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Author Topic:   SOPA/PIPA and 'Intellectual Property'
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 61 of 303 (649300)
01-22-2012 9:56 AM
Reply to: Message 55 by crashfrog
01-22-2012 8:21 AM


crashfrog writes:
NoNukes writes:
But I have worked as a patent examiner and as a patent attorney. During the one year that I worked in the PTO, I never allowed a single patent.
Maybe that's why it was only for a year.
Or perhaps my leaving the patent office has something to do with the fact that a patent attorney with one year of examining experience earns about twice as much as does a patent examiner with 1 year of experience.
The reality is that brand new patent examiners are discouraged from issuing patents. There was absolutely nothing wrong with my performance at the PTO.
crashfrog writes:
When Apple figures out a way to cheaply manufacture capacitive touch screens, that's an innovation of the arts and sciences that, eventually, makes smartphones usable enough and cheap enough to be put in the hands of a lot more people. We (for varying definitions of "we") all benefit.
But when lawyers "innovate" ways to obfuscate the fact that they're patenting the trivial, or when lawyers "innovate" baroque new legal theories to help them avoid patent extortion, the only people that helps are the lawyers.
Fortunately, the above is not related to any point I've attempted to make.
I understand that all lawyers are evil and that I in particular am both evil and stupid, and unable to cut it as a patent clerk; at least in your view. But let me present a different view.
When Google's engineers, possibly with the aid of a patent attorney, review Apples patent and invent yet another capacitive touch screen that does not infringe the patent, then the public benefits from having competing designs. Presumably Google's engineers can take the redesign route whenever doing so is cheaper than licensing the technology from Apple.
NoNukes writes:
After all, patent examiners are being asked to essentially prove a negative.
No, they're being asked to do their job. And they clearly are not. How could they, with only 16 hours on average to judge the legitimacy of a patent application?
Doing their job, which is to issue valid patents, when done perfectly requires proving, using a resource limited search, that no prior art exists to invalidate the patent. In other words, examiners are asked to prove a negative.
Patent examiners are asked to prove that no prior art exists by conducting a search and producing that prior art. If they find prior art, they reject the claims. If they don't find the art, then they cannot reject the claims. Examiners don't get to make conclusory statements that an invention is too trivial and simple to receive a patent. They must provide the proof.
And by the way the 16 hours is an average. Often, the examiner finds prior art that allows rejecting the patent claims in an hour or two. The remaining examination time can be used to examine another patent for which finding prior art is harder. Inexperienced examiners are given more time to search than are experienced examiners.
I've also outlined why examiner's have an incentive to reject rather than to issue a patent. I don't recall seeing any meaningful rebuttal to my description of how things really work at the patent office.
The central problem is that even a 1000 hour search cannot answer the question of whether some prior art will turn up that the examiner has yet to locate. During litigation, defendants often spend millions of dollars to find prior art. Nobody is going to fund the PTO on a level that will allow million dollar searches for each application. But that doesn't stop people like you from blaming the examiner and the PTO for not having conducted a million dollar search.
I've also pointed out that defendant in a patent infringement case can pay a fee and have the PTO take a second look at a patent based on prior art that the defendant has found. During the review in the patent office, there is NO presumption that the patent is valid, contrary to the claims of that article you cited. Accordingly, the idea that the PTO leaves things for a court to sort out is foobar.
Against the above, you offer no real rebuttal. Name calling and handwaving you do offer; but no rebuttal. You point to the One Click patent as clearly trival, but it turns out that despite all of the ranting and raving, nobody has been able to invalidate the patent either during reexamination at the patent office or in court, despite well funded attempts to do exactly that.
You say that the patent is trivial but I have yet to see you attempt to analyze a single claim of the patent even after I informed you that the abstract does not define the meets and bounds of the patent protection.
I understand that I cannot convince you. But I do think I have pointed out some fairly sizeable holes in your argument. Quite frankly, you are handwaving on a level that neither you nor I would ever tolerate from a creationist in a debate about evolution.
I appreciate the continued tests on my skin toughness though. Keep up the good work.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. The proper place to-day, the only place which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own act, as they have already put themselves out by their principles. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 55 by crashfrog, posted 01-22-2012 8:21 AM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 63 by crashfrog, posted 01-22-2012 10:21 AM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 62 of 303 (649302)
01-22-2012 10:07 AM
Reply to: Message 59 by crashfrog
01-22-2012 9:04 AM


