are intellectual property like patents needed?

SadMadoka said:

Well, if you put it that way...but it still doesn't explain your position that intellectual property rights are not necessary.

SadMadoka said:

Well, if you put it that way...but it still doesn't explain your position that intellectual property rights are not necessary.

deg said:
one of capitalisms main criticism is economic inequality though the rich gets richer while the poor gets poorer, and it shows when the middle class is shrinking worldwide especially on rich countries and that only 8 people owns as much as half of world population wealth so we need reforms for capitalism

CondemneDio said:
Copyright laws etc. are part of the problem called capitalism. That's my stance.

SadMadoka said:

Capitalism has made the poor richer than ever before. Even those in the lower economic class enjoy luxuries kings of old would never dream of. Most things you have in our modern society are thanks to capitalism. So-called equality would just turn everyone into poor slaves.

The Uprising of the Global Middle Class said:
What might a farmer in Iowa, a graphic designer in Chile, a pensioner in the U.K., and an assembly-line worker in China have in common? They are members of a socioeconomic class that includes people whose supposed frustrations have helped fuel dramatic political events in some places—whether it’s the election of Donald Trump, violent protests, or Brexit—and could well do the same even in closed societies like China.

The conventional wisdom is that, in many places across the developed world, members of the middle class are railing against a stagnation or even decline in their standards of living. According to this view, a toxic mix of globalization, immigration, automation, inequality, nationalism, and racism can fuel the frustrations that encourage voters to punish “establishment” ideas and politicians. The “middle class” is, of course, a category encompassing billions of people worldwide, many of whom do not consider themselves frustrated or aggrieved. Some poor and rich voters alike voted for Donald Trump in the U.S. and for Brexit in the U.K., and middle-class people voted in large numbers against both. But it’s also clear that in rich countries, and especially in the United States, middle-income earners constitute the largest constituency of voters that is hurting economically.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/08/global-middle-class-discontent/535581/

SadMadoka said:


Okay, but you haven't explained what the problem is exactly.

CondemneDio said:
It encourages witholding vital inventions from people, for monetary gain.

SadMadoka said:

How so? If one person invents something and patents it, that doesn't prevent others from inventing something else. (Including very similar things.)

CondemneDio said:
Let's go over an hypothetical example.
Mr. A invents a "save-human-in-distress beam". He patents it, and is gaining a shit ton of money (100000000000000000000000000 $ per beam-shooter-thingie).
Is it okay for him to monopolize the invention, causing millions of people to not be saved?

Mr. A is clearly acting greedy, and making sure he gets the maximum profit.

Tenma said:
As an example; A drug campaign could use your personal facebook image, without your permission or consent, and make you the poster person for an anti-drug user campaign. Conversely, they could take a picture of someone's wife and make her the poster for an Abortion campaign, also without her consent or knowledge.

deg said:
after some googling about this topic
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2004/11/11/monopolies-of-the-mind
https://fee.org/articles/how-intellectual-property-hampers-the-free-market/

i say intellectual property (patents and copyrights) acts like a monopoly that they are anticompetitive and hinders the free market dream of cheap products and services for the consumers

the stances in favor of IP laws so far in this thread like your pictures can be abuse for profit does not mean much if you do not want to profit from your pictures in the first place and that patents open up the secrets of how to make those innovative products is also not a problem considering that reverse engineering exist and with AI and computers today then reverse engineering is more advance than ever

SadMadoka said:

Without intellectual property rights, companies wouldn't be able to exist at all! Content creators (like musicians, authors, animation studios, and on and on) wouldn't be able to be properly paid or receive credit for their work either. You really haven't thought this through.

The pictures thing is about people using your photo without your permission and, for example, acting like you're endorsing something that you actually aren't. In many cases, this would be a crime.

The so-called free market is a fantasy that only exists in the imagination. Let's focus on the real world.

