11 ms·

We need to abolish IP Laws (aka "Imaginary Property" aka "Illogical Property" aka "Incongruent Property" aka "Invalidates Property Laws"—the other term is a big

by breck 6y ago

We need to abolish IP Laws (aka "Imaginary Property" aka "Illogical Property" aka "Incongruent Property" aka "Invalidates Property Laws"—the other term is a big lie, don't repeat it). Not "reform". Not "compromise". Abolish. If 2020 taught me anything, it's that society can come close to the brink pretty quickly. I thought there was an inevitable trend toward freedom, but recently think it's perilous. We need ideas to flow to create a more distributed, less unequal, world, and we need it now. We need to unshackle the people. If anyone is working toward this, let me know how I can help (including funding). I'm supporting things like SciHub/LibGen and the like, but we need far far more organizers fighting to #EndIp, #AbolishCopyright, #AbolishPatents. Trolls feel free to reply with the rote lies about how these laws make any sense. Anyone with a conscience doing something about it please get in touch and let me know how I can help!

konjin 6y ago
IP laws are bad because they have been taken past any sane limit. However the original terms would are not too onerous, with provisions and updates there is no reason not to give the people who invent things short and clear monopolies on their ideas. 15 years is plenty of time, then everything needs to be released into the public domain.
- krapp 6y ago
  >with provisions and updates there is no reason not to give the people who invent things short and clear monopolies on their ideas. The lack of a monopoly creates competition which accelerates innovation and leads to cheaper, higher quality products for the consumer. The person who invents a product should simply be one competitor in the market, they can have the first mover advantage, but shouldn't be allowed to control the market entirely. If we believe in the FOSS ethos that no one has the right to own software, even if they write it, then why would this only apply to software? Why not to all forms of intellectual property? Why do I have a moral right to fork, rewrite and redistribute Firefox but not Star Wars or Pfizer Pharmaceuticals?
  - konjin 6y ago
    >If we believe in the FOSS ethos I don't. So what now?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - krapp 6y ago
      You can sit down and let someone less pedantic take the floor.
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > The lack of a monopoly creates competition which accelerates innovation and leads to cheaper, higher quality products for the consumer. The person who invents a product should simply be one competitor in the market, they can have the first mover advantage, but shouldn't be allowed to control the market entirely. But that obviously wouldn't as work well, because: 1. The inventor would pay the R&D costs with no good way to recoup them, because he'd be competing against knockoffs who didn't have to make that investment, and can price accordingly. You'd be putting the actual inventor at a disadvantage. 2. There'd be no incentive for inventors to actually publish designs for their inventions. Most people who argue against patents as a concept forget is that to get one you have to publish plans for your idea openly, which makes it much easier to copy. The limited monopoly is an incentive to part with that information. You'd end up leaving the public domain poorer. 3. Invention and production are different skillsets. For an author to get paid for writing, they shouldn't need to own a printing press and distribution network. It's a good thing that good, successful authors can make their livings by writing and not always be forced to sustain themselves with a day job. The original ideas behind IP are very, very sounds. What we need is to roll back how the implementation of those ideas has been corrupted to society's detriment.
    - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
      > 1. The inventor would pay the R&D costs with no good way to recoup them, because he'd be competing against knockoffs who didn't have to make that investment, and can price accordingly. You'd be putting the actual inventor at a disadvantage. Yes, the means of ensuring that research and development would be funded would have to change. This doesn't imply that there would be no r&d, rather the current r&d is being subsidized by laws that give legal privileges to certain corporations while prohibiting their competition from competing. > 2. There'd be no incentive for inventors to actually publish designs for their inventions. Most people who argue against patents as a concept forget is that to get one you have to publish plans for your idea openly, which makes it much easier to copy. The limited monopoly is an incentive to part with that information. You'd end up leaving the public domain poorer. You could pay them for the design. Or you could reverse engineer the design from the actual physical product. > 3. Invention and production are different skillsets. For an author to get paid for writing, they shouldn't need to own a printing press and distribution network. likewise people shouldn't be subject to violence for copying intangibles.
