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edwest2
Guest
Here’s one. I could post links to his other works.
amazon.com/Adventures-Huckleberry-Finn-Mark-Twain/dp/0812504224/ref=tmm_mmp_title_0
Peace,
Ed
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amazon.com/Adventures-Huckleberry-Finn-Mark-Twain/dp/0812504224/ref=tmm_mmp_title_0
Peace,
Ed
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edwest2
Guest
Sorry, Joe. You’re being vague. You say there’s a problem but what is the solution? And if something is wrong, can you tell us what it is?I don’t know that speculating about people’s motives necessarily furthers the discussion.
I can only speak for myself. I have no sour grapes. I majored in writing in college. As a kid, I dreamed of being a writer. I still like to write, but I never pursued it professionally. I do like the arts, though: literature, music, art, etc. I congratulate others on being successful. I’m not looking to cash in on Harry Potter: Year 8 or anything.
I think that the availability of art and intellectual property does have ramifications for the public good. I won’t say I know the best way to go about it, but I don’t think the current system is it.
Sorry, Ed, I thought people would catch the reference. It’s a quote attributed to Picasso, I think. It don’t mean the quote in the modern “let’s pirate stuff” sense of stealing. Many great artists “steal” from those who have gone before them by building on their work and making it their own (as a “thief” does). For an artist to simply “borrow” means making reference to the other work without making it their own.
Take Romeo and Juliet, for example. Shakespeare took the plot and characters from a dry, dull poem and turned it into a masterpiece of theater that people still know, love, and perform 400 years later. That’s the type of stuff we limit when we make the copyright term so long that no one even remembers the work by the time it reaches public domain.
And again, I’m not advocating some sort of free-for-all when it comes to intellectual property. I pay for my books, CDs, and DVDs. I’m not out to score free stuff or anything.
Public domain - the dream of the lazy.
Peace,
Ed
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edwest2
Guest
Why? Who does it hurt? That’s the central question, and nobody has provided a good answer.
Peace,
Ed
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edwest2
Guest
Talk to your library. There is something called inter-library loan. Yes, they will find out if another library has it and get it to your library. I collect books. Once again, it takes work. There’s a massive network of used book dealers out there.
I don’t understand how you can search for a book without knowing the title or author’s name. It’s just like something I hear in bookstores fairly regularly.
Clerk: “Can I help you, mam?”
Customer: "Yes, I’m looking for a book I had when I was a kid. I think it had a red train on the cover but I’m not sure.
Clerk: "OK. Do you remember the author’s name?
Customer: “No. Sorry.”
Clerk: “Well, all I can do is direct your to our children’s book section.”
Give me a title, and I’ll check the network I use.
Peace,
Ed
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edwest2
Guest
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St_Francis
Guest
I used to work in publishing and heard about this, but don’t remember the details. It wouldn’t be illegal or immoral.
Related but not quite the same, Discovery Magazine bought Science 198* (in 86), and immediately stopped publishing it.
Yes, I do. Do you know that people can’t check books out of the LoC? Do you know sometimes it’s hard to find OOP books, even in used books stores?
The children are the whole point of my argument–passing culture down through the generations! I am just explaining why i have a problem with the length of copyright nowadays. I am not against copyright altogether, I am not against copyright extension. I am just against te current copy ritght. If some wants to reprint an old book, they have to find the author and when he died to see whether or not or when the copyright expired.
What I am against is books in limbo for too long a period of time, not paying royalties.
J
JIB
Guest
I think patents, trademarks and copyrights are all illegitimate. I reject utilitarianism, so any arguments for IP are unconvincing. I used to be all about IP as a sort of reflexive position, but after reading some illuminating books and articles I’ve come to the conclusion that IP as it is today is based on violating people’s property rights.
I do believe in trade secrets, but that’s not really IP.
The reason pharmaceuticals are so expensive is due to government regulations. I also support a pure free market so i don’t support most of the things that make drugs do expensive.
I can recommend some books about IP if you’re interested.
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edwest2
Guest
Like any business, when a book stops selling, it stops getting reprinted. If someone made an old device that you’d like to make again, all you have to do is find even a picture of that old device, which should include a name and manufacturer. I recently bought an old metal rocket ship that was made in 1957. It has the name of the manufacturer, who later went out of business. I looked it up online and discovered that later copies included Us and Canadian patent numbers, my example does not. I could certainly do a patent search and locate enough information to see if I could make modern copies. If the patent was not renewed or abandoned, then I could proceed. There is an even a company that makes copies of old Aurora model kits. The originals are just too expensive.
Peace,
Ed
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St_Francis
Guest
Surely you jest?
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
I am curious what you mean by that. Do you mean that companies are entitled to try to keep things secret by normal internal policies? Or do you mean that the government has a role to play in helping enforce trade secrets by enforcing civil penalties for violators? And if someone does violate a trade secret, whether they are punished or not, does that make the information made public by that violation free for anyone else to use without hinderance?
