10 comments

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  David Friedman

  6 months ago

  Readers interested in my view of the IP question--from the perspective of economics, not moral philosophy--may want to look at two chapters in my _Law's Order_. The first discusses the general question of why it makes sense to treat some things as property and some as commons. The second applies the analysis to patent and copyright.
  
  http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Laws_Order_draft/...
  
  http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Laws_Order_draft/...
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• 

  Timon

  6 months ago

  Flemish Belgium is to Holland as
  Free Software is to Open Source as
  Northern California is to Southern California as
  Skiers are to Snowboarders as
  Leninists are to Trotskyites as
  Ruby is to Python as
  Devout Muslims are to Orthodox Jews as
  Devoted Real Madrid fans are to devoted Barcelona fans, ie
  
  ...2 groups who are indistinguishable on 99% of everything and completely identical to the man on the street will let the other 1% dominate their relationship with the other group. (Sorry Richard Bennett, I observe from your blog that you are even an A's fan (!). I suspect that your apparent antipathy to life has to do with not making the switch from Fedora to Ubuntu, am I close?) It is useful to keep these things in perspective.
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  Richard Bennett

  6 months ago

  Grow up, Timon.
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  Timon

  6 months ago

  Richard,
  
  I share your disdain of snot-nose kids such as myself, another of the 99 out of 100 things we agree on. I meant 'sorry' in the straightforward sense, as in, "sorry for the immoderate comments, for dwelling on the other 1%." But your pique suggests you are in fact a Fedora victim ;)
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  Timon

  6 months ago

  Also, by way of testing how many people are reading this (which I suspect is low) let's do a benchmark on a flick image of my insanely gorgeous girlfriend. (24 views at posting)
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  Tim Lee

  6 months ago

  Let me second Prof. Friedman's recommendation of Law's Order. It's a great book and the chapters on copyright and patent law are indeed first rate.
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  Richard Bennett

  6 months ago

  Are you an A's fan, Timon? If that's the case, I'll certainly cut you some slack.
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• 

  eee_eff

  6 months ago

  (I’m going to relax my usual rule about the phrase “IP” because of the way Friedman and Lessig have framed it):
  
  Of course RMS also thinks similarly about the IP term:
  
  
  http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml
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• 

  Timon

  6 months ago

  RB, there have been times when a cut would have caused me to bleed green and yellow, yes, especially growing up in the Canseco McGuire Henderson Eckersley era. The Beane era, and dollar Wednesdays, are like the proverbial proof that there is a God who loves us and wants us to be happy.
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• 

  SolveigS

  6 months ago

  Whoops. Neither Epstein nor Delong are actually maximalists, who favor "longer, broader, and stricter." They're strong supporters of the fundamentals... but in the substantial grey areas around the edges can go either way. See Epstein on Eldred, for example (opposing extension). Delong went the other way on Eldred (favoring extension) but disfavors criminal copyright.
  
  Re shape: a cube.
  
  Re the utilitarians versus the natural lawyers (a Milton term, love it), I ended up going on and on about that and posted later. "Shape" is in the Title.
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