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Ironically, if society adopts a viewpoint that blesses industrial espionage/IP theft of any technology which "improves lives," companies lose motivation to deve

Ironically, if society adopts a viewpoint that blesses industrial espionage/IP theft of any technology which "improves lives," companies lose motivation to develop those same technologies. The ability to profit off of innovation is necessary to pay for facilities, equipment, and researchers.

mcny 7y ago
> Ironically, if society adopts a viewpoint that blesses industrial espionage/IP theft of any technology which "improves lives," companies lose motivation to develop those same technologies. > The ability to profit off of innovation is necessary to pay for facilities, equipment, and researchers. I'm sorry but lets not talk about incentives until the CEO and the entire board at Boeing, Equifax, and Wells Fargo are in prison. Our "justice" system openly pursues "viable" cases which means we only send people to prison who we think we can convict because we have "limited resources". Lets not try to defend the prosecutors here by rationalizing what they do. I won't vilify them either because they are just doing what WE incentivized them to do but I won't throw any accolades their way either.
- tracker1 7y ago
  I'd be satisfied if the CEO, senior management and board members had to turn over all profits including stock options granted for the period of abuse. That would be more impressive to me than jail time and seriously discourage similar behavior.
close04 7y ago
I was just highlighting the double standard used depending on who is benefiting. I'm not here to "decide" which one is the correct approach. Just that either way the company with deep pockets will always be the one who gets the better end of the deal. Which is why companies shy away from sharing any of their profits off HeLa with the patient's descendants. But try to use any of their work without sharing the profits with them. A few seconds of a decades old song is assumed to deserve more protections. Usually companies are allowed to use justifications that nobody else is allowed to. > The ability to profit off of innovation is necessary to pay for facilities, equipment, and researchers. The ability to profit is not a binary thing. Which is why patents aren't granted in perpetuity. Given that there's no upper limit to how much profit a company would like to make, I'm not sure you can reasonably support the point. How much profit is enough to motivate?
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  Companies are not, as far as I know, allowed to lie to the government about their conflicts of interest in order to get grant money. The HeLa thing seems very different; there everyone’s telling the truth, and the only question is about what the truth obligates them to do.

mcny 7y ago

> Ironically, if society adopts a viewpoint that blesses industrial espionage/IP theft of any technology which "improves lives," companies lose motivation to develop those same technologies. > The ability to profit off of innovation is necessary to pay for facilities, equipment, and researchers. I'm sorry but lets not talk about incentives until the CEO and the entire board at Boeing, Equifax, and Wells Fargo are in prison. Our "justice" system openly pursues "viable" cases which means we only send people to prison who we think we can convict because we have "limited resources". Lets not try to defend the prosecutors here by rationalizing what they do. I won't vilify them either because they are just doing what WE incentivized them to do but I won't throw any accolades their way either.

tracker1 7y ago
I'd be satisfied if the CEO, senior management and board members had to turn over all profits including stock options granted for the period of abuse. That would be more impressive to me than jail time and seriously discourage similar behavior.

close04 7y ago

I was just highlighting the double standard used depending on who is benefiting. I'm not here to "decide" which one is the correct approach. Just that either way the company with deep pockets will always be the one who gets the better end of the deal. Which is why companies shy away from sharing any of their profits off HeLa with the patient's descendants. But try to use any of their work without sharing the profits with them. A few seconds of a decades old song is assumed to deserve more protections. Usually companies are allowed to use justifications that nobody else is allowed to. > The ability to profit off of innovation is necessary to pay for facilities, equipment, and researchers. The ability to profit is not a binary thing. Which is why patents aren't granted in perpetuity. Given that there's no upper limit to how much profit a company would like to make, I'm not sure you can reasonably support the point. How much profit is enough to motivate?

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
Companies are not, as far as I know, allowed to lie to the government about their conflicts of interest in order to get grant money. The HeLa thing seems very different; there everyone’s telling the truth, and the only question is about what the truth obligates them to do.