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JIB
Guest
Trade secrets would be protected by contract. If someone releases a trade secret they would have violated a contract and subject to whatever penalties were spelled out. If the public finds out then it’s public knowledge. I would imagine that contracts involving trade secrets would be pretty air tight and have draconian penalties.
If a guy told me the Coke formula I would under no obligation to keep it a secret.
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thewanderer
Guest
I’m not sure what you think I was implying, but I certainly am not advocating all ou plagiarism or anything like that. As I’ve mentioned on another thread I really don’t know enough about this all yet to know exactly what copyright laws are the most just. I do know enough abou it, however, to know that the debate about what copyright laws are most just is not a closed debate. My point was simply that this is a legitimate discussion, I am not making any assertions about what the most just laws would be.
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thewanderer
Guest
Or you could be someone trying to establish the most just laws regardless of whether or not it helps you in particular.
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JIB
Guest
It’s not possible to take possession of another’s intellectual property since it is not real property.
If I take your car I have deprived you of real property.
If I take your car I have deprived you of real property.
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atheistgirl
Guest
If I come up with a particular idea for a product, depending on that product I may or may not be able to patent all of it or certain bits of it.Think of it this way. You think up some original idea (although how in the world you determine that noone has ever thought it up before is beyond me). Then, a year later, someone, somewhere halfway across the globe who never heard about your idea comes up with the exact same idea. He did not copy you, it was a completely original thought, if you will. If coming up with the idea on your own makes it yours, then you must admit that it is not just yours, but it also belongs to this other man. Or what if this other person comes up with his idea first, but you copyright it before he does. Now it apparantly belongs to you, even though you weren’t the first person to think of it. That just doesn’t make sense. Yes, its fine to put in legislation that says that no one else can use it without your permission because you copyrighted it, and thats totally fine, but that doesn’t make it actually your property.
I do a patent search, and if I’m not infringing someone elses patent, and/or no one else has registered such a patent, I can register my patent.
That makes it mine, in these circumstances.
If someone else comes up with the exact same idea, months later, and produces the exact same product in the exact same way, they’ll be hearing from my lawyers, because they are infringing my patent.
The very first thing they should have done, is a patent search. I’ve bought patents off others, who’ve patented a process I intended to use. I thought of it independently, but when I searched, someone else had registered the patent. This meant I had to buy the patent off them, if it’s for sale.
Some don’t sell, prefering to licence to others. I’ve done this too.
Not every idea is patentable.
I sell one particular product that as best I can tell, I am the only person doing so on a large commercial scale. If you come up with the same idea, or decide to copy and produce this product after seeing mine, or there’s some one else somewhere in the world doing likewise, there’s not a thing I can do about it. It’s not patentable, or protectable in any way. The only advantage I have here is being first (and only so far) to market and an established history and reputation with the buyers of this particular product. It’s a very niche market and product. I literally thought of it over breakfast one morning, and finalized the business plan in the shower.
Given the quality of the product we produce, I know for a fact you could never beat me on quality. The only chance you’d have is to beat me on price, which would see you out of the market in 6 months.
So I’m not bothered.
But everything above involves time, money and lawyers fees. My time, money and lawyers fees!
You think I’m going to sit back and let some one else make money off my ideas, time, and costs where I do all the hard work and they just sit back and copy what I’ve protected?
You come up with a trademark for your product that’s close enough to one of mine, or come up with a brand name that’s close enough to one of mine, or use similar packaging or descriptions that’s close enough to one of mine, and you will definately be on the losing end of a visit from my lawyers!
And so it should be!
Sarah x
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Joe_5859
Guest
We don’t always have to know the solution to be able to identify a problem.
I can appreciate where you’re coming from. I know that these issues hit right where you work and you can see first-hand the damage that is done when people circumvent the law. I think intellectual property laws are good laws to have. What motivation would a person have to devote so much time and energy into creating something it it entered the public domain immediately upon completion? I would never agree to get rid of those laws altogether.
But I think there’s such a thing as going too far. I fail to see how retaining copyright for a century is necessary to respect the rights of the artist. The copyright laws as we have them today are a relative historical novelty.
I’m not advocating laziness. I’m not advocating plagiarism. I’m certainly not advocating piracy. I can definitely see how a lot of people would turn a more robust public domain into an opportunity to make an easy buck. But I don’t think the existence of shysters should lead us to abandon the concept. What is the alternative, to grant a person and his or her heirs complete control in perpetuity? The end result of that approach is that ideas are turned into commodities to be bought and sold to the hightest bidder. That prospect doesn’t sit well with me.
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edwest2
Guest
Well, Joe, you’re looking at it the wrong way. Intellectual Property is property and I would will any I owned to anybody I wanted.We don’t always have to know the solution to be able to identify a problem.
I can appreciate where you’re coming from. I know that these issues hit right where you work and you can see first-hand the damage that is done when people circumvent the law. I think intellectual property laws are good laws to have. What motivation would a person have to devote so much time and energy into creating something it it entered the public domain immediately upon completion? I would never agree to get rid of those laws altogether.
