Quote:
Originally Posted by darryl
And, building on what Thesaidon said, there are few clearer examples of the operation of bad intellectual property laws than in the area of academic journals. Locking up scientific knowledge, usually gained through publicly funded research, does real and lasting harm, and I would argue not only fails to advance science, but in fact retards it. Another example is patents for lifesaving drugs. This is less clearcut because of the possibility that such drugs would never have been developed without the existing patent incentives. Yet the situation is clearly untenable where the price tag for these drugs is condemning people to death. Yet there seems to be little effort devoted to looking at changes to the existing system or other means of funding/incentivizing drug development whilst also ensuring no one is condemned to death through excessive prices.
Laws which operate so badly in practice can and should be dealt with by legislatures, but seldom are, usually because of lobbying by vested interests with very deep pockets. When legislatures abrogate their responsibility in this regard, it is certainly legitimate to discuss how the needed changes may be brought about. I am not by saying this advocating piracy or even civil disobedience. The question raised is more whether such measures can ever be justified before discussion of any particular cases. This is not appropriate for discussion on Mobileread, even in the political forums, as to argue that such measures can be justified, at least in the case of copyright, is to condone piracy in some limited circumstances, which is of course in breach of the relevant guidelines.
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Drugs, I think, is very different issue. Drugs actually have a short period of exclusivity. The real issue is the regulatory cost involved with approving new drugs in the US. That can run into the billions range and can last decades.
Not really a good subject for an ebook board, of course.
The major problem that we have with copyright is, as mentioned in the article, two very different and to a degree, mutually exclusive, view of copyright. I won't use the term intellectual property, since the term has the built in assumption that one view is the correct view.
The two views,
1) copyright is the personal property of the author and unlike any other property, belongs to the author and his or her heirs for eternity. That's the Victor Hugo view of copyright. I can see why Hugo, a wealthy French writer might feel that way.
2) copyright is a government granted limited term monopoly on copying a work that is designed to make more arts available for the public good. A work that is not available to the public, is not in the interest of the public good.
Of course, the real issue here is the small handful of what I would call franchise works. The Victor Hugo, Disney, Tolkien and the like. Works that continue to be popular well past the normal time frame for a work and more importantly, works that generate a lot of money. I don't really have an issue with Tolkien's great grandchildren continuing to get the proceeds of LOTR.
Perhaps one solution would be to have all works available either in a license situation much like the google library of Alexandria, except where the author opts out and then the author would have to re-opt out every 7 years. Or possibly have that library only include works older than 7 years. Perhaps set the library up as part of the library of Congress and pay Google for the expense of scanning the books.
There are a lot of potential solutions. The real issue is there is no one who benefits enough to push the solution through Congress.