No, not really. I’d rather not mess with trying to assign blame on who copied what.
That would be fine. Copy away, as long as it’s just for the household.
I’m ambivalent about that. For the most part, I think that I’d prefer to not have the book in electronic form, period. None of the other books covering the same topic are in electronic form (at least not that I know of) and I don’t even think that it’s a good candidate for electronic format. (Some books just need to be held and thumbed through, you know?)
I don’t want copies being distributed, willy-nilly, through the Internet. So either some mechanism should be in place to make sure that it is flat-out impossible to make extra copies for others, or else I’m simply not going to make the book available in electronic form.
I knew from the start that there was no way that I’d allow an e-Book to be available. In the print version of the book, I have put copyright information at the bottom of each page (I saw this done on a textbook I have and I thought it was a good idea). The book will probably have excerpts xeroxed out, so when that happens, I want everyone who gets a xeroxed copy to know that the work is copyrighted, and to also know the URL of the copyright holders’ site. I’m not necessarily going to get worked up if people xerox excerpts from the book—this has been going on forever—because that is such a limited and cumbersome process.
And how do the ingrained cultural elements get created? The ideas that survived. Ideas that were expressed by individuals or group of individuals.
How do they take care of this? (A sincere question)
Yes. The information itself should be free. Tangible implementations and costs and service fees can be compensated.
The problem is all of us here on the board have lived in a period of IP laws. Our perceptions and motivations are shaped by the existing mold of information as an economic force. IMHO, if information = free were implemented, the 3rd generation down the line won’t be lamenting over the lack of income from the idea itself, and stifling their creative output. But why look 3 generations down the line? Look at the development of the various open-source projects: the linux kernel, KDE, Gnome…etc All under the “information=free” GPL license. These projects are very active and pretty successful. Hell, linux started as a learning hobby in the early 90s and all of the core code is freely available. That hasn’t stilted development (what HAS developed slowly is code that needs to interoperate with proprietary hardware and software). Or look at art communities on the net like deviantart or specialised ones like Breed. There are high-quality works and people don’t get paid for creating most of that work. A lot of artists do work because they LOVE doing it for the sake of the art. Free information won’t change that.
So, let me ask: this book I’m working on and the “information” contained within it—I take it that you think that it all should be “free”?
What “compensation” do you think I should recieve for spending basically months and months working on it? Please—break it down for me. What exactly should I get, in dollars and cents for my hard work? Should I be paid by the hour, or by how many people use the “information” I created, or only for how much it costs to print the book?
I never understood that the fact that artists LOVE to create as an excuse to make their labors “free.”
I have worked on some art projects that I didn’t enjoy very much at all. In fact, they were a forced march—something that I was obligated to do. Since I didn’t LOVE doing it, should it not be free?
But you have to take those things as a percentage of the works created. Look at all of the invention, books, art pieces, and music created since IP laws were created and measure how much of it was given away freely. Let’s limit it more fairly. If we only look at the ideas created since let’s say 1995 when Linux started getting press and popularizing the idea of GPL (I know, GPL was available before then, so was GNU, but they were not widely known befroe a certain year and I choose that one.). How many ideas were given away since 1995. As a percentage of the total number of ideas created.
Besides which, the GPL is based on copyrights anyway. It requires them to protect the idea of freely developed software. Under the current system any idea you create you are perfectly free to give away and grant copy permissions to. The only thing you cannot do is take that right away from someone else. That is, you cannot copy someone elses work unless they give you permission.
The real question is how does the “information should be free” silyness help anything?
Sorry if I didn’t pay attention earlier, but what’s the nature of the information you’re propagating?
That’s not what I implied. The opponent argument was that by making information free, people will be amotivated from expressing their creativity. I counter that lot of people create because they LOVE doing so. A free-information world WILL affect aggregate creative output, but not eliminate it. I believe that the works that gain prominence in such an environment will do so on account of higher quality. I never said that if an artist loves working, that output should then be free. I think all information regardless of motivating factors should be free.
