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Cory Doctorow: IP (2020)

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Re: Cory Doctorow: IP (2020)

#111

Post by solidsnack9000 »

pdonis wrote: post #80
solidsnack9000 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that ordinary property can't be copied, but its use can be quite scalable. For example, many people can hunt in a large forest at the same time or fish the same giant lake, and enjoy its outputs in an effectively non-rivalrous way. (This changes if we shift from rod-and-reel fishing to nets and boats, of course.)

> It's true that ordinary property can't be copied, but its use can be quite scalable. What you're describing is not "scalable" use. It's just an example of physical property whose "use" amounts to some number N of people doing something using it, where N is much larger than 1. But N is still based on, and limited by, the physical nature of the property; it can't be increased arbitrarily by just making more copies, t…

You are more or less saying what I said in different words.

Re: Cory Doctorow: IP (2020)

#112

Post by jgeada »

sriku wrote: post #89
kstrauser wrote: post #52

I think intellectual property should be taxed as are other properties and assets. This would seem to have the nice side effect of setting a monetary value in IP lawsuits. If you declare that your property is worth $X when you file taxes, you couldn’t really argue that it’s worth $10X when suing over violations of it. And frankly, I think IP should be taxed since holders rely on the government to protect it. If I have…

Isn't it the case that the use of IP generates wealth which is taxed anyway? So wouldn't that amount to a kind of double taxation?

My salary is taxed. And yet when I spend it, it becomes someone else's salary, and theirs is taxed too.

How come the silly "double taxation" meme is only brought up when we're talking about rich people's money? (ie corporations, rent-seeking structures, etc)

Re: Cory Doctorow: IP (2020)

#113

Post by RobertKerans »

zepto wrote: post #106
RobertKerans wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I'll concede I'm only talking about the vast majority of companies operating in a capitalist system: their broad goal is to make profit . There are companies formed whose explicit (or hidden) aim is not to make profit, to just use the legal frameworks surrounding companies to their advantage, sure (more than there are companies formed for profit-making purposes? But are they then actually companies in anything bu…

This really isn’t reflective of reality. The vast majority of companies in a capitalist system are small to medium sized businesses that are constrained in how much money they can ever make. Money is an incentive, and there are certainly some companies whose sold purpose is to make profit. As I said these are in the financial sector . But you only have to look around to see that the vast majority of people who both r…

> ...and the profit is merely a necessary condition for achieving it.

Well, yes, exactly. Say you are a person. You have a goal to make {thing}. You achieve that goal by selling {thing}. To aid in this task under the economic system you live within, you create a legal entity, called a company. Your aim is still to achieve your goal. The aim of the company is to help with that.

The profit is a necessary condition, as you say. I'm not sure how you can write that and then disagree. This is a basic fundamental thing, like 1+1 is 2. If profit is the necessary condition to acheive {goal} and a company is the legal vehicle by which you attempt to achieve {goal}, then the aim of the company has to be increase profit, there isn't a choice.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it's just a thing. There will be other primary and ancillary aims, but the core reason for its existence is for that aim.

> But you only have to look around to see that the vast majority of people who both run companies and who work for them are not in it to maximize profit.

Yes, that's what I said re workers, and sure, it can apply to many smaller business owners. As you go up the ladder in company size from small business I would strongly disagree that the people running the companies are not there to maximise profit: appointments are very often explicitly made for financial reasons.

> The vast majority of companies in a capitalist system are small to medium sized businesses that are constrained in how much money they can ever make.

Right, but the ones who are the original subject are not small to medium sized businesses, and they either are not heavily constrained by this, or actively lobby to remove restrictions that do constrain them.

Re: Cory Doctorow: IP (2020)

#114

Post by zepto »

RobertKerans wrote: post #113
zepto wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really isn’t reflective of reality. The vast majority of companies in a capitalist system are small to medium sized businesses that are constrained in how much money they can ever make. Money is an incentive, and there are certainly some companies whose sold purpose is to make profit. As I said these are in the financial sector . But you only have to look around to see that the vast majority of people who both r…

> ...and the profit is merely a necessary condition for achieving it. Well, yes, exactly. Say you are a person. You have a goal to make {thing}. You achieve that goal by selling {thing}. To aid in this task under the economic system you live within, you create a legal entity, called a company. Your aim is still to achieve your goal. The aim of the company is to help with that. The profit is a necessary condition, as…

“I'm not sure how you can write that and then disagree.”

