I really don't see how privacy laws could be twisted to prevent videotaping your kid's birthday party.
And I sure don't see how allowing secret recording of millions of private citizens going about their everyday buseinss is helpful in uncovering some random instnace of "corrupton".
This is very weird, because the participants in this blog tend to be against traffic light cameras and surveillance cameras in public places. But, when it's using your own iPhone, it should be OK? Because you might just happen someday to catch a public official being corrupt?
I maintain that secret recording of one private citizen of another private citizen is a breach of privacy, and should not be permitted.
What legitimate reason is there to just make a practice of recording conversations? I refuse to stay on the line if someone calls me and says, "this call may be recorded for quality control purposes". I'm also annoyed that you have to essentially consent to being recorded to have any chance of talking to your bank or credit card company.
I don't need a reason to say I don't want to be recorded. Luckily, California (where I live) has a statute that specifically prohibits recording telephone calls unless both parties consent. I don't think a person should have the right to walk up to me and start snapping photos, either. I have the right to privacy, and that includes from people who want to preserve my utterances and image for posterity.
I might consider it if there were a requirement that a complete copy of any such recording has to be offered and provided to the other person within ten business days.
I do have less concern, though, about recording public officials acting in their official capacity. If a cop pulls you over, I think you should have the right to record the whole incidient. But you should not be able to record that same cop if you call him at home when he's off-duty.
Yes, this is what I wondered - if perhaps the patent (if there really is one) was based on the method used to make the determination.
I have to wonder, too, if this isn't actually a regional designation issue, like only sparkling wine from the Chamgagne region of France can be called "champagne".
Journalists should not get any protections that private citizens don't get. Journalists operate under the First Amendment, and should have exactly the same rights as private citizens - no more and no less.
Just like if I were to stand on a street corner and start announcing information I had uncovered, a journalist who demonstrates he has knowledge of, say, a criminal act, may very well become of interest to the proper authorities, and may in fact be a material witness.
Journalists should also be subject to all the limitations on First Amendment exercise that I am. They can't do the equivalent of shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre. They can't defame people (i.e., they should be subject to being called to account for the truthfulness of their articles). Etc., etc., etc.
Until we can get someone like Walter Cronkite back, who was widely regarded as an objective reporter of facts and not a biased mouthpiece or sensationalist, I'm not inclined to grant any sort of privileges at all to journalists. They don't deserve 'em.
Well, is the assertion that there are companies ready to manufacture the drug in sufficient quantities, and Gensymze is refusing to license to them?
And is a 5% royalty customary in pharmaceutical patent licensing deals?
Regardless of good intentions, I get very nervous when the government is called on to sieze or otherwise control private rights or property. Should we also put salary caps on the doctors who will then administer the drug to the patients?
Yes. I would note that, as much as I disagree with the concept of "crown copyright", its presentation here is somewhat overstated.
It's not a restriction on the sharing of information. As you have suggested, you can still report to others the contents of the document you have obtained, and even show the document to others to let them read it for themselves. Certainly discussion of the document is not prohibited by this concept. Copyright doesn't protect ideas or "information". It protects particular expressions of ideas and information.
Again, though, I agree that the concept of "crown copyright" doesn't really make sense, and it is a good thing that the US has rejected the concept.
...sigh... I think I had thought you were more reasonable than you are proving to be.
I actually do not agree that there is a major problem with copyright to begin with, so do not feel compelled to "prove" its success, especially since that kind of proof is not nearly as spectacular as the controversies. In general, copyright works fairly smoothly. Artists create, they have the right to control (mostly) their work, they get paid, we get art, and we're generally OK. Short of shutting the system down for ten years or so to compare before-and-after, I'm not sure you could "prove" its success in the same manner in which this blog (which I never claimed held itself out as an unbiased journalism site) "proves" the contrary.
I disagree with the portrayal of many (not all, but many) of the incidents reported here, and do not accept that they necessarily demonstrate any failure on the part of the copyright system. Many of them are based on assumptions I believe to be false (such as the concept of an unauthorized copy not harming the artist), and many are based more on today's rampant selfish need for instant gratification than any real economic or social balance argument.
The fact that "Techdirt is rife with examples of the negative effects of copyright" is not really supportive of your criticism of my position, since the mission of TechDirt is clearly to specifically point out the negative aspects. This blog exhibits a clear bias against the current copyright construct in the US (and around the world), and regularly reports on these issues in a blatantly slanted manner. There is no objectivity here.
