Intellectual property (patents, copyrights, etc.) [Archive]

View Full Version : Intellectual property (patents, copyrights, etc.)

Die Neue Zeit

17th July 2009, 02:08

Psy

20th July 2009, 00:13

This is meant to be a brainstorming thread for something that I hope to get a jump-start on this weekend, and it's about all that jazz regarding intellectual property... and how we should educate (via political programs and demands), agitate, and organize workers around the relevant issues.

So far I've got these notes:

- "The abolition of all intellectual property laws and of all restrictions on the non-commodity economy of peer-to-peer sharing, open-source programming, and the like" (Draft Program)
- "Abolition of all restrictions on the non-commodity economy, such as "peer-to-peer" sharing and "open source" programming. Abolition of "intellectual property" laws." (http://www.workers-party.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=54& Itemid=62)
- "Abolition of official secrecy laws and of private rights of copyright and confidentiality... abolition of constitutional guarantees of the rights of private property and freedom of trade." (Mike Macnair: http://www.iran-bulletin.org/Marxism/Macnair%20-%208.htm)

- "A song is intellectual property, but an invention or a scientific discovery should be knowledge for the world, especially medicine..." (Hugo Chavez: http://www.revleft.com/vb/chavez-may-end-t112178/index.html)
- "That a laboratory does not allow us to make a medicine because they have the patent, no, no, no..." (Chavez)
- "Patents have become a barrier to production, and we cannot allow them to be barriers to medicine, to life, to agriculture [...]" (Eduardo Saman)

Thoughts?
This was raised in Art in a Communist society (http://www.revleft.com/vb/art-communist-society-t78626/index.html?t=78626)

Theaters should be as accessible as libraries -- after all, they're just large buildings with big screens and movie projectors....

All films, as artwork, should be in the public domain -- irrespective of the wishes of the artist -- and all film productions should be publicly funded.

Distribution is now obviously taking place over the Internet, even for better-resolution videos -- have you seen dailymotion.com as well as YouTube -- ? Once the *content medium* quality is sufficient the screening medium (LCD screens, movie theaters) should be freely accessible to the public.

I agree except rather then all films I think it should be all films that are publicly funded while independent films (and art) remain the personal property of the artist till they either enter it into the public domain (by showing it publicly) or they die, of course I don't see much demand for independent films artists wouldn't want made public.

DIzzIE

21st July 2009, 01:50

rather then all films I think it should be all films that are publicly funded while independent films (and art) remain the personal property of the artist till they either enter it into the public domain (by showing it publicly) or they die, of course I don't see much demand for independent films artists wouldn't want made public.

Why the apparently arbitrary distinction? And what do you mean 'remain', as if they were ever their personal property in the first place?

Data does not enter into the public domain, it is already there; rather, it is only taken--or stolen, if you will--from it by attempts at privatisation, at pulling it from the creative commons in which it is gestated into the shackles of IP laws.

Psy

21st July 2009, 15:04

Why the apparently arbitrary distinction? And what do you mean 'remain', as if they were ever their personal property in the first place?

It is to maintain privacy for works that would embarrass the artist if they were made public (after their dead they no long be embarrassed).

Data does not enter into the public domain, it is already there; rather, it is only taken--or stolen, if you will--from it by attempts at privatisation, at pulling it from the creative commons in which it is gestated into the shackles of IP laws.
So you think embarrassing recordings of someone singing karaoke would be public domain instead of private?

cyu

21st July 2009, 20:39

So you think embarrassing recordings of someone singing karaoke would be public domain instead of private?
I would take kind of a different angle on this, since I believe in cultural change - in other words, if we wanted a better society, then we should be moving society away from one in which people are ashamed of their poor singing or whatever other irrelevant stuff, but are instead ashamed of oppression, bribery, and not having the integrity to stand up for others.

