9 ms·

I feel obligated to say my usual "IP is at this point doing more harm than good" spiel here but don't have the time budget to argue it with people today

by advael 2y ago

data_maan 2y ago
It's good that you still said it!
NuSkooler 2y ago
I've been trying to convince people of this for years. The problem is from my view, that people have the idea of IP being some sort of the American Dream ingrained in their heads that they can't even reason about anything else.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- noman-land 2y ago
  What's a suitable replacement?
  - ElevenLathe 2y ago
    Copyright should probably grant some benefit to an author, but just the bare minimum necessary to incentivize people to actually submit their work and file for copyright (also, we should resume requiring that you actually file for copyright, as was the case before 1978). This probably means some period of exclusive monetization rights. Anyone should be able to search for and read any filed works for free from the moment they are filed, or possibly after this exclusive monopoly period. Any additional benefits to copyright holders beyond what is needed to make sure we don't lose the works are essentially graft, no different in principle to the medieval church selling lucrative offices. If these things are valuable only because of scarcity, then we are incentivizing scarcity by granting monopoly, so we should do as little of that as we can manage. If they are inherently valuable, they should be as widely disseminated as possible (a cost that government can easily afford given modern technology). If they are worthless, there is no harm in the government keeping a copy anyway.
    - freejazz 2y ago
      "but just the bare minimum necessary to incentivize people to actually submit their work and file for copyright" Oh, okay!
  - wongarsu 2y ago
    A copyright term of 30 years after first publication, or 30 years after creation if no publication happens in this period. Ideally add some provision that ensures works are actually available after that period (similar to how many countries require all printed books to be submitted to the national library, but extend it to all media that achieves some benchmark of significance). Patent duration adjusted on a per-industry basis. Trademarks are fine as is
    - jacobr1 2y ago
      The best model I've seen for patents is increasingly escalating renewal fees for periodic terms. Such as get the first 5 years for very limited fees, every 5 years (up to some max such as 30) require 2-5x to renew or the patent expires. The exponentially increasing fees limit the hoarding of patents without direct economic benefits, but the high cost means you are able to provide offsetting social benefits while still providing incentives for innovation.
      - tivert 2y ago
        > The best model I've seen for patents is increasingly escalating renewal fees for periodic terms. Such as get the first 5 years for very limited fees, every 5 years (up to some max such as 30) require 2-5x to renew or the patent expires. The exponentially increasing fees limit the hoarding of patents without direct economic benefits, but the high cost means you are able to provide offsetting social benefits while still providing incentives for innovation. So, basically, long-term patents should be a privilege reserved for the rich (people and corporations). Everyone else should GTFO? I'm sure FAANG would still be totally able to massively horde patents with whatever fee structure you propose. FFS, Amazon developed literally dozens of commercial properties in my area, and then let them sit vacant for literal years because they had some change in strategy. They're perfectly happy to burn money, since they have so much. So, your idea doesn't solve the problem you're trying to solve, and it would make things worse besides.
        gbear605 2y ago
        If the scale is exponential, it becomes billions of dollars to keep a patent after a couple decades. Then trillions, at some point after which they’ve decided to give up the patent. Many companies are rich, but they aren’t infinitely rich.
  - account42 2y ago
    Removing it without replacement would be a net benefit at this point.
- kragen 2y ago
  perhaps my formulation in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40911782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40911782 will be helpful to you. or in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40911903 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40911903
- userbinator 2y ago
  The problem is from my view, that people have the idea of IP being some sort of the American Dream ingrained in their heads that they can't even reason about anything else. Maybe it depends on which people you ask, but I don't think the American Dream is about IP at all --- but mostly freedom and independence.
  - sircastor 2y ago
    Deeply entrenched in that freedom is the fantasy of inventing some new miracle product, or supremely popular song or book. It’s protecting the idea that someday I might be the wealthy benefactor of these practices and rules. We see people vote against their interests all the time because of “The American Dream”, and the hope that they might achieve it.
    - squigz 2y ago
      At the heart of the American Dream (and indeed of most Western culture) is the meritocracy - or more specifically the lie of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_meritocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_meritocracy
