New Zealand bans some software patents • Hacker News Board

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#131

Post by foobarbazqux » Wed, Aug 28, 2013, 8:12 PM UTC

betterunix wrote: post #125

foobarbazqux wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between legal rights and natural / human rights. The latter are ideals, the former are what are brought into existence by the application of force. Intellectual property corresponds (somewhat poorly) to the natural right of being allowed to profit from your ideas.

There is no natural right to profit from your ideas. Your ability to even try to profit from your ideas is substantially dependent on external factors in your life -- your position in society, your ancestry, the availability of capital and your ability to acquire it, etc. Do not confuse the right to think with the right to profit from your ideas. You do have a natural right to think about whatever you want, as well a…

I believe that creative expression should be valued by society, i.e. I believe that people have a natural / human right to rewarded for this kind of work.

But sure, I don't believe in absolute natural rights, much as I don't believe in absolute morals.

Put more simply, I believe that authorship is a natural right, just like ownership. You might ask, why should the idea be mine just because I got to first? And I would answer, why should the tree be yours just because you got to it first?

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#132

Post by humanrebar » Wed, Aug 28, 2013, 8:15 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #124

humanrebar wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While intellectual property is almost entirely a legal creation, government is not necessary for property to exist. Indeed, John Locke considered property to be a natural right along with life and liberty.

The point is that intellectual property is property in the same way that quarks have "color." It is a relatively novel legal concept compared to physical property. In the US constitution it is completely distinct from other rights: You are assumed to just have rights. Not among the assumed rights are patents and copyright, which are a government granted monopoly.

I agree with you about patent and copyrights, but I think it's important that people view essential rights like property rights and freedom of speech as being truly inalienable -- that individuals have them as long as right and wrong exist.

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#133

Post by baddox » Wed, Aug 28, 2013, 8:26 PM UTC

foobarbazqux wrote: post #111

baddox wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify: you call territorialism in the animal kingdom a state?

Sure, why not? Humans are animals, after all.

I would prefer a more specific definition that would match more closely to people's intuition about what is and isn't a state, and also allows for discussion about what the state should and shouldn't do. If we define "state" as to include animals protecting their territory, I don't see how the term will be very useful in any discussion.

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#134

Post by Steko » Wed, Aug 28, 2013, 8:30 PM UTC

venus wrote: post #55

kvb wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it. Let's stipulate that he is an Oracle puppet. Why would that incentivize him to lie about what the bill actually covers? Regardless of his incentives, is he wrong that not all software patents would be prevented under this bill? Disclosure: I'm a Microsoft employee, so I probably have some devious motives, too.

Do you know what a heuristic is? Basically, being an Oracle puppet is an extremely negative heuristic for being a useful voice on anything related to software IP. Absent compelling evidence to the contrary, I am inclined to ignore any and all opinions of said puppet. And FWIW, being a Microsoft employee defending an Oracle stooge doesn't play all that well either. Isn't this all common sense?

So wait Matt Cutts being paid by Google makes him a puppet and we shouldn't take him to be a useful voice on anything related to search?

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#135

Post by baddox » Wed, Aug 28, 2013, 8:31 PM UTC

betterunix wrote: post #122

foobarbazqux wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Adam and Eve then?

Actually it takes more than one man and one woman for humanity to avoid extinction with a reasonable degree of success: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_population Of course, that number depends on things like the environment (a favorable environment will mean a smaller number) and the genetics of the "first" generation. I seriously doubt that the number could be as small as two for any species even under…

So there was never only a single human in existence?

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#136

Post by orclev » Wed, Aug 28, 2013, 8:44 PM UTC

homosaur wrote: post #65

foobarbazqux wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, if it's you in the forest with a shotgun defending your property in a libertarian utopia, you're the government.

I get what you're aiming at but if you're holding the shotgun, that's not government. Government is when I cede the right to protect my forest with a shotgun in order that a government entity will do it for me. We give government a monopoly on force under the agreement that I generally should not be shooting people to protect my rights.

That's not entirely true, at least in the United States. That's part of the purpose of the 2nd amendment. We cede some of our rights to use force to the government, but things like Castle Doctrine and the 2nd amendment mean we also retain those rights in specific circumstances.

Another aspect of the 2nd amendment people often overlook (particularly gun control advocates) was that it was originally intended as a check to the power of the army. The idea being that should the government ever try to use the military to suppress the public, that an armed public would be able to fight back and presumably being bigger than the military, win. That theory has been greatly eroded in the last 70 years or so by the increasingly large gap between the weapons the military has access to and what the public has access to. Back when the constitution was drafted a rifle was a rifle was a rifle, and 200 soldiers versus 1000 citizens all armed with rifles, the citizens would likely win. These days with the military having tanks and jets and nightvision and all manner of other advanced weapons (including the much debated fully automatic rifles) means that your average group of citizens wouldn't stand a chance against the military in serious armed conflict.

