posted
I've been thinking about this for sometime. As an academic, I have a personal stake in the defense of Intellectual Property Rights (i.e. patents, copyrights etc.). I have made a very modest amount of money from copyrights, certainly never enough to live on. But there is a potential that I might some day get rich off of a patent or a copyright. I fully recognize that patents and copyrights provide a valuable monetary incentive for people to do creative work. At the very minimum, income from intellectual property makes it possible for artists, scientists and others to dedicate their lives to creating new ideas that enrich the community.
But at the same time I recognize that "intellectual property" is a totally artificial concept. If you are using a bicycle, for example, I can't possibly use it at the same time. This simply isn't true of ideas. Once an idea has been communicated to others, it can be used by many people simultaneously. In fact, one of the great things about being human is that we can share ideas and by sharing ideas we create a synergism that keeps spawning new and better ideas. Over and over again I have observed how "intellectual property rights" can stiffle this synergism and really impede progress and stiffle creativity.
For example, a few decades ago, someone came up with the idea of putting a cleat on a decked snowshoe. They obtained a patent on the idea and made alot of money selling the sherba bearclaw snowshoe. Until the patent ran out, this was the only snowshoe in its class and was far more expensive than anyother snowshoe around. Snowshoeing was pretty much a geek sport with only a few hardcore backwoods man sorts really doing it. When the patent explored, there was a sudden explosion of snowshoe technology. Everyone and their brother began introducing some improvement on the bearclaw idea. Within a couple of years there were over a dozen different kinds of cleated snowshoes being sold over a broad price range. Simultaneously, the popularity of snowshoeing skyrocketed. Curiously, the Sherpa Bearclaw has never innovated their design and I'm not even sure they are in business anymore.
Now I no that snowshoeing is pretty trivial, but I think that the same process occurs in far more important arena.
So what is the proper balance. How do we encourage creation and free exchange of ideas, and still protect the rights and livelihoods of the creators. At what point has an idea really become part of the public domain and no longer belongs to the owner.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
OK, Second question here. Suppose that in reading some book, say Harry Potter, you come up with a great idea for a story. Your idea is creative and unique, but it was inspired by JK Rowlings fictional world. How should your rights to communicate your story and Rowlings rights to her "intellectual property" be balanced. I know what the laws are now, that's not the question. My question is, what kind of laws would promote the most creativity and spawn the most new and interesting ideas? Are current laws depriving us of some great creative art and/or invention? If so how can we change them without endangering the livelihoods of the creators?
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
It's interesting. The only thing I can come up with off the top of my head is some sort of profit sharing. Like, for your example, the snowshoes. Rather than stifling the competition, if all the companies had given 10 or 15% of the money they made from their improved product, then the first company probably would have ended up making more money than they did and not have to do the work. I'd think there would have to be some sort of arbitration to determine how much the original owner should be entitled to. I think they already have some type of similar process at the patent office, because as I recall, your invention has to be a certain percent "different" to get a patent.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
From the school library, it seems plenty of folks just come up with a similar but not legally actionable set of characters, plot, and premise and go ahead with the story. But I've never known of anyone to buy such books instead of Harry Potter. i.e. It's usually in addition to. Kids can read faster than authors can write. And then there's the fact that Harry Potter is derivative of existing genres.
posted
I think the way US patents works is pretty good, giving a limited time period in which the creator of something has exclusive control over it. I think that copyrights were originally intended to work like this, but the music industry has managed to expand this timeperiod to ridiculous levels. the birthday song is a perfect example of this.
i also like the ideas of open-source and gpu licensing, where everyone has access to an idea or invention and is free to use it for research and such, but must pay a royalty if they use the idea (directly) to make money (at least that's my take on the whole gpu thing which i don't really understand).
Posts: 380 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Patents work pretty well when it comes to mechanical inventions, and even reasonably well when it comes to electronic innovation, but when it comes to software, a 20 year exclusive right is absurd. Actually, it's absurd in electronics as well. For example, in the graphics hardware world, a six-month advantage can mean millions of dollars in increased revenues. A twenty-year advantage is difficult to comprehend.
Regarding copyrights: The Harry Potter scenario is pretty well laid out already. Copyright doesn't cover stories, or even characters. If someone wrote a book with exactly the same plotline, with characters who had exactly the same personalities as Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone, but changed all the names and used different words, J.K. Rowling would have no ability to stop them.