Rusty Shackleford

21st July 2009, 22:26

Countless people tweak their games to their preferences but they do not share the tweaks becasue they are so minor or they just dont want to. im fine with that.

videogame modding is an excellent example of how digital art would work without copyrights. some people do have a EULA but most of the time they are only asking for recognition and at least being informed their work is being copied for a different project. And since they are freeware from the go you could download it and copy it endlessly to help share the mod. These people spend their spare time providing an excellent source for entertainment without charging a dime.

Youtube is also another example of non copyrighted entertainment for the most part. The person may attach their name to their video, but you can copy it and do what you want to it.

Generally the way i see it, is if you dont want to share it. fine. if you do, you shouldn't charge for it, but you still can have your name on it. talent deserves recognition.

I also want to say i am completely supportive of piracy(but i dont want all of you to do it, because its a horrible bad thing /sarcasm/disclaimer). file sharing has helped devalue media as capital. and i hope it continues until media is not pushed to make money but is demanded for quality of entertainment.
DEATH TO DRM!
LONG LIVE INTERNET FREEDOM! /populism

DIzzIE

22nd July 2009, 01:28

It is to maintain privacy for works that would embarrass the artist if they were made public (after their dead they no long be embarrassed).

Since you are inexplicably using 'embarrassment' as a metric to justify privatisation, what do you think about the following scenarios, borne of this peculiar embarrassment metric...

At the time of creation the artist was not embarrassed about the work in question and thus freely distributed it. Now, let's say 20-odd years later, the artist is embarrassed by zir early work and wants to remove it from the public sphere. Should z be able to, and why?

While the artist is not, at the time, embarrassed by the work, the work explicitly references others in what could be construed as an unfavourable light and who may thus be embarrassed by its content. Should those others be able to remove it from the public sphere, and why?

While the artist is not, at the time, embarrassed by the work, and neither does the work contain any explicit references to others who may be embarrassed by its content, certain third parties nonetheless find the work to be embarrassing nonetheless (embarrassed on behalf of religion, culture, country, or just on behalf of the human race in general). Should those others be able to remove it from the public sphere, and why?

While you are certainly correct that once the artist is dead z could no longer be embarrassed, let's say certain others (ancestors or what have you) nonetheless hold that the work may be embarrassing to the memory of the author, to the family crest, or to whatever other excuse they happen to come up with. Should those others be able to remove it from the public sphere, and why?

And finally, since any content can potentially be embarrassing to anyone in any concocted circumstance, should anyone be able to remove any content that they find embarrassing, and why?

and as a bonus...

Let us say that there was a karaoke duet which one of the singers found embarrassing, while the other did not. Should their voice tracks then be meticulously separated so that only the track of the non-embarrassed participant is public, and why?

I am totally and completely failing to see why the fact that something may be construed as embarrassing to someone (as anything could be) should justify the privatisation of the work in question. And I can just as easily turn your statement on its head and claim that only works which are not embarrassing should be privatised...:rolleyes:.

So you think embarrassing recordings of someone singing karaoke would be public domain instead of private?

Yes.

but you still can have your name on it. talent deserves recognition.

Why? Here check this out: talent (what is talent, btw?) does not deserve recognition.

The utility of the author function is at best a classification akin to genre: a piece of metadata about the text which can be used to group varying texts together (say, if I want to read all works in the Mystery genre, or all works written by Stephen King, there is no difference between the function of genre and author). The other author functions are ones propagated by egoism (the desire to stroke one's ego, to write oneself into an authoritarian role of Creator, that is to literally say God, wherein others than pay tribute unto you and worship you), which of course privileges the author over the non-author, creating hierarchical instead of egalitarian relations.

And besides all this, is not the 'talent' recognised enough by reference to the work itself, not to the author? How is 'having your name on it' conducive to recognising talent? One would think that the talent is seen in the work, not the author...and that indeed 'having your name on it' only serves to recognise the author, not the talent. Unless of course you are using 'talent' as synonymous with 'author'...

binlargin

22nd July 2009, 02:23

I agree that the idea that something should be owned because it might be embarrassing is outrageous, the real issues of intellectual property falls into several distinct categories.