Yes, reverse-engineering enables others to more efficiently bring similar products to the market. That ties into my point that patents and the like don't prevent any type of product from being made available; they just protect the business interests of those who made something very specific.

deg said:
@Tenma

reverse engineering is so advance today thanks to computers and AI though so secrets in technology for example today is easy to crack

plus take for example Intel, their original patent is expired already but they somehow artificially extended it so their patents are now 40 years and counting so they like doing some serious monopoly to x86 CPU design for personal computers and servers, AMD only licenses those x86 CPU design from Intel, the consumers cannot simply change to ARM RISC CPU for their desktop computers for example since there is no backward compatibility to x86 that Intel monopolize, this is especially true to old companies with old softwares written in x86 they still need to rely on Intel

Tenma said:


You're really being a bit disingenuous at this point. If you said to change your mind, you have to actually think you might be wrong first.

Reverse engineering has nothing to do with protecting someone who worked extremely hard and developed something totally new of their own labor. It would steal what they created so they could recreate it and profit off of it before that person.

Also, saying that "secrets in technology are easy to crack these days" is a really bold and generalized statement. You have no idea what it takes to develop technologies, especially not completely new ones.

And, as far as your example of Intel, the reason they maintain a level of patent on x86* architecture is because it was wholly their own invention. It's a unique processing card. It does not mean anyone couldn't build off of and create a different product from it, which they did. Hence x64 architecture.

"The architecture has been implemented in processors from Intel, Cyrix, AMD, VIA and many other companies; there are also open implementations, such as the Zet SoC platform.[2] Nevertheless, of those, only Intel, AMD, and VIA hold x86 architectural licenses, and are producing modern 64-bit designs.[3][irrelevant citation]"

A 2 second google search would show you you're misinformed here.

deg said:


i do think that i can be wrong, heck in this thread alone i agreed with 2 posts defending IP laws and one is yours and the other is from GamerDLM if i remember his name right but i googled more about those are against IP laws and found that they are just pro capitalists and anti free market, IP laws are actually anticompetitive and anti-consumers

and only Intel and AMD remains as the makers of x86 and if Intel revokes its licenses to AMD then Intel is the only one, the fact is Intel holds most or all of the patents for x86

Tenma said:


I dunno, you just seem to hand wave a lot of things because of poorly cited information you find at random that agrees with your viewpoint.

Intel holds the IP rights to the architecture and anyone wanting to use their creation to create and profit off of a new product has to acquire their license.

It makes perfect sense and isn't anti-anything. All it's saying is that you have to pay someone to use their creations if you want to make money off of them. or do you believe it'd be a better world, if say for example, you wrote your Ph. D thesis and someone just took it from you, changed a paragraph, and got their Ph. D for it?

Or, to press the point, say you invented the microwave. Now someone wealthy comes over, takes the microwave from you, and then mass produces it and makes even more money while you get nothing.

deg said:


your example does not hold up on a free market scenario with no IP laws since the original inventor of the microwave can still make and market his microwave at a much cheaper price too if he wants

IP are not stolen they are just copied and improve and be forgotten too, just like how piracy works on the internet

Tenma said:


It absolutely stands. Lower cost is extremely far from being the only factor that makes a product successful.

The creator of the microwave would never be able to compete against anyone with more resources or connections than him/herself. A free market scenario gives people with more power easier access to abuse that power in comparison to people with less.

Furthermore, you're totally incorrect. China, which has few to no IP laws, makes literal knock-offs of other products at a drastically (sometimes dangerously) lower quality with absolutely no innovation at all.

Piracy on the internet is also an extremely bad example because piracy, by definition, is stealing. You aren't doing anything to improve the anime you pirate, or the games you pirate, or the MP3 music you pirate. You take it for free because you don't want to pay for it.

deg said:


im seeing it on a consumers perspective since in a healthy free market there will be no big corporations like google, microsoft, etc that only got big because of hoarding patents

and look at where China is now, they are about to overtake the USA in terms of economy in a few more years

with all the talk of China being a socialist/communist they do practice free market more better than USA

as for piracy i do not think so since its like with ideas, if i get your idea then that makes it 2 ideas and not only 1 idea which is the case if its stolen

Tenma said:


Corporations like Google didn't get big by "hoarding patents" rarely any companies get anywhere by hoarding patents. There are millions upon millions of patents in the US and very rarely any of them are useful enough to create a product that sells at market.

