HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

The fashion industry seems to do fine with relatively little draconian protections - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL2FOrx41N0

⬐ jasonkostempski

But they're not doing anything useful, just taking advantage of human nature.

You're right. You do sound like a copyright hawk.

Now. Why is the first point about the size of the industry relevant? Unless you're talking about their ability to bribe...I'm sorry..."lobby" Congress to pass the laws they like? That shouldn't happen anyway, regardless of their size. Laws should be passed on common sense and what's good for the people at large, not based on how big is your bank account.

What is dubious about his argument about copyright? First off, copyright is not "property", and shouldn't be treated as property. It's more like a permit. The government allows you to use a certain idea for a "limited time period" as it says in the Constitution. Unfortunately, because of the bribing..sorry, again, I meant lobbying...the "limited time period" turned from 14 years to almost 10x more. That doesn't sound limited at all to me. Copyright was meant as an "incentive" system - not as a welfare system.

Ideas can and should be reused. Whoever gets something copyright, most definitely got "inspired" or copied parts of someone else' ideas. That's why there isn't really something like "intellectual property", because nobody owns an idea 100%. And since you used someone else' ideas, you have to get paid for whatever you added only for a limited period of time, and then allow others to benefit from it, too, and expand the public knowledge. The whole point of the copyright system was to benefit the "public". It doesn't say "the creators" in the Constitution.

The fact that you dismiss DJing and remixing so easily shows that you have zero understanding about why fair use even exists in the first place. I suggest going through these, and hopefully it will change your mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83lhAlmp5vY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyf_0SMAsFA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q25-S7jzgs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL2FOrx41N0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAmmtCJxJJY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq5D43qAsVg

And here's a law professor discussing some of my points above such as why copyright is not real property:

http://surprisinglyfree.com/2012/12/04/tom-bell/

⬐ edanm

As a bystander to your and tptacek's debate, I'd like to point out that it seems you didn't really address tptacek's main point: this bill was badly written and dealt with minor issues which matter less, and wasn't worth spending political capital on.

It's very nice that you dragged this into HN's millionth debate on whether copyright is property or not (seriously, don't people ever get tired of the same rehashed arguments?). But this has nothing to do with tpacek's point. At least, that's how it looks to me.

⬐ yen223

> (seriously, don't people ever get tired of the same rehashed arguments?)

Is an argument only valid when it's fresh? Is e no longer equal to mc^2 because so many people keep rehashing the same tired formula over and over again?

⬐ edanm

Honest Question: Do you think I said anything about the validity of the argument?

All I asked was whether people are tired of having the same argument over and over. The reason I asked that is because tptacek was specifically not doing so, and someone was dragging the conversation in that direction. You have to understand, people like tptacek, myself and others that have been on HN (or anywhere on the internet) for a while, have seen these exact threads, with these exact arguments, probably hundreds of times. At some point, you realize that no one is bringing anything new to the table. Then someone like tptacek comes along and does bring something new (and relevant) to the table, and he can't even do that without the same old debated coming up.

It's tiresome, is all I'm saying.

⬐ None

None

⬐ tptacek

I don't "sound like" a copyright hawk. I am one. I am way, way to the right of HN on copyright issues.

So, your comment actually doesn't have much to do with mine. I am well aware that HN is full of copyright doves, and I respect that position (I feel like I'm going out of my way to be respectful of them). All your comment says is, "there's the opposite side of this copyright issue". Which is about as banal as telling me that water is wet.

⬐ guelo

Your "copyright dove" is my fierce information freedom hawk.

⬐ tptacek

Sure. It's a shorthand, not a value judgement.

⬐ stephth

After watching (and thoroughly enjoying) mtgx's second linked video [1] it's become a little more complicated to discern the left or the right of copyright. I think the talk's final point of speaking of "values" is very pertinent and in a way relevant to the way this conversation branch progressed.

From your quote about DJs your copyright values seem to be at the opposite side of openness (whatever the antonym of openness is), but having been reading and enjoying your comments for a while I suspect that comment might just be misguiding. I think I'd like to read more about what your values on copyright are.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyf_0SMAsFA

⬐ narrator

Ideologue: One who can't elaborate their position in response to a counter argument and just repeats scripted talking points again and again until the other side gets sick of replying to someone so dull.