1) Copyright, the idea that content creators are given a temporary monopoly over their creations to help promote the production of creative works, in return for the works becoming public domain after the expiry of this right. This affords people the luxury of spending their entire life creating such works and becoming the best in their field. The arguments against this are-
a) It has been abused by extending copyright to 70 years after the author's death, the people of today will never benefit from any agreement between content creators of today. It is an unfair agreement.
b) When the laws were introduced it was hard to copy, nobody had a printing press or recording studio so they were not giving up much freedom. Nowadays it is much easier to copy, everyone has a printing press and recording studio on their desk. They are giving up too many freedoms for far too little reward.
c) It assumes that fewer people will create if they don't have a monopoly, and that more is better. The argument against this is that copyright law should not aim to maximize production, but to maximize benefit to society, which it currently does not.

I would accept a copyright duration of 20 years or less, providing there are fair use clauses to protect copying by individuals.

2) Trademarks, the idea that businesses should be able to own a brand, so that they can provide products and services under this brand. I can't really think of a reason not to have trademarks, I don't want some knock-off company having the legal right to masquerade as my bank or ride on the back of my success. Though they should be revoked if abused.

3) Patents, the idea that someone can own an invention. The reasoning behind this is that people never used to describe how their inventions worked, which meant an ongoing battle between obfuscation and reverse engineering. Patents offer time-limited protection to inventors who freely share their inventions, society gets the blueprints and the inventor gets to charge society for 30 years or so.
The problem here is worse than with copyright, almost everyone is literate and the average person can buy the means to create inventions for a day's wages, but to register and search for a patent it costs several month's wages. This gives an unfair advantage to the upper middle class inventor gentleman while stamping on the heads of the creative masses, it only serves to feed lawyers and stifle innovation. For these reasons IMO patents should be abolished.

4) Private data, the idea that our personal details are protected by law. I'm not talking about the embarrassing karaoke video but photographs of me in a private place taken without my consent, and data like my address, phone number, bank account, passwords and surfing history. This is something which protects individuals, this type of IP law should be strengthened if anything.

As for educating the public, we need to stamp out some damaging ideas:

1) That copyright violation is theft. It isn't, it's more like refusing to put a penny in a performer's hat.
2) That copyright protection is some kind of natural right. It isn't, it's an unfair agreement made for a previous era.
3) That you should feel obliged to follow laws that you don't agree with. You shouldn't, it's your duty to ignore them.
4) That creative people are special and everyone else is a consumer. They aren't, some people may be more skilled than others but that's mostly down to practice. Everyone can and should create.
5) That there is such a thing as a new invention or idea. There isn't, every idea is based on others. Everything is a remix of something else.

Psy

22nd July 2009, 16:31

Since you are inexplicably using 'embarrassment' as a metric to justify privatisation, what do you think about the following scenarios, borne of this peculiar embarrassment metric...

At the time of creation the artist was not embarrassed about the work in question and thus freely distributed it. Now, let's say 20-odd years later, the artist is embarrassed by zir early work and wants to remove it from the public sphere. Should z be able to, and why?
While the artist is not, at the time, embarrassed by the work, the work explicitly references others in what could be construed as an unfavourable light and who may thus be embarrassed by its content. Should those others be able to remove it from the public sphere, and why?
While the artist is not, at the time, embarrassed by the work, and neither does the work contain any explicit references to others who may be embarrassed by its content, certain third parties nonetheless find the work to be embarrassing nonetheless (embarrassed on behalf of religion, culture, country, or just on behalf of the human race in general). Should those others be able to remove it from the public sphere, and why?
While you are certainly correct that once the artist is dead z could no longer be embarrassed, let's say certain others (ancestors or what have you) nonetheless hold that the work may be embarrassing to the memory of the author, to the family crest, or to whatever other excuse they happen to come up with. Should those others be able to remove it from the public sphere, and why?
And finally, since any content can potentially be embarrassing to anyone in any concocted circumstance, should anyone be able to remove any content that they find embarrassing, and why?

and as a bonus...
Let us say that there was a karaoke duet which one of the singers found embarrassing, while the other did not. Should their voice tracks then be meticulously separated so that only the track of the non-embarrassed participant is public, and why?