  - joquarky 2y ago
    Freedom and independence are propaganda in the same way that high school football coaches tell their players they can get into the NFL if they work hard enough
  - wayathr0w 2y ago
    Right, freedom and independence for the property owners. Whether that property is land, people, or "intellectual" is just as irrelevant to the Dreamer as if that property was obtained by deception or violence.
noman-land 2y ago
What would we use instead?
- rvense 2y ago
  Copyright should expire after like 15 years. Academic publishers should not exist, research - especially publically funded research - should just go straight to the public domain.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    Some research is funded through private donations to a specific school, or because the team shopped their project around to find private funding directly. This goes beyond public funding which grays up that public access to the research especially when compared to something like data produced by NASA
    - staplers 2y ago
      Some research is funded through private donations Then start a company. Universities shouldn't be R&D departments to skirt corporate laws and taxes.
  - autoexec 2y ago
    14 years was considered good enough back when it was prohibitively expensive to publish anything and worldwide distribution was basically impossible. Today, when publishing is essentially free and worldwide distribution happens at close to light speed you think we should expand copyright for another year? I lean more towards 7-10 years, with required registration involving a DRM free copy of the work submitted to the US copyright office (where possible) who will automatically host that file for free once the copyright term has expired. There should be an RSS feed from copyright.gov with download links to the latest works entering the public domain. That'd also make it dead simple to find who you need to contact if you want to negotiate rights to use a work still under copyright's protection. I agree that anything getting public funding should be public domain on day one (normal exceptions for national security etc)
  - 2y ago
globular-toast 2y ago
Definitely recommend everyone interested to listen to rms's talk "Copyright vs Community". It changed the way I thought about it some 15 years ago. It's only got worse since, but it seems more people are coming to the same conclusion. Maybe we can do something about it. rms suggests dialling back copyright rather than completely abolishing it: 10 years from date of publication. Of course he doesn't believe in copyright for software at all, but that's another matter. The funny thing is the way these greedy assholes in the copyright industry are behaving is just making it worse for them. It's driving people to places like z-library because essentially everything is in copyright. A child has just been born who won't ever see a work that was published 50 years ago go out of copyright. It's insane. With sensible copyright lengths we wouldn't need z-library.
chongli 2y ago
IP-intensive industries contribute 41% of the US GDP and employ 44% of the US workforce [1]. If you abolished IP all of that would go away. How would you replace that? I'm not a fan of IP either but I think it's pretty hard to escape that reality. Big companies like NVIDIA (3T market cap) are almost 100% IP. IP is more-or-less central to the US's economic and security strategy. Without it, the country loses a huge amount of power and influence in the world. [1] https://www.uspto.gov/ip-policy/economic-research/intellectual-property-and-us-economy https://www.uspto.gov/ip-policy/economic-research/intellectu...
- Super_Jambo 2y ago
  Pay them from general taxation to dig holes and fill them in again with spoons? If you can only succeed because you're government is holding back others at the barrel of a gun do you really deserve to?
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    Business in physical property/goods also requires the government to hold others back with a barrel of a gun.
    - AlotOfReading 2y ago
      One of the key differences being that physical theft deprives the rightful owner of the property. It's not an analogous crime.
      - s1artibartfast 2y ago
        Of course I agree that there are some differences, but they are the same with respect to the sated role of government. Physical theft deprives the owner of physical property (where this right is respected by law. IP theft deprives the owner of intellectual property ( where this right is respected by law). People can and do make arguments against both IP and physical property, but the role of government the the same in both cases.
matheusmoreira 2y ago
I can respect that. I've been commenting on the insanity of intellectual property and calling for its abolishment for years. Now I'm thinking about writing an article on it with my opinions so I can just point to it instead of arguing the same points over and over again. Expressing views on HN doesn't directly change anything but there's some benefits. For example, over years it's become clear to me that I'm not alone in thinking this system is screwed up. Every time I expressed some "unhinged" opinions, as some people here called them, it felt like going against the status quo, against all odds. Inevitably though, somebody else would show up and show me that I'm not insane, in fact I'm not even being radical enough.

