Comment by tzs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tzs | Hacker News Reader

There's an economic justification for the current type of IP law in societies that philosophically believe that the free market should be used whenever possible to determine the allocation of resources. It goes like this:

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It can be shown by the mathematical economics folks that the free market leads to economically optimum results if and only if the goods in the market have certain attributes.

If goods do not have those attributes, the free market does not work with those goods in the sense that it does not lead to a good allocation of resources.

Intellectual goods do not have those attributes. Therefore the free market does not work for intellectual goods.

If we want to have optimal allocation of resources to the production of intellectual goods, we either need some mechanism other than the free market (e.g., patronage, probably by the government) or we need to pretend that intellectual goods DO have the necessary attributes. Our current IP law takes the later approach.

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Nearly every anti-current-IP-system opinion I've read (including the submitted article and most of the comments here so far) fails to propose how to achieve reasonable allocation of resources using some system other than the current system (except for RMS...he's one of the few who gets it--see below).

At best we usually get suggestions that creators of intellectual goods will find something else to do. For instance, musicians will give concerts, writers will make their living doing contract articles, programmers will provide customization or support, and so on.

Those suggestions are missing the point. When a great novelist is spending time writing articles, he's not writing his next great novel. When a great programmer is handling tech support, he's not writing great programs. Those resources are not being optimally allocated.

RMS has suggested that there be a tax on internet connectivity, with the money going to fund creators of intellectual goods, with distribution of the money based on the cube root of popularity.

People are engaging in activity Y.

Activity Y is not profitable.

How can we control the internet to make Activity Y profitable?

Suggesting folks engaged in Activity Y figure it out is not an acceptable response.

I can't help but feel this is a false dilemma. What about Activity A B and C that aren't profitable? Shouldn't we care about the proliferation and development of all these activities? Furthermore, maybe folks engaging in Activity Y should just evolve and adopt to the modern climate of the digital age. See GNU/Linux.

It's a strawman argument, since there are two components here. First, it's hard to make a living as a writer, perhaps your just not good enough or only appeal to a small part of the population. Secondly your right to get paid for your work. The second part doesn't go away simply because making a living as a writer is hard.

Yes, it does in fact. It isn't society's responsibility to make writing profitable. Just because the internet et al are making it harder to make a living as a writer doesn't mean we have any responsibility to turn around and make it easier.

It's society's responsibility to enforce the laws, this isn't a discussion about internet per se, it's not excluded from the laws of the society. Other phenomenons are also thriving on the internet like credit card frauds. By your logic this isn't society's responsibility either, we simply have to accept the current state and adapt.

Even if the laws are wrong? And even more "bad" laws are being introduced?

I'm simply taking the discussion back to the topic. A discussion about the theoretical basis of a copyright law.

The point is whether such laws should exist or not, not if they should be enforced.

The fact that without such laws some activities are unprofitable is not a reason to keep those laws, unless you think we should ban email to avoid layoffs of post office worker. Or ban Netflix to avoid losing jobs in video rentals.

Absolutely, and this is my point as well. If you read the post I responded to it should be clear I think. That is, if you believe in the theoretical basis of the law, then the internet does not change that fact.

  It isn't society's responsibility to make writing profitable.

Society rewards everything that benefits itself (at least the society i have agreed to live into). For example it rewards good scientific research because it makes everyone more productive and happier. I believe it has a good reason to make it profitable for writers to write good books too.

Let me amend it to say it isn't _necessarily_ society's responsibility to make writing profitable, and from what I've seen enough good writing gets done without being profitable that the distinction between professional writer and serious amateur writer is no longer meaningful.

If we wanted to help inventors we'd help inventors. If people found a started using a new thing we'd track it back and reward the creator, those who popularized it, teachers, etc. And we'd make education free.

But instead we have a system that, if you pay a large (to individuals) fee, and file a ton of complex paperwork, may be persuaded to give you the monopoly right to sue people who used 'your' idea even if they independently invented it. But you're responsible for hiring lawyers to persuade the court to give you the money we supposedly ruled you have a right to. The court won't help by investigating the issue but can be easily convinced to issue crippling restraining orders, an action more likely to kill the accused witch than prove her innocence. No rewards for inventors, but here's a club and license to use it for extortion.

We could reward inventors, instead we reward lawyers. Specifically lawyers who cheat inventors. Patents, and copyrights, are a huge negative force on society. We need to get rid of them or we'll be eaten alive by groups who did.

A tax on internet connectivity to fund creators of intellectual goods sounds like an awful idea to me. Who qualifies as a "creator of intellectual goods"? Do you have to register for that? Can you have another job as well? How is popularity measured, especially where multiple works by the same person are involved? Multiple contributors to the same work, with varying degrees of input? You can assume that the number of "creators of intellectual goods" will be inflated. Is there really going to be enough money from a Internet connectivity tax to supply the living of all the artists who "deserve" it?

It sounds like a nightmare to implement, which means it would almost certainly be implemented horribly. That alone, disregarding any theoretical merits, should rule it out as a viable idea.

That hasn't stopped taxes on CDs, DVDs and even external hardisks in many countries which supposedly then get redistributed to "creators" (ie., the record/film industry cartels).

So yea, it is pretty horrible, like most of the "intellectual property" system (just look at patents..).

Yes, apparently those countries landed on the "implemented horribly" side.

It would not be wise to replace the current IP system with nothing. We need to replace it with something better, more granular, that will use technology to reward based on who uses what IP product and how. Popularity alone is not the ideal criterion, or else we would not have the Picassos or the Frank Gehrys of the world.

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