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Re: Bezos on 1-click ordering
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Is it just me, or are these replies growing and growing. By my
calculations should I reply and comment on what was said I could shut down
the Internet in Eastern PA.
On Sat, 4 Mar 2000 mjd-perl-pm@plover.com wrote:
>
> > That's not the way patents work though. If anything, they restrict
> > innovation. Were we to do away w/ them, you wouldn't get fat corporations
> > making money by preventing others from innovating.
>
> Yes, but there would also be a huge body of invention that would be
> totally inaccessible to absolutely everyone because the inventors had
> kept the discoveries secret. Everything patented before about 1983 is
> in the public domain now, and if there weren't any patents, a lot of
> that stuff wouldn't even exist.
>
> Let me give you a real example, taken from copyrights, instead of
> patents. (As I understand it, you're making the same argument against
> copyrights also.) I'm writing a book. I will get the exclusive
> rights to publish and distribute that book for a really long time---at
> least for my entire life, in fact, and certainly longer than the
> twenty-five years permitted for a patent.
>
> Writing the book is going to take me about ten months of my life,
> during which I'm not going to be able to hold a regular job because
> I'll be working so hard on the book. If I didn't expect to be able to
> make money from the book, I wouldn't be able to do that. I would have
> to get a job instead. If I don't get an exclusive right to publish
> the book, then anyone who wants to can come along and start selling
> the same book, and they can collect the money instead of me and give
> me nothing. If that is going to happen, I might not make enough money
> to make it worthwhile to spend ten months of my life writing it. I
> can tell you right now that without an exclusive copyright, I would be
> looking for work instead of writing a book.
>
> The purpose of copyrights is to promote progress and authorship.
> That's what they did in this case. If you abolish copyrights, you
> won't get my book. So contrary to what you said above, that *is* the
> way they work, at least in this one case.
>
> Here is another example. I do sometimes write things that I don't
> plan to get paid for. I wrote up the notes for the string typing talk
> that I gave, just for fun, without any intention of making a penny
> from it. Let's suppose that I was going to write a book the same way,
> just for fun.
>
> Now my book is written, and I want to have it published. Someone has
> to pay the publisher, the compositor, the editor, the designer, and
> the printer. Usually the way that works is that a publisher agrees to
> pay for all those things in return for a share of the revenue from
> selling copies of the book. Now suppose you are the publisher. You
> pay for all those things, and publish the book, and it is a big
> success and starts selling. Then another publisher starts printing
> copies of the same book and selling them cheaper. They can do that,
> because they were able to take advantage of all the editing and design
> you did, for free. Now you cannot sell any books. You paid for all
> the design and editing work, and you get nothing back. Then you go
> out of business.
>
> Well, you don't want to go out of business, so chances are you simply
> decline to publish my book in the first place. Now the other
> publisher can't even rip it off, so nobody gets to read my book at
> all, even though I starved for ten months in order to be able to write
> it. Oh well, maybe if I get a big inheritance I will be able to pay
> to have it published myself.
>
> Here's another example. Why my book is finished, I'm going to post it
> on my web site so that anyone anywhere can read it for free. I have
> an idea that that is not going to hurt sales of the book, and I think
> I will get a benefit because more people will be visiting my site to
> learn who I am.
>
> In a world without copyright, anyone would be able to take my book off
> my web pages and put it up on their own web site and claim it as their
> own work, and I would not be able to stop them. They would be able to
> copy the book off my web site, change it around so that it said a lot
> of things that were not true, and publish it, and I would not be able
> to stop them. They would be able to print and bind it and sell it in
> bookstores and keep the money, and I would not be able to stop them.
> If I were afraid that this would happen, I would not be willing to
> post it on my web site for people to read for free. Copyrights give
> me the safety to do that.
>
> I've never held a patent, but I can believe that it's the same for
> inventors as it is for writers. Who is going to spend years of their
> life trying to invent something if they aren't going to be able to
> make any money from it when they are done? The joy of creation is
> wopnderful, but it's not if you don't have any food on the table.
>
> > So then as the person who had access to this information first, you have a
> > head start. You shouldn't need patents, especially at the current rate of
> > technological progress.
>
> What a nice idea. How has that worked out for you on all the things
> you invented and declined to patent? Was your head start adequate?
> Or did you just contribute them all to the public domain right away,
> since you don't believe in intellectual property rights? It would be
> much easier to take you seriously if you would post a list of the
> patentable inventions you have contributed to the public domain in
> this way.
>
> > That may be the intention, but that's not how things work in the real
> > world.
>
> Oh, pardon me. I must make a note to get out more.
>
> I'm sure that my own experiences as an independent business owner and
> professional software developer, are entirely irrelevant to the real
> world. And I'm sure that my decision to write a book and hold a
> copyright on it have nothing to do with the real world either.
>
> Sorry, I don't know what I was thinking. I guess that people only
> have to earn a living in my funny little fantasy world.
>
> > Also, I think that if we're granting a right that isn't a natural
> > right, then we need to take a serious look at why that right is being
> > granted and whether or not it's justified.
>
> We grant statutory rights all the time. If you have a driver's
> license, you hold a statutory right to drive a car; you have no
> natural right at all to drive cars. The justification for
> intellectual property is really clear: It encourages authorship and
> invention by granting *temporary* licenses to authors and inventors.
>
> Except that apparently, in the `real world', such grants are
> unnecessary.
>
> I will be the first to agree that there are plenty of things wrong
> with the patent system, particularly in the area of software patents.
> But I think the idea of patents and copyrights in general is basically
> sound.
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>
Nicolai Rosen
nick@netaxs.com
Earthstation/Netaxs
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