D&D 4E Piracy and 4e

[xechnao]

Their rights are guaranteed by their own power or the collective power of a group they belong to. That's the same as their origin. A group of people agreeing on what their rights should be and then working to enforce them when required. I have no idea what this has to do with piracy. You asked me if people have the right to make money and I answered.

According to you knowledge is about money. So you are saying that their rights to knowledge are guaranteed by their own power or the collective power of a group they belong to. But what gives you power? If you want to say that money does -and it seems in your spirit- then practically power is used to reproduce more of the same. How is this progress?

Whether or not the existence of copyright laws encourage the advancement of knowledge through greater investment in private sector research and knowledge production.

No. We are debating about what does copyright laws should have to do with knowledge.

Here a simple example. Suppose I make a new medicine drug with side-effects. I do not tell people the whole knowledge about my drug because knowledge should be protected according to you. Indeed I make money that serve me to produce more knowledge. Or not?

 

[xechnao]

Perhaps not you. But on average. And certainly the people that fronted you the money for the infrastructure since it's the easiest path to profit.

The average does the best it can do. If they had the recipe of Guiness, the actual Guiness would be damaged if they wanted to -perhaps fatally - but beer production and innovation would still be the same. The talent is there, as is the market. People drink and make beer for thousands of years. It is not that Guiness beer is the best one people have ever made. It is just one of the most commercially successful beers.

 

[pemerton]

The law is the law, and economics is economics. Neither distinguishes between the markets being analyzed.

As I'm sure you would agree upon reflection, this isn't actually true.

For example, economics has the concept of "market failure" which applies to some markets (eg the market for public goods) but not others. Arguably (at least some) knowledge is a public good. (And not all countries' education systems charge tuition fees, in recognition of this fact, and many countries allow various sorts of public subsidies or support for research and development, also in recognition of this fact).

I think many libertarian economists would in fact regard the monopolies that IP law grants (especially patent rights) as obstacles to production, not facilitators thereof. Whether or not libertarian economics is an accurate theory of anything is another question altogether, of course. But even innovation-oriented economics (eg Schumpeter) might not accept that IP rights of the modern sort are an essential underpinning thereto - there are many other factors that are necessary conditions of innovation, including the access of the entrepreneur to a wide range of knowledge.

The law also distinguishes between markets. For example, TRIPS (the principal international legal agreement pertaining to IP rights) allows for compulsory licencing of patent rights in certain markets - typically the markets for public goods, such as health-related products - but not in others.

As to whether or not IP rights are essential to the technological progress of civilisation - a lot of progress happened in China (which was the centre of world production until around the 18th century) without IP rights of the modern sort, a lot of progress was made in Europe in the 19th century without IP rights of the modern sort, and little progress is being made in most of sub-Saharan Africa despite the fact that most of those countries, pursuant to TRIPS, do afford IP rights of the modern sort. I think most economic historians would regard IP rights as only one of very many and complex factors that contributes to technological development, let alone economic development more generally.

(Btw, if credentials matter in this discussion, mine are this: I have a PhD in political philosophy and lecture in a Faculty of Law - though not in IP law.)

 

[Spatula]

Uh, are Coca-Cola & Guinness' recipes even protected by law? Patents only last 10 years or so. The recipes are kept secret by the handlers treating them as the valuable secrets they are...

 

[pemerton]

Uh, are Coca-Cola & Guinness' recipes even protected by law? Patents only last 10 years or so. The recipes are kept secret by the handlers treating them as the valuable secrets they are...

In Australian (and English) law trade secrets (like secret recipes) are protected under the doctrine of Breach of Confidence - roughly speaking, provided that the information is in fact kept secret, anyone who attempts to use it without authorisation can be enjoined from doing so. I assume that American law (as well as non-common-law legal systems) has some sort of similar doctrine.

 

[Makaze]

According to you knowledge is about money. So you are saying that their rights to knowledge are guaranteed by their own power or the collective power of a group they belong to. But what gives you power? If you want to say that money does -and it seems in your spirit- then practically power is used to reproduce more of the same. How is this progress?

Their power comes from economic (money), military, technological, and cultural power among others. Essentially any way that they can effect the surround world, money being one of those ways. And yes power does tend to make the creation or acquisition of more power easier. That's how progress works, you continue building on your former successes to reach ever higher. That's why we see things like overall technological progress increasing on a double exponential scale or monopolies.

No. We are debating about what does copyright laws should have to do with knowledge.

Well that's the argument I'm making. Your argument seems to be that all knowledge "should" be free cause you said so.

