4 ms·

Neither take is correct. When correctly applied it can be an effective tool to encourage certain sorts of intellectual endeavors by making them monetarily favor

Neither take is correct. When correctly applied it can be an effective tool to encourage certain sorts of intellectual endeavors by making them monetarily favorable. When incorrectly applied it leads to dysfunction as is the case for most regulatory regimes. Any tool can be used by a wrongdoer for evil. Corporations will manipulate the regulator in order to rent seek using whatever happens to be available to them. That doesn't make the tools themselves evil.

spwa4 11mo ago
> When incorrectly applied it leads to dysfunction as is the case for most regulatory regimes. The second it became cheaper to not apply it, every state under the sun chose not to apply it. Whether we're talking about Chinese imports that absolutely do not respect copyright, trademark, even quality, health and warranty laws ... and nothing was done. Then, large scale use of copyrighted by Search provider (even pre-Google), Social Networks, and others nothing was done. Then, large scale use for making AI products (because these AI just wouldn't work without free access to all copyrighted info). And, of course, they don't put in any effort. Checking imports for fakes? Nope. Even checking imports for improperly produced medications is extremely rarely done. If you find your copyright violated on a large scale on Amazon, your recourse effectively is to first go beg Amazon for information on sellers (which they have a strong incentive not to provide) and then go run international court cases, which is very hard, very expensive, and in many cases (China, India) totally unfair. If you get poisoned from a pill your national insurance bought from India, they consider themselves not responsible. Of course, this makes "competition" effectively a tax-dodging competition over time. And the fault for that lies entirely with the choice of your own government. Your statement about incorrect application only makes sense if "regulatory regimes" aren't really just people. Go visit your government offices, you'll find they're full of people. People who purposefully made a choice in this matter. A choice to enforce laws against small entities they can easily bully, and to not do it on a larger scale. To add insult to injury, you will find these choices were almost never made by parliaments, but in international treaties and larger organizations like the WTO, or executive powers of large trade blocks.
- fc417fc802 11mo ago
  You're trying to analyze an entirely different game played by an entirely different set of players by the same set of rules. It's a contextual error on your part. The decision to recognize or not recognize a given body of rules held by an opposing party on the international level is an almost entirely separate topic. > A choice to enforce laws against small entities they can easily bully, and to not do it on a larger scale. That's a systemic issue, AKA the bad regulatory regime that I previously spoke of. That isn't some inherent fault of the tool. It's a fault of the regulatory regime which applies that tool. Kitchen knives are absolutely essential for cooking but they can also be used to stab people. If someone claimed that knives were inherently tools of evil and that people needed to wake up to this fact, would you not consider that rather unhinged? > To add insult to injury, you will find these choices were almost never made by parliaments, but in international treaties and larger organizations like the WTO, or executive powers of large trade blocks. That's true, and it's a problem, but it (again) has nothing to do with the inherent value of IP as a concept. It isn't even directly related to the merits of the current IP regulatory regime. It's a systemic problem with the lawmaking process as a whole. Solve the systemic problem and you can solve the downstream issues that resulted from it. Don't solve it and the symptoms will persist. You're barking up the wrong tree.
- consp 11mo ago
  > People who purposefully made a choice in this matter. I am convinced most people never had or ever will have this choice actively. Considering pillarisation (this is not a misspelling) was already a thing in most political systems well before the advent of mass media and digital media it only got worse with it, effectively making choices for people, into the effective hands of few people, influenced by even less people. Those people in the government you mention do not make the choices, they have to act on them as I read it.
coldtea 11mo ago
>When correctly applied it can be an effective tool to encourage certain sorts of intellectual endeavors by making them monetarily favorable. I'd rather we don't encourage "monetarily favorable" intellectual endeavors...
- fc417fc802 11mo ago
  We want to encourage intellectual endeavors that are desirable to society as a whole but which otherwise face barriers. Making them monetarily favorable is an easy way to accomplish that. Similar to how not speeding is made monetarily favorable, or serving in the military is made monetarily favorable, etc. Surely you don't object to the government using monetary incentives to indirectly shape society? The historical alternatives have been rather brutal.
  - measurablefunc 11mo ago
    Monetarily favorable artificial intelligence gets you pornography & 6 second animated slop. You're confused about what money actually enables.
    - chezelenkoooo 11mo ago
      And all the other benefits of the world around you at large. Come on dude.
      - measurablefunc 11mo ago
        I guess you haven't heard about all the microplastics in newborns.
        coldtea 11mo ago
        "Small price to pay to have smartphones and EVs" /s
        11mo ago
Bratmon 11mo ago
> When correctly applied it can be an effective tool to encourage certain sorts of intellectual endeavors by making them monetarily favorable This has been empirically disproven. China experimented with having no enforced Intellectual Property laws, and the result was that they were able to do the same technological advancement it took the West 250 years to do and surpass them in four decades. Intellectual Property law is literally a 6x slowdown for technology.
- fc417fc802 11mo ago
  China was playing industrial catch up. They didn't have to (for example) reinvent semiconductors from first principles. They will surely support some form of IP law once they have been firmly established at the cutting edge for a while. I'm no fan of the current state of things but it's absurd to imply that the existence of IP law in some form isn't essential if you want corporations to continue much of their R&D as it currently exists. Without copyright in at least some limited form how do you expect authors to make a living? Will you have the state fund them directly? Do you propose going back to a patronage system in the hopes that a rich client just so happens to fund something that you also enjoy? Something else?
  - tedk-42 11mo ago
    Imagine our human ancestors claiming IP infringement when one guy copied fire making from another.
    - phs318u 11mo ago
      Maybe this is just me, but the second I read your comment I envisioned a “caveman” sitcom.
      - fuzzfactor 11mo ago
        Well during prehistoric times (1960's) The Flintstones had Zippo lighters that rubbed two tiny sticks together to light their Winston cigarettes. The tobacco brand of their major sponsor. Naturally that could never have been legitimate until the patent on the Zippo had expired ;)
runeks 11mo ago
> When correctly applied it can be an effective tool to encourage certain sorts of intellectual endeavors by making them monetarily favorable. I agree, but the only worth candidate I see is the medical industry. And given that drug development is so expensive because of government-mandated trials, I think it makes sense for the government to also provide a helping hand here — to counterweight the (completely sensible) cost increase due to the drug trial system.