While not at all dismissing constructive criticisms of copyright that may nonetheless be found at the kernel of the rants here, you can find evidence of the "success" of copyright in every royalty check received by an artist for the sale of a work and the wide variety of works that are produced under this system.
Might there be a better system? Perhaps. Might we get just as many great works with fewer rights granted to artists? Maybe. However, the fact that one might be able to point to improvements that can be made does not at all mean the current system is "bad". And ANY system can be criticized as "bad" because of its highly publicized failures. The criminal justice system and the immigration system are both criticized from polar opposite viewpoints, pointing to extreme examples as somehow characterizing the entire sytem. Should be just scrap these systems entirely and make do without, merely because neither one is perfect?
The middle ground is not always merely an "average". Your hypothetical bad guy wants to shoot me ten times, but I would prefer he not shoot me at all. Therefore we average it out to five and call it a day. Not a real good deal for me at all, eh?
You may have noticed that I framed the "middle ground" concept as ALMOST always being preferred. I sorta doubt any reasonably intelligent reader really thought that my philosophy would apply in anything like the rather extreme scenario you posited.
If anything, you're proving my "rule". Truth breaks down at the extremes. And your scenario was pretty extreme.
Ah, I see. Well, that's the difference between "truth" and "facts." Whether or not the accused has been determined to have met the criteria for having committed the crime of murder is not something that is usually subject to any sort of interpretation. He either committed the crime, or he did not, and the process itself is inteded to be (though perhaps sometimes falls short of being) an objective one.
However, something more subjective, like whether copyright is "good" or "bad" I think very much falls into my personal philosophy of the truth usually being in the middle. We can readily see that there are both good things and not-so-good things that come out of it, so to label it as merely a tool of the rich to oppress the not-as-rich is rather narrow-minded.
To carry your murderer example a bit further, this might be like trying to label him as "evil". He has committed an evil act, to be sure, but is there nothing at all about him that is anything but evil?
I usually (not always, but usually) head to the middle ground first, while being open-minded enough to consider all the facts to determine if that is the right place to stay. The middle ground is most likely where the most accuracy in describing the problem is to be found, as well as mostly likely the place where the best answer is to be found.
Actually, I think it's fair to say that copyright ASSUMES sharing is already taking place, else, how is it that the copier is able to make a copy?
The disclosure requirement of a patent seems to be related to the fact that the novel elements of the invention may not be readily detectable merely by observing the finished product on a store shelf. Not so with a copyrighted work. The painting on the wall is itself the entire expression, and is disclosed to the public by it's mere display in the markteplace. No further "sharing" requirement makes sense in that case.
Note that the disclsoure ("sharing") element of a patent does NOT grant any right to DO anything with that disclosure during the term of the patent.
There is no restriction on ideas in intellectual property law. Copyright protects particular expressions of ideas, not the ideas themselves. Likewise, patents protect implementation of new and useful devices/methods, and not mere ideas.
Yes, some try to push IP law to achieve goals that were not really intended to be enabled (witness the printer cartridge and garage door opener cases brought under the DMCA), but, you know what, the courts usually come to the right decision, and so those cases are usually losers.
You can talk about the ideas of organized crime, family dynamics, mid-20th-Century American culture all you want. That's quite a different thing from making an unauthorized ocpy of "The Godfather". The doctrine of fair use is a mechanism (albeit perhaps an imperfect one) for ensuring that communication of ideas that nonetheless makes reasonable use of the creative expression of others can still take place. Of course, no matter the definition, reasonable minds can disagree as to whether any particular use of such content constitutes a fair use under any particular set of circumstances. Hence, the need to resort to the legal system on occasion to resolve the dispute - just like any other thing two parties might disagree about.
Of course, one might also note that in a truly evolved society, people would respect the work of others and not attempt to take more than what the creator was willing to provide.
Well, while I agree that it's a fine and admirable thing to think a little more broadly about the impact of one's personal spending, I must say your rather simplistic, yet eloquently presented, view of the world (i.e., the rich have the sole purpose of screwing the rest of the world) is a bit off the mark.
It's interesting that your "rich people are evil" argument is included in the same monologue as your criticism of other extreme binary conflict ("the radical left and the fundamentalist right, men against women, elderly against the young, black against white against yellow against red").
The truth is almost never at the extremes. It's almost always somewhere in the middle. It's not black-and-white. It's a lot of grey. Copyright and patent law serve legitimate purposes, but there are those who are concerned that they do not adequately address perceived conflicts with other important aspects of our society. Some people unfairly push copyright beyond its intended purposes, others completely disregard even its beneficial and fair applications. It's a mix, and just about ANY simplistic view of the situation is bound to be more wrong than right. The right approach is a balanced one.