- breck 6y ago
  Slavery laws are bad because they have been taken past any sane limit. However the original terms would are not too onerous, with provisions and updates there is no reason not to give the people with capital short and clear monopolies on their slaves. 15 years is plenty of time, then every slave needs to be released into the public domain.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    I feel like you're now describing student debt.
wait_a_minute 6y ago
I am genuinely interested in understanding how we could have innovation in a world where a creator is not entitled to benefits from their invention. Including any monetary benefits if they so choose.
- breck 6y ago
  If everyone who says they will stop creating new bits if they can't control people anymore, were to stop creating new bits, that would be a great world. (Btw, an example for your question is to look up the origin of this thing we are using to communicate—the WWW)
- losteric 6y ago
  Recipes do not have patent protection, yet there is plenty of innovation in restaurants. There are many paths to an innovation. I don't think the first person deserves such a monopoly. American IP law, in combination with the generally letigious society, has always seemed like a net source of innovation friction...
  - harimau777 6y ago
    Recipes take skill to produce and in some cases significant effort to bring together exotic ingredients. That's not the case for media that can be copied almost effortlessly. Outside of running restaurants, people who innovate in recipes tend to make money via either writing cookbooks or hosting TV shows. Both of which are protected by IP.
  - andreilys 6y ago
    Creating a new recipe doesn’t involve billions of dollars in research as is the case in pharma. A company that spends billions of dollars in research assumes they will be able to recoup the cost by having a monopoly on the drug they developed. If however competitors can flood the market with the same drug, they cannot recoup the cost and will subsequently go bankrupt. Without the proper incentives you can’t expect companies to pursue strategies that will lead to bankruptcy.
schnable 6y ago
> If 2020 taught me anything, it's that society can come close to the brink pretty quickly. I thought there was an inevitable trend toward freedom, but recently think it's perilous. We need ideas to flow to create a more distributed, less unequal, world, and we need it now. We need to unshackle the people. This seems like an odd claim, as society as a whole was able to weather the pandemic overall in incredible comfort due to technology and content created under our IP regime. And we got a vaccine, covered by IP laws, to people with incredible speed. If anything - it's working well. I think the burden is on you to demonstrate that we'd have these things without the IP environment of past 100 years.
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago
  > weather the pandemic overall in incredible comfort due to technology and content created under our IP regime strike "under" insert "in spite of" > demonstrate that we'd have these things without the IP environment of past 100 years. IP are laws that prohibit who is allowed to manufacture and profit by certain types of goods. The burden of proof rests on those who think that those goods would not exist if more people were permitted to produce them. The presumption is that prohibitive laws have the effect of decreasing the things they prohibit.
  - backing 6y ago
    And how would it change the world to be more equal?
    - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
      More people would have the opportunity to produce live-saving drugs, fewer people would be subject to state violence as a consequence of performing acts that had no victim.
    - worik 6y ago
      Equality is not what we need or want. Fairness, comradery, and equity are enough.
  - 6y ago
boxed 6y ago
IP includes trade marks. We absolutely can't abolish that. So be careful when you say stuff like this.
- breck 6y ago
  I'm not actually sure we need government to enforce trademarks. All a trademark system is is a central registry. Seems like the private sector does just fine with that (domain name system, github, npm, twitter, etc).

