Posted on 01/28/2015 4:28:22 AM PST by Kaslin
For most of history, people suffered in miserable poverty.
Then, in a few hundred years, some new ideas made life hugely better for billions of us -- things like running water, the printing press, the steam engine, electricity, the Internet.
We want people to keep coming up with new and better ideas. But there's a problem: Why would you bother to spend years inventing something if other people can just steal your idea? Who will devote years and millions of dollars to making a big movie? Or a dozen years and billions of dollars to bringing a new drug to market? Almost no one.
Filmmaker Kirby Ferguson sums up problem: "Let's say a guy invents a better light bulb. His price needs to cover not just the manufacturing costs but also the costs of inventing the thing in the first place. Let's say a competitor starts manufacturing a copy. The competitor doesn't need to cover those development costs, so his version can be cheaper."
Then he profits, but the original inventor goes out of business. That's why America grants time-limited patents and copyrights to creators of songs, books, movies, paintings, drugs, etc. Fine.
But today Fox won't let me sing the song "Happy Birthday" on my TV show. That's because Warner Music bought the rights to it in 1998. People now have to pay Warner about $2 million a year to use the song in commercials and movies.
Sheesh. Why does Warner get such a long copyright? The song already existed. It's not like the composer needs protection.
Bridgeport Music, a business that makes no music but obtains copyrights and then sues people, won a lawsuit over two seconds of sound. When we questioned that, their lawyer wrote back: "I personally do not understand those who criticize people for protecting their intellectual property ... (We) happen to own valuable music."
Give me a break. He's an opportunistic parasite.
I wonder about my former employer, Disney, too. It paid nothing for the Snow White story because it was in the public domain. But then Disney managed to get its version of Snow White copyrighted for 95 years. Will 95 years of protection make Disney's animators more creative? I doubt it.
In the era of the Internet, when young people take mashups and do-it-yourself parodies for granted, maybe intellectual property in its current form has outlived its expiration date.
David Koepsell, of the Center for Inquiry, says today's rules are hostile to free speech. "Intellectual property law actually prevents me from making certain expressions, things that are allegedly other people's own."
Lawyer Stephan Kinsella, author of "Against Intellectual Property ," says copyright decreases intellectual output because it "prevents people from saying what they want to say, from copying, learning, sharing, remixing." That stops some books from being reprinted and movies from being remade.
When Hollywood complains about "piracy," Kinsella asks, "Why call it piracy? Pirates stole. But if you copy ideas, you don't take anything away from the originator."
Thomas Jefferson once agreed, writing, "He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper (candle) at mine, receives light without darkening me."
Kinsella points out that movie industry income doubled even though films are now widely copied. "The danger to artists and to people who want to get their name out there is obscurity, not piracy."
I'm not sure what to think. Some of you watch my shows on YouTube. I like that because it means my show reaches more people. But those who post my videos do actually steal from Fox. If everyone can do that, why would Fox pay me or cover the cost of doing my show? When I see myself on YouTube, I both smile and cringe.
So how should ideas be protected? Magicians and comedians found ways to protect their inventions without government -- by keeping tricks a secret or shaming people for stealing jokes.
I'll explore these ideas on my TV show in its new slot, Friday, 9 p.m. Eastern. And if some clips from it turn up on YouTube ..
I wonder if anyone has trademarked the terms “Global Warming” “Climate Change” or the like. It would be funny if that could be done and Gore and the EcoFreaks could be sued every time they used them. :0)
fascinating....
That is, it isn't property, and it can't be owned, and there's no fundamental right to it.
Properties, trademarks, and patents are legal monopolies granted by the government because doing so is believed to be in the public interest.
The Congress shall have power ... [t]o promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries
If the current laws no longer serve the public interest, they need to be changed. And any discussion of "rights" during the discussion of what they should be changed to needs to be squashed.
If you want to see a society as well as a country that does NOT value Intellectual Property, I suggest you look at China.
They have grown great once again off of the hard work and knowledge garnered by that hard work, simply by stealing it right and left. Historically the Chinese have always done this, they see nothing wrong with the idea of theft of ideas and Intellectual Property.
IP is mostly a Western Civilization idea, it is truly one of the bedrock foundations of our civilization. Come up with an idea that is new and you MIGHT make it rich off of that idea and hard work too.
China doesn’t think or work that way, which is why it is such a rigidly stratified society, Confucianism was praised for that very concept of rigid placement in their society. It also explains why such a hard working people have not advanced for several thousand years until there was a new source of ideas to steal and spread out in their society.