How does this matter? Information today exists with economic chains attached. All creators of our generation have been brought up in this environment. The GPL philosophy is still mainstreamwise counterculture. So, of course most creators still try to prioritize their creative efforts by looking at a personal metric that factors in short-term/long-term economic compensation. And as long as the model exists, change will be slow.
This touches on my core point which is, there’s nothing special about the process by which information is created in say, 1960, as opposed to 1690. Humans learn by cognitive blending. There’s no such thing as an original individual independent expression. Creators immeasurably and inevitably rely and draw from public domain shared concepts and knowledge to blend and “create” their expressions. Having a model that limits future and other contemporary creators from reblending, based on economic constraints rather than talent constraints, only hurts society and civilization at large.
Huh? You quoted the part of my post which explained what it is. It’s a book. More specifically, a how-to book on something artistic-related.
Does it matter what the book is about to you, in order to tell me how much I should be “compensated” for it being distributed for free?
So, could you tell me, in dollars and cents, who much I should be compensated for this book? Let’s say I’ve worked 200 hours on the entire project. Would I be compensated by the hour, or by how many people use the book, or by how much it cost to print the book (paper, ink, postage)? So, please—enlighten me. If the “information” in this book were to be “free,” how much compensation should I be entitled to for all the hours of work I put into it?
Ugh. Oh pervert, here we go with the “information wants to be freeee!” line.
I have fought this battle many times and I’m just too tired to delve into it too much again. I’m simply too busy with this book. Suffice it to say, I think that the idea that information should be free is a crock. I am living this, right now. I know for a fact that I could not afford to do a lot of the work I have done, and I sure as hell wouldn’t be motivated to “share” it, if I knew that it would automatically be “free.” This book I’m working on, for instance. It is based on a website I wrote (for free) on the same subject. Many site visitors asked for me to write a book. The only reason I’m doing the book (which has more content than the site and is measurably better than the site) is because I know I will own rights to the book and will be able to (hopefully) get some money for my investment in time.
I think that the vast majority of creative people work this same way. Sure, we’ll give some of our creativity away for free (I have with the website—all free) but then we’ll limit ourselves. Because we don’t have time, and frankly, it’s exhausting to work so hard on something and get pretty much nothing back for it. We’ve all got to make a living, after all, and obviously working on something that is destined to be “free” from the start isn’t a great way to support ourselves.
But, hey. Go ahead and preach the “information wants to be freeeeee!” mantra. It’s really amusing when it’s not frustrating. Next I expect someone will be telling me that it should be okay for the photo lab that develops my prints to feel free to “share” the photos I bring in to be developed, or for visitors in my house to “share” copies of my artwork on the walls or anything else they can lay their hands on. (That was a heated topic of a recent thread. Yes, some people want that.) Oh, and then someone will admonish me for “hoarding” my work. (Which is why the stuff in my house should be subject to “sharing,” even against my will. Because even the stuff in my house wants to be free!)
Yeesh.
Well, back to working on the book (which, thank God, is not free).
This is so close to the arguments used by our local communists that I am quite tickled to hear it used in this context.
But you asked a question. Specifically:
Well, you suggested that art would still be created if we removed copyrights. I asked if you had any evidence to back up this assertion. That’s how it matters. What if it turns out that only 0.02% of the copyrighted art would get created without them? I think that number is high, BTW. Surely if the same amount or close to the same amount (which is what you implied) then what the heck hey? But if the amount of inventions, art, and discoveries dries up, would you still hold to your “data should be free” sillyness? Where would you draw the line? Half the inventions next year? One third? Would you be willing to go back to the inovation rate of the 1690s?
Please don’t simply say that we cannot know. I realize that. I am more interested in how much inovation you are willing to throw away. You can use any characterization or measurement you want.
Well, lets make a list shall we? We’ll start with the subject of this thread.
