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Janthkin wrote:If we're going to treat IP as property, then it needs to be fully alienable.

And that's the crux of the entire issue. People, except corporations and certain other interested parties, are obviously not on board with treating IP as if it's the same as a car or stock.

Seeing as there are a few IP lawyers here, I have a question that has been bugging me:

I'm starting a Kroot army. It is very expensive as Kroot are very cheap points-wise, and I need to buy lots of Kroot Hounds and Krootox.
Do GW have the 'IP' rights to the design/anatomy of Kroot? For example, if I decided to create (entirely from Greenstuff) my own Krootox would that breech IP/copyright laws (if i didn't intend to cast it) ?
What if I did cast it for personal use?
What if I did cast it for sale (and sold it as 'mutant alien gorilla)?

Manchu wrote:

Janthkin wrote:If we're going to treat IP as property, then it needs to be fully alienable.

And that's the crux of the entire issue. People, except corporations and certain other interested parties, are obviously not on board with treating IP as if it's the same as a car or stock.

I'm still not sure why there isn't a moral right to exclusion, or why this has anything to do with the constitution, other than it being one of congresses enumerated powers. I admit to not being an expert on the subject, but how exactly is there anything less than fully constitutional about current IP law?


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Trasvi wrote:Seeing as there are a few IP lawyers here, I have a question that has been bugging me:

I'm starting a Kroot army. It is very expensive as Kroot are very cheap points-wise, and I need to buy lots of Kroot Hounds and Krootox.
Do GW have the 'IP' rights to the design/anatomy of Kroot? For example, if I decided to create (entirely from Greenstuff) my own Krootox would that breech IP/copyright laws (if i didn't intend to cast it) ?
What if I did cast it for personal use?
What if I did cast it for sale (and sold it as 'mutant alien gorilla)?

Well, I have no clue what Australia's rules are. The question to ask yourself is generally "would this work be seen as a copy, or as an independent work." The more you steer away from highly specific elements (exact beak shape, pose, etc) the safer you would be.

Polonius wrote:I'm still not sure why there isn't a moral right to exclusion, or why this has anything to do with the constitution, other than it being one of congresses enumerated powers. I admit to not being an expert on the subject, but how exactly is there anything less than fully constitutional about current IP law?

There is nothing unconstitutional about these laws. They simply are not the same as the constitutional provisions to which Janthkin alluded. The "moral right" that you're talking about is, in the positivist paradigm of our US courts, not the legal issue.

Polonius wrote:The question to ask yourself is generally "would this work be seen as a copy, or as an independent work." The more you steer away from highly specific elements (exact beak shape, pose, etc) the safer you would be.

That's right, for the purposes of modelling with greenstuff. You shouldn't tempt fate by trying to sell any kroot you've made, however. (At least not in the US!) The "it's not the exact shape of the GW one's beak" argument has not held up.

Manchu wrote:

Polonius wrote:First off, patents only last for a short period of time, and are public record. If GE wants to sit on them, more power. In a decade or so anybody can use their idea.

You're talking about twenty years. How many patents will be of any intrinsic worth in twenty years, especially given the incredible turnover of technology we've witnessed in the twentieth century and continue to witness in the twenty first? Very few inventions are as durable as the light bulb.

Pharma patents are extremely relevant for their entire term. Most of the patents around mechanical inventions are relevant. throughout their terms. Really, the only place where technology might outstrip patent term is in software.

Now, if you want to debate copyright term, you'll find a more sympathetic audience. But I don't get the feeling that the difference between 50 or 70 years is your primary concern.

Polonius wrote:You talk about threadbare analysis, but the core of IP is that it is like any other property, with the rights of use, exclusion, and alienability. I don't see the flaw in this analogy. If GW doesn't want anybody to make RT era guardsmen, than it can do that, even if it's not making any.

IP is not used currently in a way that fits the stated purpose of the Constitution. To claim otherwise is a very bad argument. In order to get back to that idea, we would have to adopt the continental inability to completely alienate that you bring up.

