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Stealing and violating privacy via industrial espionage is not "open source". You're free to make your own research public, or to pay a company for full IP righ

Stealing and violating privacy via industrial espionage is not "open source". You're free to make your own research public, or to pay a company for full IP rights on their research and then release the results openly. But what the Chinese are doing is not the same. Even making access to their domestic market conditional on releasing proprietary IP, is in fact a hidden tariff which is not in line with free and fair trade.

geofft 8y ago
Yes, I'm not claiming that violating the laws and norms is a good thing. I'm asking if the laws and norms are defensible and produce a better society. If not, then the argument needs to be "We follow unjust laws for the sake of the broader principle of the rule of law, and we work to change unjust laws so respect for law is maintained," not "These outcomes are bad."
- 0815test 8y ago
  The problem is that we're not just talking about a relatively-benign violation of things like copyrights, patents or trade secrets ("IP"): Chinese hacking is a severe violation of privacy; and their practice of forcing IP releases from foreign firms is blatantly unfair given that no reciprocity is involved, and indeed China apparently claims that they're uniquely allowed to engage in such policies because of their status as a "developing country" - itself a rather dubious claim given their reported economic performance. Privacy (and protection of physical property, in general) and fairness in trade are basic principles and far from "unjust".
  - geofft 8y ago
    Privacy of companies or of individuals? I don't think privacy of companies is a right, so that argument isn't convincing to me. (Specifically, I believe companies have no particular inherent right to existence the way people do. Companies are creations of law to serve specific goals that benefit people; we should give them whatever privileges are necessary to accomplish that, and not what's not. Privacy of certain things like customer data and things like HR conversations seems pretty clearly helpful, but mostly because that's a proxy for privacy of individuals, not because violating it would violate the company's "privacy.") There's an easy solution to reciprocity: abandon IP protection in the US, too. My entire claim is that that would lead to a better world. If we want to not do that, we should either defend that it would lead to a worse world, or admit that we're not making arguments based on what's best for society. That's why I found the argument about "but IP protection brought us Kinect and Move" unconvincing: it's not clear at all to me that the outcome was better than in the world where the US didn't recognize IP protection.
    - NicoJuicy 8y ago
      A better world by removing IP protection or the cheapest copycat wins by removing IP protection. I just think it has to be tweaked for preventing abuse. But it had it's advantages. If you remove IP protection, why would a company spend millions on research on R&D to innovate something. Look at the products that got copied from Kickstarter by China before they launched, those people really got their dream crushed. Ps. Kinect was just an example, look for the bigger picture ;)
      - 0815test 8y ago
        > Look at the products that got copied from Kickstarter by China before they launched, those people really got their dream crushed. Ideas are cheap. These Chinese companies are supposedly taking pre-validated (via crowd funding) ideas from Kickstarter and then manufacturing them. How is this a bad thing? It introduces a desirable competition for the best ability to execute on those plans.
        NicoJuicy 8y ago
        You obviously have not much experience creating something. They already did more than "an idea". 3d models, marketing ( eg. Video), product iterations,.. They mostly want funds to manufacture the product, because not everyone can spend money for a MOQ manufacturing run... What they do is unethical. Here's some more info: https://qz.com/771727/chinas-factories-in-shenzhen-can-copy-products-at-breakneck-speed-and-its-time-for-the-rest-of-the-world-to-get-over-it/ https://qz.com/771727/chinas-factories-in-shenzhen-can-copy-...

geofft 8y ago

Yes, I'm not claiming that violating the laws and norms is a good thing. I'm asking if the laws and norms are defensible and produce a better society. If not, then the argument needs to be "We follow unjust laws for the sake of the broader principle of the rule of law, and we work to change unjust laws so respect for law is maintained," not "These outcomes are bad."

0815test 8y ago
The problem is that we're not just talking about a relatively-benign violation of things like copyrights, patents or trade secrets ("IP"): Chinese hacking is a severe violation of privacy; and their practice of forcing IP releases from foreign firms is blatantly unfair given that no reciprocity is involved, and indeed China apparently claims that they're uniquely allowed to engage in such policies because of their status as a "developing country" - itself a rather dubious claim given their reported economic performance. Privacy (and protection of physical property, in general) and fairness in trade are basic principles and far from "unjust".
- geofft 8y ago
  Privacy of companies or of individuals? I don't think privacy of companies is a right, so that argument isn't convincing to me. (Specifically, I believe companies have no particular inherent right to existence the way people do. Companies are creations of law to serve specific goals that benefit people; we should give them whatever privileges are necessary to accomplish that, and not what's not. Privacy of certain things like customer data and things like HR conversations seems pretty clearly helpful, but mostly because that's a proxy for privacy of individuals, not because violating it would violate the company's "privacy.") There's an easy solution to reciprocity: abandon IP protection in the US, too. My entire claim is that that would lead to a better world. If we want to not do that, we should either defend that it would lead to a worse world, or admit that we're not making arguments based on what's best for society. That's why I found the argument about "but IP protection brought us Kinect and Move" unconvincing: it's not clear at all to me that the outcome was better than in the world where the US didn't recognize IP protection.
  - NicoJuicy 8y ago
    A better world by removing IP protection or the cheapest copycat wins by removing IP protection. I just think it has to be tweaked for preventing abuse. But it had it's advantages. If you remove IP protection, why would a company spend millions on research on R&D to innovate something. Look at the products that got copied from Kickstarter by China before they launched, those people really got their dream crushed. Ps. Kinect was just an example, look for the bigger picture ;)
    - 0815test 8y ago
      > Look at the products that got copied from Kickstarter by China before they launched, those people really got their dream crushed. Ideas are cheap. These Chinese companies are supposedly taking pre-validated (via crowd funding) ideas from Kickstarter and then manufacturing them. How is this a bad thing? It introduces a desirable competition for the best ability to execute on those plans.
      - NicoJuicy 8y ago
        You obviously have not much experience creating something. They already did more than "an idea". 3d models, marketing ( eg. Video), product iterations,.. They mostly want funds to manufacture the product, because not everyone can spend money for a MOQ manufacturing run... What they do is unethical. Here's some more info: https://qz.com/771727/chinas-factories-in-shenzhen-can-copy-products-at-breakneck-speed-and-its-time-for-the-rest-of-the-world-to-get-over-it/ https://qz.com/771727/chinas-factories-in-shenzhen-can-copy-...