Issue: Intellectual Property Rights: Intellectual property reform

[mdh]

One of the most pressing issues today is the reform of intellectual property legislation at the United States federal level. We live in a time where abstract ideas can be patented, crushing the possibility for small business who cannot afford often exhorbitently priced patent licensing to create even similar works, and hence stifling innovation. We live in a time when enforcement by tort is commonplace, and personal property ownership? Oh no, you don't *OWN* anything, you're just licensed to *USE* it. Sometimes. Maybe. The expectation that buying something leads to ownership of that something is an ideal long since past. Sometimes buying something leads more to its makers owning you!
We need serious ideas and thoughts on intellectual property reform in America. With cases of lawsuits against customers for using their own property run amok, public universities paying up massive sums to groups like the RIAA as extortion to *not* be sued, and more and more frequently these industry lobby groups demanding criminal persecution of their own customers, if this situation is not dealt with, personal property will be a thing of the past. The patenting of abstract ideas such as "One click shopping" (yes, that's really a patent owned by amazon.com. amazon.com has used it to shut down competitor sites who did not require more than one mouse-click to complete a transaction.) innovation and small business, and the very core ideals of capitalism, are stopped dead in their tracks.
Thank you friends, I look forward to your support.

 

[megiddo]

Tort reform. The loser must automatically defray the cost of the winner's legal costs.

As far as IP goes, cap the copyright back to 36 years (or similar), and issue strong policy on defining innovation in patents. Patents must be original and manufacturable. The USPTO has made the deplorable move of allowing patents on marginal improvements, obvious technology, and discoveries. These should all be rolled back.

 

[mrapathy]

definitely need Intellectual Property Reform. could chat on that for good time.

need more liberty and freedom. I love Linux which is threatened by people who have an idea they want to own and profit from. its great for creating a monopoly.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Albert Einstein

more difficult to prove imagination instead of copying idea or technology.

it stops progress of society improvements. same time corporations that prop up IP
go to china and get robbed like idiots of IP then they make reproduce the products they want.

 

[DrKevorkian]

As much as it seems wrong to me i can't see any way around IP. Think about an author. If anyone could publish an authors materials theres no way that author would ever get any royalties. The system obviously needs reforming but i find that many are too hostile to the whole concept

 

[mdh]

Well, I haven't proposed we ditch the patent and copyright systems completely, far from it - I think we need to fix them so that they are more useful for what they were designed for (and less useful for oppressing competition by registering hopelessly abstract ideas).

 

[mdh]

Errr, woah.
This is a big deal.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/23/antigua_wto_us_gambling/

 

[DrKevorkian]

the attitude in that arugment ('its about time') was exactly the kind of hostile attitude which seems to be pervasive on the internet. The destruction of all kinds of IP industries is seen as beneficial. To me reform just means better defining what and for how long things can be copyrighted/patented etc.

 

[Matt Collins]

We live in a time where abstract ideas can be patented, crushing the possibility for small business who cannot afford often exhorbitently priced patent licensing to create even similar works, and hence stifling innovation.

You do realize this is permitted in the Constitution, right?

And patents protect works from everyone, not just mega corps. The filing fees for a patent are not that bad.. see this site for the fee schedule:
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/qs/ope/fee2007september30.htm

The real expense in getting a patent is of course insurance and most importantly the attorneys that must be in your pocket to ensure that it is done properly including research. I would say in this case the attorneys should be blamed, not the government.

We live in a time when enforcement by tort is commonplace, and personal property ownership? Oh no, you don't *OWN* anything, you're just licensed to *USE* it.

I don't think you understand how IP laws work. It's all about torts when you infringe on someone's IP. If you are caught uploading MP3s that you don't own then you will be sued by the owner of those MP3s (most likely the record label). This is all done in civil court because the beef is between two parties, not you and the government (which would be handled in criminal court most likely).

We need serious ideas and thoughts on intellectual property reform in America.

I agree. We should first start with reduced protection terms. We should then repeal the DMCA, and we should also repeal most of the Copyright/Recording act of the 90's.