⬐ aptwebapps

If I was sure who you were referring to I'd probably be using the arrows, but since I can't I'll just say that mtgox really did not address tptacek's points. Or at least not the main thrust of them which was that this memo was completely unsuited to the RSC at this time.

⬐ hahainternet

From my perspective he addressed your points clearly and concisely and you responded by acknowledging these points exist and nothing more.

If you can't defend a position, perhaps you shouldn't be taking it.

⬐ pfisch

mtgx is coming from a fantasy/idealistic world position and tptacek is coming from a position entrenched in reality.

I mean look at what mtgx said: "Now. Why is the first point about the size of the industry relevant? Unless you're talking about their ability to bribe...I'm sorry..."lobby" Congress to pass the laws they like? That shouldn't happen anyway, regardless of their size. Laws should be passed on common sense and what's good for the people at large, not based on how big is your bank account."

This is an absurd response to what tptacek said. If mtgx wants to advocate some kind of political revolution that is fine, but it is not an appropriate response to what tptacek is saying about Republicans spending political capital to effect change.

⬐ philwelch

From my perspective, tptacek was not trying to reignite the Great Internet Copyright Argument for the millionth time, and instead was making a point about what was politically actionable today.

Relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL2FOrx41N0

Fashion has a pretty long history of not having or disregarding intellectual property, too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL2FOrx41N0

I don't think copyright is compatible with the Internet. It's time for everyone to realize that. Times change, and some laws become obsolete. It's not the first time it has happened and it's not going to be the last. Then a couple of decades later you look back at them and realize how absurd they have been. Not all industries have copyright, and they seem to have done pretty well so far without, most likely much better than they would've done with it.

These are some good videos on this, if you haven't seen them already:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q25-S7jzgs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL2FOrx41N0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Plm1ulrp2s&feature=relat...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajobYLLUstg

⬐ tzs

> I don't think copyright is compatible with the Internet. It's time for everyone to realize that. Times change, and some laws become obsolete

You got that completely backwards. See Breyer's essay and Landis and Posner's analysis of it, both cited here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Uneasy_Case_for_Copyright

⬐ wynand

I have some pretty strong feelings about IP (I oppose software patents and I think copyright terms are too long) but I suspect that IP will become more sophisticated and pervasive. Robin Hansson has a post about what he calls "IP+" (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/07/ip-like-barbed-wire.ht...). I don't like the future he paints but it is better than today's setup.

A large (and growing) part of the world's population will want some kind of guarantee that they'll be compensated for their time and they'll be pushing for some kind of IP. Whether or not this will be better or worse for society, only data can tell us. But regardless of that, people want to optimize for what they think is best for themselves and their offspring and will vote on the basis of that.

⬐ muuh-gnu

> people want to optimize for what they think is best for themselves and their offspring

Copyright is a form of for-profit censorship. There are always people who will vote for censorship and slavery in order to maximize the exploitation of other people fot the benefit of themselves and theif offspring. the fact that there are always people willing to support and profit from opression does not mean that everybody else should not condemn, fight and try everything they can to end it.

As of now, copyright is not democratically supported. It is directed and enforced against the majority for the benefit of a influential minority, but it was never, anywhere on this planet, supported by any kind of democratic vote by the people. It originated in a dictatorship and has been spread behind closed doors and shielded by various party mechanisms from a direct popular vote, because the probable result of this vote would be a "no".

The turmoil around ACTA, where even talking about the negotiations was a no-go disguised as "national security" to prevent any opposition to even form, has shown that the politics around copyright is as undemocratic as ever.

I do not feel any moral obligation whatsoever to obey such a authoritarian law clearly not backed by the majority of my peers. Copying and sharing stuff is simply not wrong as long as the majority of my peers does not condemn it. I will never let a authoritarian, profit-oriented minority legislate my morals.

⬐ cageface

Guess what, by violating copyright you're enabling the very people that seem to outrage you so. If you really cared so much about this, you'd put your time and money where your mouth is and support the people working outside copyright.

More likely, you're just another pirate stealing food from the dinner table, all the while complaining how bad it tastes and how small the portions are.

