Bitcoin Forum

An article today about an American Chinese scientist who was accused of violating intellectual property laws.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/us/politics/fbi-xi-xiaoxing.html

The FBI has always created a lot of crime when they should be doing the opposite.

In the 1950s the most powerful people in the U.S. saw communism as the biggest threat. Communism, by itself, is obviously not a real crime. It is an opinion, a belief. But it was the focus of the FBI for many years. In fact the number one financial contributor to the U.S. communist party in the 1950's was... the FBI. They had so many undercover agents pretending to be communists that they were its largest source of revenue.

Today one big "crime" they focus on is intellectual property. That is the main concern of the most powerful business lobbies, so laws were passed to convince people there is something called 'intellectual property rights' and if you make money from somebody else's intellectual property then you are a criminal. Those laws have been quietly expanding for decades.

Obviously restricting the use of ideas is not a path towards developing a country.

History http://www.opensecrets.org/news/issues/intellectual_property/

Definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property

U.S. government / lobby sites
https://www.state.gov/e/eb/tpp/ipe/enforcement/index.htm

 http://www.wipo.int/portal/en/

 http://www.phrma.org/advocacy/intellectual-property

Intellectual freedom sites

https://visionscarto.net/who-the-u-s-industrial-lobbies
"Each year, the United States Trade Representative issues ​the Special 301 Report on Intellectual Property (IP). This ​report, an essential tool in the US trade policy regarding intellectual property, puts pressure on countries that are deemed “not compliant” with the global regime of patents and copyright."

"It is largely influenced by five industrial lobby groups — Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), ​Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), Business Software Alliance​ (​BSA), International Intellectual Property Alliance​ (​IIPA), and the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global IP Center (USCC)​ —, who submit comments to USTR, listing the countries they want to be scrutinized."

http://techrights.org/2017/02/15/cipu-lobbying-on-patents/

IP is a necessary evil, without it there will be little new research and development if everyone can freely steal your research and ideas. A lot of development costs a lot of money.

I do however believe it is in need of reform, particularly in certain fields where it does the opposite of fostering development it restricts it. For example patents that are held for the sole reason of preventing development or companies that buy patents simply to sue others for using something similar.

IP seems necessary, but for example I don't think Mickey Mouse should be IP forever.

Exactly, I can think of a few cases when Nvidia was just sitting on new developments and technologies, simply because their current tech was "good enough" and AMD couldn't do anything cause that technology was under patent.

I agree with this also!
I have first hand experience of this but on a very small scale.

about 10 years ago I came up with a little photography tool after creation and testing
I discovered someone else had patented something similar, not the same but had
factored in all manners of similar items which rendered my creation redundant while
this patent existed.

It was just a patent that was never brought to production but hampered the development
of my idea.

So in the big business world I can see how this could be a major source of frustration.

However I do agree with the concept of IP but as has been mentioned it needs updating.

Intellectual property rights is a kind of law that protects the right of the original author to be in complete possession and ownership of his ideas and invention. But it doesnt mean that if you have the same idea with that person who has a patent you will be considered a violator of the law. There will be standards as to how they will judge if you are copying his ideas.

It is very difficult to answer this sensitive question. If we give no importance to IP rights, then it will discourage brilliant people and there will be less and less innovation. But if it gets too strict, then a lot of poor people will be unable to afford medicines, technology, and entertainment.

This absurdity is pumped by the lobbies but nobody seems to actually think it through and see if it is true. It is not.

Intellectual property laws stifle brilliant people and slow innovation dramatically.

When the focus is on capturing a small hill that you can 'own', nobody runs for the mountains.

It should be enough for people to reject the idea of intellectual property on purely ethical grounds, the immorality of a person pretending to own one idea that was derived from the ideas of others, or wanting to prevent others from free use of an idea.

 

Intellectual property is protected only in case if the person uses it for commercial purposes. I support the protection of intellectual property but on the other hand a lot of countries where people are very poor and they cannot afford to pay real money. On the other hand China in General is the king of plagiarism and provides fakes the whole world.

