Oh, because you think Big Pharma is selling pills in Nigeria at a loss?
Let's examine that question, shall we? Here is the executive pay (from 2008) for the top 10 Pharma firms:
1. Miles White - Abbott - $33.4M
2. Fred Hassan - Schering-Plough - $30.1M
3. Bill Weldon - Johnson & Johnson - $25.1M
4. Bob Essner - Wyeth - $24.1M
5. Robert Parkinson - Baxter - $17.6M
6. Daniel Vasella - Novartis - $15.5M
7. Richard Clark - Merck - $14.5M
8. Frank Baldino - Cephalon - $13.5M
9. Sidney Taurel - Eli Lilly - $13M
10. Jeff Kindler - Pfizer - $12.6M
You get the idea? Your 20 bucks is going to pay off these big Corporations and to pad their profits. It isn't going into research, and it isn't paying for drug production. That stuff is cheap (one because the government funds most drug R&D anyway, and two, once you know how to produce a drug it is usually pretty easy to bang it out).
Let the market work. This isn't about someone in another country getting a free ride. This is about limiting competition so that we in the U.S. can get raked over the coals for corporate profit and executive pay.
Re: Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Oct 24th, 2011 @ 11:12am
People in poor third world countries need to consider the quality of life their potential children will be born into before they procreate. It is not the responsibility of a pharmacuetical company in the industrialized world to provide pro bono Rx therapy to poor third world children.
And guess what. It isn't my responsibility to protect their market through force. If they want to produce a product and sell that product at a price and quality that competes in the market place, then they don't need government help.
If they want to take government funded research, patent it, then gouge people for many times their piddly investment, and have that market protected by Government Force, I say screw 'em.
I am SO totally for commerce and competition. I am so against government regulated markets which (BTW) prevent people from forming a company to compete against established companies by letting Big Companies blast the little guys out of the water with Government Enforced Patent suits.
Are you trying to tell me that government regulated and government enforced markets are the way to go? Really?
No, this is a joint D&R maneuver. I agree completely that this has gone on for 30 years or more, and has intensified in recent years.
Forgive me if I sounded like I blame anyone in the D&R more than anyone else. When I wrote this, I was thinking how the D&r (of the D&R) are showing signs of trying to pretend they care about the issues of the OWS
No, there are limits to what we will pay for drugs in the U.S:
Effective October 1, 2010, the Social Security Act was revised to require that the Secretary calculate FULs as no less than 175 percent of the weighted average (determined on the basis of manufacturer utilization) of the most recently reported monthly average manufacturer prices (AMP).
So in other words, Federal Programs cannot be charged more than 175 percent of the average price of a drug....
Wait...
Did I read that right? Ah yes, this was the reform we got when we passed the "Affordable Care Act". Prior to that, the government could limit reimbursement to the lower market rates for drugs, as offered by at least three sources. (my rough interpretation of the regs...)
Gosh, you gotta love a congress that can label a bill the "Affordable Care Act" when they really mean "Roll all the Cash Possible into Big Pharma's Coffers Act" !!!!
So.... The general spirit of the OWS is that Big Business and Government have conspired to extract money from the public and concentrate it in the hands of a few. Okay, that's my take, but I think it is close.
This Administration is then pushing TPP that would (assuming we comply) would boost payments to Big Pharma for drugs covered by Medicare and Medicaid ... to Benefit Big Pharma?
Because their patents are not properly respected?!?
What, we don't have money for services (so we are cutting services) but we have *EXTRA* money to give Big Pharma? And not just us, but the rest of the world?
If anyone had any doubts, this should put a nail in the coffin of the idea that Obama (or Democrats in general) have any sympathy whatsoever for the issues OWS is pushing.
Maybe we need to factor in this complexity when judging the value of a patent
Say Apple is suing Samsung over 4 or 5 patents on tablets (I know, that's far fetched, but just for the sake of argument).
How do we value these four patents? I believe we need to factor in the complexity of the technology in a way Judges and lay persons can understand.
Now suppose about the same number of patents cover tablet computers as smart phones which, according to a number of sources, is about 250,000 patents.
Obviously some patents would be worth more and some less, but no matter how you slice it from an IP point of view, all of these patents have some value. And from a common sense point of view, the sum of the value of all of these patents should approximate the profit on the product.
As a rule of thumb then, each patent value should average 1/250,000 of the royalties due on the device, in terms of royalties owed to the IP owner. So say 30 percent of the profit goes to the guy that makes and sells the device, and fully 60 percent goes to the IP owners. Say further the profit on the device is $100. That means, on average, a patent *should* be worth about 60/250,000, or .024 of a penny. Should a patent be *really* important, then I guess it might be worth 100 times as much as another patent, i.e. 2.4 cents.
