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Where the intangible meets the insubstantial: IP, international law and enforcement
Posts
Like, flip him the bird before you get in your Lexus he just cleaned while not coughing up blood or whatever.
There is a difference between being guaranteed a profit and not having to compete with illicit copies of your product undercutting you.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
You can't guarantee profits.
If you don't pay your fines, you get penalties.
If you don't pay your penalties, you get a summons.
If you don't attend your summons, you get an injunction.
If you don't comply with your injunction, you get an arrest warrant issued.
If you don't comply with your arrest, the police will attempt to subdue you.
If you resist subdual, the police will typically escalate force...
It's not at all uncommon for the penalties to grow to be disproportionate with the offense if the offender continues to ignore attempts to enforce compliance. The logical (but not inevitable) conclusion of that is "Follow the law or die". With respect to countries and international law, if you can't escalate the chain you end up with Best Korea - an ostracized country with few friends, who routinely rocks the boat and threatens to test nuclear weapon until it gets more aid. No-one else wants to be best Korea, but at this point with all the sanctions etc. in place there's almost nothing more anyone else can do to enforce compliance except invade - and that's not going to happen any time soon.
No one in this thread is advocating a full on military action to defend IP rights. The most that is being advocated is blockades or police efforts. The more likely sanctions would be economic in nature. I would be interested to hear how people feel about economic sanctions, taking the military off the table.
No one in this thread is begrudging poor countries their rightfully held property. The only thing that I believe that anyone is upset over is the unlawful use of IP by nations (or people in those nations) who have not paid for the right to that IP. If anyone in this thread has an argument for why poor countries (or even China) should be allowed to use IP they have not produced or paid for (strictly for copying purposes, not research) other than "IP isn't property" I would be interested to discuss that as well.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
Consent of the country? That is what I was talking about.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
Why is anyone upset over the unlawful use of IP by nations that have paid for that IP?
Why is it that any given country should care about what is considered IP by companies in another country?
Why is it that any country should care about companies existing primarily within their borders having their IP infringed?
All of these questions are somehow not yet addressed. It is as though you believe IP infringement is some form of base-level moral indignity at which any just person will recoil.
Edit: I mean let's say I create a cartoon character in this thread, call it little Durandal-y and sell statues of it on etsy for $1, and there are knockoffs in Australian markets tomorrow selling for 10 cents to those degraded Aussies.
At what point does anyone beyond myself give a flying fuck, and why?
http://troublethinking.wordpress.com (Updated Wed) http://twitter.com/#!/Durandal4532
And it's a lot harder to make a profit when the other guy is undercutting you with your own product.
I give a flying fuck, and it's because the same laws that protect you, protect me. As I pointed out in chat earlier, part of the reason people don't care about copyright is because they don't see how it protects them. When they do see how it protects them (for example, when Instagram tried to change their ToS to allow them use of their members' pictures), they tend to be supportive of it.
If I am the US government, I would care a lot. The US produces and exports IP. It's a huge segment of the economy. Infringement lowers my tax base, causes people to lose jobs in America, and erodes America's position as a world leader in thought.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
The business sector is doing a really lousy job trying to keep employment a high priority in America. This is part of the problem the nation is losing its strength as a world leader. America no longer gives a fuck about being the best in the world it wants to outsource to third world countries to preserve the profits for the wealthy class and let the middle class die.
Pass.
We have the WTO and TRIPS already; there's no need to muddy the waters with unilateral actions.
To prevent people from stealing from each other all the time we've come up with the concept of property, where any given object has an owner who has full legal control over that object granted to them by the government. When combined with capitalism (which allows for the transfer of an item's control for money) and government enforcement of property rights this system works reasonably well (though certainly not perfectly) for providing a fair distribution of items.
Content however is not subject to the same physical limitations that material objects are. If I communicate content to someone else I don't lose the knowledge of that content or have a reduced ability to use it. Thus the rationale for the notion of property rights, which works for material objects, doesn't apply to content. That doesn't necessarily mean that there's no reasoning allowing the restriction of the distribution of content, and indeed there is, but it's not property rights.
