
Chomsky on Intellectual Property - __hudson__
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.noam-chomsky/msg/12c9b62ed459d63d?pli=1
======
Tycho
_Most of the serious research and development, the hard part of it, is funded
by the public. In fact most of the economy comes out of public expenditures
through the state system, which is the source of most innovation and
development. I mean computers, the internet. Just go through the range, it's
all coming out of the state system primarily. There is research and
development in the corporate system, some, but it's mostly at the marketing
end. And the same is true of drugs._

~~~
maxharris
_the hard part of it_

This is absolutely false. I agree that discovery isn't easy, but you know
what's even harder? The other 90% of the work needed to _finish_ it and make
it a reliable product. Chomsky trivializes the work of synthetic organic
chemists, the engineers that set up and keep production lines going,
researchers that test the drugs, and so on.

In software terms, this is like saying that all the hard work is done because
someone banged out a prototype over the weekend. It's full of bugs and doesn't
have the features people want yet.

If you believe that Chomsky's right, try running a startup while holding his
idea. You'll fail, or you'll discover that it's _not easy_ and reject his
idea.

~~~
hasenj
Try running a startup without Linux and the entire open source ecosystem.

~~~
bwhite
Are the significant Linux/OSS projects publicly funded?

~~~
Natsu
That depends on exactly what you mean by that. The funding sources are quite
diverse. Most often, they start out with no funding at all and then, once they
solve problems of interest to enough people, they start to attract both
government and private sponsors.

But yes, there are government grants. Here's the first example I could find,
one for developing a secure Linux desktop:

<http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/1153>

------
edw519
First this:

 _They don't make any economic sense or any other sense._

Then this:

 _They should be working for the public good. (Applause) And that means it
should be available to the public. So..._

So...why aren't any of these (his 145 books):

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_tc_2_0?rh=i%3Astripbo...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_tc_2_0?rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3ANoam+Chomsky&keywords=Noam+Chomsky&ie=UTF8&qid=1300306720&sr=8-2-ent&field-
contributor_id=B000AP81EC)

in the public domain?

~~~
anon1385
<http://chomsky.info/books/counter-revolutionary-violence.htm> like this?

or this: [http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/year/year-
overview....](http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/year/year-
overview.html)

or this: [http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/sld/sld-
contents.ht...](http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/sld/sld-
contents.html)

or this: [http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/rab/rab-
contents.ht...](http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/rab/rab-
contents.html)

or this: <http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/ni/ni-contents.html>

or this: <http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/dd/dd-overview.html>

or this: <http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/rc/rc-contents.html>

~~~
TomOfTTB
In fairness just because something is published on the web doesn't mean it is
in the public domain. A manufacturer can publish blueprints but you can't
build and sell an improved version of their product if they have a patent on
it.

~~~
secretasiandan
In fairness just because something is SOLD on the web doesn't mean it is NOT
in the public domain.

------
iwwr
This is quite relevant all on its own, even if slightly off-topic:

 _[the WTO Uruguay agreement is] called a "free trade agreement". It's in fact
a highly protectionist agreement. The US is strongly opposed to free trade,
just as business leaders are, just as they're opposed to a market economy._

------
pathjumper
Here's a different perspective for you guys that is more or less in agreement
with Chomsky's:

The universe does not recognize our artificial restrictions on information.

This is inherently why people generally think it's ok to violate the
copyrights of others. Because we know, and the universe knows that nothing was
taken away from them. The restrictions are entirely artifical and designed to
do nothing except create an enormous inequality between the the "owner" of the
information, and everyone else. That's the sole purpose. These Imaginary Stuff
owners then use this disparity (a legal fiction entirely) to generate massive
wealth based on entirely contrived circumstances.

Since the dawn of speech nothing like this has existed because it never made
sense. Anything one person said could be repeated by anyone who could
remembered it. So when did information suddenly become ownable? It's a
nonsensical legal fiction of epic proportions.

I contend that if the information is publicly available, you no longer own it.
This is how the universe operates. Fans of Imaginary Stuff rights will not be
able to get their way for long. Or rather, they shouldn't be allowed to use
the legal system to enforce their artificial disparity. If you want to own
information, keep it a secret. Otherwise, it's everyone's.

Another way of looking at it is, if you want to get paid for good
information/content/art production, you're going to have to do what every
other human does, continue working even after producing great works. You
should be valued for your talent, and ability to produce from it over and over
- just like everyone else. A bricklayer doesn't lay one brick really well and
then charge everyone to use it daily. The value should be placed on the
ability, not the product, since there's no physical product at all really. The
slight exception being physical works of art etc, but then they're not just
information, so the rules I'm talking about do not entirely apply.
Photographic reproductions are information, but an original work in physical
form is still valuable for being the first and physical.

What do you other smart folks think about this? I know a lot of us work in
information production in some form. I myself am a software engineer, so I'm
not just trying to take from everyone else and pretend the rule doesn't apply
to me because I'm not an information/content producer. I actually am. So this
hits me hardest too.

------
danielsoneg
To my knowledge, one of the reasons Universities were granted the right to
patent their work was as a defensive measure - work patented at the University
was intended to be available to the public, or at least, a whole lot easier to
access than work patented by a private entity. The idea was to make the
results of publicly funded research more, not less, accessible.

------
stephth
Nice read. I've never read any Chomsky. He mentions inventions related to
industries (textiles, steel and pharmaceutical...) and sciences. I'd be
curious to read more from him about IP applied to art. Any idea where to look
at?

------
rick888
"I mean, Einstein didn't have any intellectual property rights on relativity
theory."

I'm fine with scientific facts not being patented, but something like
Photoshop or Microsoft windows isn't scientific fact.

