Intellectual Property - In All Fairness!

[BitterTea]

I believe that we have a right to choose as a society.  If you seek a change that takes that choice away, you need to convince the majority of people its a good idea.  Otherwise a minority could argue they want slavery back and you'd be saying we should listen to them.

Except IP law removes my choice of how to use my property because you say that you have a greater claim to your idea than I do to my property.

"IP law allows for the production of movies that I like" = "slavery allows for the production of cotton that I like"

You're making multitudes of logical fallacies, the main ones being...

Just because movies you like are made with IP law doesn't mean the only way movies you like can be made is with IP law.

Just because something is currently accepted by society, doesn't mean it is right, good, or moral. See: slavery. The Greeks couldn't even imagine a society without slavery, it doesn't change the fact slavery is immoral.

[1713876032]

1713876032

[Hawker]

I believe that we have a right to choose as a society.  If you seek a change that takes that choice away, you need to convince the majority of people its a good idea.  Otherwise a minority could argue they want slavery back and you'd be saying we should listen to them.

Except IP law removes my choice of how to use my property because you say that you have a greater claim to your idea than I do to my property.

"IP law allows for the production of movies that I like" = "slavery allows for the production of cotton that I like"

You're making multitudes of logical fallacies, the main ones being...

Just because movies you like are made with IP law doesn't mean the only way movies you like can be made is with IP law.

Just because something is currently accepted by society, doesn't mean it is right, good, or moral. See: slavery. The Greeks couldn't even imagine a society without slavery, it doesn't change the fact slavery is immoral.

And if someone proposes that slavery be re-introduced, I will join with you in opposing it.

Now we have that out of the way, there is a choice you allude to: society has to choose between your freedom to copy movies and its freedom to finance movies in the way it chooses.  Unless you have a viable business model that ensures that we still get movies in our cinemas every weekend, its unlikely you will persuade people to change the system.

Movies are only one example of this problem.  Earlier in the thread we looked at branded consumer goods and industrial research.  Both would be greatly reduced by removing IP laws.  And unless you are proposing that the minority who want to be able to copy other people's work have some right over the rest of society,  you need to offer better business models than what already exists if you want to persuade people to change the system. 

The anti-slavery abolitionists did that... they focused on winning elections and making slavery illegal. 

[MoonShadow]

I believe that we have a right to choose as a society.  If you seek a change that takes that choice away, you need to convince the majority of people its a good idea.  Otherwise a minority could argue they want slavery back and you'd be saying we should listen to them.

Except IP law removes my choice of how to use my property because you say that you have a greater claim to your idea than I do to my property.

"IP law allows for the production of movies that I like" = "slavery allows for the production of cotton that I like"

You're making multitudes of logical fallacies, the main ones being...

Just because movies you like are made with IP law doesn't mean the only way movies you like can be made is with IP law.

Just because something is currently accepted by society, doesn't mean it is right, good, or moral. See: slavery. The Greeks couldn't even imagine a society without slavery, it doesn't change the fact slavery is immoral.

And if someone proposes that slavery be re-introduced, I will join with you in opposing it.
 

If it ever is, it won't be called that by it's proponents, only it's opposition.  I might be called something cryptic like "Organic Property" and require dozens of laws establishing different aspects of privilages for certain citizens over the free will and existing propery law of the remainder of citizens.  Over a period of time, these same laws become entrenched into certain industries where they are adopted first, and proponents insist that those monopoly privileges established and enforced by government are "rights" dispite the fact that the average 8 year old has a decent understanding of what is actually right and wrong, yet these laws don't make sense to the average adult.

Ask an 8 year old if he takes his neighbors bicycle without permission is wrong, and then ask that same child if borrowing a (legitimate) copy of his best friend's latest Xbox game with the owner's permission is wrong; and take note of the differences in response.  Just because you consider copyright to be your right, doesn't mean that it's actually right. 

I'd be willing to bet that the average adult, if polled, has no idea that there are laws that criminalize sharing. 

[Hawker]

...snip...

I'd be willing to bet that the average adult, if polled, has no idea that there are laws that criminalize sharing. 

That average adult is the guy you want to improve the life of.  He likely works in a company that uses trademarks as part of its business strategy.  He may like movies.  Removing IP laws will hurt him and as you say, the IP laws as they stand never interfere with him. 

[MoonShadow]

...snip...