Creating good content (whether inventions, books, songs, movies, etc.) is generally beneficial to society for obvious reasons and thus is an activity that should be encouraged. However, it takes time and effort to create these things, which is time and effort that's not spent doing other things to support the creator.
If there were no protection for content those creators wouldn't be able to make money off it, as the content could be distributed for free and most people would opt not to pay the creator (or not even know who they were). To allow people to make content professionally society gives them the exclusive right to distribute that content for some period of time. This allows people with the talent to come up with that content to do so full-time, thus being able to come up with more of it than they could if they could only focus on it part-time, which in turn benefits society more.
The common term for that is "Intellectual Property", but I think that's a highly misleading term and doesn't reflect the true reasoning behind the concept. In my opinion a better term would be "Exclusive Distribution Rights" (EDR).
So how does all that apply to the main line of argument in this thread?
Common sense dictates that even though nations have no jurisdiction over each other a natural extension of property rights applies to them as well, with each nation owning everything that lies within its borders. If one nation tries to take material objects from another nation without permission the first nation has a range of options extending from doing nothing to declaring war.
However, if we stop using the loaded phrase IP and instead use EDR it becomes clear that the first nation has no rights to control distribution of content in other nations to begin with. The first nation isn't losing content when it moves to the second nation, so property rights don't apply, and EDR is not a natural right but instead a created one adopted or not by each nation at its own discretion. A content creator can seek EDR in other countries individually, or two countries can recognize each other's EDR by treaty, but a nation has no obligation to establish its own EDR or recognize the EDR granted by other nations without such a treaty.
e: Fixed terminology (Idea->Content)
Can US companies en masse turn around to India and say, "You know what, the last 6 month of invoices you sent for Call Centre services? We're not going to pay those - we're now transferring all our contracts to County X. And good luck trying to get your government to enforce payment"?
Does it also follow that the first nation (India) has no rights to control usage of services in other nations to begin with?
The big flaw in your argument is that there is a vast difference between an idea and the expression of an idea. This article is a good discussion of the difference.
If they're not in the same country technically one side could go "Neener neener!" and the other side wouldn't have any direct legal recourse. However, the governments of both sides have an interest in seeing the contract fulfilled or the breacher punished accordingly.
The government of the aggrieved suffers a loss equivalent to the tax value of the money lost by the aggrieved, and would suffer an additional significant loss if businesses lost confidence that the government would support them in similar cases and incorporated elsewhere. Meanwhile, the government of the breacher knows that if they don't enforce the contract other companies will be much less willing to risk contracting with companies in that country and thus also suffer a significant reduction in future tax revenue.
I don't know the specifics, but given how common international contracts are I can't imagine governments don't have methods to enforce fulfillment or punish breaching of contracts with foreign entities.
By contrast with IP/EDR the "contract" is exclusively between one government and its citizens. Nobody in foreign countries signs on to that contract (barring treaties) and thus nobody else is bound by it.
Where I get confused is where you're basically arguing against yourself regarding the validity of international treaties. You'll get a lot more mileage out of this discussion if you choose one coherent opinion on that subject. Either you must enforce international treaties because enforcing the general principle is in the interest of the nation - a concept which you've repeatedly rejected over the years, whether there's a corporation or a nation involved - or you must apply a strict cost/benefit analysis - which readily tells you that for the most part its not worth it. The profits you could capture are too small the warrant the cost of capturing them, outside of existing international frameworks. .
edit: ... outside of existing international frameworks.
I waffled about using "idea" or "content" in my post and ended up using both, but on further reflection I should have stuck with the latter. "Content" is clearer in referring to the actual code/text/images/frames rather than the simple description "idea".
The strong man doesn't get to unilaterally decide whose stuff is whose. That's the point. And insofar as ownership is decided by consensus, you get the status quo of compromise. Everyone puts up with a little sand kicked in their faces by the weakling if it means that the musclehead cannot smash concrete blocks in their face instead.
This is all quite aside from notions of justice and considers only what is achievable in a realist outlook.
US drug companies routinely go into native, tribal lands of the Amazon take their medicinal herbs and what not, come back and then poof you have a IP protected drug. Why should the US be allowed to steal medicinal supplies and claim it as their own?
In another point third party drugs are there because no one in their right mind in the third world wants to pay $200+ for one single dose or pill. If the medicinal companies had their intent correct that their job is to save the world they wouldn't be charging that price.