[ul]
[li]Internationally, patents are far more respected now than they were in 1690 (especially since they did not exist then). This makes it much much much easier to amass large amounts of money for research. (did I mention much?)[/li][li]Copyrights are respected too. Again, they did not exist in 1690. This allows authors to write (advances anyone?), painters to paint, and musicians to create (studio time anyone?).[/li][li]The availability and popularity of formal education is so much higher now than in 1690, that I would call it completely different. Intellectual work is valued far more than physical labor. This is a direct result of the realization that a person owns his intellectual work as much as he owns his physical labor.[/li][li]Also, there is the synergy effect. Since inventors don’t have to hide their work to benifit from it, others can examine details of the ideas to generate ideas of their own.[/li][/ul]
Now to agree with your thought. You are correct that many things are the same. People still think, they still write with pens, and they still belong to the same species. Other than that, though…
Lastly, have you read the book you linked to? The description says that cognitive blending is the forming of new ideas from disparate sources. It describes a uniquely individual activity. I only looked at the summary, but it does not seem to support your thesis any more than the fact that we think with language, and we learn language from others. Does this mean that we do not have ideas of our own?
BTW, yosemitebabe, relax. This is not a mainstream philosophy at all. Go look at the two recent communism threads in GD. One on Marx and another on Lenin. You will see the exact same sentiment expressed toward other aspects of the economy. Then you can take comfort in the vehemence that most of the worlds still expresses towards that philosophy. Maxism what’s in it for me And Lenin and the 4 million killed.
The ‘book’ shouldn’t be distributed for free, since there’s costs and time involved. At the very least, your compensation should be what you would have earned, had you worked the best compensated job you could for the same resources (incl. time) that you spent on the book. And there should be a bonus in retrospect that depends on how many people bought the book?
I already explained in an above post why this mindset persists.
Yeah, yeah. I know. I pretty much shot my wad with that last post. I really am going to try not to get to caught up in this poppycock this time. And thanks for the links, I am sure I will find them comforting!
Incidentally, I’ve sold a few more books in just the last few days. Yay me. (It’s sorta an “beta edition” and selling with a Print-On-Demand publisher.) Sold one of the books a schoolteacher (I have sales logs that tell me this stuff). She bought a copy a few weeks ago, and now bought another one. I think that’s a good sign. And thank God that this book is not “free.” I am just too tired from all this work to contemplate the notion that some people would expect me to do all this work for bupkis. (Did I spell that right?)
On preview (sigh) :
Who will pay me all this money, and who will decide that my hard work is “worth” a certain amount of money?
Will there be multiple publishers allowed to print this book? How will it be decided what “bonuses” I will get? Will anyone who sells my book have to keep logs of how much they sold? And what about those who are “sharing” it for free? I can’t be expected to get a “bonus” when no income was generated from the “sharing” of the book, can I?
How exactly will this work, pray tell?
Are you an artist? Could you describe what kind of creative work you do?
As if that makes any difference or automatically disqualifies my views.
As if the number matters (not that I agree with your speculative estimate). What matters is impact. And I think that barring a transitional period of discontent, impact of works created three generations down the line will not be lower, if not greater, simply due to the rapid universal dissemination combined with the fact that it will be free.
If impact reduces significantly, yes, I will reject my belief.
Irrelevant. You are still standing on current foundations of economy while pondering the “ill-effects”. Implementations matter. And not everyone can implement the same, due to ability and/or circumstance. Since in a free information society, everyone can try to implement, there will always be incentive to be first in the market. The Gnome project doesn’t stop adding features because KDE can add them as well. Reputations build up and they can help create a loyal base even if there are 101 desktop environments out there.
Prove this assertion. Copyrights exist today and yet there are people who create works enjoyed for free. At least, those people will still create, since nothing’s changed for them. That itself puts a dent in your assertion. Exclude people whose primary motivation to be creative is monetary. Now, show that the rest will stop their creating.
One distinction I’ve been constantly trying to press is there’s the difference between information and implementation. The first is useless without the second, in practical matters. Manufacturing a chip requires mental skill, although in a strictly technical sense, it is “physical labour”. Pure intellectual content is useless without a feasible form. People should be paid for providing a tangible form.
