11 ms·

Chomsky on Intellectual Property

181 points by __hudson__ 16y ago

rick888 16y ago
"I mean, Einstein didn't have any intellectual property rights on relativity theory." I'm fine with scientific facts not being patented, but something like Photoshop or Microsoft windows isn't scientific fact.
- tjr 16y ago
  How about file formats? Graphics manipulation algorithms? Where's the line between things like relativity theory and things like Photoshop?
  - rbranson 16y ago
    Relativity theory isn't patentable as there is no business model which could commercialize it. Patents were originally intended as a way to encourage innovation because they created a give and take relationship between private interests and the public. The inventor had to disclose the invention's inner workings, and in exchange they were given a relatively short period of exclusivity. The public benefited because the innovation was fully disclosed for others to dissect and re-apply some of those techniques and processes to new inventions. In the current modern US copyright & patent system, where very few patents actually cover true innovation, there is little public benefit beyond this notion that protecting the inventor from copycats increases their likelihood to innovate. Of course, there is no scientific process that has lead people to this conclusion, so it is honestly an educated guess at best. The dominant thinking in the business world seems to be that overall execution has become the dominant factor in commercial success and not a particular single innovation. Protecting these interests provides little benefit to anyone besides IP attorneys.
    - davidw 16y ago
      Copyright and patents are very different bits of IP. Creative works like books are under copyright. You don't think that the ability to earn a living benefits the public by allowing a higher level of production of books, movies, music, etc...? I'm certain that things are tilted too far in favor of companies like Disney, but that doesn't mean the system should be thrown out entirely. Patents seem like they depend more on the field: I think they're a hindrance for computer science, but am less convinced that they're a bad thing for things like drugs. In any case, it's a compromise, like you say, so the answer is likely to be in the middle somewhere.
      - rbranson 16y ago
        I wrote a gigantic direct reasoning post in response to this, but I think a gigantic anecdotal analogy will work better. In the state of Tennessee, where I live, there is currently a debate about repealing some laws that regulate the sale of wine, which would allow grocery stores to sell it. Polls put 70% of consumers favoring the measure. Arguments are being made mostly by liquor & wine store owners and employees that they have spent decades building their businesses based on the current legal environment, and that it is unfair to expose them to this competition. They're also arguing that service quality will be lowered, because the mass market grocery stores do not have the kind of expertise the current stores have in their product. They argue that local jobs will be lost. Church leaders are arguing that it will expose alcoholics to temptation they will not be able to resist. To these people, it is just unfathomable to change what exists now because it seems to work best for them. They have already resigned themselves that there is no possible way it could be any better any other way and they will fight it irrationally until the bitter end. My girlfriend and her father work at the largest liquor store in Tennessee. Toting the short-sighted company line, most of the employees are against the repeal. Most liquor & wine stores ONLY exist because of these protection laws, and many of them are expensive and poorly ran. Very few of them can actually make the argument that their expertise or service sets them aside. Other burdensome regulations such as required distance from churches, schools, and other liquor stores are anti-urban and basically make certain locations extremely lucrative for the owners as they operate somewhat of a local monopoly and are grandfathered in. These people will go out of business. Successful stores can't even create multiple locations, so the best businesses in this arena are unable to scale. There is a strong correlation between availability of wine and increased consumption. When overall consumption increases, the distributors stand to increase their revenues substantially, and overall the better liquor & wine stores that have increased selection and service will continue to stay where they are for the most part, if not see increases, even in the face of stiff competition from grocery stores. Grocery stores will likely focus on low margin, commodity wines that make the liquor & wine stores little money. Liquor & wine stores, of course, are viewed as "dirty" establishments and this