Your posts are littered with conclusory and dismissive statements, such as that bolded above. The Constitution is very brief - "to promote the sciences and useful arts" (keeping in mind that "arts" actually applies to what is patentable). There is a hell of a lot of theoretical discussion out there, but so far, the courts haven't decided that our IP scheme is unconstitutional. So, why is it a "very bad argument" to agree with the Supreme Court?

Polonius wrote:If your argument is more that the privileges and protections given to corporate entities are inherently immoral, than you have some grist for the mill. I think it's hard to unilaterally disparage corps, but there are some aspects to what they can do that are disturbing. That said, they still have more right to the IP than customers.

I'm not saying corporations are evil. I'm have said and continue to say that IP protection is not, in its current state in the US, a moral issue at all. Yes, corporations have "more" of right to the intellectual property. But that is merely a legal fact, a product of the power that business has over government, rather than a moral statement. You have expressed it perfectly: the owner gets to do with a thing what he wants--[b]not the inventor, artist, etc[/i].

Here's another interesting conclusory statement. Assume I am GW; I pay some sculptors a reasonable wage, in order to sculpt a few miniatures. Why should I not have all of the rights to that work? Why shouldn't property be alienable?

Janthkin wrote:Spare me your "serious legal scholarship" statements, along with your "armchair legal scholar" remarks. I disagree with both your comment and your conclusions, and (at present) so does most of the Federal Circuit, and most of the law journals I read.

Then spare me your erroneous and conclusory discussion of Constitutional jurisprudence. The only people who are impressed with the "I'm a lawyer--here's my P number" line are non-lawyers--if then. I have never argued that the law is anything but what it is nor have I encouraged people to break the law (I really don't appreciate the implications about my lack of professional responsibility you're making here). I have simply called into question whether or not it is a moral issue, which I believe it is definitely not. As to my snarkiness, which Polonius called me on, I've already said that was wrong of me. Finally, the analogy to illegally downloading music is in no way a false analogy.

First, your "armchair legal scholar" remark called for rebuttal; I'm not trying to impress, merely to inform. Second, I have no clue what you do; as such, I make no comment on your professional responsibility. Third, I object to tying recasting and music downloads together, principally because the purchaser has a greater breadth of options with respect to purchased music (e.g., the right to make a digital copy for use on a portable media player) that brings along extra baggage, and has no analogy when discussing a physical sculpture.

Finally, where is my discussion of Constitutional jurisprudence erroneous?

Manchu wrote:

Polonius wrote:I'm still not sure why there isn't a moral right to exclusion, or why this has anything to do with the constitution, other than it being one of congresses enumerated powers. I admit to not being an expert on the subject, but how exactly is there anything less than fully constitutional about current IP law?

There is nothing unconstitutional about these laws. They simply are not the same as the constitutional provisions to which Janthkin alluded. The "moral right" that you're talking about is, in the positivist paradigm of our US courts, not the legal issue.

What? I have no clue what you're trying to say.

Janthkin wrote:Really, the only place where technology might outstrip patent term is in software.

Or an entire host of consumer goods.

Janthkin wrote:Now, if you want to debate copyright term, you'll find a more sympathetic audience. But I don't get the feeling that the difference between 50 or 70 years is your primary concern.

Not especially. It's the thought that is behind "forever minus one day" that I find objectionable.

Janthkin wrote:First, your "armchair legal scholar" remark called for rebuttal

Yes it did and so for the third time let me say I'm sorry. That wasn't called for no matter what your profession is.

Janthkin, you know that there is more to the jurisprudence than the words of the Constitution. The idea was to protect the inventor or artists so that he/she would be encouraged to keep inventing or creating. We have come a long ways from such a narrow goal. I'm not saying that the laws are unconstitutional but that there has been a significant amount of economically-influenced legal development that eclipses all but symbolically this rather simple claim of the founders.

Janthkin wrote:Why shouldn't property be alienable?