Can we really reasonably judge the value of one patent over another when they are all equally necessary to produce the product at hand? But wait, a design patent is actually *less* necessary than one on some fundamental technology like wireless communications. (The last you have to have, but a design might be avoided). So from an objective point of view, the design patent can't really be worth more than a technological patent.
If we built up an approach to judge the values of patents in this fashion, I think we pretty much solve the patent thicket problem. Why spend tens of thousands of dollars on a patent that can net you .0024 cents on a device?
Seriously, we DO need something like this. Without some limit on how many hands can dip into the till, it becomes increasingly hard to innovate a highly technological product.
Strong IP folks are fond of saying that everyone deserves and equal share of the profits built on their work. All I am saying is "Great! And here is how we can compute your share".
... it required another 11 years before it was born in any form that people could use widely across a wide range of hardware and software. This took SMTP, and SMTP was defined in RFC 821 in 1982.
Actually, until the police step up and take responsibility for the actions of the few bad apples, remove them from the force, and move aggressively to deal with situations where police are proven to have used excessive force, lied to protect themselves, etc. they SHOULD be criticized, and we as the public SHOULD act to eliminate leaders that refuse to enforce common sense standards of conduct.
How about the very rich paying their share of the Tax Burden?
Did you know that the top 5 percent of income earners pay more in taxes than the bottom 95 percent of the pay scale?
Sounds awful unless you happen to know that the top 5 percent also controlled 60 percent of this nation's wealth (and most likely significantly more today, maybe as much as 70 percent).
It gets even worse when you realize that the bottom 95 percent is also paying their own way in life, i.e. they are responsible for the day to day expenses out of their own pocket for 95 percent of the population. The top 5 percent, with most of the wealth, pays for themselves, 5 percent of the population.
So what is the common man entitled to? Well, they are entitled to a reasonable opportunity to succeed and better themselves with the resources of this country. Access to college, access to capital, access to opportunities. The benefits of the efforts of ALL the people should not be concentrated in the hands of a privileged few.
"Paul, the problem is that supporters of piracy (such as yourself) just don't seem to understand the idea of a diminished marketplace. No, you cannot attribute any single lost sale to a "share" (aka, piracy), but clearly if a significant portion of the population are obtaining material illegally rather than paying for it, the marketplace is diminished. Just as the recorded music industry about it."
First off, I am not a supporter of piracy. I am not a supporter of intentional stupidity either. There are simply some things you just can't make laws against. They are just too easy to do without any clear harm being done.
You claim the marketplace is diminished by illegal sharing, but every study (even those done by Big Content) show that people that share the most media also buy the most media.
People like me, who never download music, are also the people who never *buy* music. I think I have bought maybe 10 or 15 CDs, records, albums, tapes, etc. IN MY ENTIRE LIFE (and I am over 50). I have never used iTunes, and I have never bought a digital song.
What good am I to the Industry? Seriously, I am no pirate, but when a typical pirate buys 4 or 5 CDs/DVDs/Songs per month legitimately, who is advancing the Industry?
Of course all of this is beside the point. If you think it is terrible that people have hateful thoughts, then pass a law against it. But it isn't going to do any good. The point I am making is that Technology is advancing to the point that you CAN NOT STOP Sharing, either legitimate sharing nor illegal sharing.
"People pay for the production by buying the end product. If they don't buy the end product, but instead choose to pirate it, then there is less money to pay for the production costs. ... If you can't grasp that simple piece, the rest is pretty much lost on you."
Right. So when I watch broadcast T.V. I am not paying for the production of content? Or when I listen to the Radio? (Not that I do, because I don't want commercials. I am a podcast guy (all ultra legal, you know!)). But the point is that there are many ways to support the production of content besides buying the end product. Claiming that is the only way to support production of content is perhaps an unintentional falsehood, but it is false none the less.
"As for cloud computing, I again liken it to a really fast car. Just because we can build a 1001 horsepower street car (Bugatti EB) doesn't mean you can suddenly drive 200 MPH through the middle of New York. The ability to do something doesn't make it legal, right, or appropriate. So sorry, the "it cannot be stopped" argument never flies with me, it's a bullshit excuse for people not wanting to follow the law because they are getting a benefit illegally obtaining content. The risk of cloud computing is that it becomes a defacto sharing system, which would make it as illegal as Napster."
You are plenty full of bullshit yourself. Cloud computing has thousands if not millions of uses besides sharing content, which will become a meaninglessly small percentage of cloud computing in the future. You clearly know nothing about technology, but let me clue you in: People can only enjoy 24 hours of content per day. Period. There is a bandwidth limit to our attention. However, the products of computation are nearly infinite. From managing your finances, to scheduling your time, to informing you about new products and current events.... The Cloud isn't limited to how much information can be processed *for* a person.
You should say, "Just because we can build a rocket that can take us into orbit, we shouldn't because it isn't safe to go that fast through the middle of New York."
The very same technology that even makes it POSSIBLE to produce a film like Avatar increasingly makes it impossible to stop SHARING Avatar. You don't get one without the other. You want to stop technology because you find it annoying or that it makes it hard to make money, great! That is YOUR problem.
It simply isn't MY problem. I don't really CARE if you have a hard time making money if sharing is too easy. Why? Because the same tech that makes sharing easy is the same tech that is advancing everything in entertainment, in medicine, in politics, in democracy, in our standard of living, etc! You want to toss everything in the trash because "the 'it cannot be stopped' argument never flies with me, its a bullshit excuse for people not wanting to follow the law..."
Well I call 'bullshit' on that. I believe copyright has been extended to the point that I have no respect for it, this is true. BUT EVEN IF I CARED, I don't think you can do ANYTHING to stop sharing. What you can do is try and wreak the Internet, waste Tax Dollars, all for the blind hope this will help an Industry that refuses to wake up and smell the coffee.
TSA has cost tens of billions of dollars, and still fails 70 percent of the unannounced tests to see if they can catch weapons going on planes. They have NEVER caught an actual terrorist.
What I do believe is that the government can waste my money on Protect IP.
It is telling that you are a supporter, and have yet to make any point that proves this law will do any good. Forget that I don't care about copyright. Just explain *how* PROTECT IP is going to be able to sharing when sharing is going to be so easy?
Do you seriously think that I was implying that all the music of the last 50 years will only cost 5 dollars to have produced???
PROTECT IP is trying to control *sharing*. The cost of sharing has nothing to do with the cost of production. Nothing I said says any thing or implies anything about the cost of production,
Cloud computing cannot be stopped, and shouldn't be stopped. If we stopped every innovation because it broke someone's approach to making a living, we would still be plowing with sticks (or maybe not even that! Think of the hunters!). The very idea that we are not going to put our information securely in the cloud, where it can be accessed by any device we want, where we can gather information from around the world, process it, and make decisions against it in real time .... Just because of copyright .... HA
Was your rant directed at me? If so, it would seem you didn't follow my posts very closely, as I am obviously against PROTECT IP.
I would like to point out that I put my work into Open Source to protect my work from Companies and Governments that would isolate my work in a box as a proprietary or semi-proprietary asset.
I built the first version of my technology while working for a company contracted with Texas. I left that company and contracted with the next on the same project and built the second version of the Technology as a contractor. When they felt it was "good enough" they cut me loose. They went on to deploy my technology in two other states, without any money or credit to me. Fine.
In the meantime I have to eat, so I end up contracting on another project, and I build the technology from the ground up. We had a verbal agreement that I would get rights to use the technology after the project. Don't take verbal agreements.
So I build the technology from scratch. Again. And I work for a company that deploys the technology in three states, and more on the way. Still I am only working for (as you say) a very nice salary. After 5.5 years I leave them.
BUT THIS TIME, the technology was an open source project. All of my effort is still mine. Yeah I am sharing it, but the key is that I can leverage it into other jobs, other contracts, other projects. This is KEY.
I am managing to Keep Control of my work by freely sharing my work. I don't need PROTECT IP. In fact, the whole mindset behind PROTECT IP is fundamentally opposed to how I am succeeding in my industry!
I have some proprietary tools that should make me money. And of course the contracting pays very well. But at no time to I have to DRM anything or demand take downs or sue anyone to make a very comfortable living.
So I don't think you need to rant at me, if you even intended to (I am not sure you did).
I don't see it. In order to do that a company would have to decide to build a business model to facilitate unlawful transactions. Credit cards are still issued by banks which have to be mindful of who they partner with. Then there is the issue of sufficient market penetration to make such a venture worthwhile. It's just not there.
Uhhhh, no. You see, not just unlawful transactions will be banned by this law.
Any financial institution that provides hassle free transactions to buy goods from whom I wish to buy goods will have an advantage over companies bound by PROTECT IP. I don't know *how* money will be exchanged should this law come fully and and even violently into effect. But I can safely bet that money will be exchanged. This may be what is required for bitcoin to take off.
I disagree. The number of people who subscribe to pirate sites or download or stream from ad supported sites will certainly decrease if credit cards can't be used. If ads can't be placed that doesn't make establishing a pirate site a viable venture. We'll know the true impact within a year of so, but your suggestion that it won't do anything is just wrong.