Then, how do patents protect, if you can be “inspired” from it? How divergent should the inspiration be, in order to not infringe the patent?
Almost. The book’s divided into two sections. The first explains the technical details of the model. The second illustrates its deployment in human activity and heritage. I’m halfway through the 2nd section.
Of course. You seem to be creating a dichotomy where either activity is individual and independent or activity is shared and dependent, a la “borgs” in Star Trek. I’m saying activity is individual but inevitably dependent, and strongly dependent, as per my judgement.
Yes, but the source of those ideas aren’t locked up in the same way that the concept of copyright/patents seek to implement. If I look at, say, a copyrighted source code of some software and figure out a way to use the same but slightly modified algorithm in a more efficient workflow, I can’t implement it unless I have the economic means to work out a deal with the original creator. That stifles innovation. Look at how many people are stuck with the dominant MS Office because competing projects with better price/performance ratios can’t properly read Office documents.
Linux is freely downloadable. You can get very cheap CDs for just the cost of media. Yet, people buy official Linux distro packages. Those cost quite a bit of money. Humans in general, are social empathic creatures, even if considering stark contrary examples. People who appreciate your work due to its beauty and/or utility will show that appreciation. Many of them tangibly.
Take a look at Wikipedia. This is a freely available encyclopedia with no commercial aspect. Plenty of people have freely devoted their time towards this project (including me). Recently, they needed an urgent upgrade to keep the site up and they required $20,000. They posted an appeal to the tech community-at-large at sites like Slashdot, on 28th Dec. By 2nd Jan, they have already collected upwards of $33,000. The users who contributed, weren’t told of any special treatment in return.
In fact, it just struck me to look at your own example. You say that visitors to your free website asked you to write a book. If your website was a pay-for-view affair, would you have attracted the same number of visitors, enough to create a demand for the book?
I’ve been a mathematics student for the past three years. But, I’ve worked in a capacity as a 3D (CG) animator for 10 years to date.
I understand that, but not all creative works are going to be “shared” and used the same way software is.
No, I’ve not seen that. People regularly steal my work from my site, even though I have copyright notices and specific requests for them NOT to do that.
So, I’m sorry, but my own personal experience doesn’t really bear that out, and many other artists I know will say the same thing. People think that if it is “shared,” it’s free. My gosh, I just saw a prime example of that on a big gaming board, where there was widespread theft of art and copyright violations. When confronted with the problem, all the people who were “sharing” the “information” acted very angry and entitled to use the “information” without paying anyone. They were downright venomous with the artists who did not want their “information” shared and basically told them to suck it up—that they were going to keep on taking, taking, taking.
There are always going to be lovely examples of people doing this sort of thing, and I’m all for that. I’m just not for it being foisted upon everyone—to have their work “shared” by default.
Of course not. But “sharing” that information was my choice and I only gave as much as I felt like giving. No more. What’s in the book is too much to give away and I would never have done the book had I known that I wouldn’t be able to “own” it or control how it was used.
Cool! So if you’re an animator, could you share some sketches or examples of your original work? I’m strictly a 2-D person myself (at least for now).
So how do you aviod recording IM converstions but still get stuff like jpegs? I would consider some IM conversations on par with phone cals on importance in privacy. In addition I mostly use the phone line to get dial out to the internet making it so “much of the traffic may not be speech at all”. So would it be ok for the phone company to record the phone lines of dial-up users?
To aviod a second post: what about Flash-57’s idea? No one seemed to talk about that much. There was talk of requiring draconian laws for electronics, but I think it can done without that any draconian laws, and it’s a great idea . It rewards authors based on how much their works are used. I think it can be implimented quite simply too.
Here is how:
A work is created be it music, a book, a movie, or something else, It is uploaded to a goverment server of some kind and put up for download. Server logs keep track of many of each file is downloaded and dilly up the creative works tax fund accourdingly. The tax could be monthly and figured into the isp bill. Just as inFlash-57’s plan. Artists get rewarded, consumers get an all you can to eat buffet of media. The RIAA gets null, which is the fate those antiConstitution bastards deserve. All done without draconian measures on technology. I was typing farther down and I had this idea. How this: Each website can have one hit counter with the FCTS (see below). That way website owners would be paid for their work without advertising! This would remove a lot of the annoying things on the web. Popups, banner ads and the like.
