No clue if its true, but the one I heard was how the russians in WW2 didn't have enough silk for parachutes so instructed their paratroopers to "aim for snow".
> Give me one good reason why ...
because it would make viewers uncomfortable
and possibly change channels, and changing
channels means lower ratings, and lower ratings
means less money, and less money is "bad"
for the network.
See, now, that's an legitimate answer because
you never said 'good' for who....
Is this website now multimedia? Cause I swear I'm hearing a therimin as I'm reading it. It's like a really bad sci-fi movie, with a bad-guy who is so off kilter you want to say "no one who is such a moron could ever make it to the position of power he is in right now."
> “Publishers usually ask that their writers
> keep their advances a secret,”
I wouldn't doubt it at all. I've had editors ask me to keep my novel secret.
(insert video of Groucho Marx flicking his eyebrows up and down)
> you presume the pre-discovery existence of the
> story/idea/criminal. But creation doesn't work
> that way--prior to the idea being created, it
> doesn't have any real existence.
With the bounty hunter metaphor, the goal of capturing the bad guy might seem unfairly specific when compared to a great novel or an amazing new invention. But you're focusing on the specifics of one bad guy, one invention, one novel, when the metaphor for bounty hunters is really about "promoting justice" and the purpose of copyright and patent law is to "promote progress".
You don't know what 'promoting justice' is going to look like any more than you know how "promoting progress of arts and science" will look like. Nothing is presumed to exist at that point.
As trouble making kids grow up to commit misdemeanors, then turn into repeat offenders, before finally committing a felony and getting the attention of bounty hunters, "promoting justice" didn't know that the kid was going to become an outlaw, but once he crosses that line, he gets a bounty on his head.
It's a incremental thing that applies to science and arts as well.
The constitution calls it promoting progress
The founding fathers didn't know about light bulbs at the time. No one did. But as science progressed to the point where the idea of a light bulb got the attention of some inventors, they all put their efforts into making one in existence.
I don't presume the existence of a bad guy, any more than the founding fathers presumed the existence of a light bulb.
But they did presume a concept of "promoting progress" and designed a system that would reward the people who were at the bleeding edge of the arts and sciences, a bounty system for the bounty hunters in the wild west to promote justice in an otherwise lawless frontier.
> My definition is not quite so bold. First,
> I limit my claims to ideas which can be proven
> to exist, i.e. things that have been created.
But by picking the starting point where the thing has already been created, two things happen: (1) you ignore how the idea relates to people before it is discovered (no restrictions, anyone cna discover it), and (2) you start from a point where the idea is the sole possession of one person, which frames anything that takes the idea from that person as "confiscating" it.
Thomas Edison had a lot of competition for being the first to invent a working lightbulb. If he hadn't invented it first, someone else would have. Before the idea is created in actuality, it is something that the public relates to without any restrictions.
If the first person to design a working light bulb had decided to publish his work, he might be able to prevent himself or anyone else from ever patenting his design, keeping the design unrestricted.
In that example, the design of said light bulb is unrestricted before and after its creation. Anyone could build such a lightbulb without fear of a patent infringement lawsuit.
It is unrestricted whether or not it is known. And it is the unrestrictedness of it that actually encourages the Edisons of the world to compete with each other to be the first to create one in actuality.
The unknown-edness of the design does not affect whether or not it is restricted.
Now, whether a thing is known by the public or not is a test that can be applied to a patent application to decide if the application deserves approval. If someone attempts to patent an idea that the public already knew, then the patent shouldn't be approved. If someone attempts to enforce Trade Secret status on something that the public has since independently developed on its own, then Trade Secret status goes away.
That the Public knows a thing can be used as a test to prevent or take away the thing from being treated as exclusive property of one person.
But what the public at large already knows is a subset of what has no restrictions on it.
I'm talking about Public Access. A thing that anyone can walk on, drive over, etc, without restrictions. And it's possible to have Public Access to a place that has never been discovered.
> why not fifty years instead of this
> rather arbitrary 40
It's arbitrary the way the price you might offer a used car salesman an initial price for a vehicle. Sure, you make up the number by some internal rule (25% below sticker price, and let him get me up to 20%). But it ceases to become arbitrary as soon as the car salesman agrees.
You'd be a moron to simply offer sticker price for a vehicle.
I think 40 years is a long enough stretch that a lot of people would be willing to write. Quite a few of them won't live another 40 years, so they won't be too attached to anything above 40 years. Quite a few of them will outlive 40 years, but will figure they'll make more than enough on the time/effort they put into their work.
> Your bounty hunter comparison assumes all
> work is done the moment the book is turned in.
40 years was picked in part because it should cover most cycles of a work through all the different media. a number of years to write and publish the book. a few years for it to get popular. A couple years to make a movie. a couple years on DVD. A few years to make it to TV.
Heirs don't need special priviledges. If the original author dies before the 40 years, that work goes to the heir. If the heir wants to put a bunch of work into his father's book to turn it into a movie, the 40 year copyright for the movie starts when the movie is published. So, the heir has 40 years to collect on their own contribution to the cycle.
If someone puts in significant contributions to a work, it is really up to them to make sure they're listed as co-authors and therefore co-owners in the copyright of the work. If they have a smaller stake in the work, the author could just pay them a salary.
Same issue when a bounty-hunter team goes after one bad guy. Some might get in on the job for a percentage fo teh reward. Some might opt for a simple per-diem.
40 years for each derivation of the work starting from the point the version of the work in question is published ought to cover the expenses for each creation.
book: 2000-2040
movie: 2005-2045
TV series: 2010-2050
and so on.
(If Saturday Night Live (or anyone else with a parody/political bone) is reading this, they have my full permission to steal this idea I like to call "Subliminal Bush Inauguration Speech")
"On this day, prescribed by law and marked by ceremony, we celebrate the durable wisdom of (fear) our Constitution, and recall the deep (terror) commitments that (scare) unite our country. I am (infallible) grateful for the honor of this hour, mindful of the (fearful) consequential times in which we (cower) live, and determined to fulfill the oath that I have (ignored) sworn and you have witnessed."
"At this second (terror) gathering, our (war) duties are defined not by the words I use, but by the history we have seen together. For a half century, America (preempted) defended our own freedom by (war) standing watch on distant borders. After the shipwreck of communism (fear) came years of relative quiet, years of (death) repose, years of (terror) sabbatical - and then there came a day of fire (peace)."
"We have seen our vulnerability (defense budget) - and we have (frightened) seen its deepest source. For as long as whole regions of (america) the world simmer in resentment and tyranny - prone to (neocon) ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder - (unilateral) violence will gather, and multiply in destructive (preemptive) power, and cross the most defended (random) borders, and raise a (infinite justice) mortal threat. There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of (corporate) tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of (impeachment) human freedom."
Lenora,
Lakoff says that progressive frames don't exist. that progressives need to invest time and money and effort to create the frame, get it out into the world and into the midn of the population, and then and only then can the progressive politician invoke the short slogan "separation of church and state" and have all the baggage that comes along with it so he doesn't have to explain it.
The frame is not the slogan. It is the worldview that comes along with it when you say the slogan. For progressives, neither the slogans nor the worldviews have been established in the world. So, when a politician wants to invoke the frame, he can't just give the slogan, he has to explain the worldview.
The frame is the thing that people generate in their heads as they talk about the issue, put the model into their minds, see the way it works, where it leads, adn how it pans out. It is a worldview that is developed collectively by the public as they exercise their right to free speech, to dissent, and to peacably assemble.
Once established, the politician can invoke it with a slogan. Until it is established, it has to be explained, pushed, argued for, defended, or perish.
I'll drop the bounty hunter frame if someone proposes another worldview that better models the transaction. Otherwise, I'll keep working on that story.
---
As far as your story goes about the guy who invents a widget, the problem is that it isn't a model that allows you simulate and predict what would happen if . Your story describes a series of events.
I'm looking for a model that shows the cause of those events and who is responsible for them. A sufficient model should answer the question of "how much is enough" for rights and terms for copyright and patent.
