rms suggests dialling back copyright rather than completely abolishing it: 10 years from date of publication. Of course he doesn't believe in copyright for software at all, but that's another matter.

The funny thing is the way these greedy assholes in the copyright industry are behaving is just making it worse for them. It's driving people to places like z-library because essentially everything is in copyright. A child has just been born who won't ever see a work that was published 50 years ago go out of copyright. It's insane. With sensible copyright lengths we wouldn't need z-library.

Maybe it depends on which people you ask, but I don't think the American Dream is about IP at all --- but mostly freedom and independence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_meritocracy

Any additional benefits to copyright holders beyond what is needed to make sure we don't lose the works are essentially graft, no different in principle to the medieval church selling lucrative offices.

If these things are valuable only because of scarcity, then we are incentivizing scarcity by granting monopoly, so we should do as little of that as we can manage. If they are inherently valuable, they should be as widely disseminated as possible (a cost that government can easily afford given modern technology). If they are worthless, there is no harm in the government keeping a copy anyway.

Oh, okay!

Don't know if it would work but it's interesting.

So, basically, long-term patents should be a privilege reserved for the rich (people and corporations). Everyone else should GTFO? I'm sure FAANG would still be totally able to massively horde patents with whatever fee structure you propose.

FFS, Amazon developed literally dozens of commercial properties in my area, and then let them sit vacant for literal years because they had some change in strategy. They're perfectly happy to burn money, since they have so much.

So, your idea doesn't solve the problem you're trying to solve, and it would make things worse besides.

Do you know what a trade secret is? Trade secret already has an indefinite term. There's no reason why patent terms should be indefinite, it's antagonistic the concept of disclosure that is required to obtain a patent in the first place.

20 years is too long for many things where after that time the technology is no longer relevant. Remember that the entire point of intellectual property is to encourage creation in order to enrich the commons.

> but then should be replaced with a system that allows for an indefinite term.

And exponentially increasing fee does not allow an indefinite term because noone has infinite money. At some point the fee will be more than the entire global wealth.

Don't be obtuse. If 20 is too long, telling me that it can't actually be indefinite* isn't a great argument. So it can be 40 years if they pay? How is that better?!?

It's simply too long for a world that moves this fast.

Expressing views on HN doesn't directly change anything but there's some benefits. For example, over years it's become clear to me that I'm not alone in thinking this system is screwed up. Every time I expressed some "unhinged" opinions, as some people here called them, it felt like going against the status quo, against all odds. Inevitably though, somebody else would show up and show me that I'm not insane, in fact I'm not even being radical enough.

Academic publishers should not exist, research - especially publically funded research - should just go straight to the public domain.

I lean more towards 7-10 years, with required registration involving a DRM free copy of the work submitted to the US copyright office (where possible) who will automatically host that file for free once the copyright term has expired. There should be an RSS feed from copyright.gov with download links to the latest works entering the public domain. That'd also make it dead simple to find who you need to contact if you want to negotiate rights to use a work still under copyright's protection.

I agree that anything getting public funding should be public domain on day one (normal exceptions for national security etc)

I don't, anyone is free to animate their own versions of public domain material and sell it? What's weird about that? Perhaps you don't understand how copyright law functions, but Disney has no copyright in the underlying fable.

  Some research is funded through private donations

when someone says 'ip is doing more harm than good' what they mean is 'intellectual enclosure is doing more harm than good'. when someone says 'ip-intensive industries contribute (...)% of the (...) gdp' what they mean is 'knowledge-intensive industries contribute (...)% of the (...) gdp'

specifically the thing that intellectual enclosure is doing harm to is those knowledge-intensive industries, who are obliged to spend large fractions of their revenues on unproductive lawsuits instead of creating and sharing knowledge. in numerous cases it has destroyed major parts of those industries; two memorable examples are digital, which created the minicomputer and much of the internet, and diamond, which created the mp3 player

but the greatest casualties are not the productive activities that are terminated by intellectual enclosure, but the productive activities that are never born. do you know why linux didn't get a crashproof filesystem with snapshots 25 years ago? it's because of netapp patents. all the damage done by accidental file deletion and crashes on linux in that time could have been avoided. do you know why today there's still no simple way for regular people to send a ten-gigabyte file across the internet? mgm vs. grokster. and for every well-known catastrophe like this, there are ten thousand that never grow big enough for us to even guess what might have been

unsurprisingly the businesses that are most profitable in the current market are using strategies that fit well with the current regulatory regime. but that does not constitute argument that the current regulatory regime is good in any way, except perhaps by the minimal criterion of not completely cratering the entire economy yet

my intellect is not your property

A company like NVIDIA makes money by being 1-2 years ahead of the competition. Even if patents and copyright didn't exist at all, NVIDIA would push an innovative new chip to the market and the competition would take years to replicate it. NVIDIA wouldn't lose anything of significance.

