What’s the Solution To Intellectual Property?

Permalink: http://www.CopyrightReform.us/archives/69
Posted by Bryan Andrews | Posted in: External Articles | Comments(0) May 2008

“I’m an anarcho-capitalist, and a huge supporter of property rights, both physical and intellectual. At the same time, I find the current trend of increasing penalties for minor violations, criminalizing civil IP matters, anti-consumer technologies like DRM, and abuse of the legal system by the *AA’s of the world really disturbing. You’d think that by now, there’d be a reasonable solution to the problem of protecting intellectual property while at the same time maintaining the rights of consumers and protecting individuals from absurd litigation, but I have yet to find one. So, I pose these questions to the Slashdot community: 1 — Do you acknowledge the legitimacy of intellectual property to begin with? That is, do you believe that intellectual property is a valid construct equivalent to physical property, or do you think it’s illusory? If not, why? 2 — If so, how would you go about protecting the rights of intellectual property holders in a way that doesn’t require unfair usage limitations or resort to predatory abuse of the tort system?”

Source: Slashdot 

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Patent Attorney on Why We Need to Rethink Intellectual Property

Permalink: http://www.CopyrightReform.us/archives/68
Posted by Bryan Andrews | Posted in: External Articles | Comments(0) May 2008

  Techdirt called our attention to an interesting video of patent attorney Stephan Kinsella’s presentation on “Rethinking Intellectual Property Completely“. It’s a long presentation, but well worth the time to watch. There is also an ongoing series of posts discussing intellectual property rights on Techdirt for additional reading.

Source: Slashdot

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Infringement ‘Detrimental To the Public Health, Safety’

Permalink: http://www.CopyrightReform.us/archives/67
Posted by Bryan Andrews | Posted in: External Articles | Comments(0) May 2008

“The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has declared that copyright infringement ‘substantially interferes with the interest of the public in the quality of life and community peace, lawful commerce in the county, property values, and is detrimental to the public health, safety, and welfare of the county’s citizens, its businesses and its visitors.’ You might laugh, but that means they can close up a property for up to one year for violations of the anti-infringement ordinance [PDF] and the owner can be fined $1,000 for each infringing work produced on site. Not to mention the penalties in the PRO-IP Act, which just sailed through the House.”

 Comment: The problem is the current IP laws do cost lives - thousands die from treatable diseases every day for no reason other than protecting the profits of drugs companies. For a copyright example, many third world countries cannot develop while the necessary infrastucture and knowledge cannot be freely distributed (software and books).

If you want a full review, check out http://www.iprcommission.org/home.html

People, such as the grandparent, need to stop simply associating copyright infringement with downloading movies for free and see the real damage IP laws and regulations do to millions of lives throughout the world.

Source: Slashdot

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PRO-IP Act Passes Judiciary Committee

Permalink: http://www.CopyrightReform.us/archives/66
Posted by Bryan Andrews | Posted in: External Articles | Comments(0) May 2008

“The Pro-IP Act has passed the Judiciary Committee unanimously, thanks to the support of committee chairman Rep. John Conyers (D-MI). We’ve discussed this before — it’s the same bill which would create copyright cops with the power to seize computers, when powers like that have been systematically abused in other areas. But, apparently, they think the bill is just wonderful now, simply because they cut the provision that would’ve increased statutory damages while keeping the rest. This is the same bill that William Patry called the ‘most outrageously gluttonous IP bill ever introduced in the US.’”

While we’re on the subject of intellectual property, Canadian law professor Michael Geist gave a talk on Monday about ‘copyright myths.’

Source: Slashdot

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