Why would that be the case? Evidence abounds that they would sell no less copies than they would under our system of legally-binding anti-consumer DRM.
Please cite some of that abounding evidence. I'd like to see if you have anything more than a few anecdotes.
It is true that the RIAA and MPAA overstate the impact of piracy on their products, but you are claiming to be able to show that there is no impact. You cannot make good on that claim.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. The proper place to-day, the only place which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own act, as they have already put themselves out by their principles. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 59 by crashfrog, posted 01-22-2012 9:04 AM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 64 by crashfrog, posted 01-22-2012 10:24 AM NoNukes has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 63 of 303 (649303)
01-22-2012 10:21 AM
Reply to: Message 61 by NoNukes
01-22-2012 9:56 AM


Fortunately, the above is not related to any point I've attempted to make.
Quite the contrary. Here's what you said:
quote:
Attorneys are employed to help corporations find workarounds that allow avoiding royalties.
You specifically proposed that one purpose of patents is to stimulate an entire industry of lawyers attempting to develop novel, baroque theories to avoid patent infringement. I certainly agree that this has been one of the results of a broken patent system but it's absolutely stupid to suggest that there's such a compelling public interest in new baroque legalisms that we should restrain businesses and technological innovations in order to achieve it.
When Google's engineers, possibly with the aid of a patent attorney, review Apples patent and invent yet another capacitive touch screen that does not infringe the patent, then the public benefits from having competing designs.
What's the benefit? Either Apple's technology is better, which means that Google's alternative is inferior and therefore that the products made with it will be inferior, or else Google's alternative is better and Google needed no patent coersion in order to adopt it. The only thing the lawyer did was create a job for himself - he's not an engineer, he has no idea how to make a better touchscreen. He knows only how to determine if a touchscreen infringes Apple patents.
Doing their job, which is to issue valid patents, when done perfectly requires proving, using a resource limited search, that no prior art exists to invalidate the patent.
And that also the patent doesn't cover something trivial, that is, "obvious to a reasonable person of ordinary skill in the art." How can 16 hours be enough time to determine what is "obvious to a reasonable person of ordinary skill in the art"? I've presented abundant evidence that it is not.
I've also outlined why examiner's have an incentive to reject rather than to issue a patent.
You've not.
You point to the One Click patent as clearly trival, but it turns out that despite all of the ranting and raving, nobody has been able to invalidate the patent either during reexamination at the patent office or in court, despite well funded attempts to do exactly that.
Which only demonstrates the circular dependencies at work, here: the PTO relies on the courts to test the validity of patents, under an "it'll all sort itself out eventually" perspective; the patent courts assume that the PTO would not approve a patent unless it was valid.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 61 by NoNukes, posted 01-22-2012 9:56 AM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 70 by NoNukes, posted 01-22-2012 1:18 PM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 64 of 303 (649304)
01-22-2012 10:24 AM
Reply to: Message 62 by NoNukes
01-22-2012 10:07 AM


Please cite some of that abounding evidence.
It's trivial to demonstrate that copyright holders continue to make money in a world of easy piracy because we live in a world of easy piracy and copyright holders continue to make money. Louis CK made millions of dollars releasing content with zero DRM because he understood that there's no compelling reason to punish the people who decide to patronize him.
It is true that the RIAA and MPAA overstate the impact of piracy on their products, but you are claiming to be able to show that there is no impact.
It's not up to me to show that there is no impact; it's up to those who make the positive claim to present evidence for it. There's zero evidence that "piracy" has a financial impact on content creators. The "pirates" are overwhelmingly those who would not have paid for the content in the first place. People patronize the artists that they enjoy.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 62 by NoNukes, posted 01-22-2012 10:07 AM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 71 by NoNukes, posted 01-22-2012 1:23 PM crashfrog has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 65 of 303 (649310)
01-22-2012 11:52 AM
Reply to: Message 60 by Huntard
01-22-2012 9:45 AM