Why would people get the file from the file copy tracking server (FCTS) instead of p2p? Simple the download over the FCTS would be a high quality version and be a heck of a lot easier to download then p2p. Plus the costs are about the same, you get taxed no matter what medium you use for downloading anyway. So why not get the high fedility version and at a faster speed off the FCTS?
There might be the problem of certain, certain for lack a better word, artists faking, and tricking people into, getting copies of his or her file, but I’m sure technical means could be created and used to prevent or atleast greatly hinder this. Maybe laws could be passed making it illegal with punishments similer to counterfifting as in my mind it would be just as bad.
What a surprise, this is turning into the same old thread. Bah.
I like that idea, netscape 6, because it turns access to IP into a public good. IMO, if information can’t be free, it should at least be “free” in the same sense as public schools and highways - something for which everyone shares the cost, because a society where anyone can use it without paying out of pocket is the kind of society we want to live in.
My appologies. I did not mean that as an attack on your argument. I was merely expressing commiseration with yosimitebabe. Your ideas about the worth of intellectual property can be very frustrating. I was quite stressed the first time I participated in a thread on the subject. I noticed the yosimitebabe was having the same kind of stress, and merely expressed somethng which helped me get passed it. I appologize if anyone took my communism comments as an argument against Gyan9’s ideas. That would clearly be guilt by association, ad hominem, and probably a couple other types of bad debating techniques.
Well, agreed compared to the number of inovations created under your ideas and the number created under copyrights might be a measure of that impact. I agree that any number we come up with is speculation.
Well, I think you have backwards how idea dissemination works. An idea is disseminated when others hear about it. If an inventor has no legal protection of his ideas, then he will develop technological means to hide the design he used to create it. If a new process is not patentable, then businesses will simply not tell anyone about them.
Thanks. I was just curious. I did not mean this as an attack or argument against your ideas either BTW.
Only in the sense that if you can steal the idea from its inventor before anyone else, then you want to be first to market. There will be much greater disincentive to develop the idea in the first place.
OK, lets look at it from 2 perspectives. First of all, the GPL which is quite intrumental in keeping free software free, is based on and very dependant on copyright laws. These laws are the only things keeping people from taking the work of programmers labeling it as their own and refusing to share enhancements with others. Secondly, I suggest that much of the free time that many programmers spend on GPL software is due to the fact that their intellectual work is so valuable. If they cannot create valuable products part of the time, how will they afford to create free products as a hobby?
You are confusing the willingness to create for free with the ability to do so. If we removed the GPL protections that KDE and Gnome enjoy, how many of the developers would remain on the project? If Microsoft could legally download their software and use any of it in their coporate products? Even if the primary motivation for a particular work is not monetary, the people who create such works will often have intellectual property related jobs which allow them the luxury of such creation.
I think you have this exactly backwards. The second is impossible without the first. Without the informatiion that a problem is solvable, how do you implement the solution?
But if only physical labor is to be rewarded, you will not have the machines to build chips. You will not have the chemical processed to isolate the materials for chips. And most likely, you would not have the first idea of which properties within those materials you were looking for inorder to make chips in the first place. Manufacturing chips is nothing like physical labor. Every step of the process requires intellectual labor which under your ideas will be completely uncompensated. I agree that some people will find a way to get compensated, and a very few will create new ideas anyway. But the resources available to them to create new ideas will be extremely limited.
Patents only refrain you from comercial use of an idea. If you read a design in the patents records and decide to build one for your own personal use, I don’t think that the patent holder has an action against you. Especially if you own use is not the intended use of the product. But this is ony the smallest way that patents encourage dissemination of ideas.