Re: Re: Well, food is not really an apt analogy...
In your "and yet" comment, I'm not sure if you're attempting to refute my assertion by pointing out the opposing position, or if you're acknowledging the inherent wisdom of it, but lamenting the utter folly of those who hold a different viewpoint.
I do agree that recipes, in the form of a utilitarian list of ingredients and preparation steps, are generally not copyrightable. As you note, if they are EXPRESSED in a creative way, then that expression IS subject to copyright protection.
I suppose you could potentially get patent protection for a recipe if the result had some clear utility and met the other criteria for patentability. As an off-the-top-of-my-head example, if the recipe served to maximize nutritional value of the ingredients in some novel and non-obvious way, rather than merely presenting a good taste sensation.
There are a lot of reasons why food is not really a good touchstone for proving or disproving the incentive nature of copyright.
Food is consumed once, and then has to be re-acquired.
Each kitchen can only produce so much of it, and, if the food is popular, is probably not able to meet the demand for it, even if they wanted and tried to.
Food is a very distance-limited commodity. Only people who can get to the kitchen can eat that food (yes, yes, you can freeze it and ship it, I guess, but that's sort of beyond the traditoinal restaurant/kitchen model you put up).
There is an element of the cook's skill here. I can copy your recipe, but just because I use the same ingredients doesn't mean I'll come out with the same results.
In general, the utilitarian nature of food FAR outweighs any artistic expression associated with it. Yes, there are dishes produced much more for the pure artistic elements of taste and presentation, but, that's really a minority, and is certainly not the goal of your Korean taco truck friends.
So, while I would acknowledge that your descripion of the restaurant industry getting along quite nicely without some form of copyright protection for food dishes seems pretty accurate, I disagree that it says anything at all one way or the other about whether copyright protection acts as an incentive for further creativity. Two different animals.
Yes, those locations that are more in the public eye are going to be harder to keep a secret, but the fact that tax dollars are somehow associated with it wouldn't be dispositive, IMHO.
The actual location itself might not stay secret easily, but all the logistical stuff about supporting that location may be worth keeping close to the vest in order to keep your competitors from poaching work from you.
Maybe you've built up relationships with the locals and so have a list of good tradesmen, caterers, the best roads for accessing the site, where to park, how to get permits, local casting agents, equipment rental, etc., etc., etc.
Yes, that is all stuff that can certainly be developed/discovered independently. BUT, until it is, there is a colorable argument that this represents a trade secret. Like a customer list.
On the post: Court Says It's Okay To Secretly Record Conversation If Done For Legitimate Reasons
Re: Re: I sure don't want to be recorded...
And I sure don't see how allowing secret recording of millions of private citizens going about their everyday buseinss is helpful in uncovering some random instnace of "corrupton".
This is very weird, because the participants in this blog tend to be against traffic light cameras and surveillance cameras in public places. But, when it's using your own iPhone, it should be OK? Because you might just happen someday to catch a public official being corrupt?
I maintain that secret recording of one private citizen of another private citizen is a breach of privacy, and should not be permitted.
HM
On the post: Court Says It's Okay To Secretly Record Conversation If Done For Legitimate Reasons
I sure don't want to be recorded...
I don't need a reason to say I don't want to be recorded. Luckily, California (where I live) has a statute that specifically prohibits recording telephone calls unless both parties consent. I don't think a person should have the right to walk up to me and start snapping photos, either. I have the right to privacy, and that includes from people who want to preserve my utterances and image for posterity.
I might consider it if there were a requirement that a complete copy of any such recording has to be offered and provided to the other person within ten business days.
I do have less concern, though, about recording public officials acting in their official capacity. If a cop pulls you over, I think you should have the right to record the whole incidient. But you should not be able to record that same cop if you call him at home when he's off-duty.
HM
On the post: Patenting The Geophysical Center Of Europe?
Re: formula patent?
I have to wonder, too, if this isn't actually a regional designation issue, like only sparkling wine from the Chamgagne region of France can be called "champagne".
HM
On the post: Latest Attempt To Create Federal Journalism Shield Law May Carve Wikileaks Out Of The Protections
No shield law necessary
Just like if I were to stand on a street corner and start announcing information I had uncovered, a journalist who demonstrates he has knowledge of, say, a criminal act, may very well become of interest to the proper authorities, and may in fact be a material witness.