⬐ muuh-gnu

> you're just another pirate stealing

Keep talking yourself into it, and keep calling people with different political opinions names, if it makes you more easily cope with the undemocratic authoritative nature of today's copyright.

⬐ cageface

In what way is it undemocratic? If you're talking about the continual extension of copyright terms to prevent older works from falling into the public domain I agree. Copyright is also the bedrock of the GPL.

⬐ muuh-gnu

> In what way is it undemocratic?

I wrote about this in my original post, you can read it there. Copyright is a new, unnatural form of "property" and only a minority has such a kind of property and it is enforced against the majority. But the majority was never asked whether they want this new type of property to be enforced against them, it has just been postulated as "beneficial" a few centuries ago and then enforced. No one, never ever on this planet has ever voted about it, it has since it's beginnings been enforced top down, and never legitimated bottom up.

You cant just go out and define a new type of property which resides inside others people communication and then enforce it by monitoring their communication, without ever asking them about it in the first place. Of course, you can do it, but then its an authoritative, not democratic feature. But do not expect those of us who believe in democracy to feel morally obliged to obey somebodys profit-oriented authoritative laws.

⬐ cageface

You could say the same things about any kind of property. Did we ever have a formal, democratic vote on land ownership?

As more and more people transition to work producing only digital information, do you really think that protections for that work are going to become less popular?

⬐ muuh-gnu

> do you really think that protections for that work are going to become less popular?

I dont know. What I do know is that the majority of my peers does _not_ support IP in its current form...

> Did we ever have a formal, democratic vote on land ownership?

...while the majority of my peers _does_ support the notion of ownership of physical items. I also personally do not know anybody who doesnt, so the motivation to push for a vote on something where the result is "obvious" is relatively low, but I of course wouldn't oppose it.

> You could say the same things about any kind of property.

So you in principle do agree that the public should be more directly involved in the creation of laws which it is required to abide by.

The whole concept of trial by jury of peers implies that the peers had a role in the creating of the law, and that they do not merely decide whether a law created by a authoritative, undemocratic body, which the majority of them might not even agree with, has been disobeyed.

Lack of copyright for the fashion industry has been great so far. Copyright in the fashion industry will only benefit the big brands, which I assume are behind this, anyway.

The video from TED on this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL2FOrx41N0

⬐ wmf

Except, as the article says, for the big brands that are built entirely on copied designs.

See also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL2FOrx41N0 "Lessons from Fashions Free Culture."

There is this great TED talk about IP in fashion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL2FOrx41N0

⬐ tuxychandru

I'm not a big proponent of IP in general. However, I feel comparing a creation which can be converted to a digital form to one which cannot doesn't make much sense.

In the industries with top 3 sales showed in the video (Food, Auto and fashion), the product cannot be transfered to another person without losing your won possession. Even if you copy a design you still must manufacture the apparel. Even if you copy the design of a car you still must manufacture it.

However, that's not the case with software, music or movie transferred over the internet. You don't have to re-write a software to share a verbatim copy. You don't have to direct and shoot the whole movie again to make a copy of it.

⬐ sambeau

It will be interesting to see what happens when we finally have replicators

⬐ kiba

Thingiverse community + Makerbot Inc. versus The Lone Inventor with a patent?

I'll root for thingiverse people anytime. Nothing ruin the party more than a jackass telling people not to invent, design, and engineer, and make a living.

⬐ binarray2000

Two points:

1. Yes, the "products" of the three industries (Films, Books, Music) with low(er) sales are transferable. But that has only become the case in the last 10-15 years. Prior to that it was harder (with movies and music: both being distributed on different media) or even impossible (books: being distributed on paper only; not counting audio-books) to separate content and media. Yet, over decades these industries have done everything to protect themselves.

2. If you try to copy the way some software works (by re-writing it) you can get sued. Damocles sword is always hanging above your head.

⬐ motters

The claim that open source doesn't have copyrights tends to cast her other claims into doubt. But in principle it would be great if there were no copyrights or patents in software. It would mean fewer things to worry about, and a whole category of grief would disappear.

Fashion is not exactly analogous to software though, because in fashion there are physical atoms which are difficult to copy and move around.

