BenRayfield’s favorites
Recently commented on
Copyrights Cause More Piracy Than File Sharing
The leading cause of death is birth, and the leading cause of piracy is copyrights and patents, but the difference is more good things than bad happen if we get rid of patents and copyrights.
This thread is not about who deserves what or who owns what. The future is much more important than the past. Theoretically, if a majority of the 7 billion people agreed to change something that benefits more people on average than not changing it, then that is enough permission to do it. Or as its said on Star Trek, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
There are some organizations each named "pirate party" which advocate legalizing piracy (ending patents and/or copyrights etc), but I don't know the details. Their strategy is too confrontational and will not work.
Instead, think about the greed and short sightedness of governments and others with power.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
If a frog is in room temperature water and nothing else disturbs it, it will probably stay there. If the water very slowly increases temperature eventually boiling, the frog usually does not notice the temperature changing and stays there until it dies.
When thinking about the future of the Human species, most people have a lot in common with frogs. We can use that.
Similarly, if we make the process of ending copyrights and patents very slow and gradual enough that you can take a calculus derivative (slope of a line) on it, and if we give those in power a reason to start the process, then they will be greedy enough to take the short-term benefits in exchange for everybody's long-term freedom.
Those in power would extremely oppose a change at any 1 time that decreased the power or duration of patents or copyrights, regardless of how small the change is.
Instead, what if we made patents and copyrights STRONGER instantly and gradually made them weaker until they didn't exist? Those in power would go for it because they personally would make a lot of money before the gradual change affected them much.
For example as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_of_patent says some patents last 20 years. We could change that so all new patents of that type would last 40 years, and over the next 10 years, decrease that CONTINUOUSLY from 40 to 0 as the years CONTINUOUSLY change from 0 to 10 years from now, only affecting the duration granted to new patents, not changing the duration of any patent previously granted.
It would be to the selfish advantage of most of those in power to accept the offer, and after 10 years, no new patents or copyrights would ever be granted again, and some years after that, all patents and copyrights would expire (unless people see how well things work without patents and decide to get rid of them before the 40 years. Governments change the rules on us all the time, so theres nothing wrong with us doing the same after most of the patents/copyrights are gone, if we can).
There would be no 1 time that any significant fraction of the patents expire. It would happen gradually because new patents granted would each be granted for a little shorter time than the last patent. No sudden changes. No riots. No excuses of not having time to prepare. Complete destruction of the intellectual property system globally, without breaking any laws. Checkmate.
Like a moth to a flame. Its a trap those in power can't resist, even if they know its a trap. Don't mess with a Sun Tzu strategist.
QUESTION TO EVERYONE: After the gradual confusion and inefficiency becomes freedom for everyone to build anything, and after some people go without certain things until they figure out they need to reorganize society to build them different ways, what would society eventually become?
2 comments
| Promote (1) |
|
Add to favorites (2)
|
| Create synapse |
|