As I've stated, the problem is that no matter what the law is people generally don't think of an idea in the same way as they do either tangible or other forms of intangible property.

Trasvi wrote:Seeing as there are a few IP lawyers here, I have a question that has been bugging me:

I'm starting a Kroot army. It is very expensive as Kroot are very cheap points-wise, and I need to buy lots of Kroot Hounds and Krootox.
Do GW have the 'IP' rights to the design/anatomy of Kroot? For example, if I decided to create (entirely from Greenstuff) my own Krootox would that breech IP/copyright laws (if i didn't intend to cast it) ?
What if I did cast it for personal use?
What if I did cast it for sale (and sold it as 'mutant alien gorilla)?

G'day Trasvi

I dont really know the strict answer (earlier statements about my area of specialty apply), however perhaps of more relevance than the strictly legal question is the important practical question - How would anyone know? if you GS an entire army, GW lawyers will not know unless you email them photos. If they were any good, they are more likely to offer you a job, than send lawyers around. After all, what is the loss to them? If I paint a copy of a picture of the mona lisa and hang it in my house, is the louvre likely to find out (presuming thats where it is, I really dont know/care) and send their goons after me?

I pesonally doubt it is illegal, as part of the hobby sold by GW is converting/creating. Is it immoral/illegal to save myself $50 on a rhino, when i can make the whole thing out of cardboard using plans that are readily available (possibly on this site)? Is it wrong to act out the entire Star Wars trilogy, playing every part, in front of a video, simply to save the $100 on the boxed set (well, yes, it is wrong, but not legally, its just disturbing).

Again, if you buy one model on ebay, then cast and recast it till you have 100 identical space marine models, GW is not going to find you and kill you - unless and until you try to sell them. Legalities of simple replication aside, practically they can only pursue distribution of fakes, not 'doing your own thing in the privacy of your own bedroom'. Further, if you did it once, chances are they are not going to spot it nor pursue it - they would be looking for frequent abusers of their IP.

And if you started casting and selling your own Krootox model, you will run into trouble if - a) you use the word Krootox or b) it looks like a GW Krootox. If you create and sell 'space gorillas' that look like gorillas, then who can complain?

This may upset the legally or morally minded dakkaites, but practically you will never get caught unless you start dealing.

Polonius wrote:

Manchu wrote:

Polonius wrote:I'm still not sure why there isn't a moral right to exclusion, or why this has anything to do with the constitution, other than it being one of congresses enumerated powers. I admit to not being an expert on the subject, but how exactly is there anything less than fully constitutional about current IP law?

There is nothing unconstitutional about these laws. They simply are not the same as the constitutional provisions to which Janthkin alluded. The "moral right" that you're talking about is, in the positivist paradigm of our US courts, not the legal issue.

What? I have no clue what you're trying to say.

Me, either. All the Constitution has to say on the subject is that Congress, to promote the sciences & useful arts, will create copyright & patent rights. Maybe he's objecting to this statement of mine?

I mean, the basis for patents and copyrights is only in the US Constitution, and only goes back many hundreds of years - OBVIOUSLY it's all the result of a capitalist conspiracy amongst giant corporations.

If so, I'm curious where the problem is - the requirement for copyright & patent is, indeed, in the the Constitution. The idea of patents & copyrights does, indeed, go back hundreds of years (and predates the US by a decent margin).

In a nutshell, the principle behind patent protection is: in order to encourage inventors to contribute their ideas to the public, they are granted a short-term monopoly on their claimed idea. The alternative is to keep everything a trade secret, which would make it nearly impossible for anyone to reproduce, ever. (Think how much fun it would be trying to make a generic drug, if pharma companies held their interesting molecules as trade secrets.)

Copyright protection: simply, the founders believed that creative people improve the world, and should be encouraged to do so.

Wow, I was a little rambling on that one. Lesson kids - dont post without a full nights sleeping first!