~~~
tjr
How about file formats? Graphics manipulation algorithms? Where's the line
between things like relativity theory and things like Photoshop?

~~~
rbranson
Relativity theory isn't patentable as there is no business model which could
commercialize it.

Patents were originally intended as a way to encourage innovation because they
created a give and take relationship between private interests and the public.
The inventor had to disclose the invention's inner workings, and in exchange
they were given a relatively short period of exclusivity. The public benefited
because the innovation was fully disclosed for others to dissect and re-apply
some of those techniques and processes to new inventions.

In the current modern US copyright & patent system, where very few patents
actually cover true innovation, there is little public benefit beyond this
notion that protecting the inventor from copycats increases their likelihood
to innovate. Of course, there is no scientific process that has lead people to
this conclusion, so it is honestly an educated guess at best.

The dominant thinking in the business world seems to be that overall execution
has become the dominant factor in commercial success and not a particular
single innovation. Protecting these interests provides little benefit to
anyone besides IP attorneys.

~~~
davidw
Copyright and patents are very different bits of IP.

Creative works like books are under copyright. You don't think that the
ability to earn a living benefits the public by allowing a higher level of
production of books, movies, music, etc...? I'm certain that things are tilted
too far in favor of companies like Disney, but that doesn't mean the system
should be thrown out entirely.

Patents seem like they depend more on the field: I think they're a hindrance
for computer science, but am less convinced that they're a bad thing for
things like drugs. In any case, it's a compromise, like you say, so the answer
_is_ likely to be in the middle somewhere.

~~~
rbranson
I wrote a gigantic direct reasoning post in response to this, but I think a
gigantic anecdotal analogy will work better.

In the state of Tennessee, where I live, there is currently a debate about
repealing some laws that regulate the sale of wine, which would allow grocery
stores to sell it. Polls put 70% of consumers favoring the measure. Arguments
are being made mostly by liquor & wine store owners and employees that they
have spent decades building their businesses based on the current legal
environment, and that it is unfair to expose them to this competition. They're
also arguing that service quality will be lowered, because the mass market
grocery stores do not have the kind of expertise the current stores have in
their product. They argue that local jobs will be lost. Church leaders are
arguing that it will expose alcoholics to temptation they will not be able to
resist. To these people, it is just unfathomable to change what exists now
because it seems to work best for them. They have already resigned themselves
that there is no possible way it could be any better any other way and they
will fight it irrationally until the bitter end. My girlfriend and her father
work at the largest liquor store in Tennessee. Toting the short-sighted
company line, most of the employees are against the repeal.

Most liquor & wine stores ONLY exist because of these protection laws, and
many of them are expensive and poorly ran. Very few of them can actually make
the argument that their expertise or service sets them aside. Other burdensome
regulations such as required distance from churches, schools, and other liquor
stores are anti-urban and basically make certain locations extremely lucrative
for the owners as they operate somewhat of a local monopoly and are
grandfathered in. These people will go out of business. Successful stores
can't even create multiple locations, so the best businesses in this arena are
unable to scale.

There is a strong correlation between availability of wine and increased
consumption. When overall consumption increases, the distributors stand to
increase their revenues substantially, and overall the better liquor & wine
stores that have increased selection and service will continue to stay where
they are for the most part, if not see increases, even in the face of stiff
competition from grocery stores. Grocery stores will likely focus on low
margin, commodity wines that make the liquor & wine stores little money.
Liquor & wine stores, of course, are viewed as "dirty" establishments and this
deters many more conservative consumers from trying a product they may
genuinely (and responsibly) enjoy. Just as any argument that protect jobs,
their argument for "saving local jobs" is just arguing for robbing Peter to
pay Paul. The money to pay these people comes directly from consumers, which
means it's diverted from other jobs.

There is also some innovation to be had that will save consumers billions and
unleash the potential of specialized stores that sell specialized and/or
paired food and wine products. The current distribution model is poor and
extremely inefficient. The last 30 years of innovation in supply chain
management are missing from the distribution chain. A very small minority of
retail stores even use UPC codes to perform computerized inventory & point-of-
sale pricing. Even at the largest stores, ordering is done by entirely by
hand. Management understands it's inefficient, but there is so much money
rolling in, and usually a territory they monopolize, so there's very little
incentive to change. Most stores are stocked entirely by the sales staff at
distribution companies, based on what creates the most margin for them, not
what consumers demand. Grocery stores are simply incompatible with the model
that exists now, so the distributors will be forced to modernize to be able to
get their product on those shelves.

This is the price we pay for unpopular, overreaching protectionist laws that
hold together obsolete business models and rob real innovation and creativity,
diverting gigantic sums of capital in unproductive ways and strongly
inhibiting consumer choice. The current state of consumer-impacting copyright
law holds these media companies together, and just like the wine & liquor
stores in Tennessee, they are "fire and brim-stoning" us claiming that all of
this high quality music & movies we enjoy will go away. The media companies
want us to believe their business model is legitimate, that the choices they
make for us are what we actually desire, that copying music and movies that we
would otherwise not purchase IS theft and therefore morally wrong, and that
the criminal punishment for copyright infringement should continue to
massively exceed the act of actual theft from a store.