I'd be willing to bet that the average adult, if polled, has no idea that there are laws that criminalize sharing. 

That average adult is the guy you want to improve the life of.  He likely works in a company that uses trademarks as part of its business strategy.  He may like movies.  Removing IP laws will hurt him and as you say, the IP laws as they stand never interfere with him. 

And that changes the argument, how?  Even if I accepted that your view was correct, and that the only way to improve the lives of the ignorant was to do so by imposing force upon them as a group, how does that change the argument that you don't have the right to do so?

[Hawker]

...snip...

I'd be willing to bet that the average adult, if polled, has no idea that there are laws that criminalize sharing. 

That average adult is the guy you want to improve the life of.  He likely works in a company that uses trademarks as part of its business strategy.  He may like movies.  Removing IP laws will hurt him and as you say, the IP laws as they stand never interfere with him. 

And that changes the argument, how?  Even if I accepted that your view was correct, and that the only way to improve the lives of the ignorant was to do so by imposing force upon them as a group, how does that change the argument that you don't have the right to do so?

You can educate the "ignorant" - you don't have a right to overrule their choices in elections.  That would lead to slavery - people said it was needed to protect black people from themselves.

[MoonShadow]

...snip...

I'd be willing to bet that the average adult, if polled, has no idea that there are laws that criminalize sharing. 

That average adult is the guy you want to improve the life of.  He likely works in a company that uses trademarks as part of its business strategy.  He may like movies.  Removing IP laws will hurt him and as you say, the IP laws as they stand never interfere with him. 

And that changes the argument, how?  Even if I accepted that your view was correct, and that the only way to improve the lives of the ignorant was to do so by imposing force upon them as a group, how does that change the argument that you don't have the right to do so?

You can educate the "ignorant" - you don't have a right to overrule their choices in elections.  That would lead to slavery - people said it was needed to protect black people from themselves.

They didn't elect to have such burdens placed upon them so that you can have a privilege of an income.  And the irony of your choice of words is not lost on myself.

[Hawker]

...snip...
They didn't elect to have such burdens placed upon them so that you can have a privilege of an income.  And the irony of your choice of words is not lost on myself.

Correct - they tolerate it because they like movies and jobs.  As do I.  And absent a democratic mandate, I don't think those benefits should be taken away.

[BitterTea]

...snip...
They didn't elect to have such burdens placed upon them so that you can have a privilege of an income.  And the irony of your choice of words is not lost on myself.

Correct - they tolerate it because they like movies and jobs.  As do I.  And absent a democratic mandate, I don't think those benefits should be taken away.

Southerners (and many Northerners) tolerated slavery because they liked cotton and jobs. Absent a democratic mandate, the North used violence against the South (while allowing border states to keep their slaves in return for their allegiance) to take away the benefits of slavery to which they were entitled. This all follows your logic, and the conclusion is that the abolition of slavery in the United States was morally wrong.

I hope this shows anyone on the fence that Hawker's logic is ridiculous.

[Hawker]

...snip...
They didn't elect to have such burdens placed upon them so that you can have a privilege of an income.  And the irony of your choice of words is not lost on myself.

Correct - they tolerate it because they like movies and jobs.  As do I.  And absent a democratic mandate, I don't think those benefits should be taken away.

Southerners (and many Northerners) tolerated slavery because they liked cotton and jobs. Absent a democratic mandate, the North used violence against the South (while allowing border states to keep their slaves in return for their allegiance) to take away the benefits of slavery to which they were entitled. This all follows your logic, and the conclusion is that the abolition of slavery in the United States was morally wrong.

I hope this shows anyone on the fence that Hawker's logic is ridiculous.

You really don't know your history do you?  Abolitionists were a solid majority from the 1830s but the fear of Civil War meant that they didn't act.  In the end, the violent minority, Southern slave owners, went to war because they could not accept the result of the 1860 election.  The North had a democratic mandate.  It was fury at that mandate that caused the Secession.

How can you not know this?

[Rassah]

I believe that we have a right to choose as a society.  If you seek a change that takes that choice away, you need to convince the majority of people its a good idea.  Otherwise a minority could argue they want slavery back and you'd be saying we should listen to them.

Except IP law removes my choice of how to use my property because you say that you have a greater claim to your idea than I do to my property.