Commercial is one thing, but what about using it to get a degree, in form of plagiarism?
I oppose plagiarism and I think there should be some laws protecting intellectual property, but I also oppose abusing these laws to prosecute sharing of digital media.
It's stupid that a person can go to a friend and watch a movie with him at his house, or take that dvd, that he bought, and watch it at home, but cannot share it with someone in the internet.

If you copy somebody else's work, writing for example, and claim that it is your own, in a word 'plagiarism', then you are lying, which is a separate issue.

It has never been acceptable in universities to lie regarding information, whether lying about the source of the information, lying about its content or lying about some other aspect. There has never been a university or other organization that said "we are not sure whether lying and / or plagiarism are okay".

There has never been a need, and hopefully never will be, to decide whether a student can lie in order to prove expertise. It is a subject people agree on, students lying is not good. But that is a completely separate issue from 'intellectual property'.

I don't see the US unjustly using this issue against China, they did engage in industrial espionage in the past.


Not only that Disney was quite hypocritical in making money out of "open source" materials, aka folktales. I bet anyone can get sued for making money out anything with the Disney princesses on them.


Not to mention this might discourage progress since you just need to come up with one good product and live of that the rest of your life. It also puts a damper on others who might want to improve on existing proprietary processes.

Despite owning a lot of IP, I voted no.

Intellectual property was invented by rich people so that they could keep their wealth while the poor would remain poor. IP's also a recent invention. The world was doing fine before it was invented.

I copy that phrase to emphasize it, and I offer no money to you for doing so. Thus, I can pay you in bitcoin for using your idea and I do not even need your bitcoin address.

do you not think there has to be some protection for people who create and develop?

suppose you invent the scissors after a lot of development consisting of time and expense and
show it to me as a potential investor . . .

"Thanks lads, that was a great idea, there's the door, I'll produce this myself,
come back to me with your next invention and I'll just rip you off and copy it, again...simple!"

 ;D

Honestly, it depends on what your priority is.

If your goal is to produce a small minded society of petty people who look at 'innovation' as a financial issue then intellectual property is a useful concept.

If you want society to really develop though it is probably better not to use laws to monetize and restrict ideas.

'

As for your scissors idea, most people who have 'invented' stuff are adult enough to realize that they were only building on ideas that had preceded. If somebody came to me and said he wanted credit for inventing the scissors, or whatever, and wanted protection from other people possibly using that idea for popular benefit, I would kick him in the nuts and tell him to invent stronger pants.

Corporations have lobbied IP laws to protect their monopolies and stiff real innovations!

You can incentivize creativity with another means - state funding, crowdfunding, donations, advertising, support etc.

Creativity does not have to be 'incentivized'. It just has to be 'not stifled'.

The key to a dog running is to take off it's leash, not "give it something" or "teach it something".

What's up with the mentality that the government has anything whatsoever to do with creativity, aside from being able to harm it?

So, what do you think? If someone invents a technology or a drug, then he should not have the right to profit out of it? And why someone else should profit out of this invention?

Naturally the inventor is obviously entitled to the right to profit but its up to the inventor to find a way to  be part of the project of course not using back doors. Look at who the bitcoin technology has grown without IP considered and how altcoin developers profit from their inventions by a simple premine to keep them part of the project. To be honest bitcoin technology has revolutionized how open-source tools can help anyone profit without IP barriers

simple, they have the financial power to make your invention go mainstream and the believe in your invention more than you do

Hmmmmm some very good points above especially when it comes to helping humanity.
I may be starting to reconsider my opinion....

What comes to mind is a recent scenario here in ireland where a group of around 600
people suffer from Cystic Fibrosis and a new drug ORKAMBI is so expensive that the
Government initially couldnt afford to procure it.

Should the pharmaceutical companies for instance be allowed to basically hold
society to account to fund their profits?

If this wasnt the case would we have the drugs and medical tools etc. We have today?