deters many more conservative consumers from trying a product they may genuinely (and responsibly) enjoy. Just as any argument that protect jobs, their argument for "saving local jobs" is just arguing for robbing Peter to pay Paul. The money to pay these people comes directly from consumers, which means it's diverted from other jobs. There is also some innovation to be had that will save consumers billions and unleash the potential of specialized stores that sell specialized and/or paired food and wine products. The current distribution model is poor and extremely inefficient. The last 30 years of innovation in supply chain management are missing from the distribution chain. A very small minority of retail stores even use UPC codes to perform computerized inventory & point-of-sale pricing. Even at the largest stores, ordering is done by entirely by hand. Management understands it's inefficient, but there is so much money rolling in, and usually a territory they monopolize, so there's very little incentive to change. Most stores are stocked entirely by the sales staff at distribution companies, based on what creates the most margin for them, not what consumers demand. Grocery stores are simply incompatible with the model that exists now, so the distributors will be forced to modernize to be able to get their product on those shelves. This is the price we pay for unpopular, overreaching protectionist laws that hold together obsolete business models and rob real innovation and creativity, diverting gigantic sums of capital in unproductive ways and strongly inhibiting consumer choice. The current state of consumer-impacting copyright law holds these media companies together, and just like the wine & liquor stores in Tennessee, they are "fire and brim-stoning" us claiming that all of this high quality music & movies we enjoy will go away. The media companies want us to believe their business model is legitimate, that the choices they make for us are what we actually desire, that copying music and movies that we would otherwise not purchase IS theft and therefore morally wrong, and that the criminal punishment for copyright infringement should continue to massively exceed the act of actual theft from a store.
    - hasenj 16y ago
      > Relativity theory isn't patentable as there is no business model which could commercialize it. 1. Make Nukes 2. Threaten other countries 3. ??? 4. PROFIT
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
    - szany 16y ago
      What if GPS was a commercial project?
  - rick888 16y ago
    "How about file formats? Graphics manipulation algorithms? " If Einstein wouldn't have come up with his theory, someone else would have. Those properties aren't going to change. Photoshop, file formats, and algorithms are unique to the individual/individuals that created them.
    - notque 16y ago
      .... both are not unique to the individual that created them. They both would have been come up with by other people.
- eyeforgotmyname 16y ago
  It's ironic that Einstein couldn't file a patent on relativity.
  - angus77 16y ago
    To whoever downvoted this: I think eyeforgotmyname was saying it was ironic considering Einstein worked in a patent office, not that he thought Einstein should have been able to patent it. It was a joke. You were supposed to laugh.
    - eyeforgotmyname 16y ago
      It's ironic that a joke about Einstein has to be explained.
Tycho 16y ago
Most of the serious research and development, the hard part of it, is funded by the public. In fact most of the economy comes out of public expenditures through the state system, which is the source of most innovation and development. I mean computers, the internet. Just go through the range, it's all coming out of the state system primarily. There is research and development in the corporate system, some, but it's mostly at the marketing end. And the same is true of drugs.
- maxharris 16y ago
  the hard part of it This is absolutely false. I agree that discovery isn't easy, but you know what's even harder? The other 90% of the work needed to finish it and make it a reliable product. Chomsky trivializes the work of synthetic organic chemists, the engineers that set up and keep production lines going, researchers that test the drugs, and so on. In software terms, this is like saying that all the hard work is done because someone banged out a prototype over the weekend. It's full of bugs and doesn't have the features people want yet. If you believe that Chomsky's right, try running a startup while holding his idea. You'll fail, or you'll discover that it's not easy and reject his idea.
  - entangld 16y ago
    He's talking about research. You're talking about development. None of these things are exactly easy, but at least with development you're building toward something.
    - maxharris 16y ago