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#137

Post by jusben1369 » Wed, Aug 28, 2013, 8:47 PM UTC

jlgreco wrote: post #121

jusben1369 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The reason my coworkers haven't stolen the keyboard off my desk when I go to get coffee isn't the government, it is just because they have some base-level respect for me." - Do you really believe that? If someone wanted your keyboard their thought process - if conscious - probably follows the following: "If I take that and get caught then I'll likely be fired. So it's not worth me putting my monthly salary of $5000…

> Do you really believe that? Yes, I do. It is how I think, and I think well enough of my coworkers that I believe they think the same. I wouldn't assume that they don't think that way without evidence of it, since that is a vile thing to assume. Are there some people without this respect who are held in line merely by the law, or fear of losing their job? Sure, of course there are some people like that. The fact rem…

One thing to consider is the passive vs the active. The people in your office don't steal your keyboard because they have no need for it and/or they don't desire it. That's because they too are given one. That's because it's a very small cost to them to acquire one. The retribution that would come from taking your keyboard is completely out of whack with the benefit of taking it whether that retribution was becoming a social outcast or having the weight of the state applied to the crime. So they're rationale actors driven by self interest vs having any respect (or not) for you. The real test is when someone (rightly or wrongly) covets what you have. Perhaps they're genuinely starving or looking to feed their family. Maybe it's a step above that and they're quite poor and they perceive you to be well off. Those are the better situations to judge whether people are then constrained/motivated by only a self respect for you and/or a fear of state repercussions.

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#138

Post by distant-uncle » Wed, Aug 28, 2013, 8:51 PM UTC

foobarbazqux wrote: post #131

betterunix wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no natural right to profit from your ideas. Your ability to even try to profit from your ideas is substantially dependent on external factors in your life -- your position in society, your ancestry, the availability of capital and your ability to acquire it, etc. Do not confuse the right to think with the right to profit from your ideas. You do have a natural right to think about whatever you want, as well a…

I believe that creative expression should be valued by society, i.e. I believe that people have a natural / human right to rewarded for this kind of work. But sure, I don't believe in absolute natural rights, much as I don't believe in absolute morals. Put more simply, I believe that authorship is a natural right, just like ownership. You might ask, why should the idea be mine just because I got to first? And I would…

It seems to me that when you say that people have a natural right to profit, you actually mean a "right to exclude".

I think that's a whole nuther kettle of fish.

For one, the two are in contradiction. Suppose you believe that you have the right to exclude, presumably you also believe that all other humans have the same right, owing to its status as a natural right. By believing that you can exclude, and therefore profit by way of eliminating competition, you acknowledge that the competition can exclude you as well.

It boils down to whether or not by "profit", one implies complete domination of a resource. I tend to think that many parties can profit, without the necessity to exclude by brute force.

This is also the key difference between patents and copyrights. The former demands total domination of a resource, while the latter does not.

> And I would answer, why should the tree be yours just because you got to it first?

It's a good point, but there is a difference. It is possible for two parties to arrive at the same intellectual destination without being aware of one another. The same cannot be said for two parties arriving at the same tree, at the same time, but one not being aware of the existence of the other.

I suppose you can construct an argument in which both parties lack all physical sense of awareness. :)

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#139

Post by leeoniya » Wed, Aug 28, 2013, 8:51 PM UTC

cromwellian wrote: post #72

Software patents are an abomination. I could stomach copyright on software, because at least one is still permitted independent implementation and expression. I can't copy your code, but I can rewrite it. Software patents on the other hand put a fence around ideas themselves. You can't draw a cursor using XOR by implementing it yourself, period, for 20 years. The patent system is deeply broken, and it doesn't even st…

"Get a dozen sharp programmers together, give them all a hard problem to work on, and a bunch of them will come up with solutions that would probably be patentable, and be similar enough that the first programmer to file the patent could sue the others for patent infringement." -- John Carmack

from http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/patents/carmack

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#140

Post by humanrebar » Wed, Aug 28, 2013, 8:54 PM UTC

foobarbazqux wrote: post #129

humanrebar wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with your definitions. Rights, though abstract, are real. This is why atrocities outside the reach of law (murder in international water, war crimes, genocide) are clearly wrong. Laws are nothing but codified decisions from government. Sometimes they define the specifics of how natural rights are balanced against each other. However, laws sometimes violate rights, such as the now-repealed Jim Crow laws in…

The difference legal and natural rights corresponds to the difference between laws and morals. That's all I mean. Natural rights are real things in as much as morals are real things.

Let me recap, because discussions become convoluted in forum format.

First ataggart makes the point that elevating patent and copyright privileges to the level of natural rights is wrong and implies (through Orwell) that confusing intellectual property rights and physical property rights leads to foolish thinking.

Then, you make the argument that it doesn't matter because, "Every legal concept is entirely the government's creation, including both physical and intellectual property...."

Then a bunch of people, myself included, disagree with that point by referencing Hobbes and Locke and providing examples of how ownership exists outside of government influence.

Now, I agree that "Natural rights are real things in as much as morals are real things." And since we are not amoral, we can presume that natural rights exist.

Remember, the original point is that labels matter here. Mislabeling things as "rights" causes people to both overvalue grants from their governments and (more importantly) to devalue natural rights as being decreed by government (which means they can be abolished or altered by the same powers).

When your "rights" are derived from government and they are taken away, you're on the losing side. When rights are inalienable and they are violated, you are being persecuted.

All that is to say, "intellectual property rights" is a dumb term.