I hope i havent moved the goalposts, i think this still comes down to IP and how.
The pharma companies operate......

There are many selfless brilliant people that would release inventions for free.

Problem is that the system is controlled by greed.

Most geniuses do not care that much about the money.   

I think not incentivize but support. I mean, just look at artists, they create a civilization's material culture. They can only create if their not running on an empty stomach and that's how patronage became a big thing in the past. Artists these days would either have to find funding via commissions, sell their works, or have a part-time job.

That's why I think some degree of IP protection is needed for our innovators to keep on working. If they'll be receiving income from one of their advancement, then they're free to work on other projects without worrying over the usual maintenance for living.


@Sithara the problem with cost could be solved with proper legislation not related to IP. For example, medicines can have a price ceiling. The most worrying about stricter IP is its chilling effects on new entrants. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there. Big companies are know to use IP to sue smaller players over the littlest things.

@af_newbie Tesla would agree with that. Damn Edison!

Inventing something is only the beginning. With technology getting more and more sophisticated, it's getting more and more difficult to copy. Besides the invention, you need to be smart enough to produce it efficiently. Look at the hybrid cars from Toyota. Their hybrid technology is heavily patented, but even without those patents, I doubt another car company could make a car as good at the same cost.

I'm sure the Chinese could easily this problem. But I think a hybrid car is not very in demand, therefore the Chinese do not. Much cheaper to make electric cars and the Chinese they have long been doing.

Yes, I believe in intellectual property laws.

If someone expresses his intellectual property, it isn't entirely his anymore.

However, if he makes a deal with someone to keep it private, and the other person DOESN'T keep it private, then the contract has been broken. In that case contract law applies.

8)

So who should pay the big costs of developing a movie? Because while individual piracy is rampant, television stations and cinemas can't get away with copying their work without pay so the movie studios survive.

Who should pay the costs of developing a drug? These cost enormous amounts of money to develop safely, and while there are issues with current patent laws, at the very least they ensure drugs are continually developed despite some of them running into costs into the billions.

Should writers make books for free? If anyone can freely copy their books then the publishers won't pay the writer after he sends in a copy for review.

This IP needs a reasonable use period but not one that makes it unusable in the Public Domain parody works can get around that but the rule should be for active usage to a reasonable period of time.
Mickey Mouse being an IP forever or songs from mainstream artists from 20 years ago or 1997 like the first Britney Spears songs etc should be fair game for public use.

As it is corporations have an incentive to stifle creativity for profit so on practice against IP as it is used currently but not in principle.

As an example when it is applied to medicine .... our current system is broken when it comes to alternative medicine.
If a new drug must be certified every-time using our current system it would severely limit the real world applications of phage therapy and customized treatments which can save peoples lives.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/how-doctors-could-use-viruses-to-kill-drug-resistant-bacteria-1.3412045

--
The World Health Organization estimates that antimicrobial resistance will kill at least 50 million people per year by 2050. Researchers hope Patterson’s remarkable recovery story could spark renewed interest for mainstream medicine to explore phage therapy as a treatment against drug-resistant bacteria.

“We’re going to need an additional alternative method of treating deadly bacteria, and so I see phage therapy as a front-runner for that alternate medicine,” said Jon Dennis, a microbiologist with the University of Alberta.

Dennis said Patterson’s case was extraordinary because it was the first time in North America that modern science paid attention to phage therapy as a viable treatment.

“There has been difficulty getting funding to do basic phage therapy research. The problem lies in that a lot of the phage therapy data that we have is historical, it’s anecdotal and it hasn’t been performed in the modern era,” he said.

But phage therapy is hardly a one-size-fits-all solution. Doctors need to create a unique combination of different types of bacteriophage for a patient’s particular case.

“They’re not simple to use,” Schooley said. “They seem to be relatively safe to give, but they’re going to be difficult to develop from both the research perspective, and also from the regulatory perspective, because each patient’s phage cocktail is a different cocktail.”

