5 ms·

Given there are ~7.5 billion people on Earth, and given we're getting more interconnected every single day, and given there is more "stuff" being invented every

by grecy 8y ago

Given there are ~7.5 billion people on Earth, and given we're getting more interconnected every single day, and given there is more "stuff" being invented every single day, at what point will we just assume this kind of stuff is commonplace and it won't make the news anymore? In the same way a lot of forward-looking people are seeing a future were full-time work will have to be replaced by some form of Universal Basic Income, I wonder when we'll realize the whole IP / Copyright / "It's mine, you can't have it" mentality will have to be replaced.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tomp 8y ago
That is an awesome thought, but for the moment, China's playing an incredibly unfair game - they're stealing Western technology, while at the same time preventing Western companies from accessing the Chinese market. I mean, looks like it worked out great for them. I'm just not sure why Western governments don't retaliate, e.g. by taxing Chinese exports and investments (i.e. similar to what Trump is trying to do now, but more targeted - e.g. specifically target companies that have stolen IP)
- lurker456 8y ago
  For the same reasons the european powers were unable to prevent IP theft by the US earlier in history - not enough reach and power.
  - Theodores 8y ago
    For the same reasons that the Chinese were unable to prevent IP theft by the Europeans earlier in history - not enough reach and power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Great_Inventions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Great_Inventions (Silk can be added to the the list, after all it was called the 'Silk Road' for good reason. The Four Great Inventions were helpful for the development of European states and the bureaucracy required.)
    - baybal2 8y ago
      Well, my grandgrandfather always told that those were worst Chinese inventions: With gunpowder, came standing armies made of conscripts. With paper, came institutionalized bureaucracy. With money, came central banks effectively taxing every user of paper currency by printing more of it. A modern state was made by them: conscript armies, professional bureaucrats, and central bankers It were firearms that made "a lot of farmers with guns" a more effective fighting force than an army of professionals trained from childhood. The "manufacturing rate" of professional bureaucracy was greatly limited by amount of gifted and trusted cadres, it was much of a matter of talent, and personality. The power of state greatly increased by eliminating the "broken phone" factor with written edicts, and allowing to hire and train less select people for bureaucratic work. And for money, metal coin money was quite expensive to made, and it could've been smelted to make real goods - a thing of value, unlike fiat currency
      - pjc50 8y ago
        A cute story, except that it's not historically accurate; conscript armies are extremely old, bureaucracy can be dated to the clay tablet era, early Chinese money was made of metal ("knife money" etc) and the history of inflationary paper disasters is usually traced to the assignats of France.
        kazen44 8y ago
        historians also sort of seem to agree that the need for a bureacracy started to exist after the argicultural revolution, which resulted in humans setteling on permanent patches of land.
        JoeAltmaier 8y ago
        In fact half of Hammurabi's laws are about land use.
        baybal2 8y ago
        Yes, want I wanted to state that it was paper that dramatically increased scale and efficiency of bureaucratic systems, allowing it to keep taps on incomparably larger number of things. It it possible for transition from hereditary class-ecclesiastic administration to professional bureaucracy. No longer ruling the country was about a king or a man just one handshake away him touring the country and issuing edicts every few months.
- pjc50 8y ago