You are living in a fantasy world. Heck, you may even be the kind of person who believes if we preach at kids that they won't have sex!
You seem to think that media is being exchanged for money, when most file sharers do it to, well, share! And if you encrypt all your transactions, how will PROTECT IP know who's ads to cut off? How are they going to cut off ads from a site that is okay with being paid in "services in kind", or in Pounds, or in Rubles?
What happens when the ability to share information of any kind is encrypted into a distributed network of storage, where every contributor holds something (they know not what), and they share what they hold (they know not what), but as a benefit of say 10X the storage they contribute, they get 1X of redundant cloud storage for their data?
All anyone has to have in this cloud is a key, and various nodes will contribute various encrypted chunks to form the data needed, (once decrypted). Dynamic routing and multiple encryption steps could effectively make data removal from such a cloud very difficult. Shifting loads among nodes could effectively distribute the liability to the cloud.
Your own use of such a system would be clearly legal. You are providing storage to allow you to put your information and applications into a cloud. That others might use the existence of the cloud to commit crimes isn't any more your fault that the fact that your job at the electric plant or newspaper, or police station, or construction site also allows others to commit crimes.
By 2020, when a TB worth of storage will run you about 20 cents, how can you claim that any law of this sort is going to prevent the exchange of information (infringing or not)? How much you want to bet that kids won't have disks for 5 bucks that have ALL the music of the last 50 years, and trade them with each other for the heck of it? Oh, but that will be encrypted behind a copy of all their favorite (or possibly interesting) web sites!
Does PROTECT IP prevent anyone from talking to anyone else? If not, then it isn't going to stop sharing.
I own an open source project, and base my consulting income on applying this technology on various projects. I build (along with others in the company I work for) proprietary tools to manage, version, develop, and deploy policy updates to applications (based on the my underlying, open source technology).
I use bitcoin when I can. Obviously not as much as I'd like, and they have their issues (hording, unstable value).
And you are right, cutting off US based processors would damage most companies.... Until some other company rose to fill in the gap.
I don't think Protect IP will do anything to curb infringement. I do think it will damage privacy and cost ISPs tons of money, reduce the quality of our Internet access even further, and soak up even more of our Tax Dollars, and all for the sake of tilting at windmills.
Are you going to seriously believe people cannot code around any law? Do you know anything about encryption, distributed computing, and the falling cost of disk storage?
Are you even aware that (should the trend that has held since 1980 until now) by 2020 (in 9 years) you can expect to buy for $100 a storage device that can hold 14.4 YEARS of HD Video? That by 2024 that same $100 will by you a storage device that can hold 10X that much? Seriously, $100 will buy you storage that will hold a 145 YEARS of HD video!!! http://brownzings.blogspot.com/2009/11/disruptive-change.html
Even if you shut down the networks completely, there is no way you can stop people from sharing content when the mechanism for doing so is as abundant and easy to access as air and water!
So no, my disdain for this law isn't about being a freeloader or an apologist for free loaders. It is about having enough brain cells firing to understand how bad a policy this represents.
Speeding can kill people, maybe you. I had three childhood friends die in accidents related to speeding before I graduated college. The government has a stake in enforcing speeding laws to protect us all.
Copyright infringement isn't going to kill anyone. The only people protected by government enforcing copyright laws are the Content owners.
Certainly content owners need protecting, but (presumably if 135 billion is at stake) they have the money to fund the efforts through existing laws to protect themselves. If they cannot, then they can do something else.
Seriously with the economy circling the drain, why are we increasing government enforcement of laws that do not benefit the economy as a whole? If you want to pass a law like this, pass the laws to make the content owners pay for the law.
I am a content owner, and I want no part of this. Nothing here is going to increase my revenue, it is only going to annoy me and raise my taxes. This law ISN'T going to protect my content. It isn't going to protect ANYBODY'S content.
Re: Re: Let's quit debunking the 135 Billion figure for copyright.
Money paid to corporations in lawsuits goes into the corporate coffers. Can you agree with this? Corporate profits are currently pretty high, would you not agree with that? And lastly, Corporate hiring and expansion is pretty low if not negative, correct?
So while money paid in lawsuits to corporations certainly isn't burned up, it isn't a great deal of help to the economy, broadly speaking.
Money paid to individuals and some small companies may in fact support some economic activity. But I doubt that balances against the increase prices and depression of innovation and small businesses that the current growing patent thickets represent.
Lastly, thanks for finding my story both amusing and horseshit. As I simply applied Coc's own logic to their own numbers, I am quite flattered you agree!