Despite the challenges, doctors are optimistic that the century-old method could be one way to fight the growing global threat of antibiotic resistance.

I think it is particularly important for new creators, artists and inventors to be protected and rewarded for their work. Many times, however, this measure it is abused because it is the result of a legal fight between big companies trying to monopolize a product for their big financial interests.

True, there should be a balance between assuring creators that they have control of their work and investors that they'll get money out of it. IP should protect innovation but not stifle it.

Intellectual Property in the United States has become increasingly more important in the last decade. The right to own one's genius is not a new concept. However, with the arrival of the digital age, it has become much harder to remain in control of one's intellectual property. Intellectual property has grown from the need to protect one's new invention, such as soap, to the need to protect a slogan or a color. In other words, intellectual property rights no longer protect solely the interest of preserving a trade secret; it is now the interest to preserve one's monetary gain.
The first form of intellectual property law was patent law. In 1790, Congress passed the first patent laws. These laws were modeled after European, patent, common law. Before Americans had the right to their intellectual property, it belonged to the King of England. If colonists wanted the rights to their inventions, they had to petition the state or ``the governing body of the colony[1].'' The first United States Patent Grant was signed by George Washington on July 31, 1790. Thomas Jefferson was the inspector, and together they issued the first American patent. Which was for a new method for making Potash. In 1790, the price of a patent was four dollars[2].

The Four Areas Covered by Intellectual Property: Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks and Trade Secrets.

Of the four areas, patents are the most common. Although they are difficult to obtain, they hold the strongest protection. Patents are grants from the government giving exclusive rights to ``make, use, and sell a product for 20 years.'' Their attributes include providing strong protection, and total exclusivity. Their downsides include long expensive, technical processes, and inventors must make all the details of their product known to the public. One must apply to the Federal government for a patent. Patents protect ``novel, useful, non-obvious and intangible'' ideas[3].

It sounds like you copy/pasted from the website of some ip lawyer.

Start with your first sentence "Intellectual Property in the United States has become increasingly more important in the last decade.". Important to whom? Lawyers? Lobbyists?

Nobody disputes that short lived patents can be helpful. The question is more whether it is good to try to intimidate scientists into following a very low level, short term set of laws meant only to protect a few major industries.

Artists and entertainers, for example, are not going to starve if they are good, but especially they are not going to try to squeeze every last dollar out of their art if they are decent.

For scientists even more true. Look at the link in the original post https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/us/politics/fbi-xi-xiaoxing.html

A group of fbi agents does not like that guy, for whatever reason, so they use the law to target him. That is the only use of laws like that, targeting people or preventing others from getting some benefit you have. You can argue up and down but really common sense is what you should use rather than rhetorical tricks.

The scientist in that article might or might not have been brilliant, but I guarantee that he is less brilliant now, less productive, more cautious. As are many of his colleagues who are now aware that they must be wary of attacks from the fbi. Is it really worth it? America has been driven into the ground by petty attacks on harmless things while the really harmful things are acceptable. Got an idea and want to develop it? Be careful. Got a badge and want to show a scientist that you are bigger than him? Go for it.

IP protection is necessary. It's not evil. It actually promotes the growth of ideas, which benefits us all in the evolution of ideas, processes, technology, services, etc.

If we don't protect our ideas from those that want to steal those ideas and make money off them we will force people with great ideas to keep them to themselves or to charge more money for the products and services.

For those of you don't believe in intellectual property protection laws, do you believe it's OK and fair for one to steal your good idea and make money off of it?

100% of the ideas you have are derived, directly or indirectly from others' ideas in the past.

If you follow intellectual property to the extreme then you are not allowed to have any ideas, because they will directly or indirectly lead to your profiting from an idea somebody else had previously.

I get that you want to support "the intellectual property agenda" because you believe they are a powerful lobby and they have won most legal challenges so far.

The only people who support intellectual property laws are those who benefit from them directly and those who want to be on the side of the people who seem to be powerful at the moment.

Do you think that people with guns have an inherent right to eat better than those who have no guns?

