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Intellectual Property rights and the threat to Enterprise


quirksome

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Intellectual Property (IP) rights are enshrined under law in the UK, the US and most developed countries via copyrights, patents and the legal means to enforce patent infringements. Not so in places like China, where my lawyer friend at Diageo (a large drinks company) is constantly firefighting to stop “Chival Regas” coming onto the market. (The fake Chivas Regal is utter pondwater and devalues the existing brand)

The oft-quoted and incorrect statistic, “95% of music downloads in 2010 were illegal” (source: the totally unbiased IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, try this Reuters article for a refutation) is exaggerated but hides the unpleasant truth that many young people, unencumbered by morals high disposable income, do torrent and download files illegally, from music to eBooks to software and games.

However this abuse of the internet to freeload off the hard work of independent artists, novelists, software/games developers actually threatens growing enterprises. How can you market and sell your product when some no-IP country’s fly-by-night operation has ripped off your main product and is undercutting your prices? I feel this is a strong argument against illegal downloading.

It’s similar in the medical/pharma world. Big Pharma, despite their many crimes against patients, do spend millions on testing drugs then years on clinical research. But then they reap the rewards for blockbuster drugs by charging an arm and a leg – for the length of the patent. (Don’t get me started on the lack of funding for orphan drugs.) Is this moral?

So, asking for honesty here, particularly from libertarians [edit: and communists!]:

  1. Do you respect the IP of independent artists? (self-employed novelists etc)
  2. Do you respect the IP of corporates? (United Media Group poptarts etc)

How much, if anything, are you willing to pay to support the above?

3. How much would you pay for the following intangibles, assuming no DRM attached and you actually want to consume the product:

A1) Big name novelist ebook, "hardback edition"

A2) Self-published ebook, "hardback edition"

B1) MGM movie download

B2) Indie film download

C2) Top 10 hit mp3

C3) Indie band mp3

D1) Electronic Arts game, 10h gameplay

D2) Indie game developer game, 10h gameplay

F) Anything else relevant?

[Edited as question 3 too vague]

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1. Very little

2. No

3. Eh? Support? Surely you jest.

I accidentally kerfuffled and told everyone that eBooks shouldn't cost as much as normal books. Joe Abercrombie set me straight. Stuff that people create costs money. The other stuff is called freeware / creative commons use for a reason.

Solymr - I don't understand people like you - would you go pick someone's pocket? that's effectively what you're doing when you deprive a freelance novelist etc. of a sale. Could you please explain your logic?

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  1. Yes. I don't download music or e-readers or anything like that, but I would not mind paying a fee/membership to a site where I could download my music, if I ever get hip enough to do that. Mostly I just prefer to own the actual cd's. I don't buy cd's often, so it's not a big strain on my budget. The same goes for online movies/series etc.
  2. Less than for music/artisitic products. I see it as a necessary evil. R&D for companies like drug-companies etc. has to be worthwile, otherwise no-one will benefit.
  3. Not a whole lot more than I would otherwise.

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1. Yes big time

2. To a lesser extent. For the most part I try to stick to if I would pay money for it, I do but I definitely am more respectful of the artist than the corporation behind them.

3. I am willing to pay more to support the artist directly rather than through a corporation, the idea to me is that if everyone took that approach more artists will take advantage of being able to publish themselves.

An interesting side topic to the normal one when discussing this is what effect is it going to have on society to raise an entire generation for whom breaking the law is normalised through piracy. I'm reading a book that discusses that in part at the moment, but I think that in combination with the stats on the quantity of people who pirate tells us something needs to change. I think the music industry is actually getting there, electronic music is sufficiently cheap and convenient that most people do the right thing. The MPAA has taken up the torch of fighting technology for the RIAA and are the ones that need to move with the times now.

Of course the other sidebar when discussing IP law and hurting enterprise is software patents, which should never have been allowed and has an escalating fight going on between MS, Android partners (but not Google directly), Apple etc.

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Solymr - I don't understand people like you - would you go pick someone's pocket? that's effectively what you're doing when you deprive a freelance novelist etc. of a sale. Could you please explain your logic?

I could but doing so would spark a heated debate with me greatly outnumbered (I've lived on the board long enough to know which side the wind is blowing). If you're truly interested in my opinion give me a PM.

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Depends whose enterprise is being threatened as well - China is following a well-worn development path in not giving that many shits about patent law (until you have something worth copying).

Patents have a role in securing creators income but they can also be a monopolist's playground and I'm not sure what enterprise would be served fining by people for unauthorised public performances of 'Happy Birthday to You' (public domain US: 2030, EU: 2017), or is by currently rendering film birthdays oddly less jubilant.

I think this issue deserves a little more nuanced treatment than 'why are you stealing?'.

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Surely not possible.

Low Blow H, this is a country where a third of the population are allergic to alcohol, don't expect refinement Chivas is considered premium tipple, so any counterfeit seriously hurts their profits.

1. Yes big time

2. To a lesser extent. For the most part I try to stick to if I would pay money for it, I do but I definitely am more respectful of the artist than the corporation behind them.

3. I am willing to pay more to support the artist directly rather than through a corporation, the idea to me is that if everyone took that approach more artists will take advantage of being able to publish themselves.