      Where does one stop and the other begin? Much of what we call research vs. what we call development is simply an artifact that stems from the way science is funded today. However, science can't (and won't) always be funded by giant government bodies. (To say that it will assumes that the way things are can go on forever, but history shows that civilizations have lifespans just like everything else.)
      - 16y ago
monochromatic 16y ago
Does anyone seriously still listen to Chomsky? This guy has zero credibility as far as I'm concerned.
- weego 16y ago
  I listen and tend to agree with a large swathes of what he says, though not everything. I've yet to come across a reason to doubt his credibility, but I'd be interested in reading a counter point to his arguments if you have some sources.
- dasil003 16y ago
  Chomsky is just one man, and thus subject to the same intellectual failings as other individuals, but his integrity is well beyond the vast majority of people with a pulpit. You should definitely read and consider what he has to say, because otherwise you may be hearing only lobbyists' perspectives.
  - wladimir 16y ago
    I find his perspective really refreshing. Most articles that I encounter nowadays are very US-centric, or Europe-centric. They look at the consequences for a certain country or group within it, not the world at large, and are thus very polarized. Chomsky's reasoning feels truly international. And his comments about IP and medicine are appropriate as ever with the ACTA treaty (and sons) being pushed on us all by the US. I wish there were more people with a clear vision such as his. It could make the world as a whole a better place.
Tycho 16y ago
We certainly wouldn't have had a textile industry. British textiles were way cheaper and better. Actually British textiles were cheaper and better because Britain had crushed Irish and Indian superior textile manufacturers and stolen their techniques. So they were now the preeminent textile manufacturer, by force of course.
- Symmetry 16y ago
  I have no idea what he's talking about here. The British did do a number of horrible things in India and did use force to crush, for example, the Indian shipbuilding industry. They also could have learned a lot from Indian metallurgy if they were a bit less arrogant. But textiles? I guess they did "steal" cotton, but that wasn't really an invention in the sense he's talking about.
  - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
    They "stole" the Paisley pattern: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paisley_(design) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paisley_(design)
  - Estragon 16y ago
    They certainly crushed the Indian textiles industry economically, which speaks to his broader point that the dominant players only talk about free markets etc. when it suits them.
edw519 16y ago
First this: They don't make any economic sense or any other sense. Then this: They should be working for the public good. (Applause) And that means it should be available to the public. So... So...why aren't any of these (his 145 books): http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_tc_2_0?rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3ANoam+Chomsky&keywords=Noam+Chomsky&ie=UTF8&qid=1300306720&sr=8-2-ent&field-contributor_id=B000AP81EC http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_tc_2_0?rh=i%3Astripbo... in the public domain?
- anon1385 16y ago
  http://chomsky.info/books/counter-revolutionary-violence.htm http://chomsky.info/books/counter-revolutionary-violence.htm like this? or this: http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/year/year-overview.html http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/year/year-overview.... or this: http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/sld/sld-contents.html http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/sld/sld-contents.ht... or this: http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/rab/rab-contents.html http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/rab/rab-contents.ht... or this: http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/ni/ni-contents.html http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/ni/ni-contents.html or this: http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/dd/dd-overview.html http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/dd/dd-overview.html or this: http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/rc/rc-contents.html http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/rc/rc-contents.html
  - TomOfTTB 16y ago
    In fairness just because something is published on the web doesn't mean it is in the public domain. A manufacturer can publish blueprints but you can't build and sell an improved version of their product if they have a patent on it.
    - secretasiandan 16y ago
      In fairness just because something is SOLD on the web doesn't mean it is NOT in the public domain.