crashfrog writes:
Why would that be the case? Evidence abounds that they would sell no less copies than they would under our system of legally-binding anti-consumer DRM.
And
Huntard writes:
But distributing and obtaining free copies is already incredibly easy, and yet people still go to theatres and still buy dvds. If you are trying to argue that the only reason people do this is because it is illegal to get these free copies, I'd like to point out that in my country, it is perfectly legal to download movies and music, and yet, people still go to the theatres and still buy dvds here as well. In fact, the theatres never made more money than they did last year in a country where it is legal to download movies.
You have to put yourself into a world where there is no copyright protection. If you think about Lethal Weapon 18 being released into that world and being available for free with no legal consequences why would anyone pay for a copy? Can you think of a good reason why they should? To have a nice DVD case on the shelf? Not in a digital world where this stuff is increasing on your hard drive and can be written to DVD anyway. No way, if free became normalised, everyone would take it, not just the relative few that do it now.
As for going to theatres - I assume you mean cinemas? Well yes, of course people will go to cinemas to watch LW18 because of the big screen, the sound and the night out - all added value. They'd also go because it would be really cheap because without copyright protection, the cinemas don,t need to pay MGM royalties.
So MGM get nothing for their work.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 60 by Huntard, posted 01-22-2012 9:45 AM Huntard has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 66 by Huntard, posted 01-22-2012 12:09 PM Tangle has replied
 Message 75 by crashfrog, posted 01-22-2012 2:26 PM Tangle has not replied

  
Huntard
Member (Idle past 2295 days)
Posts: 2870
From: Limburg, The Netherlands
Joined: 09-02-2008


(1)
Message 66 of 303 (649312)
01-22-2012 12:09 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by Tangle
01-22-2012 11:52 AM


Tangle writes:
You have to put yourself into a world where there is no copyright protection. If you think about Lethal Weapon 18 being released into that world and being available for free with no legal consequences why would anyone pay for a copy? Can you think of a good reason why they should? To have a nice DVD case on the shelf? Not in a digital world where this stuff is increasing on your hard drive and can be written to DVD anyway. No way, if free became normalised, everyone would take it, not just the relative few that do it now.
For the same reason people in my country still pay for movies and music, even though it is legal for anyone here to download them for free. Because people like to support things they enjoy, because they realize, that if they don't, nothing more will be made. Or because they enjoy the value going to see a movie in a theatre adds in contrast to watching it at home (like seeing avatar in 3d in an IMAX theatre). According to you, people in my country wouldn't go see movies, wouldn't buy dvds or music anymore, because everything is available for free. Well guess what, turns out, people still buy dvds and music, and still go to movie theatres in spite of everything being legally available online for free. Guess stuff being available for free doesn't mean nobody can make money with it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by Tangle, posted 01-22-2012 11:52 AM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 68 by Tangle, posted 01-22-2012 1:07 PM Huntard has replied

  
Jon
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 67 of 303 (649316)
01-22-2012 12:41 PM


Public Benefits and Public Risks
Having a large public market is a necessity to artists, especially companies that produce expensive films and 'music'. If there were only five people living in the movie market, companies and the 'art' they produce simply couldn't exist; One-click shopping would be pointless; and so on. The large public market is great benefit to artists.
At the same time the public market presents various risks, specifically that some members of the public may decide to enjoy the art without compensating the artist/production company. The large public market presents risks to artists.
There appear to be some who just want all the benefits of a large public market without any of the risks and drawbacks.
But as members of that large public market, what incentive is there for us to actually set them up with such a cozy little no-risk scenario? Why should businesses be granted the right to not have to suffer from the risks of their marketing strategies? It's not the government's job to eliminate risk from company investments.
Jon

Love your enemies!