Journalists should also be subject to all the limitations on First Amendment exercise that I am. They can't do the equivalent of shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre. They can't defame people (i.e., they should be subject to being called to account for the truthfulness of their articles). Etc., etc., etc.
Until we can get someone like Walter Cronkite back, who was widely regarded as an objective reporter of facts and not a biased mouthpiece or sensationalist, I'm not inclined to grant any sort of privileges at all to journalists. They don't deserve 'em.
HM
On the post: Patents Getting In The Way Of Saving Lives; Fabry Disease Sufferers Petition US Gov't To Step In
Re: Re: Only Genzyme can produce the drug?
And is a 5% royalty customary in pharmaceutical patent licensing deals?
Regardless of good intentions, I get very nervous when the government is called on to sieze or otherwise control private rights or property. Should we also put salary caps on the doctors who will then administer the drug to the patients?
HM
On the post: Crown Copyright Strikes Again: Documents Revealed Under Freedom Of Information Act Can Infringe On Copyright?
Re:
It's not a restriction on the sharing of information. As you have suggested, you can still report to others the contents of the document you have obtained, and even show the document to others to let them read it for themselves. Certainly discussion of the document is not prohibited by this concept. Copyright doesn't protect ideas or "information". It protects particular expressions of ideas and information.
Again, though, I agree that the concept of "crown copyright" doesn't really make sense, and it is a good thing that the US has rejected the concept.
HM
On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Poor clearing houses!!!
I actually do not agree that there is a major problem with copyright to begin with, so do not feel compelled to "prove" its success, especially since that kind of proof is not nearly as spectacular as the controversies. In general, copyright works fairly smoothly. Artists create, they have the right to control (mostly) their work, they get paid, we get art, and we're generally OK. Short of shutting the system down for ten years or so to compare before-and-after, I'm not sure you could "prove" its success in the same manner in which this blog (which I never claimed held itself out as an unbiased journalism site) "proves" the contrary.
I disagree with the portrayal of many (not all, but many) of the incidents reported here, and do not accept that they necessarily demonstrate any failure on the part of the copyright system. Many of them are based on assumptions I believe to be false (such as the concept of an unauthorized copy not harming the artist), and many are based more on today's rampant selfish need for instant gratification than any real economic or social balance argument.
HM
On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Poor clearing houses!!!
While not at all dismissing constructive criticisms of copyright that may nonetheless be found at the kernel of the rants here, you can find evidence of the "success" of copyright in every royalty check received by an artist for the sale of a work and the wide variety of works that are produced under this system.
Might there be a better system? Perhaps. Might we get just as many great works with fewer rights granted to artists? Maybe. However, the fact that one might be able to point to improvements that can be made does not at all mean the current system is "bad". And ANY system can be criticized as "bad" because of its highly publicized failures. The criminal justice system and the immigration system are both criticized from polar opposite viewpoints, pointing to extreme examples as somehow characterizing the entire sytem. Should be just scrap these systems entirely and make do without, merely because neither one is perfect?
HM
On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Poor clearing houses!!!
You may have noticed that I framed the "middle ground" concept as ALMOST always being preferred. I sorta doubt any reasonably intelligent reader really thought that my philosophy would apply in anything like the rather extreme scenario you posited.
If anything, you're proving my "rule". Truth breaks down at the extremes. And your scenario was pretty extreme.
HM
On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive
Re: Re: Re: Re: A tangible signature meal
Yes, it is generally expensive to go to court.
HM
On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Poor clearing houses!!!
However, something more subjective, like whether copyright is "good" or "bad" I think very much falls into my personal philosophy of the truth usually being in the middle. We can readily see that there are both good things and not-so-good things that come out of it, so to label it as merely a tool of the rich to oppress the not-as-rich is rather narrow-minded.
To carry your murderer example a bit further, this might be like trying to label him as "evil". He has committed an evil act, to be sure, but is there nothing at all about him that is anything but evil?
I usually (not always, but usually) head to the middle ground first, while being open-minded enough to consider all the facts to determine if that is the right place to stay. The middle ground is most likely where the most accuracy in describing the problem is to be found, as well as mostly likely the place where the best answer is to be found.
HM
On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive
Re: Re: Re: Re: Now sounds like a good time
The disclosure requirement of a patent seems to be related to the fact that the novel elements of the invention may not be readily detectable merely by observing the finished product on a store shelf. Not so with a copyrighted work. The painting on the wall is itself the entire expression, and is disclosed to the public by it's mere display in the markteplace. No further "sharing" requirement makes sense in that case.