This is very common across all industries and indeed there's zero evidence that intellectual property has any effect on encouraging innovation. See "Against intellectual monopoly". http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm

- no company like nvidia could exist, and for chip design and fabrication we'd be stuck with companies like intel, digital, micron, samsung, and texas instruments; but many other kinds of companies could exist that can't exist currently

- fabs like tsmc would hire design firms like nvidia to produce designs to fabricate; the division of labor would be the same as at present, but banks and investors would send their money to tsmc to pay to nvidia, rather than to nvidia to pay to tsmc

- fabs like tsmc would provide open-source pdks like the skywater pdk to anyone who was interested in designing chips. different open-source gpu designs would proliferate, and jen-hsun huang would be the head of a nonprofit foundation in oregon, spending his days coordinating the contributions of a worldwide network of volunteer electrical engineers and raising his children

- microelectronics fabrication machinery research would be focused on small job-shop equipment using electron beams rather than multibillion-dollar euv fabs, so you could get the chips of your choice fabricated in any downtown with five-day turnaround, much like printed-circuit boards. as before, different open-source gpu designs would proliferate, and huang would be the head of a nonprofit foundation in oregon

- gpu development and fabrication would be internally funded by companies that wanted to use large numbers of gpus, such as amazon and the nsa

of course, companies like nvidia don't depend on the particular 'intellectual property' law being weaponized against anna's archive, and things like anna's archive benefit companies like nvidia rather than threatening them

There’s a bit of a snag with this. Chip designs are rarely ever done from scratch. Instead they’re iterated over many years, similar to how browsers, operating systems, other critical software is developed. It took NVIDIA decades to get where they are now. If anyone else can just take their designs as a starting point then NVIDIA’s whole investment (billions of dollars in R&D over decades) ceases to be a competitive advantage.

I think what would actually end up happening is that chip design as NVIDIA is doing would cease to exist as a business. Perhaps we’d end up with something more akin to an open source model like Linux. But then cost of manufacturing (paying for the masks and order startup costs) would still run into the millions, and TSMC would hold all the cards.

The reason I brought all this up though may have been missed by all the commenters to my original post: the U.S. government and their strategic interests. Having American companies like NVIDIA (and Apple as well, really) lose power and marketshare is not in the interest of the government. The last thing the US wants to see is for China to close the technology gap on this stuff.

chinese policymakers can loosen domestic restrictions on innovation such as copyright and patent laws; then the laws in the us will only restrict us companies like nvidia. in large part this has happened, which is a major reason chinese companies (in both prc and roc) have become the leading organizations in a wide variety of high-tech fields, including solar panels, cell phones, electric cars, nuclear power, and microelectronics

your nvidia analogy predicts that gcc engineers and linux kernel engineers would have terrible job security, since anyone who needs a gcc backend or device driver written can hire literally any programmer; there are no legal restrictions. but in fact this seems to make the barriers to entry higher rather than lower. they're just in the form of 'human capital', knowhow, rather than in the form of the assets of a company

also, you may not be aware of this, but tsmc is a chinese company, and it's already left the us behind. sentences like 'The last thing the US wants to see is for China to close the technology gap on this stuff.' reflect wishful thinking that the technology gap is the other way around from how it actually is

This part is wrong. TSMC is a Taiwanese company and as much as China's bullying behavior in the UN means most other contries do not officially recognize Taiwan, it still does not change the reality of the situation that Taiwan is independent in every way you can think of and the chines government has no more control over or benefit from TSMC than it does for an american company.

looking at your comment history, the most likely explanation for the disagreement is that you're out of your depth discussing geopolitics, the history of innovation, and international trade, so you're limited to repeating the ideas you're surrounded by, and even the best-founded counterarguments to them appear to you as 'bullshit' because you aren't familiar with the background knowledge they're based on

China doesn't have to care about US IP laws and largely already doesn't.

