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

On Thu, 2003-08-14 at 05:45, Les Bell wrote:
> 
> "Paul" <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> >>
> The main question for me is - is the enforcement of the Intellectual
> Property law in question unfairly limiting an essential field of human
> endeavour OR does it discriminate against those already disadvantaged in
> some way.
> <<
> 
> Bingo. Did you see the Four Corners (ABC [Australia]) doco on Monday night
> about the Australian company that apparently holds a patent on the way junk
> DNA codes in the human genome? They're going around extracting licence
> payments from other high-tech companies - but their proposed licences for
> hospitals and govt health departments that perform genetic testing &
> screening will basically wipe those services out. I sat and talked about
> the issues involved with my wife afterwards, and I have to say, I didn't
> like any of the possible scenarios I came up with. It would be a kindness
> to wipe out some of those medical / genetic patents; it would be better for
> people to just die of an "untreatable" disease than die knowing that their
> disease is curable at an unaffordable price.
> 
> Just don't ask me to frame the legislation. King Solomon couldn't do it.
God I could not agree with you more.  I have said it before and I will
say it again.  Our concept of business is so pushed to the right it is
disgusting.

Some time ago, I am not sure when it ended, scientist all over the world
shared and worked together on their findings.  Limmited knowledge at the
time required this to advance knowledge.  During this time the ideas of
a company needed a license from the government to operate was also to
insure they worked in the best interest of the government and the people
it was intended to represent.

Now we have true multi-nationals.  The truth of the matter is they are
not really beholding to any government and can mostly work to their own
morals.  This is only changed in limited ways on a local basis.  Before
this time much research was also sponsered by the government in the
interest of the people. Anything else was mostly done by people rich
enough not to need the money anyways.

Now pretty much all research is done at the behest of somebody who only
wants to make money.  Morality has absolutely nothing to do with it.

I do not know about Australia but it will not change in this country
until we get elected representitives working for the people and not for
the people financing their campaigns.

The bad part is the US is dragging the rest of the world down with it
through entities such as the WTO.

> 
> >>
> Perhaps as some have suggested (Stallman I think?), a global fee to
> access the Internet and an IP 'free for all' once you have logged on?
> EG. Everyone pays $20 a month, goes into a global fund which is diveed
> up according to how many downloads of an authors product occur.
> 
> Information abundance and authors get paid.  Cuts out IP hogging
> multi-nationals at least :)
> <<
> 
> Errmmm, perhaps. I confidently predict that the big winners of such a
> scheme would be those spammers who claim they can raise your site up the
> search engine ratings.
> 
> Seriously, the current book-publishing system has an important benefit: a
> publisher won't print a book unless it's of reasonable quality; it passes
> through technical reviews, copy-editing, proof-reading, and so on. By
> contrast, there are no such controls on web publishing, and all kinds of
> dud information makes it onto the web. Even primary schools now teach kids
> to review what they read on the web with a jaundiced eye, but it would be
> better if this wasn't necessary.
> 
> In a sense, free-to-air TV already works like this: the advertisers pay the
> bills, and you get what you pay for, without regard to inherent quality:
> Big Brother and The Block. I rest my case . . .<g>
> 
> Best,
> 
> --- Les Bell, RHCE, CISSP
> [http://www.lesbell.com.au]
> 
> 
> 
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