Interesting topic. It is very common in the plastic model hobby and the model railroad hobby to re-cast parts for personal use. It is common for competitive diorama builders to do this for extra road wheels and track section for tanks and such. I have an old book by Shepard Paine that shows you how to do it. I wonder if the modeling forums have these types of questions? I wonder if model builders are worried if Tamiya or Mongram are going to take them to court for this? They probably would if you were casting up whole models and selling them on eBay I suppose.

Manchu wrote:

Janthkin wrote:Really, the only place where technology might outstrip patent term is in software.

Or an entire host of consumer goods.

Examples? Truly curious here - as I work principally in high-tech, I don't deal with a lot of simple consumer goods. There are a lot of patents around consumer tech, e.g., home theater equipment (audio decoding in particular), but the impact of those patent pools tends to have little to do with consumers; licensing fees for all of the patents might add a couple bucks to the purchase price of a multi-hundred dollar piece of equipment.

Janthkin wrote:Now, if you want to debate copyright term, you'll find a more sympathetic audience. But I don't get the feeling that the difference between 50 or 70 years is your primary concern.

Not especially. It's the thought that is behind "forever minus one day" that I find objectionable.

See, here's where you'll get some sympathy. I fully agree that a limited duration should mean that copyright actually expires someday. (Tangent: Disney has started using "Steamboat Willy" as part of their logo, in a sneaky attempt to protect that film via Trademark. This seems to suggest that they aren't going to get their next copyright extension.)

Janthkin wrote:First, your "armchair legal scholar" remark called for rebuttal

Yes it did and so for the third time let me say I'm sorry. That wasn't called for no matter what your profession is.

Fast-moving thread; I started responding before I saw Polonius jump on you, or I would have left it lie.

Janthkin, you know that there is more to the jurisprudence than the words of the Constitution. The idea was to protect the inventor or artists so that he/she would be encouraged to keep inventing or creating. We have come a long ways from such a narrow goal. I'm not saying that the laws are unconstitutional but that there has been a significant amount of economically-influenced legal development that eclipses all but symbolically this rather simple claim of the founders.

See, I don't agree with you here, except in scope. I don't think Copyright terms should be as long as they currently are. But a 20 year patent term is actually pretty short. I do think patent law, by and large, is okay. There are some issues still to sort out, relating primarily to the age of the current patent statute vs. the state of technology, but the Court is actually getting to those, one at a time. The patent office has some internal problems, involving backlog and quality of examination, but the insanity of 1997-2004 is over (when "doing something old...ON THE INTERNET!" guaranteed a patent). I don't have a problem with GE's pools of inventors - they are still contributing knowledge to the public pool, which might otherwise not have made it there, and their patents expire within my professional lifetime, much less my personal lifetime. I don't have a problem with "patent trolls," as they aren't any different than property speculators - buy up a bunch of property, and see if it ever becomes worth something.

Janthkin wrote:Why shouldn't property be alienable?

As I've stated, the problem is that no matter what the law is people generally don't think of an idea in the same way as they do either tangible or other forms of intangible property.

Our laws in the United States do not primarily ground their validity in whether or not they are morally acceptable. The law is the law is the law, as they say. Hence the validity of IP is not based on whether or not it is moral to own property. Positivist theory, the dominant body of thought influencing jurisprudence in the US today and since Oliver Wendell Holmes (or even before), considers the questions of right and wrong to be political rather than legal, an issue that is dealt with a priori relevant to the law. It's a fairly simple point but jurisprudence is not a requirement at every law school nor is it very helpful in day to day practice unless you write law review articles for a living.

No one is saying that patents and copyrights are in the Constitution and existed in English law (to prevent the export of machinery to England's eighteenth-century arch-nemisis France) before then. No one is saying that the purpose of encouraging innovation by protecting innovators is not what the Constitution claims. What I am saying is that the issue and so also the laws are no longer that simple. The laws are not always or even primarily used to promote innovation or artistic achievement but rather to protect economic interests that hold those things to be incidental causes of profit.

