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Copyright isn't a bad thing per se. Millions of businesses - not just large/old ones - depend on it in order to avoid the design they've spent countless hours a

Copyright isn't a bad thing per se. Millions of businesses - not just large/old ones - depend on it in order to avoid the design they've spent countless hours and dollars on being copied.

gutnor 14y ago
Also the whole open source movement depends on copyrights.
betterunix 14y ago
That would be a fine argument in a world where the means of copying are heavy industrial equipment or otherwise uncommon in the home. That was the reality of the world from the invention of the movable type printing press until the PC. Now the means of copying books, music, movies, and software are a common household appliance, and yet we continue to cling to laws that were passed when only an industrial operation could make copies rapidly, all for the sake of keeping those industrial operations alive. Times have changed, and businesses need to change with the times. Kodak went out of business because they failed to adapt when digital cameras became small, cheap, and easy to use. New businesses now exist that make money because of digital photography. New businesses will rise to prominence because of 3D printing, assuming we do not kill 3D printing because of laughably dated concerns about copyright. Someone is going to sell you the raw materials that your 3D printer uses. Someone is going to run a search engine that finds the 3D models you are looking for and will tell you what materials you need (hopefully there will be many search engines competing with each other). Until we can manufacture integrated circuits in our homes, we will depend on Intel, AMD, TI, and others to make the electronics that run our 3D printers. Sometimes we just need to accept that the old ways of doing things are not profitable anymore. If we always worried about the businesses that are harmed by new technologies, we would still be using Roman numerals: http://www.storyofmathematics.com/medieval_fibonacci.html http://www.storyofmathematics.com/medieval_fibonacci.html (Edit: the ban on positional number systems was issued mainly due to pressure from businessmen who favored Roman numerals and general doubts about a numbering system that allows values to be inflated by tacking digits onto them: http://www.stevesachs.com/papers/paper_90a.html http://www.stevesachs.com/papers/paper_90a.html http://www.jstor.org/stable/2490013 http://www.jstor.org/stable/2490013)
- forrestthewoods 14y ago
  We live in a supply/demand economy. This world does not function properly when supply goes to infinity. Copyright is mandatory to maximize the public good. Finding the correct balance of limitations is difficult and ever changing.
  - betterunix 14y ago
    So says a person who carelessly breathes the effectively unlimited supply of air.
    - forrestthewoods 14y ago
      Are you shitting me? That's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard in a discussion pertaining to copyright. Ever. I'm not even going to feign apology that's how terrible of a statement it is. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul. I'm going to copy and paste a block of text from "A Economic Analysis of Copyright Law" by Richard Posner. He's a highly respected judge amongst tech geeks at the moment due to his publicly declared war against patents. Please, please read this entire block of text. "A distinguishing characteristic of intellectual property is its "public good" aspect. While the cost of creating a work subject to copyright protection—for example, a book, movie, song, ballet, lithograph, map, business directory, or computer software program—is often high, the cost of reproducing the work, whether by the creator or by those to whom he has made it available, is often low. And once copies are available to others, it is often inexpensive for these users to make additional copies. If the copies made by the creator of the work are priced at or close to marginal cost, others may be discouraged from making copies, but the creator’s total revenues may not be sufficient to cover the cost of creating the work. Copyright protection—the right of the copyright’s owner to prevent others from making copies—trades off the costs of limiting access to a work against the benefits of providing incentives to create the work in the first place. Striking the correct balance between access and incentives is the central problem in copyright law. For copyright law to promote economic efficiency, its principal legal doctrines must, at least approximately, maximize the benefits from creating additional works minus both the losses from limiting access and the costs of administering copyright protection." http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/IPCoop/89land1.html http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/IPCoop/89land1.html
belorn 14y ago
That is the same as saying millions of businesses depend on the government to grant them an state enforced monopoly on information, ie copyright. I am not sure I like that so many businesses is in such defendant relationship with the government. Especially when that state enforced monopoly is enforced again private people in their own homes. I think the government should have better things to do.