I am totally and completely failing to see why the fact that something may be construed as embarrassing to someone (as anything could be) should justify the privatisation of the work in question. And I can just as easily turn your statement on its head and claim that only works which are not embarrassing should be privatised...:rolleyes:.

Yes.

Why? Here check this out: talent (what is talent, btw?) does not deserve recognition.

The utility of the author function is at best a classification akin to genre: a piece of metadata about the text which can be used to group varying texts together (say, if I want to read all works in the Mystery genre, or all works written by Stephen King, there is no difference between the function of genre and author). The other author functions are ones propagated by egoism (the desire to stroke one's ego, to write oneself into an authoritarian role of Creator, that is to literally say God, wherein others than pay tribute unto you and worship you), which of course privileges the author over the non-author, creating hierarchical instead of egalitarian relations.

And besides all this, is not the 'talent' recognised enough by reference to the work itself, not to the author? How is 'having your name on it' conducive to recognising talent? One would think that the talent is seen in the work, not the author...and that indeed 'having your name on it' only serves to recognise the author, not the talent. Unless of course you are using 'talent' as synonymous with 'author'...
I'm suggesting that workers remain private till they make them public, once they are public they stay public. For example a couple taping themselves having sex would not be released to the public automatically.

As for artists making works with studio resources then it is never private as the public gave the artist access to studio in return for their work made there being public.

The Situationist

4th August 2009, 13:28

I would posit that all artistic creations and inventions collectively belong to everyone. When someone creates a piece of art they are relying on the collective sum of experiences that they have encountered throughout their life. There is no such thing as an "original idea" and thus patents/copyrights should be null and void.

cyu

4th August 2009, 18:59

I think the main issue is that capitalism forces people to rely on "intellectual property" in order to make a living. If they didn't have this, then they would starve to death under capitalism.

If you instead wanted a system in which knowledge could be freely distributed, then you would have to get rid of capitalism. If they didn't have the fear of financial ruin hanging over their heads, then they wouldn't have to worry about others wanting to use their ideas - in fact, it would be quite the compliment to see others liking what you've come up with.

JJM 777

17th September 2009, 15:12

Chavez and many others complain about medical patents, how injust it feels that people in poor countries die because their countries have the technology to produce medicine, but they are forbidden from doing so by the monopoly owners of the medicine patents, and the country doesn't have money or will to pay the exorbitant patent fees.

I would gladly drop the "monopoly" part from all patent and copyright laws, leaving only the economical compensation part, without the "monopoly right to decide who can produce this" part. You want to produce a medicine or re-publish someone's music? Just do so without asking permission from anyone, and pay the typical standard royalties of the kind of products that you are making.

This simple change, removing the "monopoly" while leaving the economical protection of intellectual property, would already help a lot.

---

Then some general commentary of this topic... I use my favourite setting: imagine having a Socialist state and a Capitalist state living side by side in the world.

Inside the Socialist state we don't really need any copyright laws. But this might become a political issue of privacy: my friend scribbles some artwork for fun, without any intention to publish it -- is it right for other people to publicly distribute the art? A reasonable answer, inside the Socialist state, might be: You have the right to keep private all art etc. until you publicly publish them for the first time. After that point, your art is "public domain" inside the Socialist state, but "copyrighted" and owned by the state in trade relations between the Socialist state and the Capitalist state, should the Capitalist state need to buy some art etc. that the people of Socialist state have produced.