On the post: US Trying To Force Governments To Pay Much Higher Prices For Needed Drugs Through Secretive TPP
Re:
Let's examine that question, shall we? Here is the executive pay (from 2008) for the top 10 Pharma firms:
1. Miles White - Abbott - $33.4M
2. Fred Hassan - Schering-Plough - $30.1M
3. Bill Weldon - Johnson & Johnson - $25.1M
4. Bob Essner - Wyeth - $24.1M
5. Robert Parkinson - Baxter - $17.6M
6. Daniel Vasella - Novartis - $15.5M
7. Richard Clark - Merck - $14.5M
8. Frank Baldino - Cephalon - $13.5M
9. Sidney Taurel - Eli Lilly - $13M
10. Jeff Kindler - Pfizer - $12.6M
You get the idea? Your 20 bucks is going to pay off these big Corporations and to pad their profits. It isn't going into research, and it isn't paying for drug production. That stuff is cheap (one because the government funds most drug R&D anyway, and two, once you know how to produce a drug it is usually pretty easy to bang it out).
Let the market work. This isn't about someone in another country getting a free ride. This is about limiting competition so that we in the U.S. can get raked over the coals for corporate profit and executive pay.
On the post: US Trying To Force Governments To Pay Much Higher Prices For Needed Drugs Through Secretive TPP
Re: Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Oct 24th, 2011 @ 11:12am
And guess what. It isn't my responsibility to protect their market through force. If they want to produce a product and sell that product at a price and quality that competes in the market place, then they don't need government help.
If they want to take government funded research, patent it, then gouge people for many times their piddly investment, and have that market protected by Government Force, I say screw 'em.
I am SO totally for commerce and competition. I am so against government regulated markets which (BTW) prevent people from forming a company to compete against established companies by letting Big Companies blast the little guys out of the water with Government Enforced Patent suits.
Are you trying to tell me that government regulated and government enforced markets are the way to go? Really?
On the post: US Trying To Force Governments To Pay Much Higher Prices For Needed Drugs Through Secretive TPP
Re: Re: Obama and the OWS
Forgive me if I sounded like I blame anyone in the D&R more than anyone else. When I wrote this, I was thinking how the D&r (of the D&R) are showing signs of trying to pretend they care about the issues of the OWS
On the post: US Trying To Force Governments To Pay Much Higher Prices For Needed Drugs Through Secretive TPP
Un, not so.
https://www.cms.gov/reimbursement/05_federalupperlimits.asp
So in other words, Federal Programs cannot be charged more than 175 percent of the average price of a drug....
Wait...
Did I read that right? Ah yes, this was the reform we got when we passed the "Affordable Care Act". Prior to that, the government could limit reimbursement to the lower market rates for drugs, as offered by at least three sources. (my rough interpretation of the regs...)
Gosh, you gotta love a congress that can label a bill the "Affordable Care Act" when they really mean "Roll all the Cash Possible into Big Pharma's Coffers Act" !!!!
On the post: US Trying To Force Governments To Pay Much Higher Prices For Needed Drugs Through Secretive TPP
Obama and the OWS
This Administration is then pushing TPP that would (assuming we comply) would boost payments to Big Pharma for drugs covered by Medicare and Medicaid ... to Benefit Big Pharma?
Because their patents are not properly respected?!?
What, we don't have money for services (so we are cutting services) but we have *EXTRA* money to give Big Pharma? And not just us, but the rest of the world?
If anyone had any doubts, this should put a nail in the coffin of the idea that Obama (or Democrats in general) have any sympathy whatsoever for the issues OWS is pushing.
On the post: Complexity, Why Steve Jobs Got More Coverage Than Dennis Ritchie... And What That Says About The Patent System
Re: Not this
On the post: Complexity, Why Steve Jobs Got More Coverage Than Dennis Ritchie... And What That Says About The Patent System
Maybe we need to factor in this complexity when judging the value of a patent
How do we value these four patents? I believe we need to factor in the complexity of the technology in a way Judges and lay persons can understand.
Now suppose about the same number of patents cover tablet computers as smart phones which, according to a number of sources, is about 250,000 patents.
Obviously some patents would be worth more and some less, but no matter how you slice it from an IP point of view, all of these patents have some value. And from a common sense point of view, the sum of the value of all of these patents should approximate the profit on the product.
As a rule of thumb then, each patent value should average 1/250,000 of the royalties due on the device, in terms of royalties owed to the IP owner. So say 30 percent of the profit goes to the guy that makes and sells the device, and fully 60 percent goes to the IP owners. Say further the profit on the device is $100. That means, on average, a patent *should* be worth about 60/250,000, or .024 of a penny. Should a patent be *really* important, then I guess it might be worth 100 times as much as another patent, i.e. 2.4 cents.