  The West has also relied on China as a source of cheap assembly labour. And there are broader political considerations; essentially allowing China to "buy in" to the global economy rather than developing in hostile isolation. And as people have found out with the soybeans tariffs, trade wars go in both directions.
- chrischen 8y ago
  I think the question is what do they have to gain from not stealing? They’re trying to modernize and catch up, so at some point they will catch up and they won’t be able to steal anymore. At some point it would be unfair if China steals foreign tech and then sells it back, but it’s not at that point yet. Currently they steal tech to catch up, and provide cheap manual labor in return.
  - tomp 8y ago
    Exactly. I'm not blaming them, I'm blaming the West for being so complacent.
    - chrischen 8y ago
      I think we’re complacent because this theft hasn’t actually come around to affect us yet. If China takes stolen tech and uses it internally, it’s hard to justify stopping them from doing so. If they take it and sell it on the international market, then you can use international trade agreements to enforce intellectual property laws and prevent their sale. I think a good analogy is that China is pirating some software but not using it commercially, just personally at home, so there’s no way to really enforce compliance.
      - Jedi72 8y ago
        Tell that to Ericsson, who (warning: unsubstantiated claim ahead, but its a widely held industry belief) have had their entire business gutted by Huawei who basically copied entire designs from Ericsson core-mobile equipment
        zaroth 8y ago
        I heard the same thing except it was Huawei stealing IOS from Cisco.
        StudentStuff 8y ago
        No, what is killing Ericsson was betting the house on a shoddy partner like Intel, none of the 10nm chips they designed can be produced in significant quantity: https://semiaccurate.com/2018/07/02/intel-custom-foundrys-10nm-meltdown-is-crushing-a-20b-market-cap-tech-giant/ https://semiaccurate.com/2018/07/02/intel-custom-foundrys-10...
pvg 8y ago
When people moved from palatial caves to cramped apartment blocks it didn't suddenly become ok to take your neighbour's favourite pointy stick. There are lots of arguments for rethinking how intellectual property works, 'look at all those people' is probably not one of the good ones.
- chrischen 8y ago
  Property rights != intellecutal property rights. If we lived in caves and stole pointy sticks, it would be a wholly different crime than say me seeing you start a fire in your cave and mimicking it in my cave without paying royalties. Intellecutal property is an advanced construct enforced wholly within the governing laws of a country, or specifically negotiated international trade agreements. Intellectual property rights are not a natural or inherent right of people.
  - geezerjay 8y ago
    If you'd spent your life working on an idea and once it was finalized someone elsr just swept it out of your hands and started mass-producing it, I'm sure that you'd agree that ideas and inventions do deserve protection similar to property rights
  - pvg 8y ago
    Thanks for explaining these things to me.
Leary 8y ago
The reason why we have IP laws is that we assume innovators are selfish and will only innovate for personal economic gains.
- arcticfox 8y ago
  This is a fairly good assumption IMO.
- PeterisP 8y ago
  You don't need to assume that they'll only innovate for such gains. You can avoid absolutes and simply assume that many innovators are selfish, and personal economic gains are a strong motivation that works in many cases; which seems absolutely true and is a sufficient reason why IP laws would be useful.
- antpls 8y ago
  There are obviously other reasons. IP laws were invented before information technology, and used the fact that information travel costs both in term of space and money were higher than today, and therefore controllable on an human scale. It is reasonable to question the whole IP system in the light of today's communications.