In trade relations between the Socialist state and Capitalist state, there would certainly be some hard negotiations about the extent and duration of patents and copyrights. If both states are expected to produce and buy from each other equal amount of intellectual property, the results of these negotiations would have no essential effect for the Socialist state. There would be some payments, big or small, from Socialist state to Capitalist state, and quite similar payments to the other direction, with end sum close to zero. In this case the issue would be no issue at all for the Socialist state.

But if we expect that the Socialist state would import more intellectual property than it exports, then it would naturally be our advantage to have as limited and short protection periods as possible. The Capitalist state would not agree to abolishing all such rights, and the Socialist state cannot unilaterally abolish them and start using the intellectual property of the Capitalist state, if the Socialist state wants to have peaceful relations and any trade relations whatsoever with the Capitalist state, which probably will be beneficial or even necessary for the Socialist state.

cyu

17th September 2009, 18:48

if the Socialist state wants to have peaceful relations and any trade relations whatsoever with the Capitalist state, which probably will be beneficial or even necessary for the Socialist state.

It depends on their relative strengths. If a bully can easily kill you, then obviously you don't challenge the bully directly. However, if you were much stronger and you see the bully attacking someone else, then it would be much easier to take out the bully.

In the anarchist view, if you want your own little community or nation of capitalism, or monarchy, or slavery, then you are free to have it, so long as everyone in that community is there of their own free will. However, if anybody in that community ever decides they don't like being a slave, serf, or wage-slave any more, then anarchists would help them free themselves. If 99% of the community's inhabitants decide they don't want to be wage-slaves any more, leaving only the CEO and board of directors, then anarchists would help free not only 99% of the people there, but 99% of the means of production as well.

Die Neue Zeit

25th September 2009, 03:50

While I have stated for "the abolition of all copyright, patent, and other intellectual property laws, as well as of all restrictions on the non-commodity economy of peer-to-peer sharing, open-source programming, and the like," that does not exclude the notion of compensating the creators themselves in the case of copyrights.

This compensation is already separated from the copyright concept because ownership and revenue rights over intellectual creation usually do not belong to the creators themselves, but rather to publishing companies, recording companies, and other distributors.

thesmokingfrog

4th October 2009, 06:43

1) Copyright, the idea that content creators are given a temporary monopoly over their creations to help promote the production of creative works, in return for the works becoming public domain after the expiry of this right. This affords people the luxury of spending their entire life creating such works and becoming the best in their field. The arguments against this are-

I'd like to expand this idea.
Copyrights are state granted monopolies over ‘intellectual inventions’ (art, technologies, pharmaceuticals…) that can have a costly production proccess (movie production, research…) that is distinct from its reproduction once invented. So, the ‘knowledge’/‘intellectual invention’ created is not a commodity In the Marxian sense. The value of the commodity that is actually sold is its reproduction value, the rest of the value acquired by the intellectual property holders is rent. Without intellectual property much of this activities just couldn’t be capitalistically exploited (much of them would probably left over to artisanship or state services).

http://www.qtl.co.il/img/copy.pnghttp://www.google.com/favicon.ico (http://www.google.com/search?q=I%27d%20like%20to%20expand%20this%20idea. %0D%0ACopyrights%20are%20state%20granted%20monopol ies)http://www.babylon.com/favicon.ico

Vladimir Innit Lenin

8th November 2009, 23:59

I'm not sure that this is strictly an 'economics' debate.

I view the debate around Intellectual Property as more of a rights one.

It would possibly be benificial to offer a production subsidy to an artist/filmmaker who chooses to allow their work to bypass intellectual property laws, to start with. You would then find that there would be a clamour for production subsidies and intellectual property laws would become obsolete. This would surely be a better process than having a sudden ban on intellectual property, which could lead the way for loopholes to be found, court cases to be had etc.

