51–60 of 68 posts
As long as they target other software patent trolls like Microsoft and Apple I'd be perfectly fine with it. They could become the batman of the patent world.
I just love this. Lots of dick-swinging and heart-bleeding and whining and greed. There is no right side in this. Everyone just wants their way. The web is not some inalienable right handed down from God for the betterment of humanity. It's a clever idea that lots of people find handy. Kleenex and eyeglasses are clever, too. I don't see a movement to free tissue paper. Why is anyone shocked by the prospect that it ma…
The real issue here is the hegemony that gives a single coalition governments the ability dictate worldwide patent and copyright law. It seems that if that didn't exist, people interested in innovating and creating great, new, things would just go to the countries that didn't have forcefully draconian IP laws. Sure, maybe there are some advantages to having patents, but in their current form for software, they are a…
Unfortunately this is not realistic. A major problem of the current patents system is the amount of money invested ("zillions" of dollars); every step towards reforming it is essentially equivalent to burning (some) people's dollars in flames - there may be a good reason behind, but it's very unlikely to happen.
The real issue here is the hegemony that gives a single coalition governments the ability dictate worldwide patent and copyright law. It seems that if that didn't exist, people interested in innovating and creating great, new, things would just go to the countries that didn't have forcefully draconian IP laws. Sure, maybe there are some advantages to having patents, but in their current form for software, they are a…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We're talking about the web the year Mosaic was released. Before 1993 there were no web browsers that ran in Windows. There were no web search engines yet. There was little more than static hypertext webpages for research labs. There may well not have been other client-server applications yet... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_World_Wide_Web
Gopher and Archie and some remote identity/finger protocols already did most of the things the interactive web does today long before Mosaic showed up. There have been many beautiful advances since then in usability, bandwidth, user base, and especially integration with outside services. None of those things constitute inventions in the sense of being technological, novel, and non-obvious. Which doesn't stop absolute…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you wish to do business in the USA, you cannot ignore US patent law. Therefore moving out of the US is a hardship for you with absolutely no potential upside.
Fortunately for many people, the US is not the only country. Millions of companies survive and thrive without doing business in the US. At this time in history, we are used to thinking of the US as being a favorable business climate; relatively free of corruption with clear rules and low cost of business formation. It is clear that unless current trends are reversed that this will not remain the case. If the governme…
Extend the same principle to copyright: Hollywood can't refuse to sell me a movie just because I don't live in a certain geographical area, and RIAA can't deny YouTube users the right to cover and remix their music as long as a reasonable fee is collected by some other means, whether privately or via a public distribution scheme.
Perhaps the law should define a nominal amount per work that relieves the payer of all IP-related liability. The amount could depend on the type of work, and/or proportional to the profit generated, so that hobbyists who only copy stuff for personal use pay at the lowest bracket and people who make a lot of money out of other people's IP pay more, just like taxes.
Are there any obvious downsides to the idea?
The real issue here is the hegemony that gives a single coalition governments the ability dictate worldwide patent and copyright law. It seems that if that didn't exist, people interested in innovating and creating great, new, things would just go to the countries that didn't have forcefully draconian IP laws. Sure, maybe there are some advantages to having patents, but in their current form for software, they are a…
In politics/activism, this is usually referred to as "heightening the contradictions". That strategy only works, however, if you have a fairly optimistic view of history and progress. If you don't, the strategy is just as likely to produce a dramatically worse outcome.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In politics/activism, this is usually referred to as "heightening the contradictions". That strategy only works, however, if you have a fairly optimistic view of history and progress. If you don't, the strategy is just as likely to produce a dramatically worse outcome.
I was going to ask the GP, I'll ask you instead, can you think of concrete historical cases where pointing out a ton of problems led to a dramatic reform instead of just slight tweaking that ends up introducing more problems? Can you think of cases where (bad) --causes alone--> (worse) --causes alone--> (incredibly better)? (It seems to me it's more of an ebb and flow of good/bad.) The sentiment seems especially popu…
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Reform_Act_of_1986 Sometimes called "The Second Reagan tax cut", but it ended up raising overall revenue so that's something of a misnomer. It eliminated a lot of loopholes and lowered the base rates. [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Responsibility_and_Wor...