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> I don't know how to feel about it. Don't feel bad at all. Intellectual Monopoly laws are morally wrong (and I would argue counterproductive if the goal is pr

by breck 7y ago

> I don't know how to feel about it. Don't feel bad at all. Intellectual Monopoly laws are morally wrong (and I would argue counterproductive if the goal is progress of the arts and sciences and/or economic growth). I hope that when the generation that grew up with the web is making the laws we'll get rid of these abysmal systems. The author of the comment you referencing is wrong. Copying a book that has been released to the public is not stealing. It makes zero sense without complete bastardizing the definition of property (but I'll admit—that analogy has been an effective lie, other unscrupulous marketers should take notes!). Transistors are property. Telling me how I can arrange my transistors is almost the exact opposite of property. Ideas published cannot be "stolen". Don't let anyone lie to you and tell you otherwise. The outrage of that comment is not justified. We are all standing on the shoulders of giants. If anyone thinks their book is so amazing, let me ask how great it would be if it removed all ideas that were "stolen" from other books? How great would their book be if they couldn't steal from Leonardo Pisano's Liber Abici from 1202, the first sentence which is "The nine Indian figures are: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1?"

Synaesthesia 7y ago
But then we need a new system, for example governments could pay writers a salary to create, rather than have them rely on selling books.
- jhbadger 7y ago
  That's how it worked in the Soviet Union. Official writers were paid by the government (there were of course unofficial writers passing their work via illegal self-published "samizdat" versions, and some writers lived in both worlds). The problem was the government wasn't too keen on publishing works critical of it.
- breck 7y ago
  The software industry is already pioneering this new system. For example, many companies pay developers to write useful free open source software in lieu of ephemeral marketing spend. As the saying goes, the future is here, just not evenly distributed.
boksboksboks 7y ago
So how would you better compensate writers for the product of their knowledge and labor? IP is simply the means of enforcing the value of books. If you deny it without proposing a viable alternative, you're denying the value of writing itself.
- breck 7y ago
  > So how would you better compensate writers for the product of their knowledge and labor? It's a good question. I think there's a 2 phase answer. But first, it's important to figure out the numbers. And one thing that quickly becomes apparent is on the order of 99% of writers make $0 from IM laws. IM laws instead, regardless of intent, funnel almost the entirety of profits to 1% of holders. So the question then becomes, how do you better compensate those 1%? And the answer is you don't. The 1%'s current compensation is artificially inflated, and the 99% is under compensated. Right now IM laws create artificially high compensation for less meaningful contributions like a 500 page book or 50 page pdf in a publication like Nature, and undervalue more meaningful contributions like small additions to Wikipedia or commits to the Linux kernel. I would much rather have the top 1,000 compensated "authors" in the world never write again than I would have Wikipedia disappear. I think we should 2 phase the transition away from IM laws. I don't think we should abolish overnight, as that would be very disruptive to the families of folks in the IM industry. I have no sympathy for IM lawyers and IM business folks, but I do think we should have a transition period where we perhaps switch patents from an Intellectual Monopoly system to an X-Prize style system, and perhaps then phase it out (or keep the X-Prize style system, if it seems to be effective). Then in phase 2 the progress of the arts and sciences will flourish so much, I'm not too sure if you need any sort of system to artificially inflate the value of intellectual contributions at all. Creativity of billions of people will be unleashed. For a single example, if I didn't have to worry about IM laws, I (or many other people) could build a viable alternative to Google search in a year. I think the Internet has fundamentally changed the economics of the world by making many more markets feasible. There are so many markets and opportunities now, that if you lowered the cost of product development (which eliminating IM laws would do), I could see an argument where it's feasible that everyone who desired could have a natural monopoly, because there would be so many markets to choose from. > IP is simply the means of enforcing the value of books. If you deny it without proposing a viable alternative, you're denying the value of writing itself. IM is one idea. There are plenty of alternatives. When a janitor cleans a room, do we then give that janitor the right to charge a royalty for every person who enters that room?

by breck 7y ago

Synaesthesia 7y ago

But then we need a new system, for example governments could pay writers a salary to create, rather than have them rely on selling books.

jhbadger 7y ago
That's how it worked in the Soviet Union. Official writers were paid by the government (there were of course unofficial writers passing their work via illegal self-published "samizdat" versions, and some writers lived in both worlds). The problem was the government wasn't too keen on publishing works critical of it.
breck 7y ago
The software industry is already pioneering this new system. For example, many companies pay developers to write useful free open source software in lieu of ephemeral marketing spend. As the saying goes, the future is here, just not evenly distributed.

boksboksboks 7y ago

So how would you better compensate writers for the product of their knowledge and labor? IP is simply the means of enforcing the value of books. If you deny it without proposing a viable alternative, you're denying the value of writing itself.

breck 7y ago
> So how would you better compensate writers for the product of their knowledge and labor? It's a good question. I think there's a 2 phase answer. But first, it's important to figure out the numbers. And one thing that quickly becomes apparent is on the order of 99% of writers make $0 from IM laws. IM laws instead, regardless of intent, funnel almost the entirety of profits to 1% of holders. So the question then becomes, how do you better compensate those 1%? And the answer is you don't. The 1%'s current compensation is artificially inflated, and the 99% is under compensated. Right now IM laws create artificially high compensation for less meaningful contributions like a 500 page book or 50 page pdf in a publication like Nature, and undervalue more meaningful contributions like small additions to Wikipedia or commits to the Linux kernel. I would much rather have the top 1,000 compensated "authors" in the world never write again than I would have Wikipedia disappear. I think we should 2 phase the transition away from IM laws. I don't think we should abolish overnight, as that would be very disruptive to the families of folks in the IM industry. I have no sympathy for IM lawyers and IM business folks, but I do think we should have a transition period where we perhaps switch patents from an Intellectual Monopoly system to an X-Prize style system, and perhaps then phase it out (or keep the X-Prize style system, if it seems to be effective). Then in phase 2 the progress of the arts and sciences will flourish so much, I'm not too sure if you need any sort of system to artificially inflate the value of intellectual contributions at all. Creativity of billions of people will be unleashed. For a single example, if I didn't have to worry about IM laws, I (or many other people) could build a viable alternative to Google search in a year. I think the Internet has fundamentally changed the economics of the world by making many more markets feasible. There are so many markets and opportunities now, that if you lowered the cost of product development (which eliminating IM laws would do), I could see an argument where it's feasible that everyone who desired could have a natural monopoly, because there would be so many markets to choose from. > IP is simply the means of enforcing the value of books. If you deny it without proposing a viable alternative, you're denying the value of writing itself. IM is one idea. There are plenty of alternatives. When a janitor cleans a room, do we then give that janitor the right to charge a royalty for every person who enters that room?