    - RobertL 16y ago
iwwr 16y ago
This is quite relevant all on its own, even if slightly off-topic: [the WTO Uruguay agreement is] called a "free trade agreement". It's in fact a highly protectionist agreement. The US is strongly opposed to free trade, just as business leaders are, just as they're opposed to a market economy.
stephth 16y ago
Nice read. I've never read any Chomsky. He mentions inventions related to industries (textiles, steel and pharmaceutical...) and sciences. I'd be curious to read more from him about IP applied to art. Any idea where to look at?
danielsoneg 16y ago
To my knowledge, one of the reasons Universities were granted the right to patent their work was as a defensive measure - work patented at the University was intended to be available to the public, or at least, a whole lot easier to access than work patented by a private entity. The idea was to make the results of publicly funded research more, not less, accessible.
pedrocr 16y ago
Comparative advantage is generally not understood. It does not mean that countries only manufacture those things that they are best at. From the piece: >But those of us who would be here would be pursuing our comparative advantage and exporting fish and fur. That's what economists tell you is right. Pursue your comparative advantage. That was our comparative advantage. We certainly wouldn't have had a textile industry. British textiles were way cheaper and better. Comparative advantage allows for trade even when one country has an absolute advantage over another. Even if British textiles were better and cheaper than the American ones if America started to produce textiles it could make sense for the British to reduce their textile production if there are other goods they can apply the same resources to that have a higher value than they will pay for the American textiles they are now buying. The wikipedia page is pretty good at explaining this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
- vitaminj 16y ago
  That's true ONLY IF America started to produce textiles. But the textbook trade models (e.g. Ricardian, Hecksher-Olin, etc) all pretty much recommend that America should just stick to producing fish and fur to maximise its gains from trade, and forget about a homegrown textile industry.
sentinel 16y ago
Computers and the internet come out of public expenditure through the state system? Where did he get that fact from?
pathjumper 16y ago
Here's a different perspective for you guys that is more or less in agreement with Chomsky's: The universe does not recognize our artificial restrictions on information. This is inherently why people generally think it's ok to violate the copyrights of others. Because we know, and the universe knows that nothing was taken away from them. The restrictions are entirely artifical and designed to do nothing except create an enormous inequality between the the "owner" of the information, and everyone else. That's the sole purpose. These Imaginary Stuff owners then use this disparity (a legal fiction entirely) to generate massive wealth based on entirely contrived circumstances. Since the dawn of speech nothing like this has existed because it never made sense. Anything one person said could be repeated by anyone who could remembered it. So when did information suddenly become ownable? It's a nonsensical legal fiction of epic proportions. I contend that if the information is publicly available, you no longer own it. This is how the universe operates. Fans of Imaginary Stuff rights will not be able to get their way for long. Or rather, they shouldn't be allowed to use the legal system to enforce their artificial disparity. If you want to own information, keep it a secret. Otherwise, it's everyone's. Another way of looking at it is, if you want to get paid for good information/content/art production, you're going to have to do what every other human does, continue working even after producing great works. You should be valued for your talent, and ability to produce from it over and over - just like everyone else. A bricklayer doesn't lay one brick really well and then charge everyone to use it daily. The value should be placed on the ability, not the product, since there's no physical product at all really. The slight exception being physical works of art etc, but then they're not just information, so the rules I'm talking about do not entirely apply. Photographic reproductions are information, but an original work in physical form is still valuable for being the first and physical. What do you other smart folks think about this? I know a lot of us work in information production in some form. I myself am a software engineer, so I'm not just trying to take from everyone else and pretend the rule doesn't apply to me because I'm not an information/content producer. I actually am. So this hits me hardest too.