"IP law allows for the production of movies that I like" = "slavery allows for the production of cotton that I like"

You're making multitudes of logical fallacies, the main ones being...

Just because movies you like are made with IP law doesn't mean the only way movies you like can be made is with IP law.

Just because something is currently accepted by society, doesn't mean it is right, good, or moral. See: slavery. The Greeks couldn't even imagine a society without slavery, it doesn't change the fact slavery is immoral.

Based on his statemente in the abortion Thread, Hawker doesn't even understand what is moral, or where morals and rights come from. His idea is that rights come from the government, or from what people feel is right. So trying to discuss this from the point of view of morals is pointless, since, yes, a few hundred years ago, he would've been defending slavery because it was legal = is was moral.

[Hawker]

Based on his statemente in the abortion Thread, Hawker doesn't even understand what is moral, or where morals and rights come from. His idea is that rights come from the government, or from what people feel is right. So trying to discuss this from the point of view of morals is pointless, since, yes, a few hundred years ago, he would've been defending slavery because it was legal = is was moral.

So would you.  The idea of slavery being immoral is relatively new and just as 1000 years ago, we would not have discussed air fares, we would also not have discussed the abolition of slavery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline

[Rassah]

Based on his statemente in the abortion Thread, Hawker doesn't even understand what is moral, or where morals and rights come from. His idea is that rights come from the government, or from what people feel is right. So trying to discuss this from the point of view of morals is pointless, since, yes, a few hundred years ago, he would've been defending slavery because it was legal = is was moral.

So would you.  The idea of slavery being immoral is relatively new and just as 1000 years ago, we would not have discussed air fares, we would also not have discussed the abolition of slavery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline

I would have only out of ignorance. Once I had been pointed out that slaves have the same felings and wants as non-slaves, I.e. not been ignorant any more, I would not have supported slavery no matter how beneficial it is to the economy and non-slaves. I currently support things like gay rights, rights for women to receive equal pay, rights of immigrants and non us citizens, etc, all things that currently still run contrary to US law, and I support them despite the law saying I shouldn't.
To go even further, I promise you I will support the rights of clones, intelligent robots, intelligent human-animal hybrids, human cyborgs, and intelligent aliens, even if the laws passed said they should have no rights because they are not "human." I fully suspect those on your side will be the ones passing those laws, and denying those people rights, just as they were denying the rights of blacks, irish, jews, women, gays, transgendereds, non-christians/muslims, atheists, immigrants, etc. etc. etc.

[BitterTea]

You really don't know your history do you?  Abolitionists were a solid majority from the 1830s but the fear of Civil War meant that they didn't act.  In the end, the violent minority, Southern slave owners, went to war because they could not accept the result of the 1860 election.  The North had a democratic mandate.  It was fury at that mandate that caused the Secession.

How can you not know this?

This is another example of the distortion of history presented by the public school system. The fundamental issue underlying the civil war was not slavery, but the right of states to secede from the union of states.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.

source

Your version of history does not mesh with the fact that the Union granted border states the right to own slaves in exchange for their support.

[BitterTea]

Based on his statemente in the abortion Thread, Hawker doesn't even understand what is moral, or where morals and rights come from. His idea is that rights come from the government, or from what people feel is right. So trying to discuss this from the point of view of morals is pointless, since, yes, a few hundred years ago, he would've been defending slavery because it was legal = is was moral.

So would you.  The idea of slavery being immoral is relatively new and just as 1000 years ago, we would not have discussed air fares, we would also not have discussed the abolition of slavery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline

There have always been some that express the idea that slavery is immoral, just as there have always been some that express the idea that statism is immoral and intellectual property is immoral. You do realize also that the idea of intellectual property is only a couple of hundred years old, right?

[Rassah]

...snip...

I'd be willing to bet that the average adult, if polled, has no idea that there are laws that criminalize sharing. 

That average adult is the guy you want to improve the life of.  He likely works in a company that uses trademarks as part of its business strategy.  He may like movies.  Removing IP laws will hurt him and as you say, the IP laws as they stand never interfere with him. 

So what is the point of having a law that does not affect him, anyway, and that he likely isn't even aware of breaking (such as by letting a friend borrow a game/movie, or installing the same software on both the parents' and the kids' computer)? Is it just so that the government can throw its weight around ust in case it wants to? The most dangerous type of law is one that doesn't make sense from a basic moral sense, that gives governments a secret unexpected power. Both, because it gives governments arbitrary powers, and because it makes other laws also questionable.