China is about to overtake the US economy in terms of growth not in terms of actual wealth. And that is because China is progressively getting out of Third World status. Massive swaths of land in China are still in the dark ages. No electricity, no running water, no roads, no infrastructure etc.

saying "practicing free market" as if it's some moral good doesn't make the argument correct. It has nothing to do with morality. There is a fundamental separation between "law that regulates economy" and "law that regulates government and people". (In reference to the socialist/communist remark.)

Furthermore, what do you even mean by that? We're talking about piracy on the internet, which is when people illegally download content without paying for it. You do not get more ideas by people taking multi-media for free. I'm not sure exactly how you're spinning that one in your head. Just because you "acquire" the new Drake album doesn't mean you're going to go and develop your own album. That's nonsensical and blatantly untrue. What it does mean, is that you now can listen to the new Drake album without paying for it.


EDIT: In regards to you saying you're looking at it from a consumer perspective; That's a horrible perspective to use. You need to look at the entire picture. You don't take one piece of a puzzle and say "Now I know where all the pieces go" you look at the finished art to assemble the pieces.

deg said:

you can read the earlier articles i have linked they are talking about there how most of the companies today have patents and that the bigger the company the bigger their number of patents they hold, patents are a way to kill the small players in the market competition, like if a small company is getting wealthy then the bigger companies can sue them on patents ground and stop them from selling more products or services

what i mean is that China is the second largest market in the world right now because of their free market mentality (no IP laws and exporting powers)

well that is the current socioeconomic belief right now which is capitalism or free market anyway so im making a case to take it further and to benefit consumers more since the capitalists have benefited in this system for a long time

im talking more about piracy in broader sense as an IP (patents and copyright), piracy on the internet is copyright infringement and patents are like monopolies of ideas hence the example but piracy on the internet is not that far off since piracy is about copying too

you are against copying really and not actually stealing heck you talk about knock-offs too

my point is that copying is not bad at all in the case of capitalism for the benefit of consumers but if you want to benefit the capitalists then sure copying is bad

Tenma said:


Most companies need patents because they spent millions of dollars developing products, paying workers, manufacturing and shipping said products. The licensing for patents helps them recoup initial investment. Furthermore, a company can only sue you on patent laws if you violate the patent. If you do not, which quite often is the case, the lawsuit fails.

China is the second largest market in the world right now because, again, China is importing many things for infrastructure. Furthermore, China has 1.5 Billion people living there. That's literally over 4 America's put together. It's something in the neighborhood of 15% of the entire world population. Markets have to have people with needs and purchasing power, and with that many people it's a no brainer.

"Benefit consumers more since capitalists have benefited in this system for a long time..." You do realize "capitalists" used in that context means people pro-capitalism, but Capitalism, the economic process has caused tremendous growth and benefit worldwide? The reason the average poverty level [i]across the globe[i/] has improved is because of Capitalist economic policies. All major countries across the board for wealth are beneficiaries of Capitalism. Therefore, all of their citizens are as well. Just because there are unscrupulous businessmen who try to play the system, doesn't mean that the system is morally corrupt or only for those people.

You're mixing way too many terms for that to be a cohesive argument, Deg. Piracy is stealing. Yes, stealing is a copyright infringement. It's also a bad thing to do period. You wouldn't steal from an individual, so stealing from a creator/company/businessman is no better. Piracy is not about copying. It's about stealing. By illegally [digitally] copying the product these people poured millions of dollars into creating, you are stealing it.

In the sense of IP, copying is more akin to school. Copying someone else's work. The thing they spent their lives and effort to create. If you read what I posted above you'd know that, even when something is patented, there are ways that people still get this information to use. Depending on the level of IP, it may be free, or it may not. But, it's fair to everyone involved not just one party.