The patenting of abstract ideas such as "One click shopping" (yes, that's really a patent owned by amazon.com. amazon.com has used it to shut down competitor sites who did not require more than one mouse-click to complete a transaction.) innovation and small business, and the very core ideals of capitalism, are stopped dead in their tracks.

The problem is that patents are granted by a governmental clerk who makes $40k/year. Patents in and of themselves are not bad as well as most other IP, but their implementation of them by our incompetent Federal government does indeed create many problems.

 

[mdh]

I do understand how it works, and I'm saying that it's a system in need of reform - your last statement sums up the bulk of the reform I'm talking about (stupid crud getting patented). There're also areas that I would say are somewhat ambiguous and should be more clear such as trade secrets.

With regard to filing fees, all things said and done getting a patent settled costs around $5000 minimum, from what I've been told.

As far as constitutional rights, just because the constitution allows something doesn't make it a good idea.

 

[erowe1]

I really don't know all the issues surrounding this. But I do know that there are tons of countries that do virtually nothing to protect property rights. For the most part they are third world countries. You can walk through markets and see burned dvd's of major movies and cd's of music and computer programs and t-shirts with brand name logos that are all fakes and get them all cheap with, of course, no money going to the people who own the intellectual property that is being sold. I'm sure any of you who are travelers know exactly what I'm talking about. The advantage, of course, is that people can get all those things super cheap. The disadvantage is that there ceases to be financial incentive for citizens of those countries to go into the business of developing those things, which is the case of things like software, medicine, and new inventions of various kinds, does tend to have an overall negative impact on their economies, as evidenced perhaps by the fact that the countries where this is most rampant are all still way behind the rest of the world (or at least it looks that way from what I've seen).

 

[mrd]

The distinction between copyright of words/art/media and the patent of techniques/methods/formulas must be clear. While I'm sure copyrights are a worthy debate, I believe patent reform is a more serious, pressing issue.

Companies should not have a stranglehold on their patents for any considerable length of time. Perhaps a few years to guarantee a foothold in their product's marketplace, but no longer. Allow competition quickly. Allow formula/technique evolution. Prevent companies from charging exorbitant prices for medicines through competition. Prevent companies from locking in customers and locking out alternatives through proprietary elements of compatibility (software, hardware).

Patent reform could make a dent in monopoly/oligopoly markets, without any specific antitrust legislation. A free market is the best market, patents must be sensible or the market is no longer free!

 

[Zarxrax]

Hong Kong is a haven for pirated movies (and everything else). Yet, a number of pretty awesome movies are made in Hong Kong. No incentive without the copyright, eh?

 

[plopolp]

One workable compromise might be to allow property rights to commercial use. Sharing copies for free would then be legal, but not to do it for money. File sharing sites would then not be allowed to sell ad space.

I'm more favourable towards patents than copyrights. Patents actually increases freedom of information because patents are made public when they are claimed. That is a wealth of high quality information available for free (or at administrative cost). Everyone is allowed to construct machines according to existing patents. We are only restricted from putting it to commercial use without permission from the patent holder.

Copyright only helps big corporations create mega star cults. We could do without that.

Purely philosophically, I think it is difficult to justify any kind of intellectual property rights. Copying isn't theft. And ironically, intellectual property rights create scarcity where there naturally (without laws) were none. I could support patents only from loose utalitarian points of views, and there isn't even a consensus among economists about whether patents actually contribute to creation of wealth or not. It might be both immoral and improductive!

 

[mikesown]

Here's my take on the matter:
Creators deserve to profit from their works. It's outrageous for an artist to make a work of art, then see it sold on the street with no compensation. Likewise, the artist should be able to say "I don't want you to use this" and be able to control WHO has access to his/her work. If you create something new, you should not only own the physical property, but (assuming no one else has patented the idea) you should be able to own the idea of the object you create.