Have you ever participated in a brain storming session? When done correctly, it allows people to freely associate other peoples ideas into very unique ideas. I never fail to be amazed at the difference another person’s perspective can make. Look again at the description of you book on cognitive blending. See if he does not propose that often ideas blend into completely new things. That is, someone hears about a new type of tooth brush and suddenly is inspired to write an opera. Patents allow this sort of bizarre information transfer because detailed information about the patent is available to the public. You can’t directly copy the idea, but you most certainly can use it to inspire your own ideas.
I am reminded of the engineering software I heard about several years ago. Forgive me for not having a cite, I don’t think there is one available, and I don’t remember the name of the company or software anymore. Basically, the authors realized that there were several different types of inventions. They suggested that revolutionary ideas with little or no comparible work were quite rare. Inventions which simply imporved other inventions were the most common. But there were other things that people created simply by using ideas in totally unrelated fields. They took patent information from around the world and created an interactive database. It could ask you question about the problem you were trying to solve and propose possible solutions from its database. It was not supposed to be good at helping with the revolutionary ideas, but it was supposed to excell at providing hints from disparate fields.
No, I do not think I am trying to establish a dichotomy. I’m not denying at all that people interact. Nor that such interaction contributes greatly to the number and quality of inovations which are created each year. I am only saying that people will not interact as much if their intellectual contributions are deemed worthless. And I suggest that is exactly what your ideas amount to.
I’m not sure you understood my question. I am asking if the fact that people learn to talk from other people makes the ideas they create less than their own? That is, does the fact that we all use language make my ideas partly yours?
I wasn’t aware that Microsoft had patented or copyrighted the interface between its Office and office documents. StarOffice has been able to read Office documents for years. Are they violating some sort of patent?
Do you seriously think that you would be able to get paid for animation if those who paid you could not be sure to own the product? Think seriously for a minute about how the complete gutting of the copyright laws would affect you. You would still be able to create, but who would pay you for it? If you did not get paid for animation, would you have had time or resources to donate to Wikipedia?
No, but the ISP you use might be required to keep more detailed records of your traffic. At least long enough to pass through a filter. This is exactly my point. If the only way to protect property rights is to reduce the freedoms we now enjoy on the internet, I’m afraid those freedoms may be curtailed. I cannot find a single historical precedent where the reverse is true.
But what is wrong with counterfitting? If all I am doing is copying the work, and the idea of the work is not valuable at all, then how is counterfitiing or plagerism bad?
OK, so what if we take the idea of tracking a bit further? What if a digital work had a little bit of code dropped in that would reference it where it was reused. Or even
And if a system where set up to where a small royalty payment were made. If someone took a quote form Yosemitebabe’s book and she were paid a small fee for its use? Whether someone bought the book or not. If one person uses
Why? What is appealing about from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs? Is not the inhumanity inherent in that phrase obvious?
Getting back to the OP for a second, what is it about music in particular that makes it similar to highways? Why should music be free? That people want it for free is not a good reason. People want everything for free if they could get it.
Aaarrrggg!! I was just putting down a couple random ideas when I somehow accidentally posted. Please ignore my ramblings on my previous thread until have a coherent thought
Or at least so that it could be traced to its original author. Or perhaps so that a registered copyright could be found and addressed in a clearinghouse sort of way. Like they do for songs on the radio. The types of things that fall under “fair use” could be expanded, the time limit for copyrights themselves could be drastically reduced, and an easy mechanism created where people could affordably compensate artists for their work. Artists would be free not to participate if they did not want to. Or to set exhorbitant rates (for the limited period of the copyright) if they wanted to. Consumers would be free to use a work or not as long as they were willing to compensate the artist.
It seems like some sort of encryption could accomplish this. Not to hide the work, but to make the original author’s identity an integral part of it.
Is the website the one linked in the ‘www’ button under your posts? If so, I don’t see any specific requests. I do see the usual copyright notice at the bottom.
Is that surprising? Our current system allows commercial marketing of art as information. If they see it ‘shared’, they assume it’s free. I’m not sure how this bodes for the hypothetical economy I’m specualting about.
Where was this?