Easily - it’s like saying “Consuming food is a necessary condition for human life”. That doesn’t mean all human activity reduces to eating food.

> I would strongly disagree that the people running the companies are not there to maximise profit: appointments are very often explicitly made for financial reasons.

Granted this is sometimes true, but you are just leaving out the fact that in order to increase profit, the business generally has to offer more value too. There are exceptions to this, but it is generally true.

And when they stop adding value or fall behind, unless there is a true monopoly which none of the tech companies have, they become vulnerable to competition.

> > The vast majority of companies in a capitalist system are small to medium sized businesses that are constrained in how much money they can ever make.

> Right, but the ones who are the original subject are not small to medium sized businesses, and they either are not heavily constrained by this, or actively lobby to remove restrictions that do constrain them.

This is just affirming the consequent again, making the assumption that these business all have maximizing profit as their primary goal and that the only reason they haven’t grown giant is constraints.

But the elephant in the room is that if profit were the only motive, nobody would bother to start businesses in fields that aren’t very profitable. The fact that they do, is an existence proof that people run businesses for reasons other than profit maximization.

Re: Cory Doctorow: IP (2020)

#115

Post by RobertKerans »

zepto wrote: post #110
RobertKerans wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're looking at this from the wrong angle. > I'd like to see this general rule somewhere. People say it often, and cite a few examples, but nothing that amounts to a general rule that I have seen. Pick any megacorporation that has reached a point in terms of market cap where they can dictate favourable political/economic conditions for themselves, so from when companies started appearing, so mid-late 1700s.…

> And only having this level of power for a decade? Again, why is that important, I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. Frankly it’s been much less than a decade. Apple (for one) was far less dominant a decade ago, indeed many people were still declaring them to be doomed. What this means is that we may well be looking at a transient phenomenon. You simply do not know how stable this ‘power’ is. If they had…

Again, I think you are looking at this from the wrong viewpoint, at the wrong level. Of course the power is transient, it always is. That isn't the issue.

> If you don’t know how they got into the position they are in, how do you know how stable it is, or how vulnerable they are to competition? I.e. how can you analyze their business?

Eh? You just did that, not me. I've mentioned Apple once, to say that I don't know enough about their rise [financially] to comment re point that parent was making re Google and Amazon. But

> Apple is now a ship whose direction is slow to change, and they are ripe for disruption.

This is why I think you're looking at this at the wrong level. "ripe for disruption"? So what? What I'm talking about is a company that can develop their own chips, spend a billion dollars buying a modem business off another company, lobby against regulations on use of forced labour. That's what it can do now, not a decade ago or a decade in the future.

Re: Cory Doctorow: IP (2020)

#116

Post by RobertKerans »

zepto wrote: post #114
RobertKerans wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...and the profit is merely a necessary condition for achieving it. Well, yes, exactly. Say you are a person. You have a goal to make {thing}. You achieve that goal by selling {thing}. To aid in this task under the economic system you live within, you create a legal entity, called a company. Your aim is still to achieve your goal. The aim of the company is to help with that. The profit is a necessary condition, as…

“I'm not sure how you can write that and then disagree.” Easily - it’s like saying “Consuming food is a necessary condition for human life”. That doesn’t mean all human activity reduces to eating food. > I would strongly disagree that the people running the companies are not there to maximise profit: appointments are very often explicitly made for financial reasons. Granted this is sometimes true, but you are just le…

> Easily - it’s like saying “Consuming food is a necessary condition for human life”. That doesn’t mean all human activity reduces to eating food.

Similarly, if you build a machine to assist humans in consuming food you don't say the point of the machine is something other than assisting them in consuming food.

> But the elephant in the room is that if profit were the only motive, nobody would bother to start businesses in fields that aren’t very profitable. The fact that they do, is an existence proof that people run businesses for reasons other than profit maximization.

Right, but that seems to be missing the point. Which is that the business itself, seperate from the personal goals of the owners and employees, as an entity, has to attempt to maximise profit [because of the economic system it exists within] to enable the goals of the owners and employees. And further to that, if (and I've never said that it isn't an if) that becomes a driving factor, it subsumes the personal goals. For a business to grow to the level talked about, maximising profit has to be the driving force.

Edit:

> This is just affirming the consequent again, making the assumption that these business all have maximizing profit as their primary goal and that the only reason they haven’t grown giant is constraints.

