Trust me, Intel is so far ahead of everyone else in process technology, it's not even close. Yeah, someone else will eventually make FinFETs in production but by then I wouldn't be surprised to see Intel with transistors that have III-V and Ge channels. And lithography limitations are already resulting in very restricted design rules for design engineers. As they are pretty much the only vertically integrated company semiconductor company left, they'll have a rather large advantage in knowing exactly how to tune their designs to fit the limitations of their mask sets, etc.

One of the problems with open source hardware is that the highest performance chips are designed under restrictive design rules which are a result of fabrication process limitations at the smallest technology nodes. That's one of the biggest reasons the semiconductor industry hasn't moved entirely to a fabless model. The folks making high performance computing hardware need to know exactly what limitations are imposed upon them by the fabrication process. And the fabircation process will never become "open source" (at least not until Moore's law no longer works), there' just way too much money invested in process technology for it to be freely released.

This is nonsense (or at best an utterly pessimistic view on the value of Google). Let us assume that you currently possess $50 worth of tangible assets. Suppose I signed a contract with you saying that I had to give you $100 for your work on zoology 1 year from today. How much should someone be willing to pay you right now for all to all of your money for time immemorial? Assuming I am perfectly credit worthy, someone should give you ~$150 (actually slightly less accounting for inflation reducing the value of $100 in the future, rates of return on other risk free opportunities, etc.). Now suppose that this fictional investor has noticed that you seem to have been able to get me to sign this contract for $100 every year for the last 5 years. If you knew I was absolutely guaranteed to get $100 every year for the rest of time, and the rate of return+inflation on the best alternative risk-free investment was 7%, someone would be willing to pay 50+sum[100/(1+r)^n,{n,1,Infinity}]=$1478.57 for access to all of your money. Replace all these values on these contracts with the expected value of the profits of Google and the appropriate interest rate and then divide by the number of outstanding shares and you would get how much someone should be willing to pay for a share of Google's stock. The market comes into play by determining the expected value of Google's profits. If the price of Google is going up, it's because they think that the future profits of Google are higher than what the market currently thinks they are going to be. If it's going down then the opposite is true. Your valuation scheme is based on the idea that Google will make no profits in the future, which is so utterly pessimistic as to be silly.

Chances are you would be one of those people. There's an extremely good chance that some of your retirement savings are invested in some fund that owns shares in BP. Congratulations on your criminal record.

Great post. Furthermore, the law only prohibits these practices when they are undertaken for the purpose of injuring or destroying your competition. And in regards to the history, I'm pretty sure the law was initially drafted to prevent Asian suppliers of microchips from dumping them below cost in the US.

Who cares? You're getting paid to do what you love and are provided with all the toys you can think of to do that stuff with. If I was a mathematician, I wouldn't really consider that sort of job to be unfulfilling. (Ethical and moral dilemmas are another matter.)

Actually, I'm pretty sure porn went for HD-DVD. So it's not always the right indicator.

Do you know how many times Disney has claimed Snow White, Cinderella, etc. is being put in the vault forever?

You still can't understand the argument I'm making about plays and movies? A play is by definition a live performance. A video of the play is not equivalent, or else the play would be a movie. Many people believe that the closest we can get to that without putting on a live performance is a script. In the case of a movie, the video is the movie. No one thinks that a script of the movie is a better representation of it than the movie itself. However, some people do think that the script of a play is a better representation of a play that a video of it. Now do you understand my point?

As for your copyright alternative, you still refuse to actually say what it is. By the way, generally speaking, calling someone an ignoramus for disagreeing with something you haven't even brought up yet is a great way to conduct an argument.

Really, studying it for 20 years? Then you'd know that the existence of externalities makes a market inefficient. The only two ways I've ever heard of for correcting for an externality is to artificially create a market for it (via copyright in this case), or via a subsidy/tax.

Are you actually claiming that it's difficult to buy a Disney movie?

Did you even read my quote in context? Someone was complaining about movie scripts never being available like how the scripts of plays traditionally have been available. However, the scripts of plays are the best substitute for what is intended to be a live performance. That's not the case for movies, so complaining about the lack of access to movie scripts seems silly.

I just don't get why so many people on Slashdot regard IP laws as being the only way to pay for the labor of creation when they are just as broken whether the term is 1 year or 1 millennium.

And despite your "20 years of studying copyright economics", I've yet to hear some new revolutionary idea from you for paying for the labor of creation.

Well, what's this alternative way for paying for the labor of creation.

(This is ignoring the fact that I've already agreed to copyright terms being far too long.) Regardless of that, do you have any examples? Let's look at a few of his more famous plays. Romeo and Juliet was based on Tristan and Iseult, a story from centuries before Shakespeare; it wouldn't be a problem even under the current absurd copyright length. Hamlet was also based on a far older story. That's also ignoring that if you accept the Ur-Hamlet origin theory, Shakespeare's company bought the rights to the play, just like what would happen with the modern copyright system. Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra; I can keep going. Shakespeare wasn't exactly plagiarizing the guy who wrote something ten years ago. This also ignores the fact that copyright does not imply an inability to act as inspiration. Numerous fantasy works are panned as "rip-offs" of Tolkien. They aren't exactly getting sued by his estate, despite the copyright on his work still being in effect.

The arts, as a whole, are a public good. In order for there to be a socially optimal amount of art produced, they need some sort of subsidy. You can either do that by having the government directly fund its creation, or by artificially creating a marketplace for it. With the first option (which is IMO useful as seed money for artists via programs like the NEA, but that's a different discussion), you don't get to decide (directly) where your money goes. By artificially creating a marketplace, you're allowed to decide what you think is worth your money. When you buy a car you're giving money to a "bloodless corporation" as well. Both the car and music required capital for their production. For some reason, you think that only in one case you should be able to decide whether or not to pay that money, regardless of whether or not you make use of the results of that investment. You don't complain about having to pay for the live performance despite the fact that it costs the same to put on regardless of whether or not you show up. Paying for the right to listen to the music works on the same principle. Whether you are required to compensate the investors for too long is a different matter than the actual requirement. I agree with most people here in saying that copyright terms are far too long.

Right, so because someone might try to use DRM with their works, we should get rid of copyright. If anything, in the modern marketplace that would simply result in the distributors of these works trying to enforce copyright technologically via even more restrictive DRM instead of letting the law do its job.

And the other 18 plays? Moreover, most published copies of Shakespeare's works were of terrible quality by modern standards. (I'm referring to the printing and numerous textual errors referred to on the very page you linked too.)

Public good has a specific economic definition. They are goods with positive externalities. IP laws are meant to internalize this externality. As for the movies, you can actually buy the right to watch the movie. You may not be aware of this, but unlike plays, they are actually intended to be seen on a screen. I don't agree with DRM; I think that copyright terms are way too long, but I just don't get why so many people on Slashdot disregard all IP laws as being frivolous and/or useless.

Your "proposed amendment" would have made the Civil Rights Act and many other slightly unpopular but important constitutional measures impossible to pass. There's a reason super-majorities aren't required for most laws. It's because the government would end up doing nothing. (But I suppose that's your point, isn't it?)