181 points by __hudson__ 16y ago

"I mean, Einstein didn't have any intellectual property rights on relativity theory." I'm fine with scientific facts not being patented, but something like Photoshop or Microsoft windows isn't scientific fact.

tjr 16y ago
How about file formats? Graphics manipulation algorithms? Where's the line between things like relativity theory and things like Photoshop?
- rbranson 16y ago
  Relativity theory isn't patentable as there is no business model which could commercialize it. Patents were originally intended as a way to encourage innovation because they created a give and take relationship between private interests and the public. The inventor had to disclose the invention's inner workings, and in exchange they were given a relatively short period of exclusivity. The public benefited because the innovation was fully disclosed for others to dissect and re-apply some of those techniques and processes to new inventions. In the current modern US copyright & patent system, where very few patents actually cover true innovation, there is little public benefit beyond this notion that protecting the inventor from copycats increases their likelihood to innovate. Of course, there is no scientific process that has lead people to this conclusion, so it is honestly an educated guess at best. The dominant thinking in the business world seems to be that overall execution has become the dominant factor in commercial success and not a particular single innovation. Protecting these interests provides little benefit to anyone besides IP attorneys.
  - davidw 16y ago
    Copyright and patents are very different bits of IP. Creative works like books are under copyright. You don't think that the ability to earn a living benefits the public by allowing a higher level of production of books, movies, music, etc...? I'm certain that things are tilted too far in favor of companies like Disney, but that doesn't mean the system should be thrown out entirely. Patents seem like they depend more on the field: I think they're a hindrance for computer science, but am less convinced that they're a bad thing for things like drugs. In any case, it's a compromise, like you say, so the answer is likely to be in the middle somewhere.
    - rbranson 16y ago
      I wrote a gigantic direct reasoning post in response to this, but I think a gigantic anecdotal analogy will work better. In the state of Tennessee, where I live, there is currently a debate about repealing some laws that regulate the sale of wine, which would allow grocery stores to sell it. Polls put 70% of consumers favoring the measure. Arguments are being made mostly by liquor & wine store owners and employees that they have spent decades building their businesses based on the current legal environment, and that it is unfair to expose them to this competition. They're also arguing that service quality will be lowered, because the mass market grocery stores do not have the kind of expertise the current stores have in their product. They argue that local jobs will be lost. Church leaders are arguing that it will expose alcoholics to temptation they will not be able to resist. To these people, it is just unfathomable to change what exists now because it seems to work best for them. They have already resigned themselves that there is no possible way it could be any better any other way and they will fight it irrationally until the bitter end. My girlfriend and her father work at the largest liquor store in Tennessee. Toting the short-sighted company line, most of the employees are against the repeal. Most liquor & wine stores ONLY exist because of these protection laws, and many of them are expensive and poorly ran. Very few of them can actually make the argument that their expertise or service sets them aside. Other burdensome regulations such as required distance from churches, schools, and other liquor stores are anti-urban and basically make certain locations extremely lucrative for the owners as they operate somewhat of a local monopoly and are grandfathered in. These people will go out of business. Successful stores can't even create multiple locations, so the best businesses in this arena are unable to scale. There is a strong correlation between availability of wine and increased consumption. When overall consumption increases, the distributors stand to increase their revenues substantially, and overall the better liquor & wine stores that have increased selection and service will continue to stay where they are for the most part, if not see increases, even in the face of stiff competition from grocery stores. Grocery stores will likely focus on low margin, commodity wines that make the liquor & wine stores little money. Liquor & wine stores, of course, are viewed as "dirty" establishments and this deters many more conservative consumers from trying a product they may genuinely (and responsibly) enjoy. Just as any argument that protect jobs, their argument for "saving local jobs" is just arguing for robbing Peter to pay Paul. The money to pay these people comes directly from consumers, which means it's diverted from other jobs. There is also some innovation to be had that will save consumers billions and unleash the potential of specialized stores that sell specialized and/or paired food and wine products. The current distribution model is poor and extremely inefficient. The last 30 years of innovation in supply chain management are missing from the distribution chain. A very small minority of retail stores even use UPC codes to perform computerized inventory & point-of-sale pricing. Even at the largest stores, ordering is done by entirely by hand. Management understands it's inefficient, but there is so much money rolling in, and usually a territory they monopolize, so there's very little incentive to change. Most stores are stocked entirely by the sales staff at distribution companies, based on what creates the most margin for them, not what consumers demand. Grocery stores are simply incompatible with the model that exists now, so the distributors will be forced to modernize to be able to get their product on those shelves. This is the price we pay for unpopular, overreaching protectionist laws that hold together obsolete business models and rob real innovation and creativity, diverting gigantic sums of capital in unproductive ways and strongly inhibiting consumer choice. The current state of consumer-impacting copyright law holds these media companies together, and just like the wine & liquor stores in Tennessee, they are "fire and brim-stoning" us claiming that all of this high quality music & movies we enjoy will go away. The media companies want us to believe their business model is legitimate, that the choices they make for us are what we actually desire, that copying music and movies that we would otherwise not purchase IS theft and therefore morally wrong, and that the criminal punishment for copyright infringement should continue to massively exceed the act of actual theft from a store.
  - hasenj 16y ago
    > Relativity theory isn't patentable as there is no business model which could commercialize it. 1. Make Nukes 2. Threaten other countries 3. ??? 4. PROFIT
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
  - szany 16y ago
    What if GPS was a commercial project?
- rick888 16y ago
  "How about file formats? Graphics manipulation algorithms? " If Einstein wouldn't have come up with his theory, someone else would have. Those properties aren't going to change. Photoshop, file formats, and algorithms are unique to the individual/individuals that created them.
  - notque 16y ago
    .... both are not unique to the individual that created them. They both would have been come up with by other people.
eyeforgotmyname 16y ago
It's ironic that Einstein couldn't file a patent on relativity.
- angus77 16y ago
  To whoever downvoted this: I think eyeforgotmyname was saying it was ironic considering Einstein worked in a patent office, not that he thought Einstein should have been able to patent it. It was a joke. You were supposed to laugh.
  - eyeforgotmyname 16y ago
    It's ironic that a joke about Einstein has to be explained.