But I think there’s such a thing as going too far. I fail to see how retaining copyright for a century is necessary to respect the rights of the artist. The copyright laws as we have them today are a relative historical novelty.
I’m not advocating laziness. I’m not advocating plagiarism. I’m certainly not advocating piracy. I can definitely see how a lot of people would turn a more robust public domain into an opportunity to make an easy buck. But I don’t think the existence of shysters should lead us to abandon the concept. What is the alternative, to grant a person and his or her heirs complete control in perpetuity? The end result of that approach is that ideas are turned into commodities to be bought and sold to the hightest bidder. That prospect doesn’t sit well with me.
Peace,
Ed
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JimG
Guest
I’m not sure I understand how shortening copyright terms would help preserve books for future generations. Actually, keeping the copyright in effect might be better at preserving those books.
When demand falls off, a publisher stops printing the book. When demand increases, the publisher may do a print run. But we are soon reaching a point in technology where a single book may be printed on demand. The copyright holder would be willing to print a lot of otherwise out of print books this way. They are also beginning to make books available by licensed download, which is even easier. But if copyright expires, many publishers and authors have no interest in maintaining the book or maintaining its integrity.
Motion picture producers copyright their products. They make money from the first run, the second run, the video rentals, the streaming vids, a lot of different ways. Without copyright, everything would be a lot less available, and produces would clamp down on distribution pretty tightly.
Gone With The Wind, is still earning money.
When demand falls off, a publisher stops printing the book. When demand increases, the publisher may do a print run. But we are soon reaching a point in technology where a single book may be printed on demand. The copyright holder would be willing to print a lot of otherwise out of print books this way. They are also beginning to make books available by licensed download, which is even easier. But if copyright expires, many publishers and authors have no interest in maintaining the book or maintaining its integrity.
Motion picture producers copyright their products. They make money from the first run, the second run, the video rentals, the streaming vids, a lot of different ways. Without copyright, everything would be a lot less available, and produces would clamp down on distribution pretty tightly.
Gone With The Wind, is still earning money.
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thewanderer
Guest
I think you missed the point of what I was saying. Yes, the law makes out ‘yours’ in a way, but the idea itself is somethin that naturally cannot belong to one person. No matter what you might do to prevent others from coming up with the same idea by themselves you can never guarantee that they won’t, and them coming up with the idea doesn’t make it any less yours, it is now yours in the same way it is this other persons (excluding copyright laws for the moment, as that obscures the issue) It is only when you add in positive law that ideas can start to be though of as ‘belonging’ to people. So yes, in a way it becomes ‘yours’ when you patent it, but only artificially through law, no naturally. Now since it is the law it would be wron for anyone to copy it without permission, but that doesn’t have anything to do with the example I brought up. My example was of two different people coming up with the same idea entirely on their own without any knowledge of each other working on it. Currently it is possible for the person who came up with the idea second to be the one to gain ‘ownership’. There is absolutely nothing natural about that kind of ownership, if ideas were the kind of thing that could be owned naturally then the idea would always belong to the first person to come up with it. However, that is no how ownership of an idea is determined, it is determined by the first person to gain legal rights by presenting their idea for a patent etc. Which shows that the ownership is not natural, but artificial.
If I come up with a particular idea for a product, depending on that product I may or may not be able to patent all of it or certain bits of it.
I do a patent search, and if I’m not infringing someone elses patent, and/or no one else has registered such a patent, I can register my patent.
That makes it mine, in these circumstances.
If someone else comes up with the exact same idea, months later, and produces the exact same product in the exact same way, they’ll be hearing from my lawyers, because they are infringing my patent.
The very first thing they should have done, is a patent search. I’ve bought patents off others, who’ve patented a process I intended to use. I thought of it independently, but when I searched, someone else had registered the patent. This meant I had to buy the patent off them, if it’s for sale.
Some don’t sell, prefering to licence to others. I’ve done this too.
Not every idea is patentable.
I sell one particular product that as best I can tell, I am the only person doing so on a large commercial scale. If you come up with the same idea, or decide to copy and produce this product after seeing mine, or there’s some one else somewhere in the world doing likewise, there’s not a thing I can do about it. It’s not patentable, or protectable in any way. The only advantage I have here is being first (and only so far) to market and an established history and reputation with the buyers of this particular product. It’s a very niche market and product. I literally thought of it over breakfast one morning, and finalized the business plan in the shower.
Given the quality of the product we produce, I know for a fact you could never beat me on quality. The only chance you’d have is to beat me on price, which would see you out of the market in 6 months.
So I’m not bothered.
But everything above involves time, money and lawyers fees. My time, money and lawyers fees!
You think I’m going to sit back and let some one else make money off my ideas, time, and costs where I do all the hard work and they just sit back and copy what I’ve protected?
You come up with a trademark for your product that’s close enough to one of mine, or come up with a brand name that’s close enough to one of mine, or use similar packaging or descriptions that’s close enough to one of mine, and you will definately be on the losing end of a visit from my lawyers!
And so it should be!
Sarah x
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