> using electron beams rather than multibillion-dollar euv fabs

If this were possible it would be happening now.

that's an odd thing to say. if it's possible now it should have been happening 10 years ago? when does the infinite regress stop?

Focused electron beams are far older than microchips.

Don't bother us with such complexities. We developed our ideas about IP after being outraged by attempts to stop our piracy of music and movies, and carefully reviewing lists of all the cons of IP (after completely ignoring and throwing out the list of the pros). The only righteous path is for the law to be reform to reflect our views.

Making the copyright system more reasonable would increase it's perceived social worth.

Good?

Do you have any evidence for that? It astonishes me that humanity has progressed for thousands of years without any IP protection, but for some unclear reason it wouldn't today.

Yes, please.

I mean, have you read the USTR's glorified naughty list of countries and their utter contempt for the business models of american corporations? "Our stakeholders" this, "our stakeholders" that. These corporations literally leverage the military might of the USA to extract profit worldwide. There are countries out there where people do not have basic sanitation, the last thing they care about is policing the imaginary property of americans. But Wall Street won't have it so.

Do what the other 59% and 56% are doing?

Physical theft deprives the owner of physical property (where this right is respected by law. IP theft deprives the owner of intellectual property ( where this right is respected by law).

People can and do make arguments against both IP and physical property, but the role of government the the same in both cases.

In other words, intellectual property is only worth what the government says it is. It doesn't just hold the gun, in this case, it contrived the whole scenario in which a gun was necessary, and the presence of the gun is the only thing that prevents the "intellectual property" from spreading naturally, as information is wont to do.

You can argue whether the creation of this market is for the greater good, but the fact is that it's not in any way the same kind of market as evolves around physical goods, and is not regulated or enforced in the same kind of way.

Might makes right and owns all property is the default. Every situation that deviates from this is imposed by governments.

A market around physical goods is no different.

I am saying their relation to the government is the same. Government maintains both, and creates a market for them by doing so.

No government> no private property> no goods for sale.

I dont see how copyable is relevant at all.

> I am saying their relation to the government is the same.

Then I don't have anything to object. But I suspect that the above points were clear in your comments. I don't think anybody here would object to the idea that physical property law and IP law have the same legal standing. What people object to are the principles of the IP law.

EDIT: Following up with more analysis of the parent's comments... Indeed the following was clearly stated [0]:

> Of course I agree that there are some differences, but they are the same with respect to the sated role of government.

The following example to clarify the above statement muddies the water, though:

> Physical theft deprives the owner of physical property (where this right is respected by law. IP theft deprives the owner of intellectual property ( where this right is respected by law).

Physical property theft deprives the owner absolutely. Whether IP “theft” deprives owner of anything is questionable, even in the legal sense. Regardless, government is “right” to pursue enforcing both laws, because they are laws after all.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40911265

I think this is certainly settled in the legal sense. If an employee publishes source code to a product, or someone leaks a new movie, the courts dont have to debate if the owner has a legitimate grievance.

People can debate hypothetical alternatives to IP and their implications, but the status quo is clear. If you are using "questionable" not to mean uncertain, but in the literal sense, then sure (anything is questionable).

What if that product has been obsolete for a long time? It is possible that there is no harm in an IP infringement case, whereas in property theft the amount of harm incurred is the property itself at the minimum. The amount of harm, if any, is questioned by the court.

Another consideration is use it or lose it provisions, although I am much more on the fence on this. It would essentially destroy patents which have multiple embodiments, but might make sense for literature.

I am mostly responding to the idea of tossing IP in general, Which I think is misguided. There are countless ways in which this could cause great harm and essentially gut creators in favor of manufacturers or marketers

so the role of government is quite different in the two cases: it creates 'intellectual property', in the sense of 'what the owner is deprived of by so-called ip theft', while physical property exists in its own right

if we instead consider 'intellectual property' in the sense of 'literature, knowledge, or designs,' which the owner is not deprived of by 'ip theft', the role of the government becomes precisely opposite to its role with respect to physical property

taking a car as a paradigmatic example of physical property, private ownership rights (whether protected by the state, by moral suasion, by mob violence, or by any other means) protect your car from being stolen so that you can use it; without any security of ownership, people would just get in the nearest car and drive off. you could never be sure a car would be available for you to use, and this would eliminate any private incentive to build cars or to repair or maintain them, resulting in rapid material impoverishment; soon you would have no cars except perhaps for taxpayer-funded public transit. so private ownership rights serve to enable access to cars and similar material goods