I feel obligated to say my usual "IP is at this point doing more harm than good" spiel here but don't have the time budget to argue it with people today

by advael 2y ago

I feel obligated to say my usual "IP is at this point doing more harm than good" spiel here but don't have the time budget to argue it with people today

data_maan 2y ago

It's good that you still said it!

NuSkooler 2y ago

I've been trying to convince people of this for years. The problem is from my view, that people have the idea of IP being some sort of the American Dream ingrained in their heads that they can't even reason about anything else.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
noman-land 2y ago
What's a suitable replacement?
- ElevenLathe 2y ago
  Copyright should probably grant some benefit to an author, but just the bare minimum necessary to incentivize people to actually submit their work and file for copyright (also, we should resume requiring that you actually file for copyright, as was the case before 1978). This probably means some period of exclusive monetization rights. Anyone should be able to search for and read any filed works for free from the moment they are filed, or possibly after this exclusive monopoly period. Any additional benefits to copyright holders beyond what is needed to make sure we don't lose the works are essentially graft, no different in principle to the medieval church selling lucrative offices. If these things are valuable only because of scarcity, then we are incentivizing scarcity by granting monopoly, so we should do as little of that as we can manage. If they are inherently valuable, they should be as widely disseminated as possible (a cost that government can easily afford given modern technology). If they are worthless, there is no harm in the government keeping a copy anyway.
  - freejazz 2y ago
    "but just the bare minimum necessary to incentivize people to actually submit their work and file for copyright" Oh, okay!
- wongarsu 2y ago
  A copyright term of 30 years after first publication, or 30 years after creation if no publication happens in this period. Ideally add some provision that ensures works are actually available after that period (similar to how many countries require all printed books to be submitted to the national library, but extend it to all media that achieves some benchmark of significance). Patent duration adjusted on a per-industry basis. Trademarks are fine as is
  - jacobr1 2y ago
    The best model I've seen for patents is increasingly escalating renewal fees for periodic terms. Such as get the first 5 years for very limited fees, every 5 years (up to some max such as 30) require 2-5x to renew or the patent expires. The exponentially increasing fees limit the hoarding of patents without direct economic benefits, but the high cost means you are able to provide offsetting social benefits while still providing incentives for innovation.
    - tivert 2y ago
      > The best model I've seen for patents is increasingly escalating renewal fees for periodic terms. Such as get the first 5 years for very limited fees, every 5 years (up to some max such as 30) require 2-5x to renew or the patent expires. The exponentially increasing fees limit the hoarding of patents without direct economic benefits, but the high cost means you are able to provide offsetting social benefits while still providing incentives for innovation. So, basically, long-term patents should be a privilege reserved for the rich (people and corporations). Everyone else should GTFO? I'm sure FAANG would still be totally able to massively horde patents with whatever fee structure you propose. FFS, Amazon developed literally dozens of commercial properties in my area, and then let them sit vacant for literal years because they had some change in strategy. They're perfectly happy to burn money, since they have so much. So, your idea doesn't solve the problem you're trying to solve, and it would make things worse besides.
      - gbear605 2y ago
        If the scale is exponential, it becomes billions of dollars to keep a patent after a couple decades. Then trillions, at some point after which they’ve decided to give up the patent. Many companies are rich, but they aren’t infinitely rich.
- account42 2y ago
  Removing it without replacement would be a net benefit at this point.
kragen 2y ago
perhaps my formulation in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40911782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40911782 will be helpful to you. or in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40911903 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40911903
userbinator 2y ago
The problem is from my view, that people have the idea of IP being some sort of the American Dream ingrained in their heads that they can't even reason about anything else. Maybe it depends on which people you ask, but I don't think the American Dream is about IP at all --- but mostly freedom and independence.
- sircastor 2y ago
  Deeply entrenched in that freedom is the fantasy of inventing some new miracle product, or supremely popular song or book. It’s protecting the idea that someday I might be the wealthy benefactor of these practices and rules. We see people vote against their interests all the time because of “The American Dream”, and the hope that they might achieve it.
  - squigz 2y ago
    At the heart of the American Dream (and indeed of most Western culture) is the meritocracy - or more specifically the lie of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_meritocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_meritocracy
- joquarky 2y ago
  Freedom and independence are propaganda in the same way that high school football coaches tell their players they can get into the NFL if they work hard enough
- wayathr0w 2y ago
  Right, freedom and independence for the property owners. Whether that property is land, people, or "intellectual" is just as irrelevant to the Dreamer as if that property was obtained by deception or violence.