Note that the disclsoure ("sharing") element of a patent does NOT grant any right to DO anything with that disclosure during the term of the patent.
HM
On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive
Re: Re: A tangible signature meal
Yes, some try to push IP law to achieve goals that were not really intended to be enabled (witness the printer cartridge and garage door opener cases brought under the DMCA), but, you know what, the courts usually come to the right decision, and so those cases are usually losers.
You can talk about the ideas of organized crime, family dynamics, mid-20th-Century American culture all you want. That's quite a different thing from making an unauthorized ocpy of "The Godfather". The doctrine of fair use is a mechanism (albeit perhaps an imperfect one) for ensuring that communication of ideas that nonetheless makes reasonable use of the creative expression of others can still take place. Of course, no matter the definition, reasonable minds can disagree as to whether any particular use of such content constitutes a fair use under any particular set of circumstances. Hence, the need to resort to the legal system on occasion to resolve the dispute - just like any other thing two parties might disagree about.
Of course, one might also note that in a truly evolved society, people would respect the work of others and not attempt to take more than what the creator was willing to provide.
HM
On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive
Re: Re: Re: Poor clearing houses!!!
So, there you go.
HM
On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive
Re: Poor clearing houses!!!
It's interesting that your "rich people are evil" argument is included in the same monologue as your criticism of other extreme binary conflict ("the radical left and the fundamentalist right, men against women, elderly against the young, black against white against yellow against red").
The truth is almost never at the extremes. It's almost always somewhere in the middle. It's not black-and-white. It's a lot of grey. Copyright and patent law serve legitimate purposes, but there are those who are concerned that they do not adequately address perceived conflicts with other important aspects of our society. Some people unfairly push copyright beyond its intended purposes, others completely disregard even its beneficial and fair applications. It's a mix, and just about ANY simplistic view of the situation is bound to be more wrong than right. The right approach is a balanced one.
Let's not miss THAT.
HM
On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive
Re: Re: Well, food is not really an apt analogy...
I do agree that recipes, in the form of a utilitarian list of ingredients and preparation steps, are generally not copyrightable. As you note, if they are EXPRESSED in a creative way, then that expression IS subject to copyright protection.
I suppose you could potentially get patent protection for a recipe if the result had some clear utility and met the other criteria for patentability. As an off-the-top-of-my-head example, if the recipe served to maximize nutritional value of the ingredients in some novel and non-obvious way, rather than merely presenting a good taste sensation.
HM
HM
On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive
Well, food is not really an apt analogy...
Food is consumed once, and then has to be re-acquired.
Each kitchen can only produce so much of it, and, if the food is popular, is probably not able to meet the demand for it, even if they wanted and tried to.
Food is a very distance-limited commodity. Only people who can get to the kitchen can eat that food (yes, yes, you can freeze it and ship it, I guess, but that's sort of beyond the traditoinal restaurant/kitchen model you put up).
There is an element of the cook's skill here. I can copy your recipe, but just because I use the same ingredients doesn't mean I'll come out with the same results.
In general, the utilitarian nature of food FAR outweighs any artistic expression associated with it. Yes, there are dishes produced much more for the pure artistic elements of taste and presentation, but, that's really a minority, and is certainly not the goal of your Korean taco truck friends.
So, while I would acknowledge that your descripion of the restaurant industry getting along quite nicely without some form of copyright protection for food dishes seems pretty accurate, I disagree that it says anything at all one way or the other about whether copyright protection acts as an incentive for further creativity. Two different animals.
HM
On the post: Economic Threat: Legacy Industries With Bogus 'Safety' Claims To Stop More Efficient Competition
Re:
HM
On the post: Best Hollywood Set Locations Represent A Trade Secret?
Re:
Yes, those locations that are more in the public eye are going to be harder to keep a secret, but the fact that tax dollars are somehow associated with it wouldn't be dispositive, IMHO.
HM
On the post: Best Hollywood Set Locations Represent A Trade Secret?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Why not trade secret?
Maybe you've built up relationships with the locals and so have a list of good tradesmen, caterers, the best roads for accessing the site, where to park, how to get permits, local casting agents, equipment rental, etc., etc., etc.
Yes, that is all stuff that can certainly be developed/discovered independently. BUT, until it is, there is a colorable argument that this represents a trade secret. Like a customer list.
HM
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