Tycho 16y ago

Most of the serious research and development, the hard part of it, is funded by the public. In fact most of the economy comes out of public expenditures through the state system, which is the source of most innovation and development. I mean computers, the internet. Just go through the range, it's all coming out of the state system primarily. There is research and development in the corporate system, some, but it's mostly at the marketing end. And the same is true of drugs.

maxharris 16y ago
the hard part of it This is absolutely false. I agree that discovery isn't easy, but you know what's even harder? The other 90% of the work needed to finish it and make it a reliable product. Chomsky trivializes the work of synthetic organic chemists, the engineers that set up and keep production lines going, researchers that test the drugs, and so on. In software terms, this is like saying that all the hard work is done because someone banged out a prototype over the weekend. It's full of bugs and doesn't have the features people want yet. If you believe that Chomsky's right, try running a startup while holding his idea. You'll fail, or you'll discover that it's not easy and reject his idea.
- entangld 16y ago
  He's talking about research. You're talking about development. None of these things are exactly easy, but at least with development you're building toward something.
  - maxharris 16y ago
    Where does one stop and the other begin? Much of what we call research vs. what we call development is simply an artifact that stems from the way science is funded today. However, science can't (and won't) always be funded by giant government bodies. (To say that it will assumes that the way things are can go on forever, but history shows that civilizations have lifespans just like everything else.)
    - 16y ago

monochromatic 16y ago

Does anyone seriously still listen to Chomsky? This guy has zero credibility as far as I'm concerned.

weego 16y ago
I listen and tend to agree with a large swathes of what he says, though not everything. I've yet to come across a reason to doubt his credibility, but I'd be interested in reading a counter point to his arguments if you have some sources.
dasil003 16y ago
Chomsky is just one man, and thus subject to the same intellectual failings as other individuals, but his integrity is well beyond the vast majority of people with a pulpit. You should definitely read and consider what he has to say, because otherwise you may be hearing only lobbyists' perspectives.
- wladimir 16y ago
  I find his perspective really refreshing. Most articles that I encounter nowadays are very US-centric, or Europe-centric. They look at the consequences for a certain country or group within it, not the world at large, and are thus very polarized. Chomsky's reasoning feels truly international. And his comments about IP and medicine are appropriate as ever with the ACTA treaty (and sons) being pushed on us all by the US. I wish there were more people with a clear vision such as his. It could make the world as a whole a better place.

Tycho 16y ago

We certainly wouldn't have had a textile industry. British textiles were way cheaper and better. Actually British textiles were cheaper and better because Britain had crushed Irish and Indian superior textile manufacturers and stolen their techniques. So they were now the preeminent textile manufacturer, by force of course.

Symmetry 16y ago
I have no idea what he's talking about here. The British did do a number of horrible things in India and did use force to crush, for example, the Indian shipbuilding industry. They also could have learned a lot from Indian metallurgy if they were a bit less arrogant. But textiles? I guess they did "steal" cotton, but that wasn't really an invention in the sense he's talking about.
- ZeroGravitas 16y ago
  They "stole" the Paisley pattern: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paisley_(design) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paisley_(design)
- Estragon 16y ago
  They certainly crushed the Indian textiles industry economically, which speaks to his broader point that the dominant players only talk about free markets etc. when it suits them.

edw519 16y ago

First this: They don't make any economic sense or any other sense. Then this: They should be working for the public good. (Applause) And that means it should be available to the public. So... So...why aren't any of these (his 145 books): http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_tc_2_0?rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3ANoam+Chomsky&keywords=Noam+Chomsky&ie=UTF8&qid=1300306720&sr=8-2-ent&field-contributor_id=B000AP81EC http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_tc_2_0?rh=i%3Astripbo... in the public domain?