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Here is what I take from your snow-show history.
Joe invents A. Joe Patents A. Joe produces and sells A in an environment of virtual monopoly. This increases the price of A and hence, limits its marketability. Price is high so demand is low.
Patent ends. Other companies reproduce Joe's invention, with improvements of their own. These are gradual improvements, not major patentable ones. Competition lowers price. Low price increases demand. A and A-clones boom.
Why do we need the down time of the Patent?
You forget that while Joe is inventing A, he is making no money. Further, he is out the expense of product research and development, as well as the expenses of production from scratch.
There are two different skill sets. One is development and the other is marketing. Intellectual Property rights are designed to offer insentives to people who are good at developing things. Otherwise, all their work would quickly disappear into the pockets of those good at marketing or producing things. With out that motivation, fewer new and improved products would ever be made.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Except that this isn't what happened in the Snowshoe case. For the first few years after the patent expired, all the competitors who entered the market were actually selling for more than the original bearclaw snowshoes. They were competing in the market based on quality not lower price. The large variety of different and better snowshoes coming out spurred an interest in snowshoeing from people who had been involve in backcountry skiing and trail running. Once the market began to expand dramatically, some companies began marketing lower priced versions of the snowshoes with cleats.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
Example: The author in Russia who did precisely that.
And "The wind done gone".
Not fair, I suppose - and these are extreme examples.
But it's difficult to come up with a completely original concept - look at how many stories could be compared with other works.
"Star Wars" has a lot of fun window dressing, but it is basically a hero story with poor farmer's boy turns out to be the King (or hero, heir to some Power), etc.
posted
It would be interesting to find out why Bearclaw didn't expand on it's product line, given the name recognition factor it could have capitalized on.
quote:You forget that while Joe is inventing A, he is making no money
Did you read my post? I thought I made it quite clear that I see the need to reward creators for being creative. My question is not whether or not they deserve to make money, it is whether we can find a better system where inventors and other creators can be fairly rewarded for their work with out creating a monopoly on "Intellectual Property" that throttles our natural human tendancy to build on others ideas.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
A few things come to mind for me, first of all, on the side of patents, I'd have to say that while our pattent system works to a point, it has plenty of problems, especially with technology, for instance: recently, Microsoft has patented the 3D scroll wheel, a design that has been around for years already, just not popular. Second, Apple is attempting to patent the see-through window...something that -as far as I know- linux-based GUIs started using first. The problem? The patent office just can't keep up with all this stuff, but I'm going on a tangent...
My greatest argument though, is that intellectual property rights can run along with human progress, see the Open Source Movement and academia. These are movements that while respecting the intellectual property of individuals (by giving credit to them) allows all people to use the ideas or technologies or information from what they've developed, in computers, with the development of different UNIX OSes, software, research in microprocessors (AMD, Intel, and other manufacturers actually work together in researching to make smaller dyes), to academic journals publishing findings of different scientists, professors, etc, and including the Human Genome Project. These are completely open communities where people are able to share information, and still be able to flurish, intellectually, and yes economically. However this openess does come with a caveat, there has to be some sort of trust among all those involved to guarantee that nobody is going to malitiously exploit another's work. Alas, in many situations in a capitalist society such as ours -and in fact any society- such a trust isn't found often...I suppose that says something about our society, eh? Oops, I'm going off on a tangent again. Satyagraha
Posts: 1986 | Registered: Apr 2001
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1) Patent Office sucks. There needs to be stricter guidelines on what you can/can't patent.
2) The time-limit on patents is absurd. Unfortunately, the government has shown itself to be uninterested in changing the patent to something reasonable.
---- So what's a reasonable length for a patent? We could break them down into different categories, like books versus concepts. When should books become free? I don't know. It seems all well and good to put a limit at the author's death (or X number of years, whichever is later), but some people talk about the legacy inheritance. It doesn't seem like there's a clear answer.
Posts: 1892 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:However this openess does come with a caveat, there has to be some sort of trust among all those involved to guarantee that nobody is going to malitiously exploit another's work.
There is currently a movement called "copyleft" which seeks to give legal protection to open source code. It essential allows open access to the code but prohits anyone from make it part of a closed source product.
And in the academic community, creators are able to flurish with open exchange because they a subsidised by the community, typically through taxes, foundations and endowments.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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