literature, knowledge, and designs do not need to be repaired and maintained, especially now that we can use bittorrent instead of linotypes to reproduce them, and if someone else gets in my novel and drives off with it, why, i can still read it as easily as before. the involvement of the state in this case only serves to endanger access to literature, knowledge, and designs—precisely the opposite of the case with physical property

ultimately, intellectual property is completely incompatible with the security of physical property: the trade-secret code of your car's ecu deprives you of some degree of security in your use of that car

people do sometimes argue that an analogous situation obtains with respect to literature, knowledge, and designs: intellectual enclosure through so-called 'intellectual property law' enables creators to require payment from consumers, creating an incentive to write literature, discover knowledge, and create designs. perhaps there is some truth to this, but that is not the only incentive, and evidently it is not a necessary one, given that academic authors (who discover most fundamental knowledge) generally do not receive royalties, and free software reliably leads the software industry in innovation, having almost entirely displaced proprietary software as the basis of the world information infrastructure over the last 30 years

RE Cars:

I think the analogy is apt, but you you ignore the time an effort that goes into creating one. Who would build or buy a car if someone could just get in and drive off.

The same is true for literature. Why spend years writing a book, play, or song, if the first person that hears or sees it reproduces it for everyone and you recieve nothing.

It is just like spending time building a car for someone to drive off with it.

Your argument focuses on the user, not the creator.

>and if someone else gets in my novel and drives off with it, why, i can still read it as easily as before.

Thats all an well for the consumer. The car thief doesnt care either, as long as there are cars to steal and idiots buying cars.

You might argue that peope will create literature out of innate desire,as an argument how screwing them over wont impact incetives, but how is that different from physical property.

You think someone has a deep drive to write the next great ammercian novel, but not grow food, so it is ok to steal one, but not the other. What if people want to grow food, does that then justify stealing it?

I just think it is extremely hypocritical to dismiss IP creators while protecting the car makers or food growers.

IF someone wants to create IP for free, grow food for free, or build cars for free- They CAN!

Maybe it does justify, if stealing doesn't mean depriving the owner of the food.

> IF someone wants to create IP for free, grow food for free, or build cars for free- They CAN!

I want to create IP for free, but I don't have a surplus of time to create it. IP holders deprive me of the surplus, because it's going to reduce the value of their “property” if I create IP for free.

They have less food than before you took it, how is that not depriving them?

Who authors a book so that they can read it themselves? Is that a reasonable model of the world?

>I want to create IP for free, but I don't have a surplus of time to create it. IP holders deprive me of the surplus, because it's going to reduce the value of their “property” if I create IP for free.

How are they taking your surplus time? Nobody is forcing you to buy IP?

That's my point. You keep conflating copyright infringement and stealing. Conceptually and legally, they are different.

> How are they taking your surplus time? Nobody is forcing you to buy IP?

In order to earn a living, I have to give away my rights to the IP that I produce. I don't have any time left to produce IP that I could give away freely. My point is that it's not as simple as claiming that people can produce IP for free, given the status quo. IP law makes it more difficult for people to give away IP for free.

You do not have to give away your rights to the IP that you produce. Which is an especially odd assertion to make as you insist that IP laws somehow make it more difficult to give a work away for free, as opposed to an alternative would require they be given away for free. One affords one the freedom to give away something for free if they so choose, the other requires it regardless of the author's interest.

given that about 150 words of my comment, more than a third of the total, was about this and its analogues in the world of intellectual work, i can only conclude that you didn't even spend the minute and a half required to read my comment, much less take the time to understand the ideas i was expressing. consequently there is no point in replying further to you

Then why have physical property rights existed for the entirety of recorded history while intellectual property rights are a very modern invention?

The highest selling book in the world, the bible, is free of copyright.

What incentive does an author have to write a book if they can't benefit from intellectual property? Perhaps self expression?

[citation needed]

That's right. Change the rules and 44% of people would instantly — instantly — lose their jobs. The US Economy would tank like a torpedoed ship overnight! Gone in a flash!

Or ... maybe what you wrote was a little overhyped, and perhaps when the rules changed the Market, as they say, would decide.