Would you like a lobby to help you think it through?

Who is going to spend a lot of time and money creating something if others can just copy their product freely without paying them a dime? IP isn't necessary for things that cost little to create but for other things that requires large investment its either IP or a government has to fund the development of those products.

The people who have taken control of your mind would have other people believe that the basis of intellectual property laws is a desire to enable more creativity, when the opposite is true. Your mind and thinking have been co opted by a powerful lobby and you are, in effect, a zombie.

George Orwell would have a field day.

Do you really believe that companies and individuals will stop inventing things if intellectual property laws are given their proper place?

Will the best singers and artists really say "Well, I guess I will quit singing/creating and get a job pumping gas?

Intellectual property thinking leads to mediocrity, and America is starting to excel at that, if nothing else.

Good. Actors and everyone in the movie industry is overpaid. I've illegally downloaded hundreds of movies, and I invite all readers to do the same. Ditto for music. Musicians should earn money performing, not selling recordings. Actors should be making money playing in theaters. Think that the world would count many more actors, musicians and singers than there is today, if all performance was live. Many artists cannot make a career today, because they can't compete with the promotion from the big stars of the largest studios.

In order to copy the product and start production of the necessary large finances. The Chinese economy received a good boost on this one, but that did not stop the Americans, the Japanese and the Europeans to establish a production there. I don't know what to do with the growing economy of China. I say this to the fact that the absence of copyright law and cheap labor is the key to prosperity in our world.

Intellectual property is protected only in case if the person uses it for commercial purposes. I support the protection of intellectual property but on the other hand a lot of countries where people are very poor and they cannot afford to pay real money. On the other hand China in General is the king of plagiarism and provides fakes the whole world.

People keep good ideas to themselves all the time and some great ideas may never see mass adoption simply because they are not promoted sufficiently to get to scale which is why it takes so long for innovation to become mainstream it takes skill to turn that good idea into money and good marketing, a few episodes of Dragons Den or Shark Tank demonstrate that.

Your argument however leans more towards patents when you mention stealing a good idea, as the argument is not on a reproduction of a work independently from the original but a creation. It does apply to music and movies which can be a copy of the original but you should clarify that a bit more.

On the topic I am amused that the Pirates were Pirated for those that don't know the current Pirates of The Caribbean is under siege so it seems like a good point to bring up. Also sigh the mainstream still thinks all you can get with Bitcoin are reddit gold cards that should be another topic of discussion....and made.

Today in news that practically demands that we repeat the word “pirate” as many times as possible, Deadline is reporting that hackers have stolen a copy of Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and they’re threatening to release it online if Disney doesn’t pay a ransom. These movie pirates aren’t just looking for treasure chests full of doubloons, though—they want “an enormous amount of money” paid in Bitcoin, presumably so they can all live like kings with lifetime Reddit Gold subscriptions (or whatever else someone would buy with Bitcoin).

http://www.avclub.com/article/hackers-demand-disney-pay-bitcoin-ransom-or-theyll-255376

Intellectual Property is an innovation, something new. A person can make money or other benefit with it.
It is also about recognition. People need to be appreciated for their work.

Those two things are really important, so government should have law to regulate IP.

I'm not against intellectual property, but the use of pirated software and the replicas help the people in poor countries to have what they could never afford to buy the original. It's against global rules, but this is the only chance.

I do.

It takes time and investment to create and those creators should be compensated. Certain ideas can't become reality without substantial backing. If that backing loses out then we're all the poorer for it.

That is a myth.

If intellectual property laws had started 5,000 years ago we would have virtually none of what we have today. The greatest inventions and art would have been confined to small circles while the world would have been blanketed by superficial crap.

I don't understand people like you. What makes people like you always take the side of the most powerful lobby on every issue, even when their arguments make no sense? Do you really believe that stifling creativity using economic penalties will make people have better ideas or create more? Do you really believe that if powerful lobbies are not allowed to control art, technology etc then there will be no more development?