I fully support IP infringement on articles of health or well being. No one in their right mind, the poor especially, should pay astronomical fees for health. If the US drug companies don't like it they can go suck a lemon.
That's strange then. Either the US doesn't care about these issue, or there's some other reason to suffer this indignity and avoid interceding.
Do we have any idea what reasons there might be to not stamp out this sort of infringement?
And why should another country consider what's counted as our IP important?
http://troublethinking.wordpress.com (Updated Wed) http://twitter.com/#!/Durandal4532
I disagree with this post in the strongest terms possible. I do not agree that there is such a thing as a "natural right" (what possible meaning is there to a right which is "natural" but not recognized by your government?).
More importantly, I disagree with your physical/concept distinction based on the ability to consume the good. The right that we care about when considering IP is the right to exclusive control over the idea's use. This is identical to the right to exclusive control over physical property. If I am at work and you come sit in my house but don't move or ruin anything, you have still wronged me even though I lost nothing physical, because you have taken my right to the exclusive control of my home. Using my IP without my permission is similarly a violation of my exclusive right of control. I have rights in my home because I built or purchased it. You do not because you did neither. I have exclusive rights over my IP because I created or purchased it. You do not because you did neither.
Your consumption approach is also wrong because, unlike a single apple where the value is in that limited matter making up the apple, if I can produce an indefinite amount of physical goods based on my IP, then you have taken the value of my IP from me when you decrease my potential market by making one of the IP based goods that I sell just as completely as you would take value from my apple by taking a bite.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
You have found a contradiction in phrasing, not concepts (and pulling from a different topic, I might add). In the second post I was saying that a government should only be concerned with the well being of its own people, not with the well being of outsiders. Saying that a country can look at more than strict CBA in advancing its people's interests is not a contradiction here. It just exposes a hastily phrased post in the prior topic.
I would agree that a nation which can get away with IP theft (like China) may benefit its people by engaging in such theft (at least until they become an idea powerhouse like the US). But importantly, I think they only benefit because they are in a position which prevents anyone from stopping them. By contrast, if the WIPO or WTO weren't so ineffectual, then I would like to think that it would not be a net benefit for poorer nations to steal IP. And if those poor nations are of little benefit to the US and its citizens, then I would argue that (depending in the international climate) the US may well benefit from adopting financially ruinous policies towards the thieving, weaker countries, which would similarly shift the needle on how those countries should behave.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
Hold on. In this case, the weakling only hurts the strong, and the strong never retaliate. This isn't a compromise, this sounds like everyone accepting injury from the bad actor because they have an irrational fear of their peer group, whose interests are perfectly aligned.
If the world consisted of the US, Germany, Israel and Chad, and each of the first three created IP and respected each others' IP and then Chad kept unrepentantly taking their IP, do you really think this status quo would just continue forever?
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
but they aren't perfectly aligned. the strong group are not certain that they are as strong as each other, or that they will remain in that happy club forever. we have a terror today of industrial war not because small countries bicker but because large countries might.
and, as a reminder, there is always the very attractive prospect where hypothetical Chad promises hypothetical Israel that it will respect Israel's IP but not Germany's if Israel protects it from any German retaliation, and splits the gains from German IP with Israel.
Would you ever bother to sue anyone that actually did this, though? You'd be awarded nominal damages, and without a substantial punitive damage award (relatively unlikely) you'd probably take a net loss on legal fees and fail to seriously deter future trespasses. (In this analogy, these are unilateral economic sanctions.)
To effectively deter people from trespassing into your home you would rely on the state, i.e., call the cops, have the trespasser arrested, perhaps testify at hearings or a trial at the request of your local DA. (This would be the WTO in this analogy, imperfect as it is.) And if the trespasser is found innocent, or the DA decides the case isn't worth his office's time, or there's a plea deal and the trespasser only gets a few years of probation, you probably wouldn't be happy...but I'd doubt you'd become a vigilante and go after him yourself, either.