Can we really reasonably judge the value of one patent over another when they are all equally necessary to produce the product at hand? But wait, a design patent is actually *less* necessary than one on some fundamental technology like wireless communications. (The last you have to have, but a design might be avoided). So from an objective point of view, the design patent can't really be worth more than a technological patent.
If we built up an approach to judge the values of patents in this fashion, I think we pretty much solve the patent thicket problem. Why spend tens of thousands of dollars on a patent that can net you .0024 cents on a device?
Seriously, we DO need something like this. Without some limit on how many hands can dip into the till, it becomes increasingly hard to innovate a highly technological product.
Strong IP folks are fond of saying that everyone deserves and equal share of the profits built on their work. All I am saying is "Great! And here is how we can compute your share".
On the post: Email Is 40 Years Old
I think it's conception was 40 years ago...
That is when I would claim email was born.
On the post: Who Do You Believe? NYPD? Or Video Evidence Concerning Cop Pepper Spraying Women?
Re: Re:
On the post: Who Do You Believe? NYPD? Or Video Evidence Concerning Cop Pepper Spraying Women?
Re: Re: nonsense
How about the very rich paying their share of the Tax Burden?
Did you know that the top 5 percent of income earners pay more in taxes than the bottom 95 percent of the pay scale?
Sounds awful unless you happen to know that the top 5 percent also controlled 60 percent of this nation's wealth (and most likely significantly more today, maybe as much as 70 percent).
It gets even worse when you realize that the bottom 95 percent is also paying their own way in life, i.e. they are responsible for the day to day expenses out of their own pocket for 95 percent of the population. The top 5 percent, with most of the wealth, pays for themselves, 5 percent of the population.
So what is the common man entitled to? Well, they are entitled to a reasonable opportunity to succeed and better themselves with the resources of this country. Access to college, access to capital, access to opportunities. The benefits of the efforts of ALL the people should not be concentrated in the hands of a privileged few.
On the post: Can The US Chamber Of Commerce Lobby For PROTECT IP Without Being So Blatantly Intellectually Dishonest?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hey, Oily FUD Monger...
First off, I am not a supporter of piracy. I am not a supporter of intentional stupidity either. There are simply some things you just can't make laws against. They are just too easy to do without any clear harm being done.
You claim the marketplace is diminished by illegal sharing, but every study (even those done by Big Content) show that people that share the most media also buy the most media.
People like me, who never download music, are also the people who never *buy* music. I think I have bought maybe 10 or 15 CDs, records, albums, tapes, etc. IN MY ENTIRE LIFE (and I am over 50). I have never used iTunes, and I have never bought a digital song.
What good am I to the Industry? Seriously, I am no pirate, but when a typical pirate buys 4 or 5 CDs/DVDs/Songs per month legitimately, who is advancing the Industry?
Of course all of this is beside the point. If you think it is terrible that people have hateful thoughts, then pass a law against it. But it isn't going to do any good. The point I am making is that Technology is advancing to the point that you CAN NOT STOP Sharing, either legitimate sharing nor illegal sharing.
"People pay for the production by buying the end product. If they don't buy the end product, but instead choose to pirate it, then there is less money to pay for the production costs. ... If you can't grasp that simple piece, the rest is pretty much lost on you."
Right. So when I watch broadcast T.V. I am not paying for the production of content? Or when I listen to the Radio? (Not that I do, because I don't want commercials. I am a podcast guy (all ultra legal, you know!)). But the point is that there are many ways to support the production of content besides buying the end product. Claiming that is the only way to support production of content is perhaps an unintentional falsehood, but it is false none the less.
"As for cloud computing, I again liken it to a really fast car. Just because we can build a 1001 horsepower street car (Bugatti EB) doesn't mean you can suddenly drive 200 MPH through the middle of New York. The ability to do something doesn't make it legal, right, or appropriate. So sorry, the "it cannot be stopped" argument never flies with me, it's a bullshit excuse for people not wanting to follow the law because they are getting a benefit illegally obtaining content. The risk of cloud computing is that it becomes a defacto sharing system, which would make it as illegal as Napster."
You are plenty full of bullshit yourself. Cloud computing has thousands if not millions of uses besides sharing content, which will become a meaninglessly small percentage of cloud computing in the future. You clearly know nothing about technology, but let me clue you in: People can only enjoy 24 hours of content per day. Period. There is a bandwidth limit to our attention. However, the products of computation are nearly infinite. From managing your finances, to scheduling your time, to informing you about new products and current events.... The Cloud isn't limited to how much information can be processed *for* a person.
You should say, "Just because we can build a rocket that can take us into orbit, we shouldn't because it isn't safe to go that fast through the middle of New York."