anon1385 16y ago
http://chomsky.info/books/counter-revolutionary-violence.htm http://chomsky.info/books/counter-revolutionary-violence.htm like this? or this: http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/year/year-overview.html http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/year/year-overview.... or this: http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/sld/sld-contents.html http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/sld/sld-contents.ht... or this: http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/rab/rab-contents.html http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/rab/rab-contents.ht... or this: http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/ni/ni-contents.html http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/ni/ni-contents.html or this: http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/dd/dd-overview.html http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/dd/dd-overview.html or this: http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/rc/rc-contents.html http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/rc/rc-contents.html
- TomOfTTB 16y ago
  In fairness just because something is published on the web doesn't mean it is in the public domain. A manufacturer can publish blueprints but you can't build and sell an improved version of their product if they have a patent on it.
  - secretasiandan 16y ago
    In fairness just because something is SOLD on the web doesn't mean it is NOT in the public domain.
  - RobertL 16y ago

iwwr 16y ago

This is quite relevant all on its own, even if slightly off-topic: [the WTO Uruguay agreement is] called a "free trade agreement". It's in fact a highly protectionist agreement. The US is strongly opposed to free trade, just as business leaders are, just as they're opposed to a market economy.

stephth 16y ago

Nice read. I've never read any Chomsky. He mentions inventions related to industries (textiles, steel and pharmaceutical...) and sciences. I'd be curious to read more from him about IP applied to art. Any idea where to look at?

danielsoneg 16y ago

To my knowledge, one of the reasons Universities were granted the right to patent their work was as a defensive measure - work patented at the University was intended to be available to the public, or at least, a whole lot easier to access than work patented by a private entity. The idea was to make the results of publicly funded research more, not less, accessible.

pedrocr 16y ago

Comparative advantage is generally not understood. It does not mean that countries only manufacture those things that they are best at. From the piece: >But those of us who would be here would be pursuing our comparative advantage and exporting fish and fur. That's what economists tell you is right. Pursue your comparative advantage. That was our comparative advantage. We certainly wouldn't have had a textile industry. British textiles were way cheaper and better. Comparative advantage allows for trade even when one country has an absolute advantage over another. Even if British textiles were better and cheaper than the American ones if America started to produce textiles it could make sense for the British to reduce their textile production if there are other goods they can apply the same resources to that have a higher value than they will pay for the American textiles they are now buying. The wikipedia page is pretty good at explaining this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage

vitaminj 16y ago
That's true ONLY IF America started to produce textiles. But the textbook trade models (e.g. Ricardian, Hecksher-Olin, etc) all pretty much recommend that America should just stick to producing fish and fur to maximise its gains from trade, and forget about a homegrown textile industry.

sentinel 16y ago

Computers and the internet come out of public expenditure through the state system? Where did he get that fact from?

pathjumper 16y ago

Here's a different perspective for you guys that is more or less in agreement with Chomsky's: The universe does not recognize our artificial restrictions on information. This is inherently why people generally think it's ok to violate the copyrights of others. Because we know, and the universe knows that nothing was taken away from them. The restrictions are entirely artifical and designed to do nothing except create an enormous inequality between the the "owner" of the information, and everyone else. That's the sole purpose. These Imaginary Stuff owners then use this disparity (a legal fiction entirely) to generate massive wealth based on entirely contrived circumstances. Since the dawn of speech nothing like this has existed because it never made sense. Anything one person said could be repeated by anyone who could remembered it. So when did information suddenly become ownable? It's a nonsensical legal fiction of epic proportions. I contend that if the information is publicly available, you no longer own it. This is how the universe operates. Fans of Imaginary Stuff rights will not be able to get their way for long. Or rather, they shouldn't be allowed to use the legal system to enforce their artificial disparity. If you want to own information, keep it a secret. Otherwise, it's everyone's. Another way of looking at it is, if you want to get paid for good information/content/art production, you're going to have to do what every other human does, continue working even after producing great works. You should be valued for your talent, and ability to produce from it over and over - just like everyone else. A bricklayer doesn't lay one brick really well and then charge everyone to use it daily. The value should be placed on the ability, not the product, since there's no physical product at all really. The slight exception being physical works of art etc, but then they're not just information, so the rules I'm talking about do not entirely apply. Photographic reproductions are information, but an original work in physical form is still valuable for being the first and physical. What do you other smart folks think about this? I know a lot of us work in information production in some form. I myself am a software engineer, so I'm not just trying to take from everyone else and pretend the rule doesn't apply to me because I'm not an information/content producer. I actually am. So this hits me hardest too.