⬐ mgw

This is an amazing slide: http://imgur.com/MbIuc.png

⬐ mustpax

Maybe the causality works the other way around. The collective pie is so much smaller in the high-IP industries, people try to hold on to their share of it with much more ferocity (i.e. more lawyers).

⬐ lutorm

I wonder how different it would look if it wasn't gross sales but net profit.

⬐ retube

Hmmm. I would have thought automobiles was very high IP. No reference, but don't VW or Audi hold more patents than any other company in the world or something? Or take consumer goods. Unilver, Sony etc submit 100s of 1000s of patents every year.

Anyway, that aside, even if this chart is correct, a correlation does not imply any kind of causation. There many be any number of reasons why Food has more money spent on it (perhaps because we need food to survive and music consumption is purely discretionary?)

⬐ lutorm

Yeah the automobile industry has patents, it sounded like she was talking more about the design aspect.

⬐ bmunro

The comments for this video are a lot more intelligent than usually found on Youtube.

⬐ sambeau

I suspect that, had the car industry been encumbered with IP we would have been driving Model-T's for a lot longer than we did.

⬐ retube

take a look at how many patents Mercedes will have in their latest models.

⬐ anamax

The early car industry had lots of patents and patent fights.

The guy who invented working intermittent wipers was an independent. The big three refused to pay but used it.

There's currently a case involving a safety device for saws. Home Depot installed it and their injury costs went down by $1M/year. They refuse to pay royalties.

⬐ itgoon

The Home Depot case has been resolved in the little guy's favor: http://blogs.findlaw.com/decided/2010/05/unkindest-cut-home-...

⬐ mmphosis

http://www.neilpoulton.com/

⬐ Charuru

Though I don't know much about fashion, I can't help but think that the investment required to think up of a new fashion design must pale in comparison to the investment required for innovation in other industries. Perhaps years to write a book, millions to shoot a movie, millions to design a chip.

That probably makes all the difference in terms whether or not IP is a socially beneficial system.

⬐ sambeau

Although, as she pointed out, this argument doesn't work for car design

⬐ eagleal

You don't buy cars only for their designs. The engine which really is part of what makes the difference (the other one being manufacture material) is patented.

And the GPS system (eg. your Navigator), electronic/computer board, and all this things that make you buy a Mercedes instead of a Hyundai, are patented or at least protected by IP.

Again she is comparing the "appearance" of the utilitarian market, not the engineering part of it. (You can patent and reinforce a new material for t-shirts which is unbreakable).

⬐ zebra

If you are a girl from the Carrie Bradshaw cult it is highly possible that you are buying specific car because you like its color.

⬐ lutorm

You don't buy cars only for their designs.

Oh I disagree. I think designs matter a lot more to a large fraction of people than you might think.

I think luxury cars have much in common with fashion, in the sense that people who would buy a Mercedes would never buy a Hyundai even if it had all those identical IP in it. Once you get above midrange (ie Toyota), a car is much more about status symbols and conspicuous consumption than features. Just like fashion.

⬐ sambeau

I've often wondered about Chefs in this respect, too.

While it seems really unfair that the guy who 'invented' Bannoffee Pie never made his fortune from it it has generally been of benefit to society as:

a) we can all eat Bannoffe pie as anyone can make it and b) it doesn't appear to stifle the creation of new recipes.

Plus if there had been IP protection for the creation of Bannoffee pie I seem fairly sure that the Chef would never have seen any benefit - just the owner of the restaurant and whichever chain store or supermarket he eventually sold the IP to.

⬐ Charuru

> just the owner of the restaurant and whichever chain store or supermarket he eventually sold the IP to

This sounds like substantial benefit?

⬐ daten

This isn't a benefit to the chef himself, just his employer. And with IP restrictions limiting the spread of the product, it may not become very popular and the money made by the restaurant and its partners may be very small relative to the benefit to society without those restrictions.

⬐ mikecarlucci

Plus with cooking it can be possible to hide a secret ingredient/cooking technique with trade secret protection. Look how far Coca Cola has come without ever giving up their exact formula. We have many varieties of "cola" to choose from, but still only one Coke.

⬐ sambeau

I was taken by the idea that when anyone can broadly copy anyone else, the details become more important.

