[OS:N:] Who should control which IP, was: Questionaire about ...

On Thu, Aug 14, 2003 01:47:12 at 01:47:12AM -0400, [email protected] ([email protected]) wrote:

> These principles you mentioned could be taken even further as arguments 
> against your position. I will take this opportunity to do so.
> 
> I believe that the current system does not respect the work and abiliies 
> of those who do not make it to the copyright or patent office first. 

I was going to write very similar replies. I would like to be able to
live off freelance writing and (real!) patent royalties, and find
nothing wrong with that. Really! The problem is when control is not
in the hand of the actual author/inventor.

Freedom to be THE one to decide who does what of my creation = ESSENTIAL

ME having the possibility of being the only
   making money of MY novel/manual/invention/whatever
   for 17/20 years or until *I* die			     = good

My possibly moron nephew (not born yet, just to make
the point) saved from earning a living and wasting money
because grandpa wrote a nice song 50 years before	     = WRONG
							       Ridiculous

Some corporations doing the above forever		     = see
							       above

Of course when I say inventions I mean real ones, like an entirely new
kind of transistor, and nothing SW or algorithmic, or genetic. When it
comes to medicines, the problems is not patents on Aspirin, but the
fact itself that research is done by for profit entities.

Suppose a cure against AIDS is standing in the sun 10 minutes a day
upside down with your hands in a bucket of tap water. Even if you
abolish patents, commercial drug companies will never research in that
direction: they want something that must be purchased every week. Only
universities paid by governments can consider approach based on
consumer interests.

In general, the real problem is the fact that the current system is
customized for companies with big money and lawyers, and the fact that
they don't allow parallel distribution models (like the fact that the
Italian society for Author's right protection tried to impose a fee on
distributing CDs containing ONLY Free GPL SW). Not necessarily the
whole idea of IP.

	     Ciao,
			Marco Fioretti

PS: Oh, I almost forgot: if you want to buy the rights to my potato
made transistor contact me off list...

-- 
Marco Fioretti                 m.fioretti, at the server inwind.it
Red Hat for low memory         http://www.rule-project.org/en/

"If automobiles had followed the same development cycle as the
computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million
miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone
inside." --Robert Cringley


_______________________________________________
Subscription and Archive: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/open-source-now-list/
-
For K12OS technical help join K12OSN:
<https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn>