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Comment by epo | Hacker News Reader

Funny how the Samsung apologists have gone from saying "of course it's not a copy, they had these designs before Apple" to "what else could they do?". This defence of plagiarism as being somehow in the better interest of consumers is laughable. "intellectual property is first and foremost intended to protect users"? What have you been smoking?

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> Funny how the Samsung apologists have gone from saying "of course it's not a copy, they had these designs before Apple" to "what else could they do?". This defence of plagiarism as being somehow in the better interest of consumers is laughable. "intellectual property is first and foremost intended to protect users"? What have you been smoking?

Intellectual property has always been a temporary monopoly granted to provide economic incentives to inventors/writers/what-have-you for societal advancement.

Quoting from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property#Objective...: "The stated objective of most intellectual property law (with the exception of trademarks) is to "Promote progress."[12] By exchanging limited exclusive rights for disclosure of inventions and creative works, society and the patentee/copyright owner mutually benefit, and an incentive is created for inventors and authors to create and disclose their work."

That said, I don't like your tone. Arguing, for or against a position does not make one an apologist.

The U.S. constitution makes it quite clear that intellectual property exists for the benefit of citizens, to promote the advancement of useful knowledge and discoveries.

Eh, from a direct reading its not that clear:

From Article 1, Section 8: Congress shall have the Power to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

I guess it's fair to say that 'the Progress of Science' is for the benefit of citizens, but there's definitely cutouts for the benefits of inventors & authors.

I think this muddiness definitely sits near the root of current IP debates.

Looks pretty clear to me.

> Congress shall have the Power to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,

The goal or motive.

> by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

The means by which the goal is achieved. The benefit to authors and inventors are a means to and end, don't confuse the means for the motive.

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