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 68 of 303 (649319)
01-22-2012 1:07 PM
Reply to: Message 66 by Huntard
01-22-2012 12:09 PM


For the same reason people in my country still pay for movies and music, even though it is legal for anyone here to download them for free.
You are in the Netherlands? If so, the laws of copyright are virtually identical to everywhere else in the Western world - you signed the Berne Convention. Your government currently sees downloading (file sharing) as fair use, but it's not clear how long they'll be able to hold that position.
In any case, it seems that the downloading of music and movies is now practiced by 30% of the Dutch population. I'm betting that that proportion is the majority of consumers of those products. If your law doesn,t change, how many people do you think will pay for a free product in say 10 years time?
As for cinemas, they will continue to flourish - as I say, people enjoy a night out and they add value. But currently the cinemas pay a royalty to MGM for LW18. If you abolish copyright, they will get nothing.
There is absolutely no doubt that if copyright is abolished, LW18 will not get made. That may be a good thing......

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 66 by Huntard, posted 01-22-2012 12:09 PM Huntard has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 69 by Huntard, posted 01-22-2012 1:17 PM Tangle has replied

  
Huntard
Member (Idle past 2295 days)
Posts: 2870
From: Limburg, The Netherlands
Joined: 09-02-2008


Message 69 of 303 (649322)
01-22-2012 1:17 PM
Reply to: Message 68 by Tangle
01-22-2012 1:07 PM


Tangle writes:
You are in the Netherlands? If so, the laws of copyright are virtually identical to everywhere else in the Western world - you signed the Berne Convention. Your government currently sees downloading (file sharing) as fair use, but it's not clear how long they'll be able to hold that position.
Irrelevant, it is legal right now, and yet people still buy movies and music here.
In any case, it seems that the downloading of music and movies is now practiced by 30% of the Dutch population. I'm betting that that proportion is the majority of consumers of those products. If your law doesn,t change, how many people do you think will pay for a free product in say 10 years time?
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that nothing much will probably change, even if the people are still able to download stuff for free in ten years time. Like you said, 30% of the population are downloading stuff legally right now, and yet, music and movies are still being sold, and profits are still being made.
As for cinemas, they will continue to flourish - as I say, people enjoy a night out and they add value. But currently the cinemas pay a royalty to MGM for LW18. If you abolish copyright, they will get nothing.
Why? What makes you think people are unwilling to pay for content? They're paying right now, even though they can get it for free far more easily. Like a friend of mine put it, "by the time I get into my car, drive to the store, pay for the movie and drive back home, only to find my dvd player won't play it, I've downloaded ten movies, that I can watch anywhere". And yet, from time to time, he still buys movies and music. You know why? Because he wants to support the people who made those movies and music he really enjoys.
There is absolutely no doubt that if copyright is abolished, LW18 will not get made. That may be a good thing......
Of course there's doubt, the results from my country directly contradict this. Movies and music are available online for free, yet people still buy them, profits are still being made. What makes you think this will change? Why would people stop paying in the future, when they're paying right now?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 68 by Tangle, posted 01-22-2012 1:07 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 72 by Tangle, posted 01-22-2012 1:42 PM Huntard has replied
 Message 85 by NoNukes, posted 01-22-2012 4:58 PM Huntard has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 70 of 303 (649323)
01-22-2012 1:18 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by crashfrog
01-22-2012 10:21 AM