Just to show an example; There are many TV manufacturers now. Each one produces their own unique product that in some way differentiates itself from it's competitors so that people will buy theirs. However, they all copy certain information that was patented when TV's were invented.

Why do you want to tear down/out corporations exactly? Because that seems to be more of why you're against IP in the first place.

deg said:


im just gonna answer your last question by linking this deabate i had with SadMadoka https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1739920&show=50#msg55710077

thats why im pro consumer more

Tenma said:


Okay. but before I read that you do realize that it'd be impossible for Capitalism to be inherently anti-consumer. Otherwise no one would purchase any of the products sold.

deg said:


capitalisms goal is to maximize profit while minimizing cost like giving cheap wages so in a way i disagree with you since the purchasing power of consumers that are mostly wage slaves are declining or even stagnant under capitalism today especially with the increase in automation

capitalism also undergo boom and bust cycles as its inherent feature because economic inequality causes debt bubble or economic collapse

Tenma said:


It's true that there needs to be a living wage. However, we used to have one. It was politicians and law circumvention that led to the poor wages we get.

Furthermore, when I did payroll accounting, it's very evident to me how incredible of a feat it is to employ even a handful of workers. We aren't even talking about the Corporations with hundreds or even thousands of employees. I don't blame companies for cutting costs because of how much they have to pay in the end for each person, at least by US standards (since those are the only I've learned). Not to mention FUTA, SUTA, FICA, and various other taxes that have to be handled individually for each employee.

Capitalism does end up with boom and bust cycles based on the actions of large swathes of people. If consumers don't consume, bust. If they consume, boom. That's the ultra simplistic way of looking at it. However, the "economic collapse" you're referring to? If you mean the Housing Bubble, that wasn't a product of Capitalism either. That was an enormous amount of people, again, unethically playing the system and breaking it. It isn't Monopolies (the board game) fault when the other player is stealing from the bank without you aware.

deg said:


im talking about the great depression https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/feb/05/inequality-leads-to-economic-collapse

quick google of the 2008 financial crisis shows this too
Income Inequality and Financial Crises https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/weekinreview/22story.html
Using debt to calm the masses How inequality fueled the crisis https://www.economist.com/free-exchange/2010/08/26/how-inequality-fueled-the-crisis

EDIT:

>It's true that there needs to be a living wage. However, we used to have one. It was politicians and law circumvention that led to the poor wages we get.

then you should be in favor of less government right? that includes empowering the free market more hence this topics main goal

Tenma said:


I don't understand why I have to repeat myself again. Did you ignore my statement, or just forget about it?

The Great Depression was also caused by similar issues, done by individuals breaking the law, as the housing collapse in 2008. A quick google search only confirms that what I already said to you is correct. It's not Capitalism. It's people doing the wrong things and breaking laws and regulations.

Income inequality has really crappy statistics backing it. Because everyone cannot and should not earn the same for whatever they do. Working is not about being happy and excited about your job, it's about doing something that someone needs done. I digress, however, because that's another entirely different topic.

Debt, again, is a whole completely different problem. Which, by the way if you think debt is so bad, did you realize the vast majority of all corporations have large amounts of debt? It's not just individuals.

Your links you cite as sources are also all left-leaning politically motivated articles. Not to say that some of their information can be true, however you cannot keep taking everything from them at face value 100%.

SadMadoka said:
@deg So let me get this straight: You want the market to be as "free" as possible, yet you want equality? o.O

CondemneDio said:
Nope.
It's just another money-making scheme for the rich.

deg said:


sure the New York Times have left bias but its doing factual reporting https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-times/

The Economist is center though and its factual reporting is rated high too https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-economist/

well i already said my points why im more pro consumer and you cannot deny the populism spreading worldwide and the political mess shows it, the ordinary people/consumers are not satisfied with the current system

Tenma said:


It's all depending on how you're spinning the information provided though. All of this is conflating the problem.

People aren't satisfied, because some people are breaking the laws and getting away with it. It isn't Capitalism that's doing that. It's other people.