Nono, these businesses are giant. They have grown giant, that's what this was all primarily regarding.

Re: Cory Doctorow: IP (2020)

#117

Post by walleeee »

hilbert42 wrote: post #78
walleeee wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was with you for the first few paragraphs. But whichever system of ethics compels us to "catch up to China's manufacturing technology and output" and "smother the 'enemy' in an avalanche of production" (quotes mine) sounds more like a civilizational suicide pact than a vision for the future. Our smothering of the planet with production is the most immediate existential threat we face.

Oh dear, one has to so literal on posts these days. We were talking IP/software here - so 'poduction' here refers to software/organization. The WWII analogy/link has to do with what's possible if the country really tries - or has its back to the wall as it does now! Even if I had been referring to manufactured hardware type goods - which I wasn't - ramping local production would only replace/reestablish what we lost…

I'm sorry for assuming your meaning, I didn't realize you meant to refer only to software. I do agree that we could benefit from re-localizing. I'd prefer it not come wrapped in a new cold war, though. We have all the motivation needed for mass mobilization in ecological crisis, if we could see or feel it more directly.

Re: Cory Doctorow: IP (2020)

#118

Post by dllthomas »

RobertKerans wrote: post #104
dragonwriter wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > Also, it’s simply not true that these companies only real aim is to generate money from investors. > Yes it is, that's what the point of a company is. It's literally the definition. It's literally not the definition; now, it's true that the purpose of a public stock offering, or other offering of equity or debt for money is an effort to raise money from investors, but companies (even more narrowly corporations) n…

Ok, I'll concede I'm only talking about the vast majority of companies operating in a capitalist system: their broad goal is to make profit . There are companies formed whose explicit (or hidden) aim is not to make profit, to just use the legal frameworks surrounding companies to their advantage, sure (more than there are companies formed for profit-making purposes? But are they then actually companies in anything bu…

The bit you quoted said "generate money from investors", which is quite a different thing than "generate money for investors."

Re: Cory Doctorow: IP (2020)

#119

Post by hilbert42 »

walleeee wrote: post #117
hilbert42 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh dear, one has to so literal on posts these days. We were talking IP/software here - so 'poduction' here refers to software/organization. The WWII analogy/link has to do with what's possible if the country really tries - or has its back to the wall as it does now! Even if I had been referring to manufactured hardware type goods - which I wasn't - ramping local production would only replace/reestablish what we lost…

I'm sorry for assuming your meaning, I didn't realize you meant to refer only to software. I do agree that we could benefit from re-localizing. I'd prefer it not come wrapped in a new cold war, though. We have all the motivation needed for mass mobilization in ecological crisis, if we could see or feel it more directly.

Right. I can't agree with you more about smothering the planet in mostly-unnecessary stuff. I'm truly fed up with the fact that almost every appliance or bit of gear we buy is designed with a short limited life and not meant to be serviced. No wonder the world is awash with e-waste and similar broken/junked stuff. Once, just about every bit of electronics I bought or owned I could fix, now I can't even open up gear without smashing my way inside because it's glued up or snapped shut with one-use-only one-way snap-lock catches, etc. It's a damn disgrace.

Two weeks ago the USB socket on my Netgear modem became intermittent and I literally had to smash my way through the plastic case to get inside to gain access to the circuit board. Unfortunately, in doing so I damaged something else which (I think) has rendered it useless (I'll know for sure when I get a chance to take a microscope to the PWA). The fact remains that I haven't been able change a 20 cent socket and to save time I've had to buy a new device!

It seems to me that green and ecological movements should do more in this area to stop the millions of tons of e-waste—and getting behind Right to Repair movements is a good place to start.

Re: Cory Doctorow: IP (2020)

#120

Post by RobertKerans »

dllthomas wrote: post #118
RobertKerans wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I'll concede I'm only talking about the vast majority of companies operating in a capitalist system: their broad goal is to make profit . There are companies formed whose explicit (or hidden) aim is not to make profit, to just use the legal frameworks surrounding companies to their advantage, sure (more than there are companies formed for profit-making purposes? But are they then actually companies in anything bu…

The bit you quoted said "generate money from investors", which is quite a different thing than "generate money for investors."

Yes, I assumed it was a mistake and poster had meant to write "for", it doesn't make sense as "from"
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