3 ms·

>The productive capacity of the original holder of the IP/technology is not decreased by someone else also having it, although their revenue might be. This is

>The productive capacity of the original holder of the IP/technology is not decreased by someone else also having it, although their revenue might be. This is the contradiction. A reduction in revenue directly translates to a reduction in productive capacity.

paganel 7y ago
Which makes us go down the slippery slope of "if I'm going to the toilet on my employer's time it means I'm reducing its revenues". Which in turn brings us to the employees of the most wealthy men on this planet having to literally piss themselves on the job.
- chipotle_coyote 7y ago
  It doesn't make us go down that slippery slope. Those who slide down it are deliberately choosing to do so.
  - paganel 7y ago
    So it's ok to go on the slippery slope of seeing IP infringement as theft (at least I regard that as a slippery slope, and I'm not the only one), but going further down the slippery slope thingie is not ok. So the question becomes: who decides where we should stop the slipper slope-ness?
    - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
      Society, collectively. I don't want to make it sound like I'm saying "why, this is simple, obvious to even the most casual of observers" -- what I'm saying is more that this is in line with the kind of decisions societies and individuals have to make all the time about what is and isn't acceptable. I'm a fiction author myself, and I'm not against giving my work away for free! But I don't think it's unreasonable for me to think I should be the one to make the decision whether or not to do so -- and that means that, at some level, I need control over the "intellectual property" of my fiction. I don't think that having my work digitally available means I somehow automatically forfeit the right to that control that I would have had thirty years ago when you pretty much would have had to buy a physical copy on paper. What readers are ostensibly paying for, after all -- or what I'm giving away, if I choose -- isn't the medium, it's the work expressed in that medium. And, you know, there are nuances and arguments to be made around that. There's a lot of things about IP law as it exists now I disagree with. But seriously making the argument that we can't let a book publisher enforce their copyright against a pirate ebook site because to do so will inexorably lead us to the Triangle Shirt Fire -- I'm just saying, I think that's a pretty damn hard case to make.

paganel 7y ago

Which makes us go down the slippery slope of "if I'm going to the toilet on my employer's time it means I'm reducing its revenues". Which in turn brings us to the employees of the most wealthy men on this planet having to literally piss themselves on the job.

chipotle_coyote 7y ago
It doesn't make us go down that slippery slope. Those who slide down it are deliberately choosing to do so.
- paganel 7y ago
  So it's ok to go on the slippery slope of seeing IP infringement as theft (at least I regard that as a slippery slope, and I'm not the only one), but going further down the slippery slope thingie is not ok. So the question becomes: who decides where we should stop the slipper slope-ness?
  - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
    Society, collectively. I don't want to make it sound like I'm saying "why, this is simple, obvious to even the most casual of observers" -- what I'm saying is more that this is in line with the kind of decisions societies and individuals have to make all the time about what is and isn't acceptable. I'm a fiction author myself, and I'm not against giving my work away for free! But I don't think it's unreasonable for me to think I should be the one to make the decision whether or not to do so -- and that means that, at some level, I need control over the "intellectual property" of my fiction. I don't think that having my work digitally available means I somehow automatically forfeit the right to that control that I would have had thirty years ago when you pretty much would have had to buy a physical copy on paper. What readers are ostensibly paying for, after all -- or what I'm giving away, if I choose -- isn't the medium, it's the work expressed in that medium. And, you know, there are nuances and arguments to be made around that. There's a lot of things about IP law as it exists now I disagree with. But seriously making the argument that we can't let a book publisher enforce their copyright against a pirate ebook site because to do so will inexorably lead us to the Triangle Shirt Fire -- I'm just saying, I think that's a pretty damn hard case to make.