Too bad they didn’t look at the negative aspects of the ideas they stole. Their rivers and arable land are nearly unrecoverable from the pollution they have spread on them. That’s what happens when you steal ideas and don’t look at the consequences that CAN accompany them.
I tend to agree - I went into the piece wondering where a true philosophical libertarian thinker (and Stossel is one, most who claim it are not) would come down on this issue.
95 years is ridiculous. 25 would be more appropriate.
Personally, having some exposure to biotech space and therefore aware of the truly staggering loss of bringing a drug to market, I would stifle my libertarian impulses and grant substantial protection to successful biotech pioneers. I simply do not understand the left's trading our inheritance in this area for a mess of porridge when they moved to import drugs from Canada and elsewhere in which the drug companies are uncompensated for the tens of millions of dollars (not infrequently hundreds of millions) risked to gain acceptance. It is even more galling when one recognizes that these countries grant credence to the findings of the American FDA in approving these drugs.
Yeah, it’s an upside down liberal world when Snow White can be protected for 95 years - even as there’s no cost to anyone if it’s not protected - while bio tech and other innovations are not well protected - with devastating costs to the developers.
Memo to George Orwell: you under estimated....
Sorry, you can’t own Happy Birthday. They might think they own it, but they don’t.
John’s slightly off on his facts: the Roman Empire had running water and flush toilets.
Bait and switch.
The author starts out citing useful technical inventions, but the article then focuses only on copyright matters.
Rush Limbaugh makes a heap of cash in making use of the Golden EIB microphone and writing books, both of which would be worthless without the way he crafts and expresses ideas.
Years ago I had the opportunity to work for a “think tank” group that was part of a large corporation. Their mission was to predict future trends in technology and devise prototypes of future consumer products (it was a pretty cool job!).
At one point the director became obsessed over ownership of intellectual property and redirected the team to scouring within the company looking for patentable ideas and designs among the work they had already done.
In short they stopped inventing and instead spent their time and talents ruminating over past achievements.
‘There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit’ - Ronald Reagan
What about all the drugs our FDA after they approve them have to turn around and put warnings on them? OP drugs have strong warnings on them. Reclast being the worst offender.
This one is fairly new and already has a FDA warning on it.
Savella http://www.rxlist.com/savella-side-effects-drug-center.htm
FDA Warning Savella
http://www.fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch/SafetyInformation/ucm203615.htm
Having Gastroparesis I can’t tolerate any of the meds. Reglan was supposed to control much of it, now it carries a 12 day restriction. Europe has just restricted DOMPERIDONE, (nearly 60 heart related deaths, and 350 heart related issues)
http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/cancer/medicines/motilium.html
New restrictions on use of domperidone issued by the MHRA
http://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/news-and-analysis/news/new-restrictions-on-use-of-domperidone-issued-by-the-mhra/11137797.article
Which they have been using for years.
My gastro wants me to order it our of the Philippines. NO FREAKING WAY. I want samples first, saves the hassle of disposing of a bottle of $300 pills after taking 1 or 5 pills.
WEICHOL
http://medsfacts.com/study-WEICHOL-causing-TREMOR.php I was told had few if any side effects 5 pills later I’m in so much gout like pain I can’t walk. That was a $300 bottle of pills to be thrown out. Ditto on 4 other Cholesterol drugs.
Gardasil is another of those drugs that had to little pre market research before approval.
I’ve very tired of being Big Pharma’s guinea pig. And the FDA is useless to get a bad drug reported and removed from the market. All you get is a automated system that is as bad as 0’care’s for usage.
Horse feces. You are taking the ability of the originator to charge a FEE for the use of the idea. It's theft.
It depends upon the type of property. Consider a trademark, like the NBC peacock, a gas station logo, or MacDonald's golden arches, if it was OK to steal that, customers would be confused and the originator could even potentially be sued by someone harmed using the bogus bait. Trademarks are property that is continually in use and should be considered private property for as long as the entity operates. Similarly, a song long associated with a particular individual can function the same way, such as Andy Williams singing "Moon River" or Dean Martin singing "Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime." Personally, such latter types of property should be good for 25 years or the life of the owner as long as it is still in use, whichever is greater. OTOH, consider my environmental business method patent, it will be many years before even the first business gets off the ground in this environment. Is that my fault?
So my point is that the life of civic protection for private intellectual property SHOULD depend upon the type and use of the property. Blanket statements with bright lines may get a conversation started, but to discount the claim as legitimate is to blow off the benefit from investment risk cited at the beginning of the article.
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