That said, I think it's beyond outrageous that copyright extends beyond death. At the very (very, very, very) least, I'd expect patents/copyrights to end at the creator's death. Realistically, I think 30 years is a reasonable term for copyrighted/patented works. Furthermore, I think this should be instated as a constitutional amendment so it's not so easy to increase the time period.

 

[Zarxrax]

I personally think that even without any intellectual property laws, people could profit on their works. There are many ways to sweeten the deal with ACTUAL tangible stuff. I also think there are enough people out there that genuinely want to support the people that create things.

I have created things before, and saw others take my work and sell it. It doesn't really bother me a whole lot. I also don't try to make a living off of things like that, but I wonder where we all got the idea to begin with that people should be able to make a living off of creating art? What gives someone the intrinsic right to make a living from writing a song or writing a story? I would love for someone to pay me to sit at my computer and surf the net all day, but I doubt it's going to happen, because the market doesn't find enough value in it.

The idea of copyright is contrary to the existence of computers. ALL COMPUTERS DO is copy data. They flip around 1's and 0's, copy this bit over to that memory address. Trying to force something like copyright law in this technological age is like telling someone not to breathe. It just isn't going to happen. If media companies had their way, computers would not exist at all.

 

[Matt Collins]

But I do know that there are tons of countries that do virtually nothing to protect property rights. For the most part they are third world countries. You can walk through markets and see burned dvd's of major movies and cd's of music and computer programs and t-shirts with brand name logos that are all fakes and get them all cheap with, of course, no money going to the people who own the intellectual property that is being sold

Yes, "ip" is a governmentally invented fiction. Therefore it's a choice as to whether or not governments recognize IP in their own country, and to what extent they recognize IP from other countries. If they choose not to sign a treaty for recognition, then the people in their country who copy people's IP from other countries are doing nothing wrong legally or morally.

 

[Matt Collins]

Companies should not have a stranglehold on their patents for any considerable length of time. Perhaps a few years to guarantee a foothold in their product's marketplace, but no longer. Allow competition quickly.

While I tend to agree with you, realize there is also competition on the innovation part of the equation. There is still competition to get an idea created, patented, and prototyped before anyone else does. So competition still exists on both sides of the process, pre-protection and post-protection.

 

[Matt Collins]

That said, I think it's beyond outrageous that copyright extends beyond death. At the very (very, very, very) least, I'd expect patents/copyrights to end at the creator's death. Realistically, I think 30 years is a reasonable term for copyrighted/patented works. Furthermore, I think this should be instated as a constitutional amendment so it's not so easy to increase the time period.

I agree completely because works of art meld into our society and become a part of who we are as a culture. One element of culture is art, and if that art is locked up for an unreasonable period of time, I think that is detrimental to culture. In terms of music, any pieces of music that can be considered "classic" or should be in the public domain. For example, we consider music from about 20 years ago, maybe 25-30 years ago to be "classic" therefore a 20-30 year limit IMO would be acceptable.

 

[Matt Collins]

I wonder where we all got the idea to begin with that people should be able to make a living off of creating art? What gives someone the intrinsic right to make a living from writing a song or writing a story?

The right isn't intrinsic, it's government granted.

Trying to force something like copyright law in this technological age is like telling someone not to breathe. It just isn't going to happen. If media companies had their way, computers would not exist at all.

Yes, and that is a very delicate balance. Unfortunately the only way to "enforce" copyright laws is to turn us into a draconian police state.

 

[Zarxrax]

I just came across this really interesting article on CNN, talking about how the music scene in Brazil THRIVES on piracy: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/10/19/brazil.tecnobrega.ap/index.html?eref=ib_technology

On the issues of patents as well, I think we definitely need to see some reform. There are a growing number of companies out there that are nothing more than patent trolls--they have no actual business, they simply get as many patents as they can on seemingly obvious ideas, and then wait on someone to invent it so they can then sue them. Patents have been so completely perverted from what their intent was, it's just sickening. I do agree that patents are still necessary to some extent to help foster expensive research and invention, but I think we really need to look at the whole problem from the ground up.