And that also the patent doesn't cover something trivial, that is, "obvious to a reasonable person of ordinary skill in the art." How can 16 hours be enough time to determine what is "obvious to a reasonable person of ordinary skill in the art"? I've presented abundant evidence that it is not.
No you haven't presented any evidence. You have yet to do more than assert that the one-click patent is obvious. Obviousness is a legal conclusion requiring evidence and is based on comparing the invention to the prior art and determining whether the differences are obvious. See 35 USC 103(a). The examiner doesn't make handwaving assertions of the type you are making.
If you think that the one-click patent is clearly obvious, then take your own shot at invalidating it. But first take a look at the wikipedia article on the subject that makes reference to the fact that better men than you have already tried and failed.
Secondly, the 16 hour number is an average. If a search for prior art takes longer, than 16 hours, the examiner must search longer. An examiner recovers the difference by finding one or more easy to reject applications on the examiner's docket.
There are lots of lay opinions about the one-click patent, but as near as I can tell you haven't even looked at a single claim.
You specifically proposed that one purpose of patents is to stimulate an entire industry of lawyers attempting to develop novel, baroque theories to avoid patent infringement.
No, that's not what I meant.
I said that attorneys (i.e. patent attorneys who also happen to be engineers and/or scientists) HELP find workarounds. We patent guys use the term "workarounds" to mean product designs that do not infringe the patent being "worked around". It does not mean legal strategies for avoiding law suits. Regular attorneys are not involved at all. And I didn't mean an army of attorneys, I meant the staff attorneys at Google help Google.
Perhaps I should have said "design arounds". But in any event, I did not change arguments in mid stream. I hope that's clear now.
What's the benefit? Either Apple's technology is better, which means that Google's alternative is inferior and therefore that the products made with it will be inferior, or else Google's alternative is better and Google needed no patent coersion in order to adopt it.
Maybe Apple's solution was the most straightforward, while Googles is better/cheaper/faster/less polluting and as result the end products can compete over the differences.
But Apple's patent was part of the reason why Google even bothered doing something difficult. In any event, regardless of whether you personally appreciate having two different types of touch screens, science has been advanced when we learn new ways of doing something.
crashfrog writes:
NoNukes writes:
I've also outlined why examiner's have an incentive to reject rather than to issue a patent.
You've not.
Yes, I have.
Are you saying that I never explained how the PTO count system, which determines how examiners are paid, promoted, fired, and selected for financial awards favors rejecting rather than issuing a patent? Because I seem to see such a post. I don't see a response from you addressing it though.
Perhaps you simply don't believe that I am accurately reporting how the system works or how examiner's respond to it?

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. The proper place to-day, the only place which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own act, as they have already put themselves out by their principles. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by crashfrog, posted 01-22-2012 10:21 AM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 77 by crashfrog, posted 01-22-2012 2:36 PM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 71 of 303 (649324)
01-22-2012 1:23 PM
Reply to: Message 64 by crashfrog
01-22-2012 10:24 AM


It's trivial to demonstrate that copyright holders continue to make money in a world of easy piracy because we live in a world of easy piracy and copyright holders continue to make money. Louis CK made millions of dollars releasing content with zero DRM because he understood that there's no compelling reason to punish the people who decide to patronize him.
You've changed the subject.
The question in play is not whether copyright holders make revenue, but instead whether piracy reduces that revenue. I'm looking for abounding your evidence of that.
As a side note, I don't think people are using DRM on music anymore.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. The proper place to-day, the only place which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own act, as they have already put themselves out by their principles. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 64 by crashfrog, posted 01-22-2012 10:24 AM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 79 by crashfrog, posted 01-22-2012 2:42 PM NoNukes has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 72 of 303 (649325)
01-22-2012 1:42 PM
Reply to: Message 69 by Huntard
01-22-2012 1:17 PM


huntard writes:
probably change, even if the people are still able to download stuff for free in ten years time. Like you said, 30% of the population are downloading stuff legally right now, and yet, music and movies are still being sold, and profits are still being made
I'm not going out on a limb; I can guarantee with 100% certainty, that if downloading of all movies and music was freely and easily available in Holland in 10 years time it would have become the norm. It would have been adopted by almost everyone - there would be absolutely no reason to buy it. As far paying the artist - that's bonkers, no-one is going to feel a moral obligation to pay MGM...
It will work on a boutique level, some people will pay something to individual artists for some of their work, but that will not replace Hollywood.
It would be interesting to see some figures on the Dutch market. I wonder if how much revenue has been lost when 30% of the population get it for free. Do you actually know?
With your cinema example, you are confusing the personal downloading of content with the business use of it. Cinemas pay MGM for LW18, they can't download it and screen it (even in Holland), if they could, in your world without copyright, MGM would not make the film because they would get no revenue from it. (People would still want to go to cinemas and be prepared to pay, but if MGM got no royalties, they wouldn't make the film.)