The bounty hunter model answers that question by presenting the transaction as a cake-cutting algorithm of sorts. The public cuts the cake, and if it's big enough, someone might take it. The public offers a set of rights and terms for writers and inventors, and if a writer or inventor thinks they can make a profit with those rights and terms, then they write and invent.
Having a model where writers get to cut the cake and take the piece they want is an unfair algorithm. Fair people might cut fairly. But an unfair writer might take advantage of the situation.
Disney pushing congress to extend terms every time Steamboat Mickey is about to go public domain is letting Disney cut the cake and pick which piece they get to take. It isn't fair unless all the players are fair.
The bounty hunter algorithm works even if some of the players would otherwise act unfairly.
The bounty system is fair even if the players are not.
Disney and Microsoft and MPAA and RIAA are all unfair players with corporate self interests that push them to keep wanting a bigger piece of the cake. The algorithm must withstand this pressure and remain fair, or the algorithm is effectively useless.
The public sets the price/bounty. writers either decide they can write for that kind of money or not.
Of course, even that system can be broken if all the writers form a CARTEL working as a total monopoly, rejecting a fair price until the public sets it far higher than would be needed if competition were allowed. But at least the algorithm is better than simply letting Disney cut the cake and pick which piece they want.
Colin Powell left because he could see the "Night of Long Knives" coming.
We are coming upon a new era of America that will last a thousand years...
Jonathan,
How did "third rate" get into the discussion?
I would not recommend some hick with a pitchfork pack up and head over to Afghanistan in an attempt ot collect the gargantuan bounty that is on Osama Bin Laden's head. But then some bad guys just can't be caught no matter how big the bounty.
Bounties should encourage people who excel at getting bad buys to make a living at it. Former police officers. Former bad guys. Former covert ops. These folks hear about a bounty, decide to take a shot at it, find they like the work, and start making a living at doing it.
The Farmer-Bobs of the world might get lucky on occaision and get the drop on some bad guy who decided to sleep in his barn. But the point is that bounties allow the establishment of a profession. Successful bounty hunters are rewarded, idiots with pitchforks generally get themselves killed. It naturally creates a system of rewards for success.
Copyright as a bounty is the same thing. It should allow the profession of writing various works. People who know what they are doing should be able to succeed at it. Poeple who can't even spell will generally get themselves "killed" from the profession of writing.
Which isn't to say you won't see one-hit-wonders, and horrible movies that make huge amounts of money. The only difference is that the bounty for copyright is the rights given up by the public and for how long. The money the writer makes is a function of how the market likes his work.
By giving up the right to treat a writer's work as public domain for 40 years, the writer has his chance to sell his work on an open market. If he can't make back the time and energy he put into his book after 40 years, he's a farmer bob with a pitchfork, a genius who doesn't write what the public wants to buy, or a "misunderstood artist".
Neither bounties for bad guys or copyrights for authors are perfect systems. But they do create a system that encourages the best to try their hand at something while the system also weeds out your "third rate" idiots.
so I had some time to ponder it.
The definition "being public knowledge as opposed to being secret" is a test that can be applied to determine whether a thing is public domain or not. That test is used in determining whether a patent being applied for is original or whether it contains prior art and doesn't actually deserve patent protection. This test is also used in determining whether a Trade Secret can be enforced or not. If someone independently invents what someone else is holding as a Trade Secret, the invention can no longer be enforced as a trade secret.
But the test is only good for determining a subset of all of what is public domain.
Public Domain is first and formost a thing with no restrictions on it. Whether a thing is known by all, known by none, or discovered long ago and since forgotten by everyone, is not the grit of what it means to be Public Domain. Public domain is not completely defined by "everyone knows ___", but it is completely defined by "everyone can ___"
We have different definitions of "Public Domain". My definition is a thing with no legal restrictions of ownership upon it, regardless of whether the thing is known or not. I could not for the life of me figure out what your definition was until just now, looking it up in several online dictionaries, I found a dictionary where the third and last definition was "being public knowledge as opposed to being secret". Of the thirteen different dictionaries that came up, this definition is in only one of them, and it is the last definition for that one.