[FredericBastiat]

Here's a simple way of looking at it,

If you take your property/materials that are currently in your possession (involving no other person) and make an exact replica of somebody else's stuff, and no one (other than yourself) could ever become aware of that act, you have committed no unlawful crime.

To wit, how could anybody commit a crime in solitude, but then become criminal via mere public exposure?

Knowledge is a dangerous thing I guess.

[MoonShadow]

...snip...
They didn't elect to have such burdens placed upon them so that you can have a privilege of an income.  And the irony of your choice of words is not lost on myself.

Correct - they tolerate it because they like movies and jobs.  As do I.  And absent a democratic mandate, I don't think those benefits should be taken away.

It would appear that Steam has plans to make a movie or two using their rendering engine....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Fortress_2#Marketing

"The "Meet the Team" videos are based on the audition scripts used for the voice actors for each of the classes; the "Meet the Heavy" scripts is nearly word-for-word a copy of the Heavy's script. More recent videos, such as "Meet the Sniper", contain more original material.[86] The videos have been used by Valve to help improve the technology for the game, specifically improving the facial animations, as well as a source of new gameplay elements, such as the Heavy's "Sandvich" or the Sniper's "Jarate".[86] Newell has stated that Valve is using the "Meet the Team" shorts as a means of exploring the possibilities of making feature film movies themselves. Newell believed that only game developers themselves have the ability to bring the interesting parts of a game to a film, and suggested that this would be the only manner through which a Half-Life-based movie would be made."

(Emphasis mine)

So, will it take millions to make a movie from a VALVe game?  Will fans of the game pay to see it?  I understand that this doesn't actually contradict your claim that IP laws are necessary, but it does put the error to your claim that major motion pictures must continue to be produced in the manner that presently dominates.  Nor must they cost a fortune to be truely entertaining.  As an aside, when the original Toy Story was produced, it required a custom built Belwolf cluster to render the CGI graphics.  Today VALVe's rendering engine produces comparable quality CGI video, in real time, on a not-too-recent home PC or iMac.  And it does this while connected to a game server across the Internet which manages the interaction of up to 36 rendering engines at the same time.

If Toy Story hadn't already been produced, the exact same movie could have been produced by a creative team using three or four consumer desktops networked together.

Just because you can't (or we can't) imagine how such entertainment would be produced sans IP; or even what form that it would take, it doesn't logically follow that such entertainment will not be produced nor that the market will fail to fund it's production.  VAVLe apparently understands this, regardless of their view on IP laws in general.  Their management and marketing team does not depend upon the continuing enforcablity of copyright laws (or even licensing contracts, for that matter) in order to create great art that a great many people are willing to contribute money for.  Hell, they still make money off of a free-to-play game such as TF2 by selling virtual hats inside the game.

And it's an awesome game.  I heard about it on this very forum last year or so, and downloaded it a couple of weeks ago for free.  It's also free to join most game host servers, although they will tend to advertise to you or solicit donations.  Steam (whatever that program actually is) logs my game time, and I've burned over 60 hours of time.  At tjhe original sale price that would already be less than a dollar per hour, which is way better entertainment value that a two hour movie at the movie theater.

[Rassah]

Btw, anyone else find it strange that, whether it is an explosion and special effects spectacular, a horror movie, a slapstick comedy, a romantic comedy, a general foreign flick, or a documentary, the price for the movie is exactly the same, both theater ticket and DVD wise? What's with that?

[MoonShadow]

Btw, anyone else find it strange that, whether it is an explosion and special effects spectacular, a horror movie, a slapstick comedy, a romantic comedy, a general foreign flick, or a documentary, the price for the movie is exactly the same, both theater ticket and DVD wise? What's with that?

Well, that's not entirely true, as the best flicks retain their "suggested retail price" point pretty well while the mediocre flicks start off in the 20% discount section and fall from there.  But a lot of that is that IP laws actually function as price support that decends with time since release.  You can see this in how movies move from the first run theater, to the discount theater, to DVD release, to group
DVD's (the package deals that you can get more than one movie in a single retail package, either on the same disk or more than one disk in a single case/package) a few years down the line.  Fallacies aside, if IP laws are repealed this process (that the market value of information tends towards zero) would proceed much faster than it does at present.