Without copy-protection companies would take the time to get the details right rather than protect their IP and sit on their laurels.

We would get fewer big leaps but a lot more iteration. Drug companies would be constantly trying to release products that are 1 or 2% better than the last one.

I suspect that this would work in society's favour.

⬐ rick888

"I suspect that this would work in society's favour."

maybe, but it would most likely take the profitability out of most good ideas for small companies. As soon as a good idea is seen as profitable, a bigger company with more resources (connections, time, money, employees) could come along and run with it.

Once companies got to a certain level, they could just sit there on their laurels and poach ideas from others. Over time, this would result in less and less innovation and we would probably have a few big companies in each industry.

⬐ Daishiman

Umm, we're already there. Chinese knockoffs? There are entire industries that attempt to replicate original. The originals still stand and are more profitable than the knockoffs.

People in first-world countries fail to realize that for most third-world economies with very little IP enforcement, the era of cheap replication and no IP has been around for decades, yet none of the nightmarish worst-case scenarios have appeared.

⬐ kiba

It is my opinion that people won't start copying until you become profitable, or at least popular.

People can't just copy whatever people come up with, because lot of these ideas will fail. So they will try to copy successful models/products. The only problem is, if they wait too long, they will lose most of the potential profits.

That's called the first mover advantage and I believe it to be sufficient incentives.(Because ya simply got there first, before anybody else, therefore you get looot of money!)

Sometime people also just never got around to copying you. This is especially true in my experience. My website once got a huge traffic spike from digg one time. Despite the overwhelming traffic, nobody ever forked my site despite its liberal copyright policies.

Heck, the first mover advantages apply to the American publishing industry centuries ago, when there is no recognition of foreign copyright. In some cases, the British authors actually earn more from their sale of manuscript to American publisher(so they can be first), than they do from royalties in their own country.

⬐ AlisdairO

> (Because ya simply got there first, before anybody else, therefore you get looot of money!)

It's a sufficient advantage in slow moving industries, or ones where the cost of innovation is very low. In a world where an exact duplicate of a product can be made in very little time, it's very little advantage at all.

Your website is a prime example of something where the cost of innovation is extremely low (and further, the popularity is short term). If you consider the cost of designing and producing a new car, say, compared with the cost of copying the design and reproducing it, the economics look a little different.

⬐ kiba

As far as I know, the first mover advantage pretty much applies everywhere, even in a world where everything can be duplicated in very little time. Heck, Redhat is a prime example of the first mover advantage.

As far as I know, industries as wide as steam engines, movies, sheet musics, software, fashions, agriculture, books, newspaper etc have no problem thriving without intellectual monopolies.(ERrr..actually Hollywood moved to California to escape the Edison patent regime. Patents delayed the evolution of steam engines quite a bit and divert inventor resource from R&D and production to lawyering.)

Either your theory is wrong, or there's more to it than just first mover advantage.

⬐ AlisdairO

First a note: I'm certainly of the opinion that the system as it stands is excessively in favour of intellectual monopolies - particularly when it comes to software patents. I just don't hold the opinion that taking the other extreme is productive.

There's the obvious prime example: drugs manufacture. The cost to research drugs and then test them is astronomical, while the cost of producing them is often very low. Much of the cost of the drug then, pays for the original research. It takes quite some time for the drugs to pay back the research cost.

What, then, is the solution to making money in this sector without intellectual monopolies? Personally, I'm in favour of no intellectual monopolies in areas where the cost of creation is high. Where the cost is lower (new, fast moving industries, for example), IP terms would be reduced or eliminated.

⬐ kiba

The cost of creation is alway high relative to manufacture. It may not be measured in dollars, but it can be measured in time. The cost of writing books, the cost of fact-checking, and the cost of marketing, all add up. Think about the plant growers who must breed generations and generations of plant? Take my website for example, the opportunity cost in creating the content is enormous. Duplicating only takes a few hundred dollars and maybe 3 hours. RedHat almost certainly spend millions of dollars investing developer man hours in their distro and the linux kernel.

The pharmaceutical industry costs' is surely higher than usual. However, the original drugs can sell for very high price, even when generic versions introduce market pressure.