Politics has been a mess long before economies were having issues.

I just don't understand how you lay all the problems of everything else at the feet of Capitalism. Like this one single method of economics created all of this. It just doesn't make sense.

Also, you moralize these concepts which also doesn't make sense. You can't apply morality to a method of economics. Any method, even social communistic free markets, are nothing but rules that govern the interactions. It's people who make moral decisions to follow those or not, and thus all morality is brought back to the individual.

It's this same circular arguing people do between Left and Right politics. It has literally nothing to do with being left, right, progressive, or conservative. It all boils down to a really easy phrase; "Who did What?" and then maybe "Should they be punished for it?"

InkSpider said:
Agriculture doesn't need intellectual property laws because they sell vegetables, not ideas.

If Intellectual Property laws didn't exist, writers and artists would have no way of profiting from their work. Imagine being a novelist in a world without IP laws. Literally anyone could take the novel you spent months, maybe years of your life creating, run that shit through a copy machine and sell it for less than your publishing company has been selling it. Boom. There goes the consumer incentive to give you money for your work. There goes your financial incentive to do said work.

While it is true that plenty of artists and writers do they work for pleasure rather than money, if they can't profit from it, they have to put in time on something else to make money, which means far less art time and less art for consumers to enjoy. It also means that any artistic medium where capital is a requirement (like film, or, oh, I dunno, ANIME) would cease to exist, as the artists would have no means of generating the necessary profits to render this mediums sustainable. This is why just we keep seeing videos from anime critics shaming piracy. Bitch about Crunchyroll and overpriced DVD's all you like, but the fact of the matter is, if someone doesn't feed money back into the anime industry, people will stop making anime.

hazarddex said:
as a writer who was raised in a family of artists. yes intellectual property should be protected.

deg said:


i know that the full free market if it happens can make art (or the whole entertainment) as a profit maker obsolete, its starting to show with the internet today and the artists on youtube for example rely on crowdfunding more just to make enough money for their work via patreon

also what if we got a universal basic income though and full automation, im sure art and entertainment will not be so profitable anymore as well

deg said:


capitalism today is driving the automation technology progress a lot, and automation is causing wages to stagnate or human workers are totally replace by robots/AI, the purchasing power of people wages today are low because of it and i just added that patents being a driver of high prices too is another culprit to the anti-consumer thing of capitalism today



sure i understand but it depends on your purpose of money making, if you want profit or maximize profit aka greed then ye IP laws are important but if you just want enough money related to your work then crowdfunding is becoming popular like patreon that a lot of small artists and youtubers are subscribe into

hazarddex said:
i am not for 100% free market, but i am also not for 100% socialist market.

both concepts alone are bad.


and as a writer its important i can protect my book that i make. so i don't get robbed by publishers.

deg said:
the free market promises cheaper products and services thats all

but ye im actually anti capitalism, i see the free market or capitalism as a necessary evil to achieve Fully Automated Luxury Space Communism as the meme goes

deg said:
but when artificial intelligence starts doing art too then it will make the art business gone too imo, im just saying the art business can become obsolete sooner or later

SadMadoka said:

A free market doesn't exist, so it can't promise anything, and it's a terrible idea anyway. Too much freedom is a very bad thing. Same goes for too much control, as is the case with communism and the like. That meme of yours is an even more deluded fantasy.


You are clearly not an artist. To claim that artificial intelligence could make better art than humans is highly insulting to anyone who is one. (Okay, maybe better visual art in some cases, I'll grant that much.) Do you honestly think that all the industries involving painting, graphic design, photography, music, books, live action movies and series, cartoons, anime, video games, and so on would cease to exist? These are all forms of art. What you're really implying is that everyone's thoughts and feelings would become obsolete. So many of your claims have no basis in reality.

deg said:
im just gonna answer that communism is stateless (no government) as envisioned by Marx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_society

SadMadoka said:

Like I said...deluded fantasy. In the real world, it just results in an oppressive state-controlled society.