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 69 by Huntard, posted 01-22-2012 1:17 PM Huntard has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 73 by Huntard, posted 01-22-2012 2:03 PM Tangle has replied
 Message 76 by crashfrog, posted 01-22-2012 2:27 PM Tangle has not replied

  
Huntard
Member (Idle past 2295 days)
Posts: 2870
From: Limburg, The Netherlands
Joined: 09-02-2008


Message 73 of 303 (649327)
01-22-2012 2:03 PM
Reply to: Message 72 by Tangle
01-22-2012 1:42 PM


Tangle writes:
I'm not going out on a limb; I can guarantee with 100% certainty, that if downloading of all movies and music was freely and easily available in Holland in 10 years time it would have become the norm. It would have been adopted by almost everyone - there would be absolutely no reason to buy it. As far paying the artist - that's bonkers, no-one is going to feel a moral obligation to pay MGM...
You know what would be really cool, if you could support that assertion with some evidence. I guess I'll have to reiterate it again: Right now it is legal and very easy for people to download movies and music for free of the internet, and yet music and movies are still being sold. Now, if you've got any evidence that this is going to change in the future, I'm willing to listen to it. Until then, the actual reality in my country is contradicting your 100% guarantee.
It would be interesting to see some figures on the Dutch market. I wonder if how much revenue has been lost when 30% of the population get it for free. Do you actually know?
Of course I do. And while revenue has been lost (though if this is purely because people are downloading, or because in recent years, there's simply been more shit produced), profits are still being made, and it's nowhere near as devastating as the entertainment industry would like you to believe. At most, people have become more selective in what they buy, opting not to pay for the utter crap that is sometimes produced, because now they can sample it for free. In the olden days, you'd kinda have to hope that that new CD you bought wasn't a schlockfest filled with mediocre songs and shitty arrangements, now, you can find out before you buy it. While this may technically be lost revenue, I don't think it was deserved revenue. In short, we're moving towards a more aware and selective audience, and the entertainment industry should adapt to that, producing quality, instead of quantity.
With your cinema example, you are confusing the personal downloading of content with the business use of it. Cinemas pay MGM for LW18, they can't download it and screen it (even in Holland), if they could, in your world without copyright, MGM would not make the film because they would get no revenue from it. (People would still want to go to cinemas and be prepared to pay, but if MGM got no royalties, they wouldn't make the film.)
Cinemas are only able to make money if there are movies for them to show. If there's no movies being made, they can't show them. It would therefore be in their own self interest to pay MGM for the movies it produces, or else, they'd go out of business themselves.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 72 by Tangle, posted 01-22-2012 1:42 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 74 by Tangle, posted 01-22-2012 2:22 PM Huntard has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 74 of 303 (649329)
01-22-2012 2:22 PM
Reply to: Message 73 by Huntard
01-22-2012 2:03 PM


Huntard writes:
You know what would be really cool, if you could support that assertion with some evidence.
I have. 15 years ago there was no downloading, now 30% of the Dutch population do it. We also know that there is a shift from physical content to digitally distributed content, we know that there is a shift to increasing penetration of broadband and to faster broadband. We know that there is increasing connectivity between the internet on the devices used to play music and movie content.
From 101 Economics we also know that demand increases as price decreases and when a valued good is available for free, demand is theoretically infinite.
So, I'm willing to bet you the hand of my virgin daughter, that if copyright law is abolished and some multibillionaire lunatic still produces digital content, then more people will blag it than pay for it. What will you bet?
Of course I do
can you present some then please.
Cinemas are only able to make money if there are movies for them to show
Which is rather my point.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 73 by Huntard, posted 01-22-2012 2:03 PM Huntard has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 78 by Huntard, posted 01-22-2012 2:38 PM Tangle has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 75 of 303 (649331)
01-22-2012 2:26 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by Tangle
01-22-2012 11:52 AM


If you think about Lethal Weapon 18 being released into that world and being available for free with no legal consequences why would anyone pay for a copy?
For the same reason that people paid Louis CK for copies of his new comedy video, despite the fact that they could get it for free anywhere including, I believe, his own website.
People want to patronize the artists they enjoy. They want to pay them!
Can you think of a good reason why they should?
To encourage the development of Lethal Weapon 19! It's hardly a new thing for people to patronize artists; they do so because they know it fosters the development of art that they enjoy. It's the oldest and most robust means by which the arts have been funded - people voluntarily paying for it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by Tangle, posted 01-22-2012 11:52 AM Tangle has not replied

  
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