4 ms·

Seems like straight up theft to me. Why is that not owned by the public?

colejohnson66 6y ago
Because the Constitution says so. It’s as simple as that. If we want that changed, we’d need a Constitutional amendment.
samatman 6y ago
It is partially owned by the public. All labor is partially owned by the public. Private IP makes corporations and people a lot of money. That money is taxed. That's how the government gets its share. The public-private partnership allows for researchers to claim most of the value of their labor, while the government can encourage areas of research which are in the national interest through grant funding. How much tax money do you think has derived from the early research on integrated circuits? A lot, right? Proposing that the government can simply confiscate intellectual property if they fund it, would just result in a world where government funding is unattractive. This would give more power to corporations and billionaires to direct the course of research into their own private interests. That doesn't strike me as a win.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  confiscate intellectual property if they fund it "Confiscate" is a very loaded word to use here. You don't say that I "confiscated the farmer's tomatoes" when I trade money for those tomatoes, or that an employer "confiscated the employee's code" when they traded that code for salary. How much tax money would be derived from the multitude of businesses that would arise if more government-funded IP was freely licensed instead of granted to a single spinoff company?
  - samatman 6y ago
    Not much, since taking government money would mean forking over everything you invent to the government, and not many research groups would want to do it. It would be a poison pill: everything your lab does would come under scrutiny and potential lawsuit, how do you demonstrate that one thing was paid for with public funds but another thing wasn't? In a response to describing researchers keeping IP they develop under grant as "straight up theft", I felt entitled to use a bit of inflammatory rhetoric of my own.

Because the Constitution says so. It’s as simple as that. If we want that changed, we’d need a Constitutional amendment.

samatman 6y ago

It is partially owned by the public. All labor is partially owned by the public. Private IP makes corporations and people a lot of money. That money is taxed. That's how the government gets its share. The public-private partnership allows for researchers to claim most of the value of their labor, while the government can encourage areas of research which are in the national interest through grant funding. How much tax money do you think has derived from the early research on integrated circuits? A lot, right? Proposing that the government can simply confiscate intellectual property if they fund it, would just result in a world where government funding is unattractive. This would give more power to corporations and billionaires to direct the course of research into their own private interests. That doesn't strike me as a win.

nitrogen 6y ago
confiscate intellectual property if they fund it "Confiscate" is a very loaded word to use here. You don't say that I "confiscated the farmer's tomatoes" when I trade money for those tomatoes, or that an employer "confiscated the employee's code" when they traded that code for salary. How much tax money would be derived from the multitude of businesses that would arise if more government-funded IP was freely licensed instead of granted to a single spinoff company?
- samatman 6y ago
  Not much, since taking government money would mean forking over everything you invent to the government, and not many research groups would want to do it. It would be a poison pill: everything your lab does would come under scrutiny and potential lawsuit, how do you demonstrate that one thing was paid for with public funds but another thing wasn't? In a response to describing researchers keeping IP they develop under grant as "straight up theft", I felt entitled to use a bit of inflammatory rhetoric of my own.