Totally abolish all interlectual property.

[Aloone_Jonez]

Some people believe that you shouldn't be able to own anything that doesn't physically exist.

You can physically own a book, a CD or a hard drive but you can't actually own the data stored on them without interference from the state.

Patents, trademarks, copyright are all totally artificial and only have been bought about fairly recently by laws that restrict the exchange of information.

Throughout history people have been able to own material possessions and trade them freely, whether they be pieces of jewelry or cars. The only time such rights have been removed have been under communist systems and even then, for the most part, they have allowed some private ownership (the only exception I can think of is Kibbutz). These were highly artificial and consisted of many laws put in place by the community to restrict trade, ownership and essentially freedom.

There is a damn good argument for simply abolishing all forms of intellectual property and allowing free exchange of information. Many people would argue that such a policy would be socialist if not even communist and I might agree, but it certainly wouldn't restrict freedom the way Marxist states have done, on the contrary it would have the opposite effect. Imagine been able to download all the music and software you like and distribute it to your friends without worrying about fines? Wouldn't that be great?

Some would say, but fuck there wouldn't be any music, there wouldn't be any software or books. However this this bullshit since there were books and music before copyright and many pieces of software have been written that don't place any restrictions on their usage.

So how could a government abolish all IP?

It would be a lot easier than doing what the Soviets did when they abolished ownership of the means of production. Land was physically seized from farmers and industry forcefully nationalised with fuck all compensation given to anyone.

All the government would do is abolish the existing controls on information exchange, no one would be killed or have anything physically taken away from them.

Of course there would have to be limits to this policy, for the sake of security, non disclosure agreements would have to remain legal (I wouldn't want my bank freely distributing my account details to everyone) but that's about it.

Anti-competition Anti-monopoly laws could be put in place that dictate that the maximum price one should be expected to pay for information shall be no more than the cost of transferal. For example, you could sell music CDs but at no more than the cost of producing a blank CD and the same goes for books and everything else. Instead of people been taken to court publishers and record companies would sued for overcharging.

The basic idea is that no one would get paid for doing nothing. Today, if someone makes a few hit singles, they can do nothing for the rest of their life but under a no copyright system they would only get paid for live performances.

I'm not saying that such a change wouldn't have a short term negative affect on the economy. It would ruin the current, film, music and non-free software industries because it isn't compatible with their business models.

Positive changes can fuck things up in the short term, only to improve things in the long term. This happened in to Russia when the Soviet regime collapsed, the transition from a centrally planned command economy to a market economy was not an easy one, it fucked things up for about 10 years but now it's stronger than it was before.

A similar thing could happen in today's capitalist countries if IP were abolished. In the end people would still play music, write films, books and software and make a living for it, just not in the same manner as they do today.

I can't see any of this happening any time soon because large companies have too much power and countries have too much to risk for political reasons. For example if Gorden Brown's government decided to abolish all IP, the UK would be kicked out of the EU, world trade organisation and have sanctions placed up on it.

Maybe one day when people finally get sick of DRM restricting their free speech or companies and governments realise that it's no longer viable to restrict such freedoms it might actually happen.

[worker201]

I think things would be a lot different than you think.  Let's consider the movie Iron Man.  It was a great movie, very exciting, and Robert Downey Jr. gave a stunning performance - not to mention the great special effects.  Plus there was a strong anti-military-industrial-complex message.  The movie cost $135 million to make.  Your anti-competitiveness laws would make it illegal to charge more than like $200 for a screening, to cover the cost of the digital copy of the film and the maintenance of the theater - if you can squeeze 200 people into the theater, that's like $1 each.  For the sake of argument, I'm going to assume that Iron Man in the real world made about $5 per ticket sold.  Their worldwide gross so far is $569 million.  If ticket revenues go down by 80%, Iron Man's gross would only be $113 million.  That's less than the cost of making the movie.  And since the movie would be readily available to download for free over the internet like 3 weeks before the theater release, theater revenues would be limited to people who actually prefer watching movies in theaters.  To be extremely generous, I'll say that 10 million people go to see the movie at $1 each.  Any movie that costs a cent more than $10 million will not get made.  Goodbye special effects, goodbye big stars, goodbye digital editing.  For that fucking price, you won't even get made-for-TV garbage.

Obviously, things aren't quite that simple.  They're not quite this simple either.  And another point.  You're correct in pointing out that there was music and literature and theater (but not film) before copyright laws.  But hasn't the volume and access and diversity of entertainment gotten greater since copyright?  I would argue that it has, and it's because the big money producers earn from copyright gets invested back into their own business.  Make a few bucks on Fitzgerald's book, hand that money to Hemingway.  Make a few bucks on Hemingway's book, hand that money to some other author.

