daresay it would have been far better if the clause had been struck off and Jefferson's suggestion of empowering Congress to grant monopolies in the Bill of Rights had been adopted. At least then, the monopolies could be more easily repealed in a further amendment, as with the 21st amendment's repeal of the sumptuary law of the 18th.
On the post: Rich Fiscus' Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The clause cannot refer to any other kind of right because no other kind of right exists in the context of the Constitution - it can only refer to natural rights because only natural rights exist.
What promotes the progress is recognising this right and empowering Congress to secure it (for a time limited to the duration of the natural being in possession of it).
On the post: Rich Fiscus' Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Madison wrote the clause.
Madison wanted copyright (& patents) granted.
Madison knew the clause, in the form of securing a (natural) right, would be unchallenged by other Framers.
Jefferson suggested explicit granting of monopolies - Madison ignored that.
Congress/Madison re-enacted the Statute of Anne, the privilege of copyright.
If the clause had empowered Congress to grant copyright it would have done so as clearly as it empowers Congress to grant letters of marque. But then, such a grant of an instrument of injustice (not even for use against a wartime enemy) would not have been ratified. Madison had to write an ethically innocuous clause in order to later insinuate sanction for the unethical privilege he intended Congress/himself to assume the power to grant.
If you read the clause with Paine's semantics (rather than our modern copyright indoctrinated ones) then Congress has no power to grant copyright.
It takes extreme wishful thinking to misinterpret power to secure a right (to exclude others) as power to grant a privilege, power to annul a right (to copy a published work in one's possession).
But, this wishful thinking has been drummed into anyone likely to appraise or question copyright at the earliest opportunity to ensure they accept copyright's Constitutional sanction as unassailable.
It's called the copyright clause for a reason.
On the post: Rich Fiscus' Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Rich Fiscus' Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Of course Madison wanted to insinuate that the clause would empower Congress to grant copyright, but it did not actually do so, nor could it.
And Thomas Jefferson wringing his hands over patents is entirely unrelated to the clause - especially given the clause was drafted in 1787 - a tad earlier than 1813.
Be careful to distinguish between opinions/statements concerning the granting of monopolies and opinions/statements concerning the Constitutional clause. They are quite distinct concerns, even though monopolists since would like to conflate the two.
The Constitution is a provision of strictly limited power from the people to Congress. As such it must be explicit. Congress cannot interpret it as ambiguous or aspirational in order to obtain more power than that which is explicitly provided.
Our distorted 21st century language may well tend to distort our modern interpretation, but the Constitution must be read with 18th century English and terminology.
The Constitution could not provide Congress with power to abridge the people's liberty.
This is why there is an apparently unresolved conflict between freedom of speech and no law abridging it - which resolves when you recognise that 'exclusive right' is a natural right.
It is possible that you have been educated with a revisionist interpretation - more likely given extreme interest by the copyright & patent lobby to establish their privileges as Constitutional.
On the post: Rich Fiscus' Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Remember, Jefferson actually suggested including an explicit grant of monopolies in the Bill of Rights (Constitutional amendment). Why would he have suggested that, if power to grant monopolies was already Constitutionally provided? Madison didn't adopt his suggestion because he knew that monopolies couldn't be granted by a Constitution/amendment (or would soon be repealed), that they would stand longer if power to grant them was inferred.
An author's exclusive right to their writings is the same as any individual's right to exclude others from their diary and any other private manuscript they would rather others couldn't read, copy, or otherwise distribute. This right is natural, and the only one the Constitution can recognise. Even in England there was an attempt to confuse this right with a printers' guild reproduction monopoly, even to suggest that such a monopoly was perpetual, but that copyright actually reduced it for the public good (preposterous!).
Although we may both agree that copyright is an ineffective anachronism to be abolished, and concur with Thomas Paine that such privileges are instruments of injustice, it remains important to explain to people that copyright is not a natural right, was not actually recognised by the US Constitution, and should never have been granted in the first place - despite its seductive allure. This helps explain why it should be abolished as an unethical privilege, and that as such it can not be reformed. It is not a matter of shortening its term, reducing statutory penalties, expanding fair use, or permitting format shifting. The entire statute is an abomination.
That said, there remain natural/moral rights relating to intellectual works (natural exclusive right, truth in authorship, representation, integrity, etc.). Congress does and should have power to secure an author's (natural) exclusive right to their writings, i.e. against theft (copying by a burglar, etc.).
On the post: Rich Fiscus' Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
If you've grown up with 21st century English and its corruption of 'right' to mean a state granted privilege, you'll have difficulty recognising the natural meaning of the term in its 18th century context.
On the post: Rich Fiscus' Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The exclusive right (not rightS) that the Constitution empowers Congress to secure already exists. It is not referring to, and could not refer to, a privilege yet to be granted (copyright).
There is no implication by the Constitution that Congress can grant monopolies (the Constitution is explicit - it is dangerous to permit Congress to assume power via implication). The idea that the so called 'copyright clause' implies Congress can grant monopolies is implanted in the naive via indoctrination, brainwashing, especially when cartel lawyers prefer to describe copyright as an 'exclusive right' (rather than a state granted privilege).
Even you talk about 'rights' expiring, so you should recognise this bug in your language/thinking. Rights do not expire (unless you're talking about privileges - described as 'legislatively created rights' or just 'rights' for short).
You also admit that these 'rights' are held. If you recognise that people are born with inalienable rights (not held or transferred), then you must also recognise that what is held is not so much a right as the annulling of a right, i.e. a privilege. The right to copy exists in all the inhabitants, but the 1790 US Copyright act, by annulling the right to copy in the majority, leaves it, by exclusion, in the HANDS of a few. That's why 'copyright holders' are so called, they hold in their hands a right that has been legislatively annulled in the majority. Even so, as millions of infringers have discovered, they still possess the natural right to copy despite it being annulled in law.
On the post: Rich Fiscus' Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Most assumed it did of course, so didn't bat an eyelid when the Statute of Anne was re-enacted by the US.
It is strange that however unjust copyright demonstrates itself to be that people refuse to believe it wasn't granted by the Constitution.
On the post: Intellectual Ventures Keeps On Suing
Protection racket by definition
It won't get better. Patent cannot be reformed to work less like patent. You need to think in terms of repeal, not reform.
If you want to offer someone a reward for curing cancer then offer them a reward for doing so. Don't get confused by the idea that suspending mankind's liberty to utilise discoveries or inventions is somehow going to advance progress.
The monopolist can get wealthy by producing a palliative that they can keep on selling at monopoly protected prices to people who never get cured, so it's not surprising monopolies are attractive, but if it's progress you want, they're completely counter-productive.
On the post: Rich Fiscus' Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re: Re: Re:
Copyright is not conceived or written in the US Constitution, nor even referred to.
You can find these answers at http://culturalliberty.org/blog/index.php?id=276
On the post: Rich Fiscus' Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re:
The people pay through the nose for the expense of enriching the press (monopoly priced copies, loss of cultural liberty, cultural loss through lost opportunity), and an enriched press is a beholden press. And a beholden press is quite happy to protect the state that enriches it. Though these days, it is more a case of an enriched government is one beholden to protect its lobbying publishing corporations.
It is just as foolish to support copyright in the belief it helps the people as it is to support it in the belief it helps the artist.
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