The very same technology that even makes it POSSIBLE to produce a film like Avatar increasingly makes it impossible to stop SHARING Avatar. You don't get one without the other. You want to stop technology because you find it annoying or that it makes it hard to make money, great! That is YOUR problem.
It simply isn't MY problem. I don't really CARE if you have a hard time making money if sharing is too easy. Why? Because the same tech that makes sharing easy is the same tech that is advancing everything in entertainment, in medicine, in politics, in democracy, in our standard of living, etc! You want to toss everything in the trash because "the 'it cannot be stopped' argument never flies with me, its a bullshit excuse for people not wanting to follow the law..."
Well I call 'bullshit' on that. I believe copyright has been extended to the point that I have no respect for it, this is true. BUT EVEN IF I CARED, I don't think you can do ANYTHING to stop sharing. What you can do is try and wreak the Internet, waste Tax Dollars, all for the blind hope this will help an Industry that refuses to wake up and smell the coffee.
TSA has cost tens of billions of dollars, and still fails 70 percent of the unannounced tests to see if they can catch weapons going on planes. They have NEVER caught an actual terrorist.
What I do believe is that the government can waste my money on Protect IP.
It is telling that you are a supporter, and have yet to make any point that proves this law will do any good. Forget that I don't care about copyright. Just explain *how* PROTECT IP is going to be able to sharing when sharing is going to be so easy?
On the post: Can The US Chamber Of Commerce Lobby For PROTECT IP Without Being So Blatantly Intellectually Dishonest?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hey, Oily FUD Monger...
Do you seriously think that I was implying that all the music of the last 50 years will only cost 5 dollars to have produced???
PROTECT IP is trying to control *sharing*. The cost of sharing has nothing to do with the cost of production. Nothing I said says any thing or implies anything about the cost of production,
Cloud computing cannot be stopped, and shouldn't be stopped. If we stopped every innovation because it broke someone's approach to making a living, we would still be plowing with sticks (or maybe not even that! Think of the hunters!). The very idea that we are not going to put our information securely in the cloud, where it can be accessed by any device we want, where we can gather information from around the world, process it, and make decisions against it in real time .... Just because of copyright .... HA
On the post: Can The US Chamber Of Commerce Lobby For PROTECT IP Without Being So Blatantly Intellectually Dishonest?
Re: Re: Re: I am also a content owner/creator
On the post: Can The US Chamber Of Commerce Lobby For PROTECT IP Without Being So Blatantly Intellectually Dishonest?
Re: I am also a content owner/creator
I would like to point out that I put my work into Open Source to protect my work from Companies and Governments that would isolate my work in a box as a proprietary or semi-proprietary asset.
I built the first version of my technology while working for a company contracted with Texas. I left that company and contracted with the next on the same project and built the second version of the Technology as a contractor. When they felt it was "good enough" they cut me loose. They went on to deploy my technology in two other states, without any money or credit to me. Fine.
In the meantime I have to eat, so I end up contracting on another project, and I build the technology from the ground up. We had a verbal agreement that I would get rights to use the technology after the project. Don't take verbal agreements.
So I build the technology from scratch. Again. And I work for a company that deploys the technology in three states, and more on the way. Still I am only working for (as you say) a very nice salary. After 5.5 years I leave them.
BUT THIS TIME, the technology was an open source project. All of my effort is still mine. Yeah I am sharing it, but the key is that I can leverage it into other jobs, other contracts, other projects. This is KEY.
I am managing to Keep Control of my work by freely sharing my work. I don't need PROTECT IP. In fact, the whole mindset behind PROTECT IP is fundamentally opposed to how I am succeeding in my industry!
I have some proprietary tools that should make me money. And of course the contracting pays very well. But at no time to I have to DRM anything or demand take downs or sue anyone to make a very comfortable living.
So I don't think you need to rant at me, if you even intended to (I am not sure you did).
On the post: Can The US Chamber Of Commerce Lobby For PROTECT IP Without Being So Blatantly Intellectually Dishonest?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hey, Oily FUD Monger...
Uhhhh, no. You see, not just unlawful transactions will be banned by this law.
Any financial institution that provides hassle free transactions to buy goods from whom I wish to buy goods will have an advantage over companies bound by PROTECT IP. I don't know *how* money will be exchanged should this law come fully and and even violently into effect. But I can safely bet that money will be exchanged. This may be what is required for bitcoin to take off.
I disagree. The number of people who subscribe to pirate sites or download or stream from ad supported sites will certainly decrease if credit cards can't be used. If ads can't be placed that doesn't make establishing a pirate site a viable venture. We'll know the true impact within a year of so, but your suggestion that it won't do anything is just wrong.
You are living in a fantasy world. Heck, you may even be the kind of person who believes if we preach at kids that they won't have sex!