Copyright isn't a bad thing per se. Millions of businesses - not just large/old ones - depend on it in order to avoid the design they've spent countless hours and dollars on being copied.

gutnor 14y ago

Also the whole open source movement depends on copyrights.

betterunix 14y ago

That would be a fine argument in a world where the means of copying are heavy industrial equipment or otherwise uncommon in the home. That was the reality of the world from the invention of the movable type printing press until the PC. Now the means of copying books, music, movies, and software are a common household appliance, and yet we continue to cling to laws that were passed when only an industrial operation could make copies rapidly, all for the sake of keeping those industrial operations alive. Times have changed, and businesses need to change with the times. Kodak went out of business because they failed to adapt when digital cameras became small, cheap, and easy to use. New businesses now exist that make money because of digital photography. New businesses will rise to prominence because of 3D printing, assuming we do not kill 3D printing because of laughably dated concerns about copyright. Someone is going to sell you the raw materials that your 3D printer uses. Someone is going to run a search engine that finds the 3D models you are looking for and will tell you what materials you need (hopefully there will be many search engines competing with each other). Until we can manufacture integrated circuits in our homes, we will depend on Intel, AMD, TI, and others to make the electronics that run our 3D printers. Sometimes we just need to accept that the old ways of doing things are not profitable anymore. If we always worried about the businesses that are harmed by new technologies, we would still be using Roman numerals: http://www.storyofmathematics.com/medieval_fibonacci.html http://www.storyofmathematics.com/medieval_fibonacci.html (Edit: the ban on positional number systems was issued mainly due to pressure from businessmen who favored Roman numerals and general doubts about a numbering system that allows values to be inflated by tacking digits onto them: http://www.stevesachs.com/papers/paper_90a.html http://www.stevesachs.com/papers/paper_90a.html http://www.jstor.org/stable/2490013 http://www.jstor.org/stable/2490013)

forrestthewoods 14y ago
We live in a supply/demand economy. This world does not function properly when supply goes to infinity. Copyright is mandatory to maximize the public good. Finding the correct balance of limitations is difficult and ever changing.
- betterunix 14y ago
  So says a person who carelessly breathes the effectively unlimited supply of air.
  - forrestthewoods 14y ago
    Are you shitting me? That's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard in a discussion pertaining to copyright. Ever. I'm not even going to feign apology that's how terrible of a statement it is. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul. I'm going to copy and paste a block of text from "A Economic Analysis of Copyright Law" by Richard Posner. He's a highly respected judge amongst tech geeks at the moment due to his publicly declared war against patents. Please, please read this entire block of text. "A distinguishing characteristic of intellectual property is its "public good" aspect. While the cost of creating a work subject to copyright protection—for example, a book, movie, song, ballet, lithograph, map, business directory, or computer software program—is often high, the cost of reproducing the work, whether by the creator or by those to whom he has made it available, is often low. And once copies are available to others, it is often inexpensive for these users to make additional copies. If the copies made by the creator of the work are priced at or close to marginal cost, others may be discouraged from making copies, but the creator’s total revenues may not be sufficient to cover the cost of creating the work. Copyright protection—the right of the copyright’s owner to prevent others from making copies—trades off the costs of limiting access to a work against the benefits of providing incentives to create the work in the first place. Striking the correct balance between access and incentives is the central problem in copyright law. For copyright law to promote economic efficiency, its principal legal doctrines must, at least approximately, maximize the benefits from creating additional works minus both the losses from limiting access and the costs of administering copyright protection." http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/IPCoop/89land1.html http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/IPCoop/89land1.html

belorn 14y ago

That is the same as saying millions of businesses depend on the government to grant them an state enforced monopoly on information, ie copyright. I am not sure I like that so many businesses is in such defendant relationship with the government. Especially when that state enforced monopoly is enforced again private people in their own homes. I think the government should have better things to do.