Klarinet Archive - Posting 000067.txt from 2010/07

From: Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Sheet music copyright
Date: Wed, 07 Jul 2010 04:57:53 -0400

On 07/07/2010 05:38 AM, Bill Hausmann wrote:
> I'll wager it is NOT "perfectly legal." If it is, anyone who pays
> for it is a fool, and Red Hat Enterprise would be wise to get out of
> the losing business.

Then you'd lose your bet -- it is perfectly legal. :-)

Red Hat has even ensured that it is technically _easy_ for CentOS to do
this. Neither they nor their customers are fools, the business is
highly profitable (revenues of almost $750 million so far this year, net
income of $87M) and it has been showing ongoing growth despite the
current financial downturn.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat

> The main problem with drug patents is that the FDA approval process
> takes so long, the patents are nearly expired by the time the drugs
> gets to market, reducing the opportunity to recoup development
> costs. The "public good" is only served by encouraging the
> development, and reducing the profit opportunity DECREASES the incentive.

On the contrary, a clear point of concern is that "the profit
opportunity" is providing the wrong incentives to drug companies -- the
speed of the approval process doesn't come into it.

>From the link I cited:

"The report concludes that intellectual property (IP) is
irrelevant in stimulating innovation for many of the diseases
affecting people in developing countries, where patients have
limited purchasing power. Furthermore, the report draws attention
to the fact that patents can actually hamper innovation, by
blocking follow-on research or access to research tools."

Bear in mind that actually much of the major development costs are paid
out of public money in any case. The marketing budget of major pharma
companies dwarfs their R&D spend.

There's a common assumption that only by transforming the fruits of
innovation into private property can we fully realize their benefits --
an assumption fuelled by catchy concepts like "The Tragedy of the
Commons" and so on. What's little realized is how ideological and
divorced from actual empirical fact so much of that reasoning is.

> "Net public welfare" is irrelevant. A person trying to reconcile
> copying with a "moral" point of view really MUST consider the fact
> that it against the law as something of a deal-breaker, whether or
> not they happen to AGREE with the law.

As I said, I'm not advocating breaking the law -- I'm advocating
changing the law.

"Net public welfare" is a repeated core concern in formulating copyright
law, and has been the determining factor in many, many cases. See also
the US Constitution. :-)
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