Here is what happens when you use money to define the bounds of development. These articles from last week about one common medical procedure that has been performed for decades and which will not substantially decline because of these articles.

Note this article tries to discredit the news
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2017/05May/Pages/Keyhole-knee-surgery-is-waste-of-time-review-finds.aspx

While this one give facts
http://www.thespec.com/news-story/7312797-millions-of-health-dollars-wasted-on-useless-surgery-researcher/

Most people 'get' the message that the purpose of science, and art, according to people like you, is to make money. Patenting and acknowledging ip rights gives the stamp of approval to mediocrity, like the old snake oil salesmen whose patented products didn't need to actually do anything, they were patented after all.  

Regarding the two articles above, ask yourself why the NHS would take the side of minimizing that news.   

I think it is time to show protest against greedy corporations and IP laws they have lobbied by stopping buying movies, music and software! You can download Torrents anonymously through credible VPN like Mullvad or AirVPN, corporations won't be able to stop you and drop their greed finally!

So what of the drugs that save lives and take decades and billions of dollars to develop? Where's the incentive for anyone or anything to take the long view and do all that work for zero return?

Similarly there's no way I'd ever bother making a film or writing a book if entitled little shits decided my work had no value and just nicked it. I'll go and do something that will reward for me for my time.

That's a trade. If you were a plumber I wouldn't expect you to work for nothing.

Times that by an entire planet and it looks like a rather more desolate place.

Not so long ago governments financed fundamental research. If we will kick out market fundamentalists from the power, a tax increase for the corporations will be enough to fund these developments.

For movies, music and books crowdfunding model can be used. You have some idea about good movie? People like it and want to watch, movie theaters want to make profit from showing it. Anyone will know that if requested amount won't be collected, there won't be this movie at all. So people who are interested in this film will gladly make a voluntary contribution to the film maker. Of course this model fill work if no state-enforced (=imposed by corporations) copyright exist.

Who really are the 'entitled little shits'?

It isn't about getting paid for work, it's about not getting powerful lawyers to help you extort ridiculous profits and prevent use by others of an idea that developed from old ideas anyway.

Regarding drugs etc. 99.9999999% of good medicines have been invented not for profit, and 99.99999999% of the toxic high profit poison passed as medicine comes from biopharma slugs trying to produce new chemicals to keep their jobs.

Drugs and biotech should be developed at Universities, where ethics are not hidden so easily.

The most profitable commercial drug ever was Lipitor. It has taken many billions of dollars from people and given the money to big pharma to pay for more lawyers and lobbyists to promote their other drugs http://www.winknews.com/2017/04/26/are-cholesterol-and-blood-pressure-drugs-necessary/

Are expensive pharma drugs really doing that much for people? Would humans suddenly stop living long lives if Pfizer isn't treated like a handicapped child that needs every possible accommodation?

For pharma companies it isn't about developing drugs or helping people, it's about making money https://consumerist.com/2017/04/26/lawsuit-epipen-price-hikes-were-intended-to-keep-competitor-out-of-pharmacies/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-28/novo-nordisk-is-sued-over-diabetes-drug-sales-practices

http://www.theintelligencer.net/news/top-headlines/2017/01/west-virginia-drug-company-agrees-to-pay-record-150m-settlement/

http://legalnewsline.com/stories/511077670-teva-will-pay-519-million-in-doj-settlement-over-fcpa-allegations

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/key-officials-switch-sides-from-dea-to-pharmaceutical-industry/2016/12/22/55d2e938-c07b-11e6-b527-949c5893595e_story.html

https://www.popsugar.com/news/Victoria-Starr-Historic-Johnson-Johnson-Settlement-42944055

Universities might be interested in developing medicines that work. Pharmaceutical companies want cash and they will use all kinds of tricks to get it.

If intellectual property laws had existed centuries ago, there would have been no such thing as https://www.yahoo.com/news/5-facts-antikythera-mechanism-070029207.html

Another side of the same small mindedness.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/04/einstein-facts-science-genius/