You seem to think that media is being exchanged for money, when most file sharers do it to, well, share! And if you encrypt all your transactions, how will PROTECT IP know who's ads to cut off? How are they going to cut off ads from a site that is okay with being paid in "services in kind", or in Pounds, or in Rubles?
What happens when the ability to share information of any kind is encrypted into a distributed network of storage, where every contributor holds something (they know not what), and they share what they hold (they know not what), but as a benefit of say 10X the storage they contribute, they get 1X of redundant cloud storage for their data?
All anyone has to have in this cloud is a key, and various nodes will contribute various encrypted chunks to form the data needed, (once decrypted). Dynamic routing and multiple encryption steps could effectively make data removal from such a cloud very difficult. Shifting loads among nodes could effectively distribute the liability to the cloud.
Your own use of such a system would be clearly legal. You are providing storage to allow you to put your information and applications into a cloud. That others might use the existence of the cloud to commit crimes isn't any more your fault that the fact that your job at the electric plant or newspaper, or police station, or construction site also allows others to commit crimes.
By 2020, when a TB worth of storage will run you about 20 cents, how can you claim that any law of this sort is going to prevent the exchange of information (infringing or not)? How much you want to bet that kids won't have disks for 5 bucks that have ALL the music of the last 50 years, and trade them with each other for the heck of it? Oh, but that will be encrypted behind a copy of all their favorite (or possibly interesting) web sites!
Does PROTECT IP prevent anyone from talking to anyone else? If not, then it isn't going to stop sharing.
On the post: Can The US Chamber Of Commerce Lobby For PROTECT IP Without Being So Blatantly Intellectually Dishonest?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Hmmm...
On the post: Can The US Chamber Of Commerce Lobby For PROTECT IP Without Being So Blatantly Intellectually Dishonest?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hey, Oily FUD Monger...
And you are right, cutting off US based processors would damage most companies.... Until some other company rose to fill in the gap.
I don't think Protect IP will do anything to curb infringement. I do think it will damage privacy and cost ISPs tons of money, reduce the quality of our Internet access even further, and soak up even more of our Tax Dollars, and all for the sake of tilting at windmills.
Are you going to seriously believe people cannot code around any law? Do you know anything about encryption, distributed computing, and the falling cost of disk storage?
Are you even aware that (should the trend that has held since 1980 until now) by 2020 (in 9 years) you can expect to buy for $100 a storage device that can hold 14.4 YEARS of HD Video? That by 2024 that same $100 will by you a storage device that can hold 10X that much? Seriously, $100 will buy you storage that will hold a 145 YEARS of HD video!!!
http://brownzings.blogspot.com/2009/11/disruptive-change.html
Even if you shut down the networks completely, there is no way you can stop people from sharing content when the mechanism for doing so is as abundant and easy to access as air and water!
So no, my disdain for this law isn't about being a freeloader or an apologist for free loaders. It is about having enough brain cells firing to understand how bad a policy this represents.
On the post: Can The US Chamber Of Commerce Lobby For PROTECT IP Without Being So Blatantly Intellectually Dishonest?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
It is called "G O O G L E". Or "Bing" or "Yahoo". You can either find evidence that they are legit or you can't. If you can't, they are bogus.
On the post: Can The US Chamber Of Commerce Lobby For PROTECT IP Without Being So Blatantly Intellectually Dishonest?
Re: Re: Hmmm...
Copyright infringement isn't going to kill anyone. The only people protected by government enforcing copyright laws are the Content owners.
Certainly content owners need protecting, but (presumably if 135 billion is at stake) they have the money to fund the efforts through existing laws to protect themselves. If they cannot, then they can do something else.
Seriously with the economy circling the drain, why are we increasing government enforcement of laws that do not benefit the economy as a whole? If you want to pass a law like this, pass the laws to make the content owners pay for the law.
I am a content owner, and I want no part of this. Nothing here is going to increase my revenue, it is only going to annoy me and raise my taxes. This law ISN'T going to protect my content. It isn't going to protect ANYBODY'S content.
Big Government Stomps on us all.
On the post: Can The US Chamber Of Commerce Lobby For PROTECT IP Without Being So Blatantly Intellectually Dishonest?
Re: Re: Let's quit debunking the 135 Billion figure for copyright.
So while money paid in lawsuits to corporations certainly isn't burned up, it isn't a great deal of help to the economy, broadly speaking.
Money paid to individuals and some small companies may in fact support some economic activity. But I doubt that balances against the increase prices and depression of innovation and small businesses that the current growing patent thickets represent.
Lastly, thanks for finding my story both amusing and horseshit. As I simply applied Coc's own logic to their own numbers, I am quite flattered you agree!
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