by grecy 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

tomp 8y ago

That is an awesome thought, but for the moment, China's playing an incredibly unfair game - they're stealing Western technology, while at the same time preventing Western companies from accessing the Chinese market. I mean, looks like it worked out great for them. I'm just not sure why Western governments don't retaliate, e.g. by taxing Chinese exports and investments (i.e. similar to what Trump is trying to do now, but more targeted - e.g. specifically target companies that have stolen IP)

lurker456 8y ago
For the same reasons the european powers were unable to prevent IP theft by the US earlier in history - not enough reach and power.
- Theodores 8y ago
  For the same reasons that the Chinese were unable to prevent IP theft by the Europeans earlier in history - not enough reach and power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Great_Inventions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Great_Inventions (Silk can be added to the the list, after all it was called the 'Silk Road' for good reason. The Four Great Inventions were helpful for the development of European states and the bureaucracy required.)
  - baybal2 8y ago
    Well, my grandgrandfather always told that those were worst Chinese inventions: With gunpowder, came standing armies made of conscripts. With paper, came institutionalized bureaucracy. With money, came central banks effectively taxing every user of paper currency by printing more of it. A modern state was made by them: conscript armies, professional bureaucrats, and central bankers It were firearms that made "a lot of farmers with guns" a more effective fighting force than an army of professionals trained from childhood. The "manufacturing rate" of professional bureaucracy was greatly limited by amount of gifted and trusted cadres, it was much of a matter of talent, and personality. The power of state greatly increased by eliminating the "broken phone" factor with written edicts, and allowing to hire and train less select people for bureaucratic work. And for money, metal coin money was quite expensive to made, and it could've been smelted to make real goods - a thing of value, unlike fiat currency
    - pjc50 8y ago
      A cute story, except that it's not historically accurate; conscript armies are extremely old, bureaucracy can be dated to the clay tablet era, early Chinese money was made of metal ("knife money" etc) and the history of inflationary paper disasters is usually traced to the assignats of France.
      - kazen44 8y ago
        historians also sort of seem to agree that the need for a bureacracy started to exist after the argicultural revolution, which resulted in humans setteling on permanent patches of land.
        JoeAltmaier 8y ago
        In fact half of Hammurabi's laws are about land use.
      - baybal2 8y ago
        Yes, want I wanted to state that it was paper that dramatically increased scale and efficiency of bureaucratic systems, allowing it to keep taps on incomparably larger number of things. It it possible for transition from hereditary class-ecclesiastic administration to professional bureaucracy. No longer ruling the country was about a king or a man just one handshake away him touring the country and issuing edicts every few months.
pjc50 8y ago
The West has also relied on China as a source of cheap assembly labour. And there are broader political considerations; essentially allowing China to "buy in" to the global economy rather than developing in hostile isolation. And as people have found out with the soybeans tariffs, trade wars go in both directions.
chrischen 8y ago
I think the question is what do they have to gain from not stealing? They’re trying to modernize and catch up, so at some point they will catch up and they won’t be able to steal anymore. At some point it would be unfair if China steals foreign tech and then sells it back, but it’s not at that point yet. Currently they steal tech to catch up, and provide cheap manual labor in return.
- tomp 8y ago
  Exactly. I'm not blaming them, I'm blaming the West for being so complacent.
  - chrischen 8y ago
    I think we’re complacent because this theft hasn’t actually come around to affect us yet. If China takes stolen tech and uses it internally, it’s hard to justify stopping them from doing so. If they take it and sell it on the international market, then you can use international trade agreements to enforce intellectual property laws and prevent their sale. I think a good analogy is that China is pirating some software but not using it commercially, just personally at home, so there’s no way to really enforce compliance.
    - Jedi72 8y ago
      Tell that to Ericsson, who (warning: unsubstantiated claim ahead, but its a widely held industry belief) have had their entire business gutted by Huawei who basically copied entire designs from Ericsson core-mobile equipment
      - zaroth 8y ago
        I heard the same thing except it was Huawei stealing IOS from Cisco.
      - StudentStuff 8y ago
        No, what is killing Ericsson was betting the house on a shoddy partner like Intel, none of the 10nm chips they designed can be produced in significant quantity: https://semiaccurate.com/2018/07/02/intel-custom-foundrys-10nm-meltdown-is-crushing-a-20b-market-cap-tech-giant/ https://semiaccurate.com/2018/07/02/intel-custom-foundrys-10...

pvg 8y ago

When people moved from palatial caves to cramped apartment blocks it didn't suddenly become ok to take your neighbour's favourite pointy stick. There are lots of arguments for rethinking how intellectual property works, 'look at all those people' is probably not one of the good ones.

chrischen 8y ago
Property rights != intellecutal property rights. If we lived in caves and stole pointy sticks, it would be a wholly different crime than say me seeing you start a fire in your cave and mimicking it in my cave without paying royalties. Intellecutal property is an advanced construct enforced wholly within the governing laws of a country, or specifically negotiated international trade agreements. Intellectual property rights are not a natural or inherent right of people.
- geezerjay 8y ago
  If you'd spent your life working on an idea and once it was finalized someone elsr just swept it out of your hands and started mass-producing it, I'm sure that you'd agree that ideas and inventions do deserve protection similar to property rights
- pvg 8y ago
  Thanks for explaining these things to me.

Leary 8y ago

The reason why we have IP laws is that we assume innovators are selfish and will only innovate for personal economic gains.

arcticfox 8y ago
This is a fairly good assumption IMO.
PeterisP 8y ago
You don't need to assume that they'll only innovate for such gains. You can avoid absolutes and simply assume that many innovators are selfish, and personal economic gains are a strong motivation that works in many cases; which seems absolutely true and is a sufficient reason why IP laws would be useful.
antpls 8y ago
There are obviously other reasons. IP laws were invented before information technology, and used the fact that information travel costs both in term of space and money were higher than today, and therefore controllable on an human scale. It is reasonable to question the whole IP system in the light of today's communications.