http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.09/nettwerk_pr.html

Musicians generally make very little from the sale of their records. The costs of production, marketing, and promotion are charged against sales, and even if they go multiplatinum and cover those costs, their cut of any extra revenue is usually less than 10 percent. On top of this, the labels typically retain the copyrights to the recordings, which allows them to profit from the musicians' catalogs indefinitely. "It's as if you received a loan for a house," says Ed Robertson, one of BNL's lead vocalists. "But when you finish paying off that loan, the label says thank you and keeps the house."

Work a strategy for decreasing your taxes and you could be sued ... and not by the finance/revenue department...

speaking of drugs...
...I'm no way of the opinion that drug users need to be locked in a cage.

Please explain to me how locking a drug abuser in a metal coffin will make him/her a productive member of society?

Read

But I did know that, if you are arrested for drunk driving in the Old Dominion, under the laws that took effect in 2004, your driver's license is automatically suspended for seven days without any conviction or court appearance.

Arrested.
hey, I'm no proponent of DUI, but (arrest != guilty) in my books. better check yours.

Is it still art if you're willing to change for more bucks?

Is copyright really advancing arts and sciences, like the US constitution demands?
...just curious

http://www.canada.com/topics/entertainment/story.html?id=5e3db5f8-9308-437a-82fd-2dd80bc5f65d&k=28296

Scottish singer KT Tunstall, whose debut CD Eye to the Telescope is currently on the charts, insists she's not worried about file-sharing.
"No, not at all," she says. "I have to be totally honest... when I heard about all the downloading problems and when I really thought about it, the only people who suffer ultimately - you know, if everything falls to its knees - are people who can't sing or perform."
"It's the people who actually can't do their job who suffer because if you can't make your money from record sales... I mean, I just know now that no matter what happens - if I lose all my friends and family and the record company spontaneously combusts - I can go out there and take my guitar out and make enough money to have dinner. It's something you feel really grateful to be able to do."

That about sums it up: Artists with actual talent will still be able to make money without copyright, but we'll lose the talentless manufactured bands... seems like a good deal to me.

So it's occurred to me recently that recipes are to cooking what software is to computing: A set of instructions that someone took the time to write out, refine, check, test and finally publish.
Now, according to the Intellectual Monopolists, copyright is necessary to cause creation. And to be sure, the books where recipes are published are in fact copyright. Yet, I would suggest that there is no working* kitchen in the Western World that does not include a photocopy from a recipe book, or a hand-written version, copied out of a book, the book itself long forgotten, and no where to be found.
If, as I suspect, the piracy rate (on a "cook" basis) is essentially 100%, has this caused the cook-book industry to dissapear? Has this caused no new recipes to be written? Has this in fact eliminated the incentive, as the apologists keep insisting? Of course not.
So why do the music and software industries insist that piracy will lead to the death of their industries?

The difference of course, is that there are no real monopoly profits to be had, and this is not nearly so interesting to the mega-corporations that run the software and media industries. They are not interested in merely earning a profit as the recipe book industry does: they want the mega profits that are only possible by monopoly controls granted by the government, and enforced to the maximum possible degree.

*A working kitchen is where people cook ... to be sure it is less likely to find pirated copies of recipes in a kitchen where no one cooks!

Copyright Critics

Invention is defined as "A new device, method, or process developed from study and experimentation".

I'm going to suggest that there are only two rational schools of thought for patents: Either everything should be patentable, or nothing should be patentable. Everyone else either hasn't thought it through, or is dillusional or is being hypocritical.

Historically, patents were awarded for mechanical innovation and invention: a better steam engine for example. I've never talked to anyone about patents who is pro-patent but doesn't think mechanical devices should be patentable. So, Mr. James Watt, an engineer by training, worked to improve a mechanical device and received a patent, and most people think this is quite reasonable.

But what did Watt actually do? He didn't invent or discover either steam or metal. He wasn't the first metal worker, discovering how to shape and work metal. In fact he didn't even come up with the idea of a "steam engine".
What he did do was come up with a way for the steam engine to be more efficient. What he did do was improve on an existing design. What he did do was invent a mechanical process.

So, if we fast forward to today, and a businessman, learned in the ways of business, suggests that he has a novel business process. He doesn't invent the computer, or the internet. He isn't even the first to sell stuff on the internet. What he does do is improve on an existing process. What he does do is come up with a way for online shopping to be more efficient. What he does do is invent a business process: Customers can buy something with a single click. So, how is this less worthy of being protected by patent law?

In another city, a self-taught programmer is working on something new. He doesn't invent or discover colors or mathmatics. He isn't the first computer graphic artist, discovering how to draw shapes on a computer. In fact he doesn't even come up with the idea of a "compressed digital images".
What he does do is come up with a way for the compression to be more efficient. What he does do is improve on an existing design. What he does is to invent a computer process: a way to compress digital images. Again, what has Watt done that the clever programmer didn't do?