Here a simple example. Suppose I make a new medicine drug with side-effects. I do not tell people the whole knowledge about my drug because knowledge should be protected according to you. Indeed I make money that serve me to produce more knowledge. Or not?

It's a bad example. Strictly speaking whether or not you make more money depends on the severity of the side effect and how long it takes the public to find out. You could make way more, or you could make more for a short period then be sued into the turf. However that knowledge is required by most 1st world nations by law to be sold with the product. That's a good thing and I wholeheartedly agree with that information being freely available.

And that's the disconnect we have. You think that ALL knowledge should be free, why I don't know. Some moral or ethical absolute that you've decided for yourself? I think balancing freedom of information and enforcement of intellectual property creates an environment ideally suited to our continued growth as a society. Feel free to debate which individual pieces of knowledge would be public (as you drug example) but the concept that they all should regardless of the consequences is simply naive.

@pemerton
I'd agree that it's not the sole factor by a long shot, not even a primary factor perhaps. However would continue to argue that all other things being equal it does positively effect the rate of technological advancement.

 

[Will]

I suspect most people arguing 'knowledge should be free' are folks who never came up with an idea anyone else would pay for.

I mean, as it is, the gaming industry suffers because ideas are paid for so poorly that everyone who gets a chance goes to some other creative endeavor that actually pays decently (like CRPGs), or those with enough obsession to do it as a side-project in spare time.

When I buy an RPG book, very little of my interest is the book as a physical product; I'm just about as happy with a pdf or whatnot.

I'm interested in the experience of reading it, and the ideas.

And once I've read those ideas? I can't un-read them, they get incorporated into me, into every idea I'll have thereafter.

The idea that you can 'preview' a complete text and decide whether to pay for it or not? Unless that preview is a teaser, if you've actually skimmed or read an entire product, you've consumed. You've TAKEN the ideas into yourself, and there's nothing, barring magic, to 'untake' the ideas.

This is why I have serious issues with the whole 'I was only trying it.' WotC has, at least for 3e, done a really nice job providing samples and overviews of their products; for example, you can find an entire list of feats from the PHB II on the WotC site (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060501a&page=4). It's not all the information you need to use many of the feats... but it gives you a good idea of what to expect in the product.

But say you are reading a torrent copy of Complete Adventurer and read Open Minded feat: you get five skill points to spend, subject to usual caps.

Now, Open Minded happens to be open material in the SRD (it first appeared in the Psionics Handbook). But for the sake of argument, let's say it was a feat that wasn't open ...

You can't 'unread' that. Now you know a valid feat. If you decide not to buy the book, you still know the feat, you can still use the feat, and it will still affect your judgment (such as, 'hmm, if I were to make a point system, how should skill points relate to feats? Oh, open minded is a good basis!')

Ideas are not traditional commodities. Selling someone an idea means someone pays you money, then you give them the idea. Once the customer absorbs the idea, there is no possible return of the idea. Stealing an idea only requires you to experience the idea that the inventor is expecting to be paid for, and not paying.

 

[xechnao]

Their power comes from economic (money), military, technological, and cultural power among others. Essentially any way that they can effect the surround world, money being one of those ways. And yes power does tend to make the creation or acquisition of more power easier. That's how progress works, you continue building on your former successes to reach ever higher.That's why we see things like overall technological progress increasing on a double exponential scale or monopolies.

Progress comes from people's work and labor. Science has been developed not because of ideas but because of libraries of knowledge accumulated. These libraries were build with labor.

Well that's the argument I'm making. Your argument seems to be that all knowledge "should" be free cause you said so.

Humans are social creatures. They share things. It is not because I "said" so. It is because this is our nature.

 

[xechnao]

I suspect most people arguing 'knowledge should be free' are folks who never came up with an idea anyone else would pay for.

What ideas are you talking about? There is no protection of ideas and this is good otherwise we are back to middle ages again. There is protection of applicative structures of ideas (patent law) and expression (copyright). Are you arguing that is a bad thing that people have a common language? Because language or whatever in our civilized world is a product of ideas you know.

 

[Will]

I'm talking about ideas people would pay for. Like inventions. Or a cool song.

If I come up with a nifty song and jot it down on a piece of paper, nobody's paying me based on the cost of paper and ink. They are paying for the idea that just happens to be rendered in paper and ink.

If someone wants to 'own' the song and I sing it to them, badly, and play it, badly, on the piano? They aren't buying my performance. They are buying my idea and the capacity to use it exclusively.

If they listen to my song, don't pay me, and then go out and perform the song, they have stolen my idea.