noman-land 2y ago

What would we use instead?

rvense 2y ago
Copyright should expire after like 15 years. Academic publishers should not exist, research - especially publically funded research - should just go straight to the public domain.
- dylan604 2y ago
  Some research is funded through private donations to a specific school, or because the team shopped their project around to find private funding directly. This goes beyond public funding which grays up that public access to the research especially when compared to something like data produced by NASA
  - staplers 2y ago
    Some research is funded through private donations Then start a company. Universities shouldn't be R&D departments to skirt corporate laws and taxes.
- autoexec 2y ago
  14 years was considered good enough back when it was prohibitively expensive to publish anything and worldwide distribution was basically impossible. Today, when publishing is essentially free and worldwide distribution happens at close to light speed you think we should expand copyright for another year? I lean more towards 7-10 years, with required registration involving a DRM free copy of the work submitted to the US copyright office (where possible) who will automatically host that file for free once the copyright term has expired. There should be an RSS feed from copyright.gov with download links to the latest works entering the public domain. That'd also make it dead simple to find who you need to contact if you want to negotiate rights to use a work still under copyright's protection. I agree that anything getting public funding should be public domain on day one (normal exceptions for national security etc)
- 2y ago

globular-toast 2y ago

Definitely recommend everyone interested to listen to rms's talk "Copyright vs Community". It changed the way I thought about it some 15 years ago. It's only got worse since, but it seems more people are coming to the same conclusion. Maybe we can do something about it. rms suggests dialling back copyright rather than completely abolishing it: 10 years from date of publication. Of course he doesn't believe in copyright for software at all, but that's another matter. The funny thing is the way these greedy assholes in the copyright industry are behaving is just making it worse for them. It's driving people to places like z-library because essentially everything is in copyright. A child has just been born who won't ever see a work that was published 50 years ago go out of copyright. It's insane. With sensible copyright lengths we wouldn't need z-library.

chongli 2y ago

IP-intensive industries contribute 41% of the US GDP and employ 44% of the US workforce [1]. If you abolished IP all of that would go away. How would you replace that? I'm not a fan of IP either but I think it's pretty hard to escape that reality. Big companies like NVIDIA (3T market cap) are almost 100% IP. IP is more-or-less central to the US's economic and security strategy. Without it, the country loses a huge amount of power and influence in the world. [1] https://www.uspto.gov/ip-policy/economic-research/intellectual-property-and-us-economy https://www.uspto.gov/ip-policy/economic-research/intellectu...

Super_Jambo 2y ago
Pay them from general taxation to dig holes and fill them in again with spoons? If you can only succeed because you're government is holding back others at the barrel of a gun do you really deserve to?
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  Business in physical property/goods also requires the government to hold others back with a barrel of a gun.
  - AlotOfReading 2y ago
    One of the key differences being that physical theft deprives the rightful owner of the property. It's not an analogous crime.
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      Of course I agree that there are some differences, but they are the same with respect to the sated role of government. Physical theft deprives the owner of physical property (where this right is respected by law. IP theft deprives the owner of intellectual property ( where this right is respected by law). People can and do make arguments against both IP and physical property, but the role of government the the same in both cases.

matheusmoreira 2y ago

I can respect that. I've been commenting on the insanity of intellectual property and calling for its abolishment for years. Now I'm thinking about writing an article on it with my opinions so I can just point to it instead of arguing the same points over and over again. Expressing views on HN doesn't directly change anything but there's some benefits. For example, over years it's become clear to me that I'm not alone in thinking this system is screwed up. Every time I expressed some "unhinged" opinions, as some people here called them, it felt like going against the status quo, against all odds. Inevitably though, somebody else would show up and show me that I'm not insane, in fact I'm not even being radical enough.