In all these cases, someone has designed and refined a process for accomplishing some task: a manner of accomplishing something. There is no fundamental difference between "a way to move a piston using steam" and "a way to serve the customer using a single click" or "a way to compress digital images".
To grant the mechanical engineer protection from competition, while throwing the businessman or the programmer to the wolves is either hypocritical or condescending.
Does the engineer need protection to cause innovation while the programmer and businessman don't?

So, why does this camp exist? Those that insist that patents are good for mechanical devices, but software and business process patents are bad?
Either patents encourage and foster innovation or they do not. If they do, then they should equally encourage the programmer and businessman to make new and better programs and business methods as they do the engineer to make a better engine.
By extension, if software patents are bad for software development, then it stands to reason that all patents are bad. And for the same reasons.

For those that are new here, I sit firmly in the camp that all patents are bad, and the only acceptable "fix" is to begin to dismantle the patent system.
One can only hope that one day history will look back on patents as just another failed experiment, along with communism: Looks great on paper, but it's counter-productive and doesn't work in implementation.

With the recent creation of OIN I can't help but wonder what this will do in the long term. Though I havn't read the entire mission of OIN it did give me an idea. Perhaps we need do nothing to see the end of patents. Perhaps they will take care of themselves as businesses realise that there is more to gain by pooling resources, and allowing free innovation, than by excluding others?
Or am I dreaming?
Apple and Sony* are probably the two biggest examples of closed standards leading to failure. Apple went from (in the order of) 50% market share to under 5% when competing against the open PC market. Sony has a long list of closed devices (players, media, you-name-it) that have been relegated to the history books, while the open (or at least more open) versions have prospered.

Since OSS has spawned (argueably) the most stable (consumer/public) software ever written, and it did it by exploiting the copyright law (rather than trying to eliminate it) perhaps this can be a model for patents as well.
One way patents might be eliminated:

1. A pool of patents that allowed free usage in exchange for adding additions/innovations based-on existing (in-pool) work (like GPL for patents)
2. If then all new ideas were added to this pool, it would be very difficult for others to make something truly new, that didn't infringe on something in the pool.
3. Cross licensing would ensure that all participants in the pool would be exempt from litigation by those outside the pool.
   • Innovation from outside the pool would likely infringe on the pool (and the likelyhood would increase over time)
   • when an out-of-pool patent shows up to sue, threaten with counter-suit, and settle on cross license
   • this provides relief from litigation for those willing to share
4. As this pool grew, non-pooled innovation would be diminished
   • since it becomes more difficult to make anything new outside the pool without infringing
   • and it's easier to innovate within this pool since you are able to work with more existing work (creation is based on all that came before!)
   • and you are protected by the pool.
5. Even if there were multiple pools at the beginning (OSI and OIN...) they would quickly cross-license, and eventually all pools would pool together into the Pool
6. Eventually the bulk of patents would be in the Pool, which would essentially be the same as not having any patents at which point we could sensibly discuss having all patent protections stripped from the law books.

Sure, there's some wrinkles to work out. I'm sure I have not thought of everything. (imho we'd want a GPL, not a BSD style, since this ensures it's own continuation.) Also, it's important for the maximum amount of work to be included, so some sort of guarantee from participants would be necessary. I'm sure that there are a million loop-holes, and someone would Tivo-ise the deal, but that's where a future version could close up the holes some... ;) Hey, we don't get everything right the first time all the time!

*It's interesting that Sony is in fact a member!

(#14943104) If you found a penny on the ground, it would be near impossible for even the most overzealous attourney general to find something to convict you with for spending that penny. But, if you were to find a snippet of code or a line from a song just laying in the street, that's completely different, because even though you're holding that code or song, it really belongs to someone else (this must be that remaining 1/10). Even if there was no name or identifier of any kind to track this back to the actual owner, you are forbidden to use it because even though you have possession of it, it's not "yours".

Yesterday I started a discussion about comments made by Eugene Volokh: The conceptual plausibility of intellectual property on his blog. We continue today...

But some others just come and take the water for free. "This water is nonrivalrous," they say. "If I take the water, I'm not going to interfere with your or your customers' right to use it, nor will I really interfere with any work you do on your land on the way to the well."

It's an interesting example, because it makes very careful use of the error I talked about yesterday:
It is not the taking of the water that is the problem: it is the usage of the well to do that taking. The example very correctly identifies the water as the nonrivalrous resource, but then makes the incorrect assertion that the well is therefore also nonrivalrous. Note that the well is in fact a rivalrous good: only one person may draw water at one time, and the usage of the well diminishes the mechanism of the well.
The correct continuation of this example is that the other farmer is allowed to build their own well, on their land, with their resources to access the (nonrivalrous) water table. If this were how intellectual property worked there would be no problem.

