Subject: Philosophy: Fair IP laws

From: Alon Altman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 12:57:05 +0300 (IDT)

Hi,
  Most of us are against the current status of Copyright and Patent law, and
are outraged from stuff like the DMCA, SSSCA, et al. We know that this
system is wrong, and must be changed.

  However, nullifying all IP laws is IMHO a bit too strong, because there
will be no incentive to create anything for mass market sale except out of
goodwill, or for leveraging other revenue (aka Linux).

  Assuming you could rewrite the entire world IP law, and even create a new
social system, my question is: What laws can be written that will be fair
both to content creators and to users, while cutting the middleman?

For further reference see: http://logosfoundation.org/copyleft/copyrigh.html

  Alon

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From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 14:43:19 +0300 (IDT)

> both to content creators and to users, while cutting the middleman?

I don't see IP middlemen (I.e: distributers) as a necessary evil. They
also have some important rights. By definition, if you wish to distribute
your IP using a physical medium (a paper book, a CD, a movie, a DVD, a
video cassette, etc), then you are better off using a distributer that
specializes in doing stuff like that. While web-publishing is a very
promising technology, I don't see it completely replacing physical mediums
in the forseeable future.

Right now, such distributers are threatened by functionality that was
put forth by the Internet. So, we should make sure it is clear that
technological advancement cannot be undermined because a legacy vendor is
threatened by it. It's like carriage drivers trying to abolish trains.

In the forseeable future, I estimate that content producers will find it
more and more natural to make their content freely distributable, and that
Open-Source/Open-Content will propagate to other fields. But I'm not sure
if non-free content will be completely eliminated, and I do not think it
is moral to force the freedom of content down the producers'[1] throat.

I'll probably elaborate a bit more about my idea of a perfect IP canon.
However, I'm not sure I'm familiar enough with the intricate details of
the industries involved, to make sure I can formulate a law that will be
suitable for everybody. I can make pipe statements as much as I like, but
there are other factors that need to be taken into consideration.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

[1] = Meyatzrim. Not Mefikim.

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Shlomi Fish        [email-masked]
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