~~~
davidw
I sometimes enjoy a "big production movie", along the lines of Avatar
(although I wasn't wild about that one), and think the world _would_ be worse
off without them.

Movies cost millions of dollars to produce. With no IP, we would be left with
either movies produced by some rich patron or only by very low-budget
amateurs, because otherwise, how do you recoup the money?

I am not sure why you are discussing wine; it is not a good analogy, as it is
not an information good, and while you may feel that the "laws are all
outdated", any reasoning about the purchase and distribution of wine is likely
to not apply much to information goods.

~~~
cturner
You need to consider opportunity cost. What amazing things are we prevented
from realising as a result of restrictive law and the practices it supports?

There was a time where the church could point to its awesome musical,
architectural and wine traditions and say that they wouldn't exist without the
strong forced support of the populace, land privileges, the right to cut the
balls off young boys, education monopoly and other ludicrous concessions.

I'm a huge fan of the results of some these traditions, but there's more to
life.

I think the parent post was very apt. Copyright and patents are both forms of
protectionsim, like the Tennessee license laws he describes.

~~~
davidw
> What amazing things are we prevented from realising as a result of
> restrictive law and the practices it supports?

If you look at open source software, there's a lot of very good stuff out
there, but it's not some amazing new world, really, except for the people who
take it and use it, and give nothing back. They get a ton of value for free.
That's ok, open source producers signed up to that world voluntarily, and in
general, it sort of works out.

By taking away IP, you would force everyone to contribute their work for free
to zillions of other people, thus collapsing the market - plenty of people
contribute to open source for fun, but if they were forced to, a whole lot of
people would get out of the software business.

------
pedrocr
Comparative advantage is generally not understood. It does not mean that
countries only manufacture those things that they are best at. From the piece:

>But those of us who would be here would be pursuing our comparative advantage
and exporting fish and fur. That's what economists tell you is right. Pursue
your comparative advantage. That was our comparative advantage. We certainly
wouldn't have had a textile industry. British textiles were way cheaper and
better.

Comparative advantage allows for trade even when one country has an absolute
advantage over another. Even if British textiles were better and cheaper than
the American ones if America started to produce textiles it could make sense
for the British to reduce their textile production if there are other goods
they can apply the same resources to that have a higher value than they will
pay for the American textiles they are now buying.

The wikipedia page is pretty good at explaining this:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage>

~~~
vitaminj
That's true ONLY IF America started to produce textiles. But the textbook
trade models (e.g. Ricardian, Hecksher-Olin, etc) all pretty much recommend
that America should just stick to producing fish and fur to maximise its gains
from trade, and forget about a homegrown textile industry.

------
Tycho
_We certainly wouldn't have had a textile industry. British textiles were way
cheaper and better. Actually British textiles were cheaper and better because
Britain had crushed Irish and Indian superior textile manufacturers and stolen
their techniques. So they were now the preeminent textile manufacturer, by
force of course._

~~~
Symmetry
I have no idea what he's talking about here. The British did do a number of
horrible things in India and did use force to crush, for example, the Indian
shipbuilding industry. They also could have learned a lot from Indian
metallurgy if they were a bit less arrogant. But textiles? I guess they did
"steal" cotton, but that wasn't really an invention in the sense he's talking
about.

~~~
Estragon
They certainly crushed the Indian textiles industry economically, which speaks
to his broader point that the dominant players only talk about free markets
etc. when it suits them.

------
sentinel
Computers and the internet come out of public expenditure through the state
system? Where did he get that fact from?

------
monochromatic
Does anyone seriously still listen to Chomsky? This guy has zero credibility
as far as I'm concerned.

~~~
dasil003
Chomsky is just one man, and thus subject to the same intellectual failings as
other individuals, but his integrity is well beyond the vast majority of
people with a pulpit. You should definitely read and consider what he has to
say, because otherwise you may be hearing only lobbyists' perspectives.

~~~
wladimir
I find his perspective really refreshing. Most articles that I encounter
nowadays are very US-centric, or Europe-centric. They look at the consequences
for a certain country or group within it, not the world at large, and are thus
very polarized. Chomsky's reasoning feels truly international. And his
comments about IP and medicine are appropriate as ever with the ACTA treaty
(and sons) being pushed on us all by the US.

I wish there were more people with a clear vision such as his. It could make
the world as a whole a better place.