Unfortunately, the correct continuation for intellectual monopoly is as follows: Because my well was first, and I registered it with the local authorities as "the well", you are prohibited from building your own well on your own property with your own resources to access the (nonrivalrous) water. Furthermore, if you want water, it requires that you pay any sum* I see fit for water. Better still, if it occurs to you to make flavoured water (not something I offer) the only way to get the water is from me: forcing you to pay me**. Should you decide that you don't want to purchase my water, and decide to design, build and construct your own well, I will have the local authorities stop your construction and ask the courts to give your land to me as punitive damages.

It gets worse. Not only does my well stop the immediate neighbours from building a well, I then find out that others in the next village have also built a well. Since my well was registered as "the well" it excludes all others from building wells. I again approach the local authorities and have the other wells closed, and against ask the courts to award punitive damages. Though they may protest that they've never seen my well, and that it was only obvious to dig for water (they saw a stream flow out of the ground!) it doesn't matter: My well is "the well" and trumps all others.

This is the truth about so called intellectual property which in truth is an intellectual monopoly.

*Every business tries to maximise profit. There are typically two constraints: Demand and competition. If we eliminate competion, then the business is free to set a very high price! This is called a monopoly.
**Assumes that I will even sell you the water for this purpose, I might not. Furthermore, I might price it higher, either completely eating all of your profits, or possibly even more than all of your profits. Even if I have no intention of selling the new flavoured water, I have a monopoly on the source: the water. The end result is that the consumer may lose choice. In this example, IP directly decreases, not increases innovation!

Today I would like to start a discussion about comments made by Eugene Volokh: The conceptual plausibility of intellectual property on his blog.

The analogies between tangible property and intangible property are indeed fairly significant.

Yes, and no. The problem most people have is that they confuse my copy of my idea, with your copy of my idea. Intellectual and physical property analogies typically discuss the idea as the property - not the copy. Through either careless or intentional use of ambiguious terms, and referring to the idea, but then making examples using the copy, it is possible to make compelling arguments that patent and copyright are just an extension of physical property laws.

the right to exclude is usually necessary to make the right to use work -- if others could use your car without limit, there'd often be times when you couldn't use it.

And this is where the typical pro-IP arguments begin to fall apart. My using my copy of your idea in no way stops you from using your copy of your idea. So when they talk about excluding, what they are really saying is that while I use my copy of a car, you are somehow prohibited from using your copy of your car?

In particular, copyright and patent are treated as property because, like property in land or goods, they are (not unlimited) rights to use a work or an invention, plus (not unlimited) rights to exclude others from using it.

The problem is that the "it" doesn't refer to the copy of the invention - the reference is to prohibit all use of physical property in a way described by the invention.
What is really interesting is that IP rights trump physical property rights. In other words, copyright prohibits me, in my house, using my paper and my pen from writing specific series of words.
There is no physical property equivelant of this.
Physical property laws protect my house, my pen and my paper from others using it - it does not probit all others from using their pen and paper in their house simply because I have pen and paper.

...continues tomorrow

Tyler Cowen argues that the fact that a lot of musicians end up with no money (as seen in the link in his post) is an argument for copyright.

He's wrong on the simple basis that the Record Company made $700,000 in the equation. The point is that there was money made - more than enough to pay the producer. They may even pay some legal fees, but a lot of the other expenses that were incurred are because of the copyright system and simply disappear without it.

You can not look at a system, change one component and expect everything else to remain the same. The current system (as abhorent as it is) was arrived at as a balance based on the current laws. Change the laws - change the balance.
This new balance will not include recording companies earning millions - that money will go to artists.

To ensure the maximum satisfaction in our cup of coffee, it is accompanied by the following:

By buying this IP Coffee (the "PRODUCT") you accept the following conditions:

The PRODUCT is non transferrable. It may not be sold, assigned or given to any other party.
You may not share or describe the PRODUCT to any other person.
The PRODUCT must be consumed within the first 15-minutes of purchase. Amounts of PRODUCT that are unconsumed after this period must be returned to an authorised IP Coffee retailer for disposal. Unconsumed amounts may not be disposed of by any other method. There may be a disposal charge and you agree to pay any associated charges.
The purchase of this PRODUCT constitutes agreement to purchase an additional PRODUCT within twenty-four hours. Failure to make additional purchases will constitute a serious breach of contract.
You may not fabricate or have fabricated anything that resembles in any of, but not limited to, taste, texture, temperature, consistency, presentation or other modes of identifying the PRODUCT.

You are assigned the right to enjoy the PRODUCT in any manner which does not displease us too much. And we might change moods several times. And you accept all future revisions of this agreement. In Advance. Now send me more money.