The high cost of creation is not unique, and not limited to pharmaceutical industry. It is only relatively speaking that pharmaceutical industry's creation cost is much higher.(Don't forget that some of the cost are certainly inflated by an overly risk averse regulatory agency.)

In any case, introducing intellectual monopolies is a dicey game. Not only you must balance the incentives, you must also manage the bureaucracy, take into account wasted cost opportunity that could have went into research and marketing. If somebody exploit a loophole, it would take forever to change the law because congress is slow, or because of huge opposition pressure. People can be brought to favor certain corporations.

So you want to support a system of intellectual monopoly? Good luck balancing all the incentives, disincentives, and things that come up that you didn't know about. To underestimate the difficulty of managing a regulatory system is to fall prey to the planning fallacy.

⬐ AlisdairO

I agree that the cost of writing books is high, which is why we have copyright. Your website is a poor example: you wrote something which was popular for maybe a few days/weeks. Your investment was (I assume) repaid over that time. To any viewer of your site, there is no cost to visiting you over visiting any other site, so there is no incentive to find/use an alternative source. I completely agree that, in such a scenario, being the first to market is a sufficient benefit, and that such content doesn't need much in the way of protection.

Some drugs are expensive to manufacture, yes. A great many aren't, too. Regardless of that, the company that doesn't have to invest in researching the drug will always be able to turn out a cheaper product, and thus reap the large majority of the profit: there being an incentive in this case for consumers to find cheaper companies. There is no reasonable likelihood of the company doing the research covering its costs in this scenario. If drugs had a life span of a few months, this wouldn't be the case, but they are used for much longer periods of time.

I don't underestimate the difficulty of running a regulatory agency: so much is plain from the mess that the US' system is currently in. I just think that the alternative of making research in many industries a waste of time is even worse. While I favour a more radical overhaul, a few simple changes, such as eliminating software patents, would make the US system much more reasonable.

⬐ kiba

I agree that the cost of writing books is high, which is why we have copyright. Your website is a poor example: you wrote something which was popular for maybe a few days/weeks. Your investment was (I assume) repaid over that time. To any viewer of your site, there is no cost to visiting you over visiting any other site, so there is no incentive to find/use an alternative source. I completely agree that, in such a scenario, being the first to market is a sufficient benefit, and that such content doesn't need much in the way of protection.

Now, are you simply just glossing over what I have told you about books and British authors? Do I have to point to you to an example of a public domain video game that actually made money? Since when my website stop being visible to the world after digg has made it through? I still get thousands of visitors each month.

such as eliminating software patents, would make the US system much more reasonable.

Do you have any sense of history whatsoever? When is at any point in history that the US patent system actually function the way it supposed to?

I can points to you horror stories about patents gone bad in the 19th century and the music sheet wars as well various submarine patents.

It's not some problem that suddenly pop up in some modern time that only impact the last 30 years or so. It's a problem that exists throughout economic history.

⬐ AlisdairO

I did see what you wrote about British authors, I just didn't really consider it relevant:

> Heck, the first mover advantages apply to the American publishing industry centuries ago, when there is no recognition of foreign copyright. In some cases, the British authors actually earn more from their sale of manuscript to American publisher(so they can be first), than they do from royalties in their own country.

I read this as "Way back, when distribution was substantially slower, so copying was much harder, some people's books were much more popular in the US than in Britain."

Seriously. In the modern world, all that you need is for one person to pay, and make a copy. All other copies can then be made for free. The advantage to being first in this situation is microscopic.

> Do I have to point to you to an example of a public domain video game that actually made money?

More per developer-hour than a decent commercial game? I'd certainly be interested if more than a tiny handful had pulled this off, yes.

> Since when my website stop being visible to the world after digg has made it through? I still get thousands of visitors each month.

Thousands of visits per month is hardly going to be of interest to someone looking to make real money. The initial digg spike would be, but I covered that earlier.

> Do you have any sense of history whatsoever? When is at any point in history that the US patent system actually function the way it supposed to?

Of course you can point at problems. I said that the system would be made much more reasonable, not that it would be fixed. You seem to be thinking I'm coming at this from an idealistic 'I love IP' angle, rather than a pragmatic point of view. I do get that the system causes issues - I just think your alternative is much worse.