Creative people do indeed improve the world. But IP law, in its current (legally valid! lest you think I'm encouraging criminal behavior) form, does not always encourage creativity. In fact, it stifles some (especially individual) forms of creativity and innovation as piracy.


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Janthkin wrote:(Tangent: Disney has started using "Steamboat Willy" as part of their logo, in a sneaky attempt to protect that film via Trademark. This seems to suggest that they aren't going to get their next copyright extension.)

And so we're not too far away from seeing the next renovation of IP law, at least in terms of copyright, that takes us further away from the stated purposes found in the Constitution. That is the essence of my point.

Janthkin wrote:Where is the proof that the majority of people don't support IP rights?

I don't mean that they do not support them at all but rather that they do not support the current state of the law. As for proof, you watch the news.

Manchu wrote: What I am saying is that the issue and so also the laws are no longer that simple. The laws are not always or even primarily used to promote innovation or artistic achievement but rather to protect economic interests that hold those things to be incidental causes of profit.

Creative people do indeed improve the world. But IP law, in its current (legally valid! lest you think I'm encouraging criminal behavior) form, does not always encourage creativity. In fact, it stifles some forms of creativity and innovation as piracy.

I've written patents for a wide range of companies, from my current (relatively tiny) employer, through Fortune 10 hi-tech companies. Nearly all of the patents were for actual features of actual products. Now, if you're not in the field, and only reading some of the more vocal commentaries (and slashdot's "Patent" news), you probably here a lot about patent trolls, and offensive patents, and patent hedges. In practice, I don't see much of that - the patent system is too expensive for most companies to engage in a lot of purely speculative patenting.

A broader discussion is "would companies still invent without the incentives of the patent system?" Sure...but so what? Some technology is fairly easy to reverse-engineer; much of it is not. Does society benefit from the disclosure, more then it suffers from the monopoly? On the whole, I think so.

I don't mind stifling creative piracy. I also don't mind stifling creative cattle theft, or creative electronic bank robbery.

Janthkin wrote:(Tangent: Disney has started using "Steamboat Willy" as part of their logo, in a sneaky attempt to protect that film via Trademark. This seems to suggest that they aren't going to get their next copyright extension.)

And so we're not too far away from seeing the next renovation of IP law, at least in terms of copyright, that takes us further away from the stated purposes found in the Constitution. That is the essence of my point.

This probably isn't a tangent worth pursuing too far - trademark law can't be stretched far enough to lead to infinite copyright extension. I just find it amusing for itself, and hopeful with respect to the end of infinite copyright.

Janthkin wrote:Where is the proof that the majority of people don't support IP rights?

I don't mean that they do not support them at all but rather that they do not support the current state of the law. As for proof, you watch the news.

Oh, you have to do better than that. The news is a series of selective anecdotes, not a scientific demonstration of trends.

I am having an incredibly hard time understanding all of this.

Man... this just got complicated. I will try to understand what you are all saying but it MOSTLY sounds like perceptive thinking to me. Whether or not these are laws matters very little to me, I am just trying to understand what the heck you guys are talking about now...

Darkkt makes a lot of sense though.

I don't see any way of disputing that producing duplicates of someone (or something) else's copyrighted figures is a violation of copyright.

On the practical side, let's stop and consider the situation. There's a hypothetical person decides that they need two dozen identical melta guns so much that they're willing to buy a casting kit because they don't want to pay the money for two dozen GW melta guns. What's the best thing which that hypothetical person should do? What that person should do is build a custom meltagun, using greenstuff, plastic card, random parts of other guns, or whatever, and cast two dozen copies of their own meltagun. As much effort as it is to do decent castings of figures, it's not much more work to just scratch build your own weapons. You get your two dozen meltaguns, you don't violate copyright, and everyone's happy, and just think how much you'd grow as a hobbyist making your own weapons.

And just to take the practical side further, if a person feels compelled to have all of their figures using 100% current edition Games Workshop parts, that person needs a 'ing intervention. And if a person feels compelled to have out of print editions of current figures, then that person really needs an intervention. If for some reason you're playing a game which uses completely OOP figures, it's still the same situation. The figures are out of production, too bad, you should make your own because sculpting is just as much fun as painting is.

