4 ms·

It seems that a lot of people think that we need substantive patent reform, but what I haven't heard is any real proposal except for scrapping the entire system

by kd5bjo 15y ago

It seems that a lot of people think that we need substantive patent reform, but what I haven't heard is any real proposal except for scrapping the entire system (or possibly just for software). I've put together the basics of a proposal here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3698637 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3698637 I'm sure that it has a lot of problems, but we need to start having the discussion of how to fix the system, instead of just whether or not it needs fixing.

angersock 15y ago
I replied to a couple points in your thread. Long story short, kill patents, kill copyright, keep trademark.
- PassTheAmmo 15y ago
  There would be huge problems with killing copyright IMHO. Most open source licenses are based on it for example. http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/07/pirate-partys-copyright-reform-cannon-could-sink-copyleft.ars http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/07/pirate-party...
  - Karunamon 15y ago
    Wouldnt it then shift from being a copyright enforcement issue to a contract/license enforcement issue? I.e. you agreed to share your source code if you distribute, but now you didn't, so sue city?
    - kd5bjo 15y ago
      But if there is no copyright, there is no need to license the software, you can just copy it without agreeing to anything. That's what it means for something to be in the public domain. Contracts are only valid if there is an exchange of value; you could reasonably argue that there is no value in being granted a right you already have.
  - cabalamat 15y ago
    True, but open source would continue fine without copyright -- it's just mean that everything was MIT-licensed.
  - slowpoke 15y ago
    At least in my opinion, the ultimate goal of Free Software is to kill copyright. In a perfect world, everything would be public domain and at the utmost, we'd have a right to attribution (ie, you may demand to be named as the creator of something you made). Copyleft is, right now, just a "necessary evil" to bring us closer to that goal. In a sense, it's a form of using the enemies' weapons against them - but what we actually want is mutual decommissioning.
  - angersock 15y ago
    Open-source writ large is a dumb marketing gimmick. As far as useful code goes, the people who care and respect other hackers release the code anyways, copyright or no. "Free software" vastly overestimates the value and talent of the average user--I don't feel any pity for the average City Of Farm Wars user if they don't get the source to IE.
- kd5bjo 15y ago
  Without copyright, for example, movies would have to recoup (most of) their production costs before ever showing the film to the public. Once they do, there is huge incentive for theaters to obtain third-party copies and show them without any remuneration to the moviemakers. There are similar arguments for books, music, and video games. How do you propose that this would work in practice?
  - vibrunazo 15y ago
    What about crowd-funding? Kickstarter already funded over $1m entertainment projects. So did the Louis CK experiment. These are far and far away from the mainstream popularity that buying movie tickets have. Don't you think that it's reasonable that web organized crowd-funding could finance even big blockbuster movies as these websites get more popular? Imagine if popular celebrity directors with huge cult-followers like Tarantino would post a project on Kickstarter, then properly advertise it. I'd imagine a huge movie could be funded that way.
    - kd5bjo 15y ago
      It's possible, but there's still a lot of details that need to be worked out. For example, how do you deal with projects that don't spend all of the money that was collected? If you've raised $100M to make a movie, it must be tempting to only spend $10M, and pocket the rest.
  - cabalamat 15y ago
    > Without copyright, for example, movies would have to recoup (most of) their production costs before ever showing the film to the public. Kinda true, although lots of films make more money through merchandising than the box office. But even in that situation, why can't movies be funded by crowdsourcing? I'm sure there's lots of fans of LoTR who'd be happy to crwodfund The Hobbit, for example.
    - kd5bjo 15y ago
      In a copyright-free world, that merchandise could be made by anyone; there's no guarantee that any merchandising money will make it back to the movie's creators. Crowdfunding can be a viable option, but paying large sums of money before any work is done makes it tempting to abscond with most of the money and produce either an inferior or nonexistent product. How would you prevent this from happening on a regular basis? Would your solution make it too risky to attempt large projects out of fear of them not being deemed "good enough"?

by kd5bjo 15y ago

angersock 15y ago

I replied to a couple points in your thread. Long story short, kill patents, kill copyright, keep trademark.

PassTheAmmo 15y ago
There would be huge problems with killing copyright IMHO. Most open source licenses are based on it for example. http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/07/pirate-partys-copyright-reform-cannon-could-sink-copyleft.ars http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/07/pirate-party...
- Karunamon 15y ago
  Wouldnt it then shift from being a copyright enforcement issue to a contract/license enforcement issue? I.e. you agreed to share your source code if you distribute, but now you didn't, so sue city?
  - kd5bjo 15y ago
    But if there is no copyright, there is no need to license the software, you can just copy it without agreeing to anything. That's what it means for something to be in the public domain. Contracts are only valid if there is an exchange of value; you could reasonably argue that there is no value in being granted a right you already have.
- cabalamat 15y ago
  True, but open source would continue fine without copyright -- it's just mean that everything was MIT-licensed.
- slowpoke 15y ago
  At least in my opinion, the ultimate goal of Free Software is to kill copyright. In a perfect world, everything would be public domain and at the utmost, we'd have a right to attribution (ie, you may demand to be named as the creator of something you made). Copyleft is, right now, just a "necessary evil" to bring us closer to that goal. In a sense, it's a form of using the enemies' weapons against them - but what we actually want is mutual decommissioning.
- angersock 15y ago
  Open-source writ large is a dumb marketing gimmick. As far as useful code goes, the people who care and respect other hackers release the code anyways, copyright or no. "Free software" vastly overestimates the value and talent of the average user--I don't feel any pity for the average City Of Farm Wars user if they don't get the source to IE.
kd5bjo 15y ago
Without copyright, for example, movies would have to recoup (most of) their production costs before ever showing the film to the public. Once they do, there is huge incentive for theaters to obtain third-party copies and show them without any remuneration to the moviemakers. There are similar arguments for books, music, and video games. How do you propose that this would work in practice?
- vibrunazo 15y ago
  What about crowd-funding? Kickstarter already funded over $1m entertainment projects. So did the Louis CK experiment. These are far and far away from the mainstream popularity that buying movie tickets have. Don't you think that it's reasonable that web organized crowd-funding could finance even big blockbuster movies as these websites get more popular? Imagine if popular celebrity directors with huge cult-followers like Tarantino would post a project on Kickstarter, then properly advertise it. I'd imagine a huge movie could be funded that way.
  - kd5bjo 15y ago
    It's possible, but there's still a lot of details that need to be worked out. For example, how do you deal with projects that don't spend all of the money that was collected? If you've raised $100M to make a movie, it must be tempting to only spend $10M, and pocket the rest.
- cabalamat 15y ago
  > Without copyright, for example, movies would have to recoup (most of) their production costs before ever showing the film to the public. Kinda true, although lots of films make more money through merchandising than the box office. But even in that situation, why can't movies be funded by crowdsourcing? I'm sure there's lots of fans of LoTR who'd be happy to crwodfund The Hobbit, for example.
  - kd5bjo 15y ago
    In a copyright-free world, that merchandise could be made by anyone; there's no guarantee that any merchandising money will make it back to the movie's creators. Crowdfunding can be a viable option, but paying large sums of money before any work is done makes it tempting to abscond with most of the money and produce either an inferior or nonexistent product. How would you prevent this from happening on a regular basis? Would your solution make it too risky to attempt large projects out of fear of them not being deemed "good enough"?