An interesting side topic to the normal one when discussing this is what effect is it going to have on society to raise an entire generation for whom breaking the law is normalised through piracy. I'm reading a book that discusses that in part at the moment, but I think that in combination with the stats on the quantity of people who pirate tells us something needs to change. I think the music industry is actually getting there, electronic music is sufficiently cheap and convenient that most people do the right thing. The MPAA has taken up the torch of fighting technology for the RIAA and are the ones that need to move with the times now.

Of course the other sidebar when discussing IP law and hurting enterprise is software patents, which should never have been allowed and has an escalating fight going on between MS, Android partners (but not Google directly), Apple etc.

Thanks for the thoughtful response, what's the book title if you don't mind?

I think this issue deserves a little more nuanced treatment than 'why are you stealing?'.

...I was trying to entice impress IP. Next time I'll just stick to sex and cookies. :bawl:

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yeah, IP infringement is not theft, which requires asportation with intention to permanently deprive. infringement has neither--so it's not even quasi-analogous.

Solo, thanks for pointing out why I'm an accountant not a lawyer :)

So what is the legal definition of infringement? (Preferably using as few words needing a dictionary to understand as possible.... please........)

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I accidentally kerfuffled and told everyone that eBooks shouldn't cost as much as normal books. Joe Abercrombie set me straight. Stuff that people create costs money.

I think they should have a slight discount for not needing to print the physical printed book, and the inconveniences for the customer associated with that. For instance I bought a few books on my husband's Kindle before getting my own, and I cannot get them onto mine without rebuying them or activating his account on my kindle (no thanks.) If I'd bought them physically, I could have just physically moved them from his shelf to mine.

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Low Blow H, this is a country where a third of the population are allergic to alcohol, don't expect refinement Chivas is considered premium tipple, so any counterfeit seriously hurts their profits.

They deserve it for closing Port Ellen. *firm nod*

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I think that everybody needs to take a step back and look at how very different the world is now. There is no way that you will be able to penalise people into accepting an outdated business-model that has been co-opted by big business interests, so I think approaching the debate from a stand-point of how wrong you think copyright infringement is will lead you nowhere. The question isn't what it would take for us to accept the current business-model, the question is how you can change the business-model to work in our society.

Convenience and price are the two major features that companies need to use in order to beat infringement. Music piracy has dropped sharply in Sweden thanks to the convenient and cheap service called Spotify. It is free (ad-supported) or cheap ($15 USD/mo) and above all super-easy to use. Find the music you want, add it to a playlist and that's it. The restriction is that it is tied to Spotify, you need the Spotify client or the Spotify app for your phone in order to listen to the music.

Steam does something similar for games piracy, and the CEO of Valve (the company behind Steam) has said that piracy is not a concern for them. The service they have created is more convenient than downloading the games illegally, and while they do have an artificial price-hike for new games they also have insane sales regularly where you can buy games for almost nothing. This has actually lead to everybody involved making more money, since instead of selling ten units for $50 they sell 1,000 units for $5. Everybody loves a sale.

Also one thing that companies need to consider is they need to make more of an effort in allowing people to enjoy these works legally. Living in Sweden there is no reasonable and practical way for me to watch any good TV for example. Most shows never make it over here and if they do they are delayed by at least a year or more. More than once the ones buying the airing rights over here have only bought the rights to the first couple of seasons, which leads to them re-running those seasons over and over while the show continues on in the US. So I still download a lot of TV shows illegally, because I just can't enjoy them otherwise.

tl;dr Focusing on how bad copyright infringement is is an intellectual dead end.

PS. If you think the cost of pharmaceuticals is immoral you should probably not think about the fact that Big Pharma stands to make much more money if certain chronic illnesses are never cured. They can only sell you the herpes-cure once, but they can sell you Acyclovir for the rest of your life.

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1. No, not really

2. Hell no

3. Yes. I will respect and support a good cause when I see with certainty that my money will go towards something I enjoy

To me, IP is outdated mentality. Saying that by not respecting IP we encourage lack of creation/innovation is plain wrong. It's just the mindset with creating intangible goods should be different.

1. create product

2. sell it

3. create many of the product

...this works with tangible goods

With intangible, the mindset should be:

1. Create product

2. Give it away in such a way that it creates an opportunity for you to sell a service or associated tangible goods

3. Sell the service or tangible goods

Example:

a. Write a song. Put it up on youtube or w/e free. Invite people to see you live. Sell tickets and t-shirts.

b. Create a videogame. Put it up for free, first 20 days. After that, $15 per month. Call it WoW.

c. Write a book. Put it up for free. Become Cory Doctrow.

People want to share and will share intangible goods. It's only going to get worse for those who keep trying to make money with the old mindset, IMO.

Also, I feel like there are too many special snowflakes this day and age who think that creativity should be rewarded in a big way. The truth is, almost everyone is really creative in some way, and now is a great time for everyone with little barriers to entry, where before you really had to "know people". Creating a song/book/picture and expecting to sell each intangible copy for even $1 is, IMO, overstating the relative value. There are tons of amazing books/songs/pictures for free already.

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