Wrexasaur wrote:I am having an incredibly hard time understanding all of this.

Man... this just got complicated. I will try to understand what you are all saying but it MOSTLY sounds like perceptive thinking to me. Whether or not these are laws matters very little to me, I am just trying to understand what the heck you guys are talking about now...

Darkkt makes a lot of sense though.

I stopped reading after the first page. While I was writing my post at least three more popped up.

Janthkin wrote:I don't mind stifling creative piracy. I also don't mind stifling creative cattle theft, or creative electronic bank robbery.

Well, it's hard to argue with equivocation. I'm talking about things like music sampling. Maybe even software design, although I don't know a great deal about it.

My main problems are with copyright, i.e., what was once upon a time the subject of this thread. As far as patents go, you're right that I have heard quite a bit about patent trolling perusing the law reviews and the bar journal here. (I don't read slashdot at all, actually.) I work in criminal defense mostly (although I do a fair bit of contract and some tort) so I don't see these things from day to day.

Janthkin wrote:Does society benefit from the disclosure, more then it suffers from the monopoly? On the whole, I think so.

Maybe so. But IP, and law in general, is an open-ended question. As has already been mentioned, other countries do not share our "creativity is fungible like any other asset" attitude. With the development of international law and what I can only imagine will be the widening and ever more successful incidence of IP infringement, we may have to rethink a lot of our assumptions and conclusions.

As for Disney, we'll just have to see how far the law will continue to stretch, bend over backwards, and whatever other contortion it takes to accommodate business interests.

Janthkin wrote:Oh, you have to do better than that. The news is a series of selective anecdotes, not a scientific demonstration of trends.

I'm not going to go find some statistics (which will simply be shot down as biased) to prove what is common knowledge (don't forget your rules of evidence, mate, ) especially to argue against "iTunes does well and people buy DVDs." No offense intended, ha.

solkan wrote:I don't see any way of disputing that producing duplicates of someone (or something) else's copyrighted figures is a violation of copyright.

On the practical side, let's stop and consider the situation. There's a hypothetical person decides that they need two dozen identical melta guns so much that they're willing to buy a casting kit because they don't want to pay the money for two dozen GW melta guns. What's the best thing which that hypothetical person should do? What that person should do is build a custom meltagun, using greenstuff, plastic card, random parts of other guns, or whatever, and cast two dozen copies of their own meltagun. As much effort as it is to do decent castings of figures, it's not much more work to just scratch build your own weapons. You get your two dozen meltaguns, you don't violate copyright, and everyone's happy, and just think how much you'd grow as a hobbyist making your own weapons.

And just to take the practical side further, if a person feels compelled to have all of their figures using 100% current edition Games Workshop parts, that person needs a 'ing intervention. And if a person feels compelled to have out of print editions of current figures, then that person really needs an intervention. If for some reason you're playing a game which uses completely OOP figures, it's still the same situation. The figures are out of production, too bad, you should make your own because sculpting is just as much fun as painting is.

Honestly you should be making your game if you feel the way you do. I can't imagine not having SOME sort of trouble because of making replicas that were not 100% accurate, and you would be biting (copying) someones design anyway? So what is the point?

I honestly wonder if GW knows what is best for them sometimes... just a thought really, no need to bite me for it.

"Note"
I think my brain exploded trying to understand all of this lawyer talk... who asks there lawyer to explain how they saved their ass? My brain has officially told me to stop reading anymore lawyer jargon...

You're locked in an elevator with a python, a crocodile and a lawyer, but your gun only has two bullets. What do you do?

You shoot the lawyer twice! Haha!

(Just kidding, lawyers!)