by breck 6y ago

konjin 6y ago

IP laws are bad because they have been taken past any sane limit. However the original terms would are not too onerous, with provisions and updates there is no reason not to give the people who invent things short and clear monopolies on their ideas. 15 years is plenty of time, then everything needs to be released into the public domain.

krapp 6y ago
>with provisions and updates there is no reason not to give the people who invent things short and clear monopolies on their ideas. The lack of a monopoly creates competition which accelerates innovation and leads to cheaper, higher quality products for the consumer. The person who invents a product should simply be one competitor in the market, they can have the first mover advantage, but shouldn't be allowed to control the market entirely. If we believe in the FOSS ethos that no one has the right to own software, even if they write it, then why would this only apply to software? Why not to all forms of intellectual property? Why do I have a moral right to fork, rewrite and redistribute Firefox but not Star Wars or Pfizer Pharmaceuticals?
- konjin 6y ago
  >If we believe in the FOSS ethos I don't. So what now?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - krapp 6y ago
    You can sit down and let someone less pedantic take the floor.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > The lack of a monopoly creates competition which accelerates innovation and leads to cheaper, higher quality products for the consumer. The person who invents a product should simply be one competitor in the market, they can have the first mover advantage, but shouldn't be allowed to control the market entirely. But that obviously wouldn't as work well, because: 1. The inventor would pay the R&D costs with no good way to recoup them, because he'd be competing against knockoffs who didn't have to make that investment, and can price accordingly. You'd be putting the actual inventor at a disadvantage. 2. There'd be no incentive for inventors to actually publish designs for their inventions. Most people who argue against patents as a concept forget is that to get one you have to publish plans for your idea openly, which makes it much easier to copy. The limited monopoly is an incentive to part with that information. You'd end up leaving the public domain poorer. 3. Invention and production are different skillsets. For an author to get paid for writing, they shouldn't need to own a printing press and distribution network. It's a good thing that good, successful authors can make their livings by writing and not always be forced to sustain themselves with a day job. The original ideas behind IP are very, very sounds. What we need is to roll back how the implementation of those ideas has been corrupted to society's detriment.
  - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
    > 1. The inventor would pay the R&D costs with no good way to recoup them, because he'd be competing against knockoffs who didn't have to make that investment, and can price accordingly. You'd be putting the actual inventor at a disadvantage. Yes, the means of ensuring that research and development would be funded would have to change. This doesn't imply that there would be no r&d, rather the current r&d is being subsidized by laws that give legal privileges to certain corporations while prohibiting their competition from competing. > 2. There'd be no incentive for inventors to actually publish designs for their inventions. Most people who argue against patents as a concept forget is that to get one you have to publish plans for your idea openly, which makes it much easier to copy. The limited monopoly is an incentive to part with that information. You'd end up leaving the public domain poorer. You could pay them for the design. Or you could reverse engineer the design from the actual physical product. > 3. Invention and production are different skillsets. For an author to get paid for writing, they shouldn't need to own a printing press and distribution network. likewise people shouldn't be subject to violence for copying intangibles.
breck 6y ago
Slavery laws are bad because they have been taken past any sane limit. However the original terms would are not too onerous, with provisions and updates there is no reason not to give the people with capital short and clear monopolies on their slaves. 15 years is plenty of time, then every slave needs to be released into the public domain.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  I feel like you're now describing student debt.

wait_a_minute 6y ago

I am genuinely interested in understanding how we could have innovation in a world where a creator is not entitled to benefits from their invention. Including any monetary benefits if they so choose.

breck 6y ago
If everyone who says they will stop creating new bits if they can't control people anymore, were to stop creating new bits, that would be a great world. (Btw, an example for your question is to look up the origin of this thing we are using to communicate—the WWW)
losteric 6y ago
Recipes do not have patent protection, yet there is plenty of innovation in restaurants. There are many paths to an innovation. I don't think the first person deserves such a monopoly. American IP law, in combination with the generally letigious society, has always seemed like a net source of innovation friction...
- harimau777 6y ago
  Recipes take skill to produce and in some cases significant effort to bring together exotic ingredients. That's not the case for media that can be copied almost effortlessly. Outside of running restaurants, people who innovate in recipes tend to make money via either writing cookbooks or hosting TV shows. Both of which are protected by IP.
- andreilys 6y ago
  Creating a new recipe doesn’t involve billions of dollars in research as is the case in pharma. A company that spends billions of dollars in research assumes they will be able to recoup the cost by having a monopoly on the drug they developed. If however competitors can flood the market with the same drug, they cannot recoup the cost and will subsequently go bankrupt. Without the proper incentives you can’t expect companies to pursue strategies that will lead to bankruptcy.

schnable 6y ago

> If 2020 taught me anything, it's that society can come close to the brink pretty quickly. I thought there was an inevitable trend toward freedom, but recently think it's perilous. We need ideas to flow to create a more distributed, less unequal, world, and we need it now. We need to unshackle the people. This seems like an odd claim, as society as a whole was able to weather the pandemic overall in incredible comfort due to technology and content created under our IP regime. And we got a vaccine, covered by IP laws, to people with incredible speed. If anything - it's working well. I think the burden is on you to demonstrate that we'd have these things without the IP environment of past 100 years.

chordalkeyboard 6y ago
> weather the pandemic overall in incredible comfort due to technology and content created under our IP regime strike "under" insert "in spite of" > demonstrate that we'd have these things without the IP environment of past 100 years. IP are laws that prohibit who is allowed to manufacture and profit by certain types of goods. The burden of proof rests on those who think that those goods would not exist if more people were permitted to produce them. The presumption is that prohibitive laws have the effect of decreasing the things they prohibit.
- backing 6y ago
  And how would it change the world to be more equal?
  - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
    More people would have the opportunity to produce live-saving drugs, fewer people would be subject to state violence as a consequence of performing acts that had no victim.
  - worik 6y ago
    Equality is not what we need or want. Fairness, comradery, and equity are enough.
- 6y ago

boxed 6y ago

IP includes trade marks. We absolutely can't abolish that. So be careful when you say stuff like this.

breck 6y ago
I'm not actually sure we need government to enforce trademarks. All a trademark system is is a central registry. Seems like the private sector does just fine with that (domain name system, github, npm, twitter, etc).