spwa4 11mo ago

> When incorrectly applied it leads to dysfunction as is the case for most regulatory regimes. The second it became cheaper to not apply it, every state under the sun chose not to apply it. Whether we're talking about Chinese imports that absolutely do not respect copyright, trademark, even quality, health and warranty laws ... and nothing was done. Then, large scale use of copyrighted by Search provider (even pre-Google), Social Networks, and others nothing was done. Then, large scale use for making AI products (because these AI just wouldn't work without free access to all copyrighted info). And, of course, they don't put in any effort. Checking imports for fakes? Nope. Even checking imports for improperly produced medications is extremely rarely done. If you find your copyright violated on a large scale on Amazon, your recourse effectively is to first go beg Amazon for information on sellers (which they have a strong incentive not to provide) and then go run international court cases, which is very hard, very expensive, and in many cases (China, India) totally unfair. If you get poisoned from a pill your national insurance bought from India, they consider themselves not responsible. Of course, this makes "competition" effectively a tax-dodging competition over time. And the fault for that lies entirely with the choice of your own government. Your statement about incorrect application only makes sense if "regulatory regimes" aren't really just people. Go visit your government offices, you'll find they're full of people. People who purposefully made a choice in this matter. A choice to enforce laws against small entities they can easily bully, and to not do it on a larger scale. To add insult to injury, you will find these choices were almost never made by parliaments, but in international treaties and larger organizations like the WTO, or executive powers of large trade blocks.