Your concern is that a free info system will not provide economic livelihood. I’m providing an example that it doesn’t have to be the case.
I think one thing’s being confused here, and it’s my fault. I’m for free info, but I don’t want it shackled away from credit. Take Linux for example. I can download the linux code, change it and sell it. But I can’t call it “linux”. I don’t intend that intellectual content recognition be deprived of its formative roots.
I don’t have any. I worked as an animator at my uncle’s studio. I didn’t own my own computer till 2 years ago. And I can’t afford the hardware to adequately run good 3D software. My current contributions to 3D are limited to helping out others at cgtalk.com.
Nope. Motivations are different. People under the current system may create ideas if they think it’s marketable. People in the new system will create ideas if they think it’s good (the two aren’t the same thing). Impact is measured by change. Inundation of ideas is not a direct measure of impact. You can have 95 ideas floated in the current system and with only 2 good. And 25 ideas in the new system with, say, 4 good.
People reverse-engineer all the time. All protection schemes for software and hardware get broken pretty soon after their release. And in the new system, someone will soon create an open and cleaner implementation. I think the mistake you’re making is that you’re still ASSIGNING the current mindset to the creator 3 generations after. But this concept of intellectual property is so ingrained because WE see the material wealth afforded to the creators in our system.
In a perverted way, this is the desired result. People who dare to create ideas will be those who are confident their implementations are top-notch.
I explained above that I intend to not strip information of its roots. I should clarify that by information I mean concepts, procedures, thoughts…etc and not labels or identification. Crediting and unique labelling is a big component in my system.
Like how Redhat earns money. Charge for support, customization, implementations. Offer an official version of the product.
That’s obviously true, but it doesn’t negate my assertion. Even on a desert island, the blueprint and details for a plane don’t help much if you can’t find the materials or don’t have the mechanical dexterity to construct the plane. But ideas are dime a dozen. Workable ideas are few and far between.
False. I’ve said that intellectual labour should not be free, its fruit should be. These researchers might not have the capital to experiment on their own, and the financiers don’t understand the science. Ergo, the researchers charge for their services. The financiers charge buyers for the tangible end-product.
But if I don’t distribute my idea, the patent does stiffle innovation. Some genius in Fiji might have figured out the cure for cancer, but if she doesn’t share it, there’s no cure.
Depends on what you mean by “things”. The point of the book is there aren’t any “completely new” ideas. The phrase is an oxymoron. New ideas are blends of existing ideas. They depend on the validity and proper understanding of these existing ideas and then cross-domain mapping them (which is what you allude to.) And your ability to understand an idea depends on you having access to resources that provide that understanding.
No, the reason will stop interacting as much is because mediocre ideas won’t survive as much as today because there won’t be a monopoly on their usage and derivation. Most people are mediocre. Unless there’s protection like there is today, most but not all people will be afraid the end-implementation that becomes popular won’t be their own.
In so much as that your sense of logic and mindset of reasoning is instilled via the shared cultural and environmental influences.
No, because it’s done through trial-and-error and educated guessing. The Office format isn’t patented or copyrighted. It doesn’t have to be. It’s closed-source available only as a binary implementation. If you’ve been following the debate on sites like Slashdot, you know that the reason cheaper suites don’t do so well is because the new suites can’t interoperate well with the industry-dominant Office, as far as exchanging files is concerned. If a standard open format was supported and implemented well (unlike CSS in IE), people would be able to select the office app they wanted.
I think I should provide a taxonomy of what I consider information that ought to be free: concepts, methods, procedures, knowledge. Here’s what doesn’t fall into free or modifiable: tangible implementations, labelling or identification. To illustrate the last point, if I take linux code and fork a new version, I shouldn’t be able to call it linux. I may mention that it has been derived from linux. Also, one isn’t forced to share the information. Only that it cannot be charged for, if it is shared. And that you may not prevent other people from guessing your ideas and using those guesses for their own purposes. A key but not complete differentiator of what should be free and what not is whether the same entity can be possessed/owned by two people simultaneously.