The digitization of culture has put a great strain on our existing IP rights and protections, and some of the backlashes against those strains have caused even greater problems.  But that's no reason to flush copyright down the toilet.  There are better solutions out there, waiting to be found.

Oh, and how does DRM affect your freedom of speech? 

[Aloone_Jonez]

I think things would be a lot different than you think.  Let's consider the movie Iron Man.  It was a great movie, very exciting, and Robert Downey Jr. gave a stunning performance - not to mention the great special effects.  Plus there was a strong anti-military-industrial-complex message.  The movie cost $135 million to make.  Your anti-competitiveness laws would make it illegal to charge more than like $200 for a screening, to cover the cost of the digital copy of the film and the maintenance of the theater - if you can squeeze 200 people into the theater, that's like $1 each.  For the sake of argument, I'm going to assume that Iron Man in the real world made about $5 per ticket sold.  Their worldwide gross so far is $569 million.  If ticket revenues go down by 80%, Iron Man's gross would only be $113 million.  That's less than the cost of making the movie.  And since the movie would be readily available to download for free over the internet like 3 weeks before the theater release, theater revenues would be limited to people who actually prefer watching movies in theaters.  To be extremely generous, I'll say that 10 million people go to see the movie at $1 each.  Any movie that costs a cent more than $10 million will not get made.  Goodbye special effects, goodbye big stars, goodbye digital editing.  For that fucking price, you won't even get made-for-TV garbage.

How much of the money went into filling the pockets of the grossly over paid movie stars and fat cat producers?

What if they were paid a similar wage to that of the average American?

You could probably cut the budget by three quarters (a conservative estimate) and still have a great film.

They could still make more money from screen advertising by putting the adverts in the middle of the film rather than at the beginning. Also, thanks to free downloads the film itself wouldn't need to be advertised at all which would cut the budget further and might have the affect of increasing cinema audiences rather than decreasing them.

Your anti-competitiveness laws

Anti-competitive? Sorry I didn't mean that, I should have said anti-monopoly laws.

I've edited my post making it clear how I've edited it.

On the contrary to being anti-competitive, they'll make the world more competitive by making it harder for any company to have a monopoly on anything. There'd still be plenty of rewards for innovation, even though patents wouldn't exist, manufacturers of products could still keep their trade secrets but of course there would be no laws against reverse engineering which would in itself be a source of innovation.

Obviously, things aren't quite that simple.  They're not quite this simple either.  And another point.  You're correct in pointing out that there was music and literature and theater (but not film) before copyright laws.  But hasn't the volume and access and diversity of entertainment gotten greater since copyright?  I would argue that it has, and it's because the big money producers earn from copyright gets invested back into their own business.  Make a few bucks on Fitzgerald's book, hand that money to Hemingway.  Make a few bucks on Hemingway's book, hand that money to some other author.

A perfectly valid point but it doesn't prove that copyright laws are responsible for the increase in diversity of entertainment, for all you know it could be preventing the world of entertainment from being as diverse as it could be.

If copyright were abolished then there would probably be more live theatre and more armature film makers would be succesful as there would be less competition from the big producers. I'm sure that there have been lots of great films that haven't done as well as the aught to have done because they haven't had the advertising and there are plenty of shitty films that have done better than they would have otherwise have done. Eliminating the anit-competative law known as copyright might actually reduce the level of investment required for a film to do well so anyone with the talent and motivation can produce a blockbuster.

The digitization of culture has put a great strain on our existing IP rights and protections, and some of the backlashes against those strains have caused even greater problems.  But that's no reason to flush copyright down the toilet.  There are better solutions out there, waiting to be found.

Another good arguement but no one has tried throwing copyright down the drain and allowing completely free transfer of information so we can't honestly say whether it would be a good or a bad thing in the long run.

All we can honestly say is that the world would be a totally different place.

Oh, and how does DRM affect your freedom of speech? 

There are laws in place that make circumventing DRM illegal and therefore distributing or writing any code capable of doing this is also illegal.

[worker201]

How much of the money went into filling the pockets of the grossly over paid movie stars and fat cat producers?

What if they were paid a similar wage to that of the average American?

You could probably cut the budget by three quarters (a conservative estimate) and still have a great film.

It's true, a lot of the budget went to paying stars and producers, and we might never know exactly how much.  But does that qualify them as grossly overpaid?  Standard capitalistic procedure dictates that a worker is not going to work for less than he is worth unless he is desperate.  Granted, the worth of actors and filmmakers is often tied to the potential box office draw.  I think it stands to reason that a person who provides entertainment to 20 million people is entitled to more money than a plumber.  You are totally for unequal pay for unequal work, as I recall.

Also, thanks to free downloads the film itself wouldn't need to be advertised at all which would cut the budget further and might have the affect of increasing cinema audiences rather than decreasing them.