fc417fc802 11mo ago
You're trying to analyze an entirely different game played by an entirely different set of players by the same set of rules. It's a contextual error on your part. The decision to recognize or not recognize a given body of rules held by an opposing party on the international level is an almost entirely separate topic. > A choice to enforce laws against small entities they can easily bully, and to not do it on a larger scale. That's a systemic issue, AKA the bad regulatory regime that I previously spoke of. That isn't some inherent fault of the tool. It's a fault of the regulatory regime which applies that tool. Kitchen knives are absolutely essential for cooking but they can also be used to stab people. If someone claimed that knives were inherently tools of evil and that people needed to wake up to this fact, would you not consider that rather unhinged? > To add insult to injury, you will find these choices were almost never made by parliaments, but in international treaties and larger organizations like the WTO, or executive powers of large trade blocks. That's true, and it's a problem, but it (again) has nothing to do with the inherent value of IP as a concept. It isn't even directly related to the merits of the current IP regulatory regime. It's a systemic problem with the lawmaking process as a whole. Solve the systemic problem and you can solve the downstream issues that resulted from it. Don't solve it and the symptoms will persist. You're barking up the wrong tree.
consp 11mo ago
> People who purposefully made a choice in this matter. I am convinced most people never had or ever will have this choice actively. Considering pillarisation (this is not a misspelling) was already a thing in most political systems well before the advent of mass media and digital media it only got worse with it, effectively making choices for people, into the effective hands of few people, influenced by even less people. Those people in the government you mention do not make the choices, they have to act on them as I read it.

coldtea 11mo ago

>When correctly applied it can be an effective tool to encourage certain sorts of intellectual endeavors by making them monetarily favorable. I'd rather we don't encourage "monetarily favorable" intellectual endeavors...

fc417fc802 11mo ago
We want to encourage intellectual endeavors that are desirable to society as a whole but which otherwise face barriers. Making them monetarily favorable is an easy way to accomplish that. Similar to how not speeding is made monetarily favorable, or serving in the military is made monetarily favorable, etc. Surely you don't object to the government using monetary incentives to indirectly shape society? The historical alternatives have been rather brutal.
- measurablefunc 11mo ago
  Monetarily favorable artificial intelligence gets you pornography & 6 second animated slop. You're confused about what money actually enables.
  - chezelenkoooo 11mo ago
    And all the other benefits of the world around you at large. Come on dude.
    - measurablefunc 11mo ago
      I guess you haven't heard about all the microplastics in newborns.
      - coldtea 11mo ago
        "Small price to pay to have smartphones and EVs" /s
        11mo ago

Bratmon 11mo ago

> When correctly applied it can be an effective tool to encourage certain sorts of intellectual endeavors by making them monetarily favorable This has been empirically disproven. China experimented with having no enforced Intellectual Property laws, and the result was that they were able to do the same technological advancement it took the West 250 years to do and surpass them in four decades. Intellectual Property law is literally a 6x slowdown for technology.

fc417fc802 11mo ago
China was playing industrial catch up. They didn't have to (for example) reinvent semiconductors from first principles. They will surely support some form of IP law once they have been firmly established at the cutting edge for a while. I'm no fan of the current state of things but it's absurd to imply that the existence of IP law in some form isn't essential if you want corporations to continue much of their R&D as it currently exists. Without copyright in at least some limited form how do you expect authors to make a living? Will you have the state fund them directly? Do you propose going back to a patronage system in the hopes that a rich client just so happens to fund something that you also enjoy? Something else?
- tedk-42 11mo ago
  Imagine our human ancestors claiming IP infringement when one guy copied fire making from another.
  - phs318u 11mo ago
    Maybe this is just me, but the second I read your comment I envisioned a “caveman” sitcom.
    - fuzzfactor 11mo ago
      Well during prehistoric times (1960's) The Flintstones had Zippo lighters that rubbed two tiny sticks together to light their Winston cigarettes. The tobacco brand of their major sponsor. Naturally that could never have been legitimate until the patent on the Zippo had expired ;)

runeks 11mo ago

> When correctly applied it can be an effective tool to encourage certain sorts of intellectual endeavors by making them monetarily favorable. I agree, but the only worth candidate I see is the medical industry. And given that drug development is so expensive because of government-mandated trials, I think it makes sense for the government to also provide a helping hand here — to counterweight the (completely sensible) cost increase due to the drug trial system.