Tribune

12th November 2009, 01:57

Tribune

12th November 2009, 01:59

It depends on their relative strengths. If a bully can easily kill you, then obviously you don't challenge the bully directly. However, if you were much stronger and you see the bully attacking someone else, then it would be much easier to take out the bully.

In the anarchist view, if you want your own little community or nation of capitalism, or monarchy, or slavery, then you are free to have it, so long as everyone in that community is there of their own free will. However, if anybody in that community ever decides they don't like being a slave, serf, or wage-slave any more, then anarchists would help them free themselves. If 99% of the community's inhabitants decide they don't want to be wage-slaves any more, leaving only the CEO and board of directors, then anarchists would help free not only 99% of the people there, but 99% of the means of production as well.

How can a person be said to freely submit to the demonstrably unfree conditions of capitalist ownership and production?

Are you suggesting that a person can freely choose to be exploited, alienated from her own labor, deprived of self-control, to the emolument of another, knowing full well that the conduct of each produces conditions which can never be called free?

cyu

12th November 2009, 20:02

Are you suggesting that a person can freely choose to be exploited, alienated from her own labor, deprived of self-control, to the emolument of another, knowing full well that the conduct of each produces conditions which can never be called free?

I'm just saying sadists exist and masochists exist. If a masochist chooses to spend their time with a sadist, anarchists believe they have the right to do so. You're free to try to convince the masochist to stop being a masochist, but I wouldn't say you have the right to prevent them from seeing the sadist.

On the other hand, if the masochist decides the sadist is too rough or decides to abandon masochism altogether, then anarchists would happily help the masochist with liberation and self defense.

Psy

19th November 2009, 23:14

With no disrespect intended by the question: Does who owns what song matter to a starving person?

Should our economic focus revolve around what are essentially managerial concerns, when the crushing "logic" of capitalist ownership of production daily results in hunger, homelessness and ill health?

It is the relationship between artists and art in the market, a mature communist that have eliminated involuntary hunger would have to address this question. Society would have to decide if it wants to have totally free art where anyone in society can do anything to intellectual works even steal credit for others people work, the other is for production of art to somehow avoid plagiarism so leaches don't take credit. One solution to avoid plagiarism is a worldwide art registry like the Internet Movie Database but for all art where artist register their art as it released, this would at least ensure credit is given correctly.

maya

29th November 2009, 03:36

It is the relationship between artists and art in the market, a mature communist that have eliminated involuntary hunger would have to address this question. Society would have to decide if it wants to have totally free art where anyone in society can do anything to intellectual works even steal credit for others people work, the other is for production of art to somehow avoid plagiarism so leaches don't take credit. One solution to avoid plagiarism is a worldwide art registry like the Internet Movie Database but for all art where artist register their art as it released, this would at least ensure credit is given correctly.

I agree, people should have recourse if somebody takes credit for something they created first.

Chavez is wrong about songs being more entitled to copyright than medicine. In a socialist society nobody should be dragged of to prison for duplicating a pill or singing a song.

I think Chavez might be being influenced by his friends in Hollywood on that subject.

Die Neue Zeit

1st December 2009, 04:54

Although I have already written all the commentary I need to write on intellectual property, here's some bad news:

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/87310/leak-confirms-acta-is-as-bad-as-feared/

While the entirety of the proposed ACTA treaty for the global enforcement of intellectual property and copyright has yet to become public, the response of the EU to the draft document surfaced today. It was posted on the website of the German political party, Die Linke (The Left), but is in English, although it should be said, the language is somewhat legalistic, and a bit cryptic without access to the original document itself. Nonetheless, as the Canadian Law Professor Michael Geist points out, and to the surprise of absolutely no one, the leaked document makes it very clear that the worst fears about the ACTA treaties content have been confirmed. Via ACTA the US would create a new global copyright regime that combined the worst of American law like the DMCA and the notice-and-takedown policy, with the growing international policy of “three strikes and you’re out” Internet bans.