Advertising is a pretty large part of any film's budget.  If the Wikipedia numbers I gave earlier included advertising, then the advertising budget for Iron Man was probably about $30 million.  However, with no advertising at all, how do they let people know that there is a new movie?  Viral marketing by netfanboys who heard a rumor will only take you so far, and they are almost guaranteed to download it for free.  The one and only way to make any kind of money whatsoever is to get people into the theaters - dvd sales are no longer viable.  And since the take at the box office is waaaaay down, you have to fill as many seats as possible.  Seats just don't fill themselves.

I really think that epic entertainments are one of the truly great products of America, and foreign box office draws reflect that.  There's just something about The Matrix that you won't find in amateur theater, low-budget film, or anywhere else.  The system that allows this sort of thing to flourish is based on box office receipts and dvd sales, which are based on large budgets and control of distribution.  If a system were to exist where people could make $100 million dollar movies and we'd all get to watch them for free, that would be fucking great.  As it stands, the fact that we don't get to watch them for free is the reason they can make such expensive movies.

Oh, and how does DRM affect your freedom of speech? 

There are laws in place that make circumventing DRM illegal and therefore distributing or writing any code capable of doing this is also illegal.

It's hard to justify that as free speech.  After all, a book about how to commit burglary or robbery would probably not be protected by any court on the planet.  So your definition of free speech is clearly based on a fantastical utopian concept of free speech, and not actual free speech.  Therefore DRM actually affects your theoretical rights, not your real rights.  I'm not sure how lawmakers are expected to anticipate your theoretical rights...

[Aloone_Jonez]

How much of the money went into filling the pockets of the grossly over paid movie stars and fat cat producers?

What if they were paid a similar wage to that of the average American?

You could probably cut the budget by three quarters (a conservative estimate) and still have a great film.

It's true, a lot of the budget went to paying stars and producers, and we might never know exactly how much.  But does that qualify them as grossly overpaid?  Standard capitalistic procedure dictates that a worker is not going to work for less than he is worth unless he is desperate.  Granted, the worth of actors and filmmakers is often tied to the potential box office draw.  I think it stands to reason that a person who provides entertainment to 20 million people is entitled to more money than a plumber.  You are totally for unequal pay for unequal work, as I recall.

There are plenty of people who arguably do a hell of a lot more for the US than film stars and get paid much less than they're worth; some people risk their lives for their country and get paid less than a star does for a photo shoot.

Advertising is a pretty large part of any film's budget.  If the Wikipedia numbers I gave earlier included advertising, then the advertising budget for Iron Man was probably about $30 million.  However, with no advertising at all, how do they let people know that there is a new movie?  Viral marketing by netfanboys who heard a rumor will only take you so far, and they are almost guaranteed to download it for free.  The one and only way to make any kind of money whatsoever is to get people into the theaters - dvd sales are no longer viable.  And since the take at the box office is waaaaay down, you have to fill as many seats as possible.  Seats just don't fill themselves.

You'd be surprised at the marketing power of the Internet, it's possible for a record to reach number one spot purely from downloads with no prior airplay.
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001956479

There are plenty of other things a no-IP law would change. No trademarks would mean a hell of a load of large companies like Macdonald's, Wallmart and Tesco and brands like Nike and Adidas would vanish or be broken down into smaller companies.

A no-IP law might actually narrow the gap between the rich and the poor. There would surely be less rich people and the poor might benefit from a hell of a load of things like cars, clothes, shoes and drugs suddenly becoming a lot cheaper.

Laws are currently in place to protect the consumer from dangerous and goods that are not fit for purpose and would continiue to do so. Things like drugs would still be given extra protection and approval procedures would still be in place and manufacturers would still have to be approved to make them. A company would still receive a reward for being the first to develop and market a drug because for a short time, it would be the only one approved to manufacture it.

[Kintaro]

If you think these things "don't exist," you are stupid. These things do exist, its like saying books exist but the writing on the page doesn't. The same applies to code on the surface of a hard drive, it exists. Our eyes cannot read it, a magnetic head can.

It's like saying all wiretapping laws should be abolished because you don't notice it, so it doesn't exist.

The work involved in intellectual property exists, so it should be property. Saying it isn't is saying the mind doesn't exist.

[worker201]

Another problem with the banishment of all copyrights is branding.  Suppose I wanted to buy a shoe that is guaranteed to be made in Indonesian sweatshops, is designed by some of the most talented people in the world, is widely used by professional athletes all around the world, and is the same kind that Michael Jordan wears.  Unfortunately, now that trademarks are illegal, every shoe at the store has the same fucking logo on it.  I could accidentally get one made in America, or one that has no reputation or guarantee of quality.

There are plenty of good reasons to want copyright reform, but "so I can get free shit" is not one of them.