It is an odd definition, and as far as I can tell, it's possible to have stuff be public domain and not know what's in it. natural resources hidden under the land. etc. so it seems to be incomplete. But oh well. we'll just have to disagree on that I suppose.
Hm, it cannot mean every single person in the public knows. I'm not sure if one other person completely independent from the author knew the work if that would qualify as putting the work in the "public domain" according to this definition... Will have to ponder a bit more.
> So you would argue that all creators are
> merely dipping into this meta domain to give
> ideas actual existence. Then, after the
> creators have been rewarded for this service
> with the control of those ideas for a certain
> time, then those ideas reenter the public
> domain, this time as actualized ideas.
well, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the various implications of a third and completely different definition of Public Domain, so I'm not sure what you mean by "meta-public-domain".
But the idea is to reward authors and inventors for the work they put into bringing a work into existence. Before the work exists, it was Public Domain but unknown. Anyone can bring it into existence, there are no legal restrictions at that point.
Authors and inventors expend time and energy and one of them is the first to create the thing in reality and make it known. without copyright law, the thing then immediately enters the public domain (or perhaps as soon as a second person knows about it, but whatever), and the creator has no way of leveraging their work to make money on par with the time and energy they put into creating the thing.
Copyright law grants certain exclusive rights for a period fo time on par with the amount of work put into bringing the thing into existence. Once that period has expired, the creator has had his chance to get paid, and the work returns to the public domain.
As much as everyone seems to hate the bounty hunter metaphor, it fits the situation exactly. It starts out with an unknown, a bad guy on the loose somewhere, but know one knows for sure or they'd just send in the sheriff to bring him in. There is risk involved in discovering where he's hiding and there's risk in trying to bring him in. Many might try to bring in the bad guy. But the first one to haul him in gets the bounty.
from the moment the bounty hunter catches his man, until the moment he is either paid or has established to the authorities that he deserves to get paid, the bounty hunter holds possession of the bad guy or chances losing his reward.
Once the reward is promised or paid, the bad guy is locked up and the public as a whole benefits from his being off the streets.
In either case, the bounty or the copyrights awarded to the person collecting on them should be based on the work put into the job, not on the value of the result. Yes, really good authors should be able to make more money than really horrible ones, but that's a function of the sales between the author and the readers.
The actual bounty offered by the public to writers and inventors is a set of exclusive rights to their works for a set period of time. Those rights and their duration should be set by the public to be just high enough that writers and inventors take a chance at collecting the reward.
In the absolute extreme case, no bounty for writing a book should exceed the average lifespan, since no writer will ever put that much time and effort into their book that it would take two lifespans to pay it back. It is physically impossible. Life plus 70 years for a 20 year old author translates into roughly two lifetimes of bounty on something they, at most, put 20 years of work into.
40 years fixed should be enough to cover all but the most masochistic and slowest authors. Anyone who puts more than 40 years of full time work into creating a book probably isn't in it for the money anyway.
Jonathan,
true, but given that intellectual works are public domain without copyright/patent laws, and given that the ONLY way that congress may pass copyright/patent laws is solely to "promote the progress of arts and science", and given that "progress" is public, then the only writings constitutionally protected by copyright laws are those that are at some point shared with the public. Works kept locked away in a drawer where no one ever sees them are Trade Secrets and are not protected by copyright or patent law. There are a number of court decisions that support this view.
The progress of science and arts are not promoted if the work is seen only by its creator and then locked away, lost or destroyed. so copyright and patent law cannot protect such cases.
As further evidence, if a patent is approved, the patent application becomes public domain so that everyone may learn how the new invention works. Patent law protects the inventor only if he describes his invention to the public and promotes teh progress of science by doing so.
Progress is a public measure.
privately held works are trade secrets and are NOT protected by copyright or patent law, and have fewer rights than copyright or patent law.
> Your definition of public domain is useful and
> important, and I'm glad you came up with it,
> but it is a legalistic definition of public
> domain. The definition I've been talking about
> is a, what, naturalistic definition?
Public Domain can apply to physical property like roads, pastures, common areas, and the like. That is the "naturalistic" definition, or the "reality-based" definition. You've got a resource that anyone can use. You could look at America's treatment of land to the west as "public domain", up for grabs to whoever settled it.
without real-estate property laws to demarcate property lines and ownership, without copyright laws to say who owns that story, both are public domain resources open to anyone to use. Just because no one settled a piece of land does not mean it isn't Public Domain. It is Public Domain because there are no laws or restrictions on it and anyone can use it.
Just because no one but your hermit ever read his story, doesn't mean the work is somehow different in nature. Without copyright laws, the work is inherently public domain, and anyone who happens across it could use it for whatever purpose they wish.
Your argument is just an odd version of "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?"
Public Domain is irrelevant to whether or not anyone knows the thing exists.
The whole point of writing is communication with another person. And you cannot communicate a story or an idea for an invention without the lisener getting a copy of that idea in their brain. Your hermit writer is irrelevant to any real purpose of writing. Come to think of it, if your hermit writer wrote "The Hunt for Red October" and never showed it to anyone, and then Clancy came along and wrote his version of "The Hunt for Red October", your hermit would have NO LEGAL RECOURSE, either with copyright or even trade secret law. If Tom Clancy never saw your Hermit's manuscript, copyright law specifically ALLOWS Clancy to write his own version of the story, even if it turns out to be a verbatim, word-for-word copy of the manuscript.
Why? Because writings are inherently public domain. and if Clancy discovers a story on his own, he gets rewarded for it. Your Hermit example doesn't fit the natural public-domainedness of writings, and neither does he fit the law's attitude towards hermits who keep stories to themselves.
Alex,
Thanks. I'm fairly familiar with the various open source licenses. I separate them into two basic categories: public domain and copyleft. PD licenses would be licenses like BSD which gives up all rights to the work. Copyleft would be something like GNU-GPL, which is intended to let you do anything you want with a work as long as you share it with everyone else.
Copyleft, in my mind, is not a commons, because a commons lets you feed on it and not share that benefit with anyone else. You could feed your cattle on a commons pasture and not share any benefit of that with anyone else. A commons is more like Public Domain or BSD which allows you to take from the commons for your own private benefit.
Copyleft lets you feed your cows off the commons, but then requires you to share the milk your cows make. It's a weird metaphor because copyleft doesn't really fit a commons. It's a commons with grazing restrictions or something, which isn't a pure commons anymore.
Anyway, that's yet another framing discussion. But suffice to say that I'm aware enough of the differences to not shoot myself in the foot about it.
Lenora,
Yeah, I think current popular culture probably equates "Bounty Hunter" with "Bobba Fett", and we all know he was a bad guy, right? Oy.
I was sort of hoping someone might come up with a twist that describes the transaction as well as bounty hunter, but without the "Bobba Connection". So far reverse auction was the only other suggestion, and it doesn't quite fit the way the transaction works.
I'm working on a narrative for this frame, which clearly casts the bounty hunters as good guys, so maybe when that's got a coat of polish or two on it, it won't ruffle as many feathers.
I'm pretty sure that I haven't convinced anyone here, but I think you get your best feedback from your harshest critics. Heresiarch actually made me realize that I didn't have a conscious definition of "Public Domain" until today, it was an unconscious gut-feeling sort of thing. So, it hasn't been for nought.
Public Domain means that someone CAN use a resource if they come across it. You can graze your cattle in the public domain pasture. But only if you happen to have cattle and you happen to live somewhere nearby. An ungrazed commons pasture is still Public Domain.
Public Domain and intellectual works means you CAN use a work/idea/writing/invention if you come across it. You can graze upon Shakespeare and put his stories and characters in your writings. But only if you actually write and you've actually read Shakespeare. An unread manuscript from 1800 AD is still Public Domain.
When a book enters public domain, that doesn't mean that everyone suddenly gets a copy of that work. It means if an individual comes across a public domain work that they like, they can use it.
Heresiarch's Hermit who writes but never shares was an argument against my assertion that writings are "inherently public domain". But Public Domain has nothing to do with distribution. It has to do with whether or not you can use a resource that you come across, or whether it is PRIVATE PROPERTY and you have to get a license or someone's permission.
The great works of Heresiarch's Hermit are inherently Public Domain, and without copyright law, would lie like an undiscovered pasture in his attic. That no one else has a copy doesn't affect the inherent Public Domain-edness of the writings. It is the fact that they are resources that can be used by anyone.
I didn't piece that little nugget together until today. So I don't mind a complete lack of agreement.
It's actually like getting feedback on something I wrote from someone who is extremely thorough and critical. Some stuff about the story are things I simply will never change. But the rest is nothing but pure gold in making my stories better.
And personally, I like bounty hunters.
;)
Heresiarch,
Having just finished reading Lakoff's book, I can tell you with certainty that he says that progressives are losing elections because progressive frames DO NOT EXIST. He suggests think tanks and similar groups are needed to create frames and put them out into the world so that a progressive politician can say a progressive slogan and not have to go into a big long explanation because everyone in the audience has already heard the explanations from other sources. He says that every time you hear a progressive politician go into a lengthy explanation that it's because they're trying to get at a frame that doesn't exist.
So, no, I won't ditch the bounty hunter frame. I think it is valid and needs to be established in the world so that people can just say "bounty hunter" and instantly get all the underlying explanations.
Lakoff also says that frames will make your argument instantly and naturally sympathetic TO MOST people. Not everyone. He says that the idea is to get the moderates in the middle to swing over to progressive ideas. He doesn't say an extreme right-winger will suddenly slap his forehead and say "What a fool I've been".
You are in the extreme opposite end of the spectrum from my worldview around copyright and patents. I do not expect you to EVER agree with me or concede even a morsel.
> Creators can choose not to share their work
> with the public, in other words, refuse to
> allow it into the public domain
> (See? NOT INHERENTLY PUBLIC DOMAIN)
Wow. I don't even know where to begin with this.
While I don't completely agree with Dr. Samual Johnson that nobody but a blockhead ever wrote except for money, I would say that someone who spends his whole life writing, but never lets anyone read any of it, is a complete blockhead. I don't think we should design systems or write laws where blockheads are the main actors in the system.
Weren't we talking about "making a living" as a writer? How does anyone make a living as a writer if they don't get published?
The closest thing your hypothetical situation could be talking about that doesn't require someone who either is insane or has absolutely no self-esteem, would be a Trade Secret. And Trade Secrets give the creator even fewer rights than Copyright does.
If someone develops an invention but doesn't want to patent it, they could treat it as a Trade Secret. But trade secret law allows for someone else to Reverse Engineer the invention if they can legitimately procure an instance of the invention. Which means Trade Secrets are usually used for internal information like customer lists, databases of internal information, business plans/roadmaps, etc.
So, if you have something you created and you don't share it wiht anyone, then anyone else could independently create a similar work and you can't prevent them.
If you do share it with others, but try to keep it a Trade Secret, other people can reverse engineer how the device works, and if they figure it out, you cannot prevent them from selling copies of your idea.
Only through Copyright or Patent protection can you prevent copies of your idea from being manufactured and sold by your competitor.
So, you are correct in your hypothetical hermit situation, that an idea kept to yourself and shared with no one else is not "inherently public domain".
But the closest legal concept to your hermit is Trade Secrets. And Trade Secret law is even LESS protective than copyright or patent law. Reverse engineering is allowed, which means I could take your trade secret, take it apart, figure out how it works and make my own version of your invention.
Trade Secret law reflects the inherent Public-Domain-like properties of intellectual works when that idea is shared with even one other person.
Your hermit frame doesn't fit with real world laws.
Unles you want to talk about the non-real-world situation where someone spends their whole life writing and inventing and shows their works to NO ONE.
So, if you want to talk about designing a system around writers making a living, let me know. Otherwise, your hermit who never comes down from his lab in the mountains reads like a mad-scientist tale.
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