I started with Prince August napoleonics minis over 25 years ago.
You were encouraged (simply by the availablilty if molds, and casting ingots) to cast your own multiples of various models (you got molds with certain figures and you could either buy ingots of the right alloy from them or source a similar one from elsewhere). Did PA go out of business (no. PA still exist) because of this? The argument that recasting harms the parent company is not always true.

Admittedly, this recasting was with tacit consent of the parent company.

Ah lawyer jokes. You should realise a lot of this discussion is driven between individuals who are paid to argue a point for living. At the moment, these points of view are lofty arguments over the (mainly US) law of Copyright.

If you paid one of them you could get the point of view you wanted.

PS, Anyone wishing to engage me is more than welcome to, my rates are very reasonable! :p

MUST...NOT...BE...FUNNY!!!

What do you call a lawyer buried up to his neck in sand?

Not enough sand! Haha!

darkkt wrote:If you paid one of them you could get the point of view you wanted.

That only sounds like a joke, ha.

What do you call 10,000 lawyers tied to an anchor at the bottom of the ocean?

A good start.

PUT THE LAWYER JOKES HERE FOLKS!

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/249908.page#865951

chromedog wrote:I started with Prince August napoleonics minis over 25 years ago.
You were encouraged (simply by the availablilty if molds, and casting ingots) to cast your own multiples of various models (you got molds with certain figures and you could either buy ingots of the right alloy from them or source a similar one from elsewhere). Did PA go out of business (no. PA still exist) because of this? The argument that recasting harms the parent company is not always true.

Admittedly, this recasting was with tacit consent of the parent company.

I think if the company is selling molds then that's not tacit consent, that's explicit consent because you're using the company products for their obvious purpose. But it remains the fact that it's the copyright holder's right to decide whether or not to produce molds of their copyrighted materials.

For Prince August it probably made sense, and if they're still in business it probably means that their business descision was a good descision for them. Good show for them. But they have a website which shows a picture of a dozen people standing out front of a store front, and an address in Ireland somewhere. Games Workshop and Citadel Miniatures made different business descisions for a different market segment. Noone knows whether Prince August or Games Workshop will be around in ten or twenty years, but both companies have the right to make their own, different descisions without having their rights infringed upon by others.

Manchu wrote:

Janthkin wrote:I don't mind stifling creative piracy. I also don't mind stifling creative cattle theft, or creative electronic bank robbery.

Well, it's hard to argue with equivocation. I'm talking about things like music sampling. Maybe even software design, although I don't know a great deal about it.

All I was getting at is "I don't mind stifling creativity, when we're discussing creative ways to break the law."

What's wrong with sampling? Little bits are okay; too much isn't. It might be nice if the line was a little less fuzzy...but given how fuzzy creative works tend to be, it's hard to get to a bright line test. "How much is too much?" is a question of fact.

My main problems are with copyright, i.e., what was once upon a time the subject of this thread. As far as patents go, you're right that I have heard quite a bit about patent trolling perusing the law reviews and the bar journal here. (I don't read slashdot at all, actually.) I work in criminal defense mostly (although I do a fair bit of contract and some tort) so I don't see these things from day to day.

Alright, back to copyright then.

Janthkin wrote:Does society benefit from the disclosure, more then it suffers from the monopoly? On the whole, I think so.

Maybe so. But IP, and law in general, is an open-ended question. As has already been mentioned, other countries do not share our "creativity is fungible like any other asset" attitude. With the development of international law and what I can only imagine will be the widening and ever more successful incidence of IP infringement, we may have to rethink a lot of our assumptions and conclusions.

the_Armyman wrote:

LunaHound wrote:

the_Armyman wrote:Would I steal a boxed set off a shelf? No.
Would I cast a 1 cent piece of plastic for my own use? Yes.


I make a rational decision to break a law because the percieved harm is low enough for my own and society's tolerances.

Sorry but i cant .... i Lolled

I guess those of us who don't have your impeccable lineage can't quite live up to your lofty standards. But thank you for dying for all of our sins 2000 years ago. Much appreciated! Tell your Father I said "hihi."

Bravo sir, bravo.