My view is that the international bodies we have tasked with enforcement lack the authority needed to effectively fulfill their mandate. This is an endemic problem worth international relations, all of which I basically view as a friendly face with a veiled fist.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
@tinwhiskers
The point I'm trying to make is that the purpose of patent, copyright, and other IP law is "To promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
The purpose is to promote progress, the method is securing exclusive rights to the creator / discoverers. This protects profits, because that's what the 'exclusive Rights' portion basically boils down to, but protecting profits is the means to an end, not the end in and of itself. If a law fails to serve it's purpose, it's inherently unjust.
Now, I acknowledged that the progress (in the sense of benefiting / enriching humanity) can be intangible in a lot of cases and often comes down to a case-by-case basis, but profits don't or shouldn't be the only consideration when it comes to IP law and enforcement. There is definite push and pull, and it's going to be very difficult to craft 'one size fits all' laws - the patents on an iPhone may stifle progress by HTC or Samsung, while a law that promotes progress in that market may put Pfizer right out of business.
There is also a lot of negotiation to be had over what 'limited Times' and 'exclusive Right' actually mean. Exclusive is not equal to absolute. Considering that pretty much all drugs and a lot of other technologies - at some point in the development or testing - use some form of Federal Grant money or subsidization, there is a good case to be made for some aspects to be 'public domain'.
Even more ironic is that America became as it is today because we completely disregarded IP law whenever it was convenient to do so. Our industrial revolution was lifted more or less wholesale from Europe. Hollywood only exists to escape IP regulation.
There is nothing to stop this from happening. Going to war over it is idiotic. You spend more doing that than you ever would getting poor countries to respect IP. Hell, the corporations responsible would be spending more in bribes to politicians to get the war started than they would get in return, so that's a non-starter. Sanctions are an option, but good luck getting the 1st world to agree to sanctions against a country trying to provide medicine to their citizenry; they all have universal healthcare.
Let's also not forget that some of the major offenders of IP violations are not poor. China is the second biggest boy on the block in economy and they will be the first soon enough. Are we going to invade China to protect the sanctity of Mickey Mouse?
"There is not a man of us who does not at times need a helping hand to be stretched out to him, and then shame upon him who will not stretch out the helping hand to his brother."
The fact is that American pharmaceutical companies do to places like the Amazon or India in some cases, examine what medical herbs, plants, roots, and whatnot and then extract their nutrients and then patent it causing many American pharmaceutical companies to then claim that their IP rights are being infringed upon is, in my opinion, completely colonialist and completely open to IP theft which I support.
In India these American made pills, once they enter the market, enter at astronomical prices through no fault of the government but through the companies own wishes. If your charging $200 per pill to save someone from a deadly disease this doesn't become right it becomes murder. The entire reason why India has such a large present in IP infringement is because it's people cannot afford elitist class medicine which forces them to use third party medicine which is just as effective and costs less.
The entire reason why these companies have never come to court is because they can lose and if they do this opens them to further IP infringements throughout India. India also became one of the largest suppliers of medicine to Africa on a cheaper scale.
Regarding the WTO. I laugh at the colonialist mentality that people in this thread have. What makes them so sure that it isn't a colonial institution giving western companies full rights over the Global south? The WTO is nothing but an old boys club for the former colonialist nations to advance neo-colonialism and asking them for any kind of justice is a complete farce.
. . . You're kidding. The defender of entrenched genetic nobility is defending the subversion of traditional power structures by the poor? Or does the claim of the IP holders not count because they had to actually work to create it, instead of receiving it as a bequest from a long dead relative?
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
Why would Israel prefer to deal with Chad, which is the only nation which has proven itself untrustworthy in the first place and has nothing of value to offer, instead of the US and Germany?
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
Work to create it? There is no work to create it if all it involves is finding an Amazon tribe and taking their traditional medicine and then patenting it. IP law should not apply.
I defend their right to do it because I do not believe in any aspect of Capitalism but rather support any aspect of its destruction when it comes to exploiting the poor or the weak in the Global south. It does not infringe on the traditional power structures because that role is already taken by the forces of Capitalism.
And when the state systematically fails to defend your claim? That is precisely when a state starts to lose its legitimacy in the eyes of its people, who do resort to self help. It doesn't happen after they fail once, but if the guy is in my house every day and the state won't stop him? I'm not going to tolerate that forever.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson