And I am the one who is advocating changes to our enforcement mechanisms to better police piracy (in all its forms)....
And there are costs to all enforcement techniques, and you seem shocked, shocked when it is asked that you weigh these against the costs of violations, or to take into account the distributive impact.
I am doing no such thing. I have already said that I can't imagine a full blown military invasion to stop IP theft, and that, despite the reprehensible stances that India and China take on IP, I would not press the issue with them. I believe that our archaic laws could do with a thorough revamp here, and that things could change while still being a net positive. I do not think that any reason has been out forth in this thread for why our current system is the exact, optimal amount of IP enforcement.
You have disclaimed full-blown military invasion. But what about drone strikes and naval blockades? Do you still like those, too?
I replied to your question almost immediately: I said policing is going to become more rather than less flexible. The costs are gradually inching upward, because policing is becoming harder, so the optimal level of enforcement is gradually receding. Merely legislating that copyright terms should be another twenty years past the existing period is already consciously like sitting on the beach and commanding the tide to turn. It has been more than a decade since the primary constraints on casual piracy are what people will tolerate in their technology rather than what legislators can come up with.
Policing is only becoming harder because there are entrenched interests that want to see it get harder.
... what? You don't think that the rise of Mega and the return of DDL sites has anything to do with, say, the cheapness of bandwidth and server space? It's all down to the malevolence of the Big Men of IT history, without whom there could surely have been no other possible malefactors?
And I am the one who is advocating changes to our enforcement mechanisms to better police piracy (in all its forms)....
And there are costs to all enforcement techniques, and you seem shocked, shocked when it is asked that you weigh these against the costs of violations, or to take into account the distributive impact.
I am doing no such thing. I have already said that I can't imagine a full blown military invasion to stop IP theft, and that, despite the reprehensible stances that India and China take on IP, I would not press the issue with them. I believe that our archaic laws could do with a thorough revamp here, and that things could change while still being a net positive. I do not think that any reason has been out forth in this thread for why our current system is the exact, optimal amount of IP enforcement.
You have disclaimed full-blown military invasion. But what about drone strikes and naval blockades? Do you still like those, too?
I replied to your question almost immediately: I said policing is going to become more rather than less flexible. The costs are gradually inching upward, because policing is becoming harder, so the optimal level of enforcement is gradually receding. Merely legislating that copyright terms should be another twenty years past the existing period is already consciously like sitting on the beach and commanding the tide to turn. It has been more than a decade since the primary constraints on casual piracy are what people will tolerate in their technology rather than what legislators can come up with.
Policing is only becoming harder because there are entrenched interests that want to see it get harder.
... what? You don't think that the rise of Mega and the return of DDL sites has anything to do with, say, the cheapness of bandwidth and server space? It's all down to the malevolence of the Big Men of IT history, without whom there could surely have been no other possible malefactors?
(AH, honestly, when you start linking to authors decrying "government regulation" and calling for industry self-regulation, you may want to have some alarm bells going off)
Those reports have a regular turn-over in ad companies, even though these are companies that have to swap cash with brick and mortar at some point, precisely because server-hopping has become much easier.
(AH, honestly, when you start linking to authors decrying "government regulation" and calling for industry self-regulation, you may want to have some alarm bells going off)
Those reports have a regular turn-over in ad companies, even though these are companies that have to swap cash with brick and mortar at some point, precisely because server-hopping has become much easier.
So you're saying that it's impossible to track where the ads are going?
(AH, honestly, when you start linking to authors decrying "government regulation" and calling for industry self-regulation, you may want to have some alarm bells going off)
Those reports have a regular turn-over in ad companies, even though these are companies that have to swap cash with brick and mortar at some point, precisely because server-hopping has become much easier.
So you're saying that it's impossible to track where the ads are going?
given the prevalence of ads that push actively illegal malware...?
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
edited May 2013
New law: anyone caught using bit torrent or a site on a list of "pirate sites" gets 3 warnings, then gets hit with a huge fine. The ISPs will all gladly help with enforcement.
I don't think that law enforcement needs to be very costly or ineffective. It just requires new laws.
The drone strike suggestion was a bit over the top, no? I have been talking about sanctions or our military coming into other countries (with the permission of said countries) to help them root out physical piracy like drug or DVD pirating plants. That is as far as I have gone, I believe. Anything more than that, and I think the cost benefit analysis becomes problematic, given world reaction. If the first world all agree that drones are appropriate? Then it's a different story,but in practice, the cost is probably still higher than the benefit, unless we allowed rights holders to foot the bill, maybe. But this is all moot, because there is no way that the world would approve. Also ultimately, as much as I hate to say it, no one is telling IP holders that they need to use the cheap labor in these countries. The real world calculus is complex and filled with less than pure motives like actually liking that a country is lax on law enforcement in general, because you like having workers with no effective legal protections more than you hate IP infringement.
You don't see the perversion in having a strong military nation which is forced to endure rockets being fired over its borders for all time because it isn't allowed to remove them? This is honestly a concept that I can't quite grasp. Governments are able to subvert the usual "might makes right" course among their citizens because the government itself is so much stronger than any individual. That is not the case in the international community.
Lets say that President Obama was to read this thread and say "that Spacekungfuman is making a lot of sense. I'm branding all the knock off pill factories in Myanmar as terrorist cells and sending drones in to blow them up tomorrow." Would the US face effective sanctions? Would it face any sanctions at all? Can the UN even really sanction the US?
You'll pardon me if I did not read Burmese co-operation into this.
As for three-strikes laws, you may be interested to learn that ISPs are unenthusiastic instead. Might you be able to guess why?
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Three strikes laws are also technically difficult - it'd b laughably easy to spoof ip and mac information to make it seem like any other jerk you want is cruising for a strike.
If you put it to a democratic one-man-one-vote, most of the world's population would be in favour of things that work for poor countries rather than rich countries, because most people alive today are poor.
It's not that they are jerks, inasmuch as they think that this doesn't belong to you.
And now we are returning to the type of rhetoric that first prompted the suggestion that more force ought to be used against these countries. Countries can lose legitimacy when they fail to protect their people's property rights. It seems to me that telling foreign citizens from powerful nations that you don't care about their property and are taking it from them would not be the most prudent course of action if said nation cares about remaining a nation in good standing in the international community.
which, as I pointed out, is true of pretty much every raising of taxes that affects foreigners to some degree
now there is much to be said against the notion of going to war against countries that dare to nationalize your stuff, on moral grounds, but as a practical matter this is no longer credible as a threat. even at the height of colonial extraction, expenses generally exceeded gains. it was only ever attractive because the gains went to a tiny elite, whereas the costs could be widely distributed. today war is even more costly and non-war is ever more attractive, even if it means accepting that someone has the audacity to tax you. If you still desire war, your opponents are not five thousand miles across the sea. Your opponents are sitting opposite you, across the benches, and they very much doubt that the allegedly fabulous gains from proto-colonial conquest will accrue to them.
I am the last person to object to the argument from prudence. There are endless frothing socialists who are shocked, shocked that when a plucky anti-colonial revolutionary movement seized farmland and mines, their newfound revolutionary government suddenly found all their nearby enemies being armed with Western guns. We only failed because the capitalists of the world turned against us! Well, yeah, I wonder why? But I also recognize that in general Americans did not benefit much from Latin American adventurism.
This again goes back to your point about consistent enforcement. A tax is the result of a formal government enactment, and once you know of it, you can plan accordingly. Not so with the illegal and random seizure of rights by a foreign government. I grant that governments have the right to tax, but that does not mean that they have the right to just seize anything from anyone at any time.
Really? So governments are not allowed to change tax law, merely because someone has already bought stuff in anticipation of such and such a level of taxes on its return?
Of course tax laws can be changed, but such change is affected through a prescribed, lawful process. It is also an axiom of tax design that taxes should only be prospective in nature, and that effective dates should be far enough from the date of passage to give people that chance to plan ahead.
What we are talking about is not akin to a tax anyway. It is the illegal (i.e., in contravention of treaties), ad hoc total taking of one individual's rights. If a country was to pass a law with a prospective effective date saying that from that date on they will not respect any IP, that would be fine IMO. But they are never so consistent or above board.
While I disagree with that law pretty strongly, yes, that legitimizes the actions of these countries w/r/t drugs. Still doesn't help with things like DVDs or handbags though.
On what grounds do you disagree with that law?
You've already made allowances for violations of property rights in times of grave need - technically, its called necessity, and it includes cases where you need to break into a house to get a phone to call an ambulance, stealing a car to rush someone to the hospital etcetc - so you're on board with the principle that property rights can be violated if the need is sufficiently large on the individual scale.
You've previously argument that a government legitimately engage in ethnic cleansing, and aside from outright genocide, there's no violation of property rights more fundamental than using the threat of force and/or adverse economic conditions to force someone of their land, so you can't object to the idea of the TRIPS exception by arguing that the government has some obligation to maintain property rights that goes aboves the individuals obligation to respect them. Nor can you really object to the fundamental idea that the government can seize property "from anyone at an any time" - there's hardly any property seizure more arbitrary than one precceded by a military invasion.
How can you express dislike for a law that enshrines the legality of an act you've argued a government is obliged to take whether its illegal or not?
edit: I misplaced an important negation >_>
My disagreement is based on the breadth of the rule and the strong/weak country case. I agree that the countries have an obligation to advance the interests ahead of their citizens, but I don't like how the weak government's sphere of influence is artificially expanded, much like how the Pslestinian government is allowed to take pot shots at its stronger neighbor without much fear of retaliation, while the stronger neighbor cannot just take over the weaker neighbor and end the situation.
But that's ok. You can disagree with valid laws. Doesn't change the fact that they are valid, and make government action in this one case legitimate. But like I said before, it doesn't validate the non-enforcement taking place w/r/t other IP.
Which is a silly position because there is no natural state in which intellectual property is domestically, much less universally, recognized - it is by its very design an artificial construct - nor is there, under your nation-building paradigm where a government is not loyal to principles of governance (like the declaration of human rights) rather than the shifting "interests" of the people, a natural state in which one nation is morally obliged to recognize the IP of another nation.
Basically, your idea of the "natural sphere of influence of strong nations", that would shrink when we opt for treaties rather than multipolar wars, is completely disconnected from reality. It is not at all what actually happened throughout history.
Don't get me wrong, since I do believe in the declaration of human rights my personal opinion is that IP should be protected - while need creates entitlement, you never really need a handbag with "Guci" on it - and that countries who sign treaties and enact laws should fucking follow them, whether they're about the treatment of designer shoes or occupied territory. What sticks in my craw is how you mangle your own framework into incoherence to squeeze in moral outrage over a governments lax attitude towards IP theft - a "low class" activity apparently, that you couldn't dream of condoning - while accepting ethnic cleansing as a valid method of governance, and lamenting the fact that the option of ethnic cleansing is no longer available to nations that wish to call themselves civilized.
And incoherence aside, your acceptance of the latter makes your outrage at the former reek of violent self-interest rather than moral fiber.
New law: anyone caught using bit torrent or a site on a list of "pirate sites" gets 3 warnings, then gets hit with a huge fine. The ISPs will all gladly help with enforcement.
So you advocate fining everyone who plays World of Warcraft?
Bittorrent isn't exclusively for piracy, and is seeing a steady increase in it's use for pushing out legal material to consumers. Specifically large MMO patches and Linux ISOs, which are a legitimate use even if they are the go-to excuse. It's an excellent system for shifting bandwidth costs from the business to the end user, as the business will only have to upload it a couple of times and all the consumers will handle the rest.
And unless someone is going to be paying the ISPs, there's going to be no "gladly" in their assistance. They aren't going to want to pay for massive filitering arrangements or for dedicated staff to trawl through logs just so they can play copyright cop on somebody else's behalf. Not to mention how easy it would be for the ISPs, who do still have deep pockets, to spin it as "Obama wants to watch everything you do on the Internet!" and get it shot down in the court of public opinion.
Tri-Optimum reminds you that there are only one-hundred-sixty-three shopping days until Christmas. Just 1 extra work cycle twice a week will give you the spending money you need to make this holiday a very special one.
New law: anyone caught using bit torrent or a site on a list of "pirate sites" gets 3 warnings, then gets hit with a huge fine. The ISPs will all gladly help with enforcement.
I don't think that law enforcement needs to be very costly or ineffective. It just requires new laws.
The drone strike suggestion was a bit over the top, no? I have been talking about sanctions or our military coming into other countries (with the permission of said countries) to help them root out physical piracy like drug or DVD pirating plants. That is as far as I have gone, I believe. Anything more than that, and I think the cost benefit analysis becomes problematic, given world reaction. If the first world all agree that drones are appropriate? Then it's a different story,but in practice, the cost is probably still higher than the benefit, unless we allowed rights holders to foot the bill, maybe. But this is all moot, because there is no way that the world would approve. Also ultimately, as much as I hate to say it, no one is telling IP holders that they need to use the cheap labor in these countries. The real world calculus is complex and filled with less than pure motives like actually liking that a country is lax on law enforcement in general, because you like having workers with no effective legal protections more than you hate IP infringement.
Don't the management get pressured by shareholders to do that so their profits remain as high as possible? That's a downside to pure capitalism. When your main priority is money ethics and standards go out the window.
New law: anyone caught using bit torrent or a site on a list of "pirate sites" gets 3 warnings, then gets hit with a huge fine. The ISPs will all gladly help with enforcement.
So you advocate fining everyone who plays World of Warcraft?
Bittorrent isn't exclusively for piracy, and is seeing a steady increase in it's use for pushing out legal material to consumers. Specifically large MMO patches and Linux ISOs, which are a legitimate use even if they are the go-to excuse. It's an excellent system for shifting bandwidth costs from the business to the end user, as the business will only have to upload it a couple of times and all the consumers will handle the rest.
And unless someone is going to be paying the ISPs, there's going to be no "gladly" in their assistance. They aren't going to want to pay for massive filitering arrangements or for dedicated staff to trawl through logs just so they can play copyright cop on somebody else's behalf. Not to mention how easy it would be for the ISPs, who do still have deep pockets, to spin it as "Obama wants to watch everything you do on the Internet!" and get it shot down in the court of public opinion.
Hell: Even TPB, the bastion of villainy that works it's hardest to bring down commerce worldwide , have plenty of torrents for material with rightholders' given consent or simply public domain (an anathema in this day and age) and are thus legal to share. This technology=crime stance pisses me off to no end. I got hold of a decent movie from TPB that the director couldn't get any distribution for, so in the end she decided to just make it freely available with torrents.
Panda4You on
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
You don't see the perversion in having a strong military nation which is forced to endure rockets being fired over its borders for all time because it isn't allowed to remove them? This is honestly a concept that I can't quite grasp. Governments are able to subvert the usual "might makes right" course among their citizens because the government itself is so much stronger than any individual. That is not the case in the international community.
Lets say that President Obama was to read this thread and say "that Spacekungfuman is making a lot of sense. I'm branding all the knock off pill factories in Myanmar as terrorist cells and sending drones in to blow them up tomorrow." Would the US face effective sanctions? Would it face any sanctions at all? Can the UN even really sanction the US?
You'll pardon me if I did not read Burmese co-operation into this.
As for three-strikes laws, you may be interested to learn that ISPs are unenthusiastic instead. Might you be able to guess why?
It is my understanding that drones are used with the cooperation of the country they are used in in virtually every case, but regardless, I thought that was pretty clearly a hypothetical meant to show that even the strongest play against another country would not result in sanctions against the US.
ISPs already look for ways to stop pirates from using up all their bandwidth, so I am sure you could craft some law that they would be happy to cooperate with, even if it is based on them just sending notices to customers when a content holder complains.
New law: anyone caught using bit torrent or a site on a list of "pirate sites" gets 3 warnings, then gets hit with a huge fine. The ISPs will all gladly help with enforcement.
So you advocate fining everyone who plays World of Warcraft?
Bittorrent isn't exclusively for piracy, and is seeing a steady increase in it's use for pushing out legal material to consumers. Specifically large MMO patches and Linux ISOs, which are a legitimate use even if they are the go-to excuse. It's an excellent system for shifting bandwidth costs from the business to the end user, as the business will only have to upload it a couple of times and all the consumers will handle the rest.
And unless someone is going to be paying the ISPs, there's going to be no "gladly" in their assistance. They aren't going to want to pay for massive filitering arrangements or for dedicated staff to trawl through logs just so they can play copyright cop on somebody else's behalf. Not to mention how easy it would be for the ISPs, who do still have deep pockets, to spin it as "Obama wants to watch everything you do on the Internet!" and get it shot down in the court of public opinion.
It doesn't matter if there are legitimate uses. There are legitimate uses for lots of things that we make illegal. Remember, the goal here is increased enforcement without a large increase in cost. Giving ISPs the ability to crack down hard on major uses of their bandwidth by a small number of customers seems consistent with that goal.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
If you put it to a democratic one-man-one-vote, most of the world's population would be in favour of things that work for poor countries rather than rich countries, because most people alive today are poor.
It's not that they are jerks, inasmuch as they think that this doesn't belong to you.
And now we are returning to the type of rhetoric that first prompted the suggestion that more force ought to be used against these countries. Countries can lose legitimacy when they fail to protect their people's property rights. It seems to me that telling foreign citizens from powerful nations that you don't care about their property and are taking it from them would not be the most prudent course of action if said nation cares about remaining a nation in good standing in the international community.
which, as I pointed out, is true of pretty much every raising of taxes that affects foreigners to some degree
now there is much to be said against the notion of going to war against countries that dare to nationalize your stuff, on moral grounds, but as a practical matter this is no longer credible as a threat. even at the height of colonial extraction, expenses generally exceeded gains. it was only ever attractive because the gains went to a tiny elite, whereas the costs could be widely distributed. today war is even more costly and non-war is ever more attractive, even if it means accepting that someone has the audacity to tax you. If you still desire war, your opponents are not five thousand miles across the sea. Your opponents are sitting opposite you, across the benches, and they very much doubt that the allegedly fabulous gains from proto-colonial conquest will accrue to them.
I am the last person to object to the argument from prudence. There are endless frothing socialists who are shocked, shocked that when a plucky anti-colonial revolutionary movement seized farmland and mines, their newfound revolutionary government suddenly found all their nearby enemies being armed with Western guns. We only failed because the capitalists of the world turned against us! Well, yeah, I wonder why? But I also recognize that in general Americans did not benefit much from Latin American adventurism.
This again goes back to your point about consistent enforcement. A tax is the result of a formal government enactment, and once you know of it, you can plan accordingly. Not so with the illegal and random seizure of rights by a foreign government. I grant that governments have the right to tax, but that does not mean that they have the right to just seize anything from anyone at any time.
Really? So governments are not allowed to change tax law, merely because someone has already bought stuff in anticipation of such and such a level of taxes on its return?
Of course tax laws can be changed, but such change is affected through a prescribed, lawful process. It is also an axiom of tax design that taxes should only be prospective in nature, and that effective dates should be far enough from the date of passage to give people that chance to plan ahead.
What we are talking about is not akin to a tax anyway. It is the illegal (i.e., in contravention of treaties), ad hoc total taking of one individual's rights. If a country was to pass a law with a prospective effective date saying that from that date on they will not respect any IP, that would be fine IMO. But they are never so consistent or above board.
While I disagree with that law pretty strongly, yes, that legitimizes the actions of these countries w/r/t drugs. Still doesn't help with things like DVDs or handbags though.
On what grounds do you disagree with that law?
You've already made allowances for violations of property rights in times of grave need - technically, its called necessity, and it includes cases where you need to break into a house to get a phone to call an ambulance, stealing a car to rush someone to the hospital etcetc - so you're on board with the principle that property rights can be violated if the need is sufficiently large on the individual scale.
You've previously argument that a government legitimately engage in ethnic cleansing, and aside from outright genocide, there's no violation of property rights more fundamental than using the threat of force and/or adverse economic conditions to force someone of their land, so you can't object to the idea of the TRIPS exception by arguing that the government has some obligation to maintain property rights that goes aboves the individuals obligation to respect them. Nor can you really object to the fundamental idea that the government can seize property "from anyone at an any time" - there's hardly any property seizure more arbitrary than one precceded by a military invasion.
How can you express dislike for a law that enshrines the legality of an act you've argued a government is obliged to take whether its illegal or not?
edit: I misplaced an important negation >_>
My disagreement is based on the breadth of the rule and the strong/weak country case. I agree that the countries have an obligation to advance the interests ahead of their citizens, but I don't like how the weak government's sphere of influence is artificially expanded, much like how the Pslestinian government is allowed to take pot shots at its stronger neighbor without much fear of retaliation, while the stronger neighbor cannot just take over the weaker neighbor and end the situation.
But that's ok. You can disagree with valid laws. Doesn't change the fact that they are valid, and make government action in this one case legitimate. But like I said before, it doesn't validate the non-enforcement taking place w/r/t other IP.
Which is a silly position because there is no natural state in which intellectual property is domestically, much less universally, recognized - it is by its very design an artificial construct - nor is there, under your nation-building paradigm where a government is not loyal to principles of governance (like the declaration of human rights) rather than the shifting "interests" of the people, a natural state in which one nation is morally obliged to recognize the IP of another nation.
Basically, your idea of the "natural sphere of influence of strong nations", that would shrink when we opt for treaties rather than multipolar wars, is completely disconnected from reality. It is not at all what actually happened throughout history.
Don't get me wrong, since I do believe in the declaration of human rights my personal opinion is that IP should be protected - while need creates entitlement, you never really need a handbag with "Guci" on it - and that countries who sign treaties and enact laws should fucking follow them, whether they're about the treatment of designer shoes or occupied territory. What sticks in my craw is how you mangle your own framework into incoherence to squeeze in moral outrage over a governments lax attitude towards IP theft - a "low class" activity apparently, that you couldn't dream of condoning - while accepting ethnic cleansing as a valid method of governance, and lamenting the fact that the option of ethnic cleansing is no longer available to nations that wish to call themselves civilized.
And incoherence aside, your acceptance of the latter makes your outrage at the former reek of violent self-interest rather than moral fiber.
You are misconstruing my position. First, we should not use "natural rights" because that is really irrelevant (if they even exist). The rights that matter are only those that your government recognizes. Foreign governments are free to choose whether or not to recognize these rights, but the powers of any government only exist as fear as they can project them. I see no inconsistency in lamenting that the US cannot force IP protections in poor nations and that Israel cannot use full force to seize all the Palestinian land. In both cases, international treaties and laws prevent the stronger country from using its power against the weaker country, and the result is an artificially strengthened sphere of influence for the weaker group.
This is all theoretical of course, since I don't think that the US should go invade these countries. I just think (like you) that laws should be endorced, and a failure to comply with these treaties should carry a meaningful sanction from the WTO or elsewhere.
It doesn't matter if there are legitimate uses. There are legitimate uses for lots of things that we make illegal. Remember, the goal here is increased enforcement without a large increase in cost. Giving ISPs the ability to crack down hard on major uses of their bandwidth by a small number of customers seems consistent with that goal.
Unless the nature of geopolitics changes radically that is a non-starter in today's political climate. Might as well wish for unicorns and dragons to solve your problems with IP law.
If you put it to a democratic one-man-one-vote, most of the world's population would be in favour of things that work for poor countries rather than rich countries, because most people alive today are poor.
It's not that they are jerks, inasmuch as they think that this doesn't belong to you.
And now we are returning to the type of rhetoric that first prompted the suggestion that more force ought to be used against these countries. Countries can lose legitimacy when they fail to protect their people's property rights. It seems to me that telling foreign citizens from powerful nations that you don't care about their property and are taking it from them would not be the most prudent course of action if said nation cares about remaining a nation in good standing in the international community.
which, as I pointed out, is true of pretty much every raising of taxes that affects foreigners to some degree
now there is much to be said against the notion of going to war against countries that dare to nationalize your stuff, on moral grounds, but as a practical matter this is no longer credible as a threat. even at the height of colonial extraction, expenses generally exceeded gains. it was only ever attractive because the gains went to a tiny elite, whereas the costs could be widely distributed. today war is even more costly and non-war is ever more attractive, even if it means accepting that someone has the audacity to tax you. If you still desire war, your opponents are not five thousand miles across the sea. Your opponents are sitting opposite you, across the benches, and they very much doubt that the allegedly fabulous gains from proto-colonial conquest will accrue to them.
I am the last person to object to the argument from prudence. There are endless frothing socialists who are shocked, shocked that when a plucky anti-colonial revolutionary movement seized farmland and mines, their newfound revolutionary government suddenly found all their nearby enemies being armed with Western guns. We only failed because the capitalists of the world turned against us! Well, yeah, I wonder why? But I also recognize that in general Americans did not benefit much from Latin American adventurism.
This again goes back to your point about consistent enforcement. A tax is the result of a formal government enactment, and once you know of it, you can plan accordingly. Not so with the illegal and random seizure of rights by a foreign government. I grant that governments have the right to tax, but that does not mean that they have the right to just seize anything from anyone at any time.
Really? So governments are not allowed to change tax law, merely because someone has already bought stuff in anticipation of such and such a level of taxes on its return?
Of course tax laws can be changed, but such change is affected through a prescribed, lawful process. It is also an axiom of tax design that taxes should only be prospective in nature, and that effective dates should be far enough from the date of passage to give people that chance to plan ahead.
What we are talking about is not akin to a tax anyway. It is the illegal (i.e., in contravention of treaties), ad hoc total taking of one individual's rights. If a country was to pass a law with a prospective effective date saying that from that date on they will not respect any IP, that would be fine IMO. But they are never so consistent or above board.
While I disagree with that law pretty strongly, yes, that legitimizes the actions of these countries w/r/t drugs. Still doesn't help with things like DVDs or handbags though.
On what grounds do you disagree with that law?
You've already made allowances for violations of property rights in times of grave need - technically, its called necessity, and it includes cases where you need to break into a house to get a phone to call an ambulance, stealing a car to rush someone to the hospital etcetc - so you're on board with the principle that property rights can be violated if the need is sufficiently large on the individual scale.
You've previously argument that a government legitimately engage in ethnic cleansing, and aside from outright genocide, there's no violation of property rights more fundamental than using the threat of force and/or adverse economic conditions to force someone of their land, so you can't object to the idea of the TRIPS exception by arguing that the government has some obligation to maintain property rights that goes aboves the individuals obligation to respect them. Nor can you really object to the fundamental idea that the government can seize property "from anyone at an any time" - there's hardly any property seizure more arbitrary than one precceded by a military invasion.
How can you express dislike for a law that enshrines the legality of an act you've argued a government is obliged to take whether its illegal or not?
edit: I misplaced an important negation >_>
My disagreement is based on the breadth of the rule and the strong/weak country case. I agree that the countries have an obligation to advance the interests ahead of their citizens, but I don't like how the weak government's sphere of influence is artificially expanded, much like how the Pslestinian government is allowed to take pot shots at its stronger neighbor without much fear of retaliation, while the stronger neighbor cannot just take over the weaker neighbor and end the situation.
But that's ok. You can disagree with valid laws. Doesn't change the fact that they are valid, and make government action in this one case legitimate. But like I said before, it doesn't validate the non-enforcement taking place w/r/t other IP.
Which is a silly position because there is no natural state in which intellectual property is domestically, much less universally, recognized - it is by its very design an artificial construct - nor is there, under your nation-building paradigm where a government is not loyal to principles of governance (like the declaration of human rights) rather than the shifting "interests" of the people, a natural state in which one nation is morally obliged to recognize the IP of another nation.
Basically, your idea of the "natural sphere of influence of strong nations", that would shrink when we opt for treaties rather than multipolar wars, is completely disconnected from reality. It is not at all what actually happened throughout history.
Don't get me wrong, since I do believe in the declaration of human rights my personal opinion is that IP should be protected - while need creates entitlement, you never really need a handbag with "Guci" on it - and that countries who sign treaties and enact laws should fucking follow them, whether they're about the treatment of designer shoes or occupied territory. What sticks in my craw is how you mangle your own framework into incoherence to squeeze in moral outrage over a governments lax attitude towards IP theft - a "low class" activity apparently, that you couldn't dream of condoning - while accepting ethnic cleansing as a valid method of governance, and lamenting the fact that the option of ethnic cleansing is no longer available to nations that wish to call themselves civilized.
And incoherence aside, your acceptance of the latter makes your outrage at the former reek of violent self-interest rather than moral fiber.
You are misconstruing my position. First, we should not use "natural rights" because that is really irrelevant (if they even exist). The rights that matter are only those that your government recognizes. Foreign governments are free to choose whether or not to recognize these rights, but the powers of any government only exist as fear as they can project them. I see no inconsistency in lamenting that the US cannot force IP protections in poor nations and that Israel cannot use full force to seize all the Palestinian land. In both cases, international treaties and laws prevent the stronger country from using its power against the weaker country, and the result is an artificially strengthened sphere of influence for the weaker group.
This is all theoretical of course, since I don't think that the US should go invade these countries. I just think (like you) that laws should be endorced, and a failure to comply with these treaties should carry a meaningful sanction from the WTO or elsewhere.
You keep talking about the stronger country in some way losing to the weaker country. But if the stronger country were really stronger, then it wouldn't be losing, would it? I mean, saying "stronger" and "weaker" are extreme generalities. The reality of what's occuring is that the local country is stronger in it's own IP laws (and other physical property laws) than the USA when in that locale.
If you put it to a democratic one-man-one-vote, most of the world's population would be in favour of things that work for poor countries rather than rich countries, because most people alive today are poor.
It's not that they are jerks, inasmuch as they think that this doesn't belong to you.
And now we are returning to the type of rhetoric that first prompted the suggestion that more force ought to be used against these countries. Countries can lose legitimacy when they fail to protect their people's property rights. It seems to me that telling foreign citizens from powerful nations that you don't care about their property and are taking it from them would not be the most prudent course of action if said nation cares about remaining a nation in good standing in the international community.
which, as I pointed out, is true of pretty much every raising of taxes that affects foreigners to some degree
now there is much to be said against the notion of going to war against countries that dare to nationalize your stuff, on moral grounds, but as a practical matter this is no longer credible as a threat. even at the height of colonial extraction, expenses generally exceeded gains. it was only ever attractive because the gains went to a tiny elite, whereas the costs could be widely distributed. today war is even more costly and non-war is ever more attractive, even if it means accepting that someone has the audacity to tax you. If you still desire war, your opponents are not five thousand miles across the sea. Your opponents are sitting opposite you, across the benches, and they very much doubt that the allegedly fabulous gains from proto-colonial conquest will accrue to them.
I am the last person to object to the argument from prudence. There are endless frothing socialists who are shocked, shocked that when a plucky anti-colonial revolutionary movement seized farmland and mines, their newfound revolutionary government suddenly found all their nearby enemies being armed with Western guns. We only failed because the capitalists of the world turned against us! Well, yeah, I wonder why? But I also recognize that in general Americans did not benefit much from Latin American adventurism.
This again goes back to your point about consistent enforcement. A tax is the result of a formal government enactment, and once you know of it, you can plan accordingly. Not so with the illegal and random seizure of rights by a foreign government. I grant that governments have the right to tax, but that does not mean that they have the right to just seize anything from anyone at any time.
Really? So governments are not allowed to change tax law, merely because someone has already bought stuff in anticipation of such and such a level of taxes on its return?
Of course tax laws can be changed, but such change is affected through a prescribed, lawful process. It is also an axiom of tax design that taxes should only be prospective in nature, and that effective dates should be far enough from the date of passage to give people that chance to plan ahead.
What we are talking about is not akin to a tax anyway. It is the illegal (i.e., in contravention of treaties), ad hoc total taking of one individual's rights. If a country was to pass a law with a prospective effective date saying that from that date on they will not respect any IP, that would be fine IMO. But they are never so consistent or above board.
While I disagree with that law pretty strongly, yes, that legitimizes the actions of these countries w/r/t drugs. Still doesn't help with things like DVDs or handbags though.
On what grounds do you disagree with that law?
You've already made allowances for violations of property rights in times of grave need - technically, its called necessity, and it includes cases where you need to break into a house to get a phone to call an ambulance, stealing a car to rush someone to the hospital etcetc - so you're on board with the principle that property rights can be violated if the need is sufficiently large on the individual scale.
You've previously argument that a government legitimately engage in ethnic cleansing, and aside from outright genocide, there's no violation of property rights more fundamental than using the threat of force and/or adverse economic conditions to force someone of their land, so you can't object to the idea of the TRIPS exception by arguing that the government has some obligation to maintain property rights that goes aboves the individuals obligation to respect them. Nor can you really object to the fundamental idea that the government can seize property "from anyone at an any time" - there's hardly any property seizure more arbitrary than one precceded by a military invasion.
How can you express dislike for a law that enshrines the legality of an act you've argued a government is obliged to take whether its illegal or not?
edit: I misplaced an important negation >_>
My disagreement is based on the breadth of the rule and the strong/weak country case. I agree that the countries have an obligation to advance the interests ahead of their citizens, but I don't like how the weak government's sphere of influence is artificially expanded, much like how the Pslestinian government is allowed to take pot shots at its stronger neighbor without much fear of retaliation, while the stronger neighbor cannot just take over the weaker neighbor and end the situation.
But that's ok. You can disagree with valid laws. Doesn't change the fact that they are valid, and make government action in this one case legitimate. But like I said before, it doesn't validate the non-enforcement taking place w/r/t other IP.
Which is a silly position because there is no natural state in which intellectual property is domestically, much less universally, recognized - it is by its very design an artificial construct - nor is there, under your nation-building paradigm where a government is not loyal to principles of governance (like the declaration of human rights) rather than the shifting "interests" of the people, a natural state in which one nation is morally obliged to recognize the IP of another nation.
Basically, your idea of the "natural sphere of influence of strong nations", that would shrink when we opt for treaties rather than multipolar wars, is completely disconnected from reality. It is not at all what actually happened throughout history.
Don't get me wrong, since I do believe in the declaration of human rights my personal opinion is that IP should be protected - while need creates entitlement, you never really need a handbag with "Guci" on it - and that countries who sign treaties and enact laws should fucking follow them, whether they're about the treatment of designer shoes or occupied territory. What sticks in my craw is how you mangle your own framework into incoherence to squeeze in moral outrage over a governments lax attitude towards IP theft - a "low class" activity apparently, that you couldn't dream of condoning - while accepting ethnic cleansing as a valid method of governance, and lamenting the fact that the option of ethnic cleansing is no longer available to nations that wish to call themselves civilized.
And incoherence aside, your acceptance of the latter makes your outrage at the former reek of violent self-interest rather than moral fiber.
You are misconstruing my position. First, we should not use "natural rights" because that is really irrelevant (if they even exist). The rights that matter are only those that your government recognizes. Foreign governments are free to choose whether or not to recognize these rights, but the powers of any government only exist as fear as they can project them. I see no inconsistency in lamenting that the US cannot force IP protections in poor nations and that Israel cannot use full force to seize all the Palestinian land. In both cases, international treaties and laws prevent the stronger country from using its power against the weaker country, and the result is an artificially strengthened sphere of influence for the weaker group.
This is all theoretical of course, since I don't think that the US should go invade these countries. I just think (like you) that laws should be endorced, and a failure to comply with these treaties should carry a meaningful sanction from the WTO or elsewhere.
You keep talking about the stronger country in some way losing to the weaker country. But if the stronger country were really stronger, then it wouldn't be losing, would it? I mean, saying "stronger" and "weaker" are extreme generalities. The reality of what's occuring is that the local country is stronger in it's own IP laws (and other physical property laws) than the USA when in that locale.
Edit: sorry this is directed at SKFM in general.
The US is a very powerful country but it cannot be powerful everywhere at once. It would fall apart if it tried. Stop focussing on how strong the US is and more on how strong it is in these violating countries.
Remember that invasion is never going to be economically viable. So that is off the table.
Force projection into other countries via arresting their citizens for violation of US law is A. Global political suicide/ Act of War. B. Incredibly expensive and dangerous. C. Domestic political suicide too, if any of your men die in the process.
Your only remaining options are sanctions, and the money flows both ways here, so it will cost the US as well. It will also take the government wanting to act on the interests of private companies in a very obvious fashion.
Really it is just not worth it. So why bother. You might be "stronger" but you are not going to be "stronger" against the whole playground.
Antinumeric on
In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my intelligence.
If you put it to a democratic one-man-one-vote, most of the world's population would be in favour of things that work for poor countries rather than rich countries, because most people alive today are poor.
It's not that they are jerks, inasmuch as they think that this doesn't belong to you.
And now we are returning to the type of rhetoric that first prompted the suggestion that more force ought to be used against these countries. Countries can lose legitimacy when they fail to protect their people's property rights. It seems to me that telling foreign citizens from powerful nations that you don't care about their property and are taking it from them would not be the most prudent course of action if said nation cares about remaining a nation in good standing in the international community.
which, as I pointed out, is true of pretty much every raising of taxes that affects foreigners to some degree
now there is much to be said against the notion of going to war against countries that dare to nationalize your stuff, on moral grounds, but as a practical matter this is no longer credible as a threat. even at the height of colonial extraction, expenses generally exceeded gains. it was only ever attractive because the gains went to a tiny elite, whereas the costs could be widely distributed. today war is even more costly and non-war is ever more attractive, even if it means accepting that someone has the audacity to tax you. If you still desire war, your opponents are not five thousand miles across the sea. Your opponents are sitting opposite you, across the benches, and they very much doubt that the allegedly fabulous gains from proto-colonial conquest will accrue to them.
I am the last person to object to the argument from prudence. There are endless frothing socialists who are shocked, shocked that when a plucky anti-colonial revolutionary movement seized farmland and mines, their newfound revolutionary government suddenly found all their nearby enemies being armed with Western guns. We only failed because the capitalists of the world turned against us! Well, yeah, I wonder why? But I also recognize that in general Americans did not benefit much from Latin American adventurism.
This again goes back to your point about consistent enforcement. A tax is the result of a formal government enactment, and once you know of it, you can plan accordingly. Not so with the illegal and random seizure of rights by a foreign government. I grant that governments have the right to tax, but that does not mean that they have the right to just seize anything from anyone at any time.
Really? So governments are not allowed to change tax law, merely because someone has already bought stuff in anticipation of such and such a level of taxes on its return?
Of course tax laws can be changed, but such change is affected through a prescribed, lawful process. It is also an axiom of tax design that taxes should only be prospective in nature, and that effective dates should be far enough from the date of passage to give people that chance to plan ahead.
What we are talking about is not akin to a tax anyway. It is the illegal (i.e., in contravention of treaties), ad hoc total taking of one individual's rights. If a country was to pass a law with a prospective effective date saying that from that date on they will not respect any IP, that would be fine IMO. But they are never so consistent or above board.
While I disagree with that law pretty strongly, yes, that legitimizes the actions of these countries w/r/t drugs. Still doesn't help with things like DVDs or handbags though.
On what grounds do you disagree with that law?
You've already made allowances for violations of property rights in times of grave need - technically, its called necessity, and it includes cases where you need to break into a house to get a phone to call an ambulance, stealing a car to rush someone to the hospital etcetc - so you're on board with the principle that property rights can be violated if the need is sufficiently large on the individual scale.
You've previously argument that a government legitimately engage in ethnic cleansing, and aside from outright genocide, there's no violation of property rights more fundamental than using the threat of force and/or adverse economic conditions to force someone of their land, so you can't object to the idea of the TRIPS exception by arguing that the government has some obligation to maintain property rights that goes aboves the individuals obligation to respect them. Nor can you really object to the fundamental idea that the government can seize property "from anyone at an any time" - there's hardly any property seizure more arbitrary than one precceded by a military invasion.
How can you express dislike for a law that enshrines the legality of an act you've argued a government is obliged to take whether its illegal or not?
edit: I misplaced an important negation >_>
My disagreement is based on the breadth of the rule and the strong/weak country case. I agree that the countries have an obligation to advance the interests ahead of their citizens, but I don't like how the weak government's sphere of influence is artificially expanded, much like how the Pslestinian government is allowed to take pot shots at its stronger neighbor without much fear of retaliation, while the stronger neighbor cannot just take over the weaker neighbor and end the situation.
But that's ok. You can disagree with valid laws. Doesn't change the fact that they are valid, and make government action in this one case legitimate. But like I said before, it doesn't validate the non-enforcement taking place w/r/t other IP.
Which is a silly position because there is no natural state in which intellectual property is domestically, much less universally, recognized - it is by its very design an artificial construct - nor is there, under your nation-building paradigm where a government is not loyal to principles of governance (like the declaration of human rights) rather than the shifting "interests" of the people, a natural state in which one nation is morally obliged to recognize the IP of another nation.
Basically, your idea of the "natural sphere of influence of strong nations", that would shrink when we opt for treaties rather than multipolar wars, is completely disconnected from reality. It is not at all what actually happened throughout history.
Don't get me wrong, since I do believe in the declaration of human rights my personal opinion is that IP should be protected - while need creates entitlement, you never really need a handbag with "Guci" on it - and that countries who sign treaties and enact laws should fucking follow them, whether they're about the treatment of designer shoes or occupied territory. What sticks in my craw is how you mangle your own framework into incoherence to squeeze in moral outrage over a governments lax attitude towards IP theft - a "low class" activity apparently, that you couldn't dream of condoning - while accepting ethnic cleansing as a valid method of governance, and lamenting the fact that the option of ethnic cleansing is no longer available to nations that wish to call themselves civilized.
And incoherence aside, your acceptance of the latter makes your outrage at the former reek of violent self-interest rather than moral fiber.
You are misconstruing my position. First, we should not use "natural rights" because that is really irrelevant (if they even exist). The rights that matter are only those that your government recognizes. Foreign governments are free to choose whether or not to recognize these rights, but the powers of any government only exist as fear as they can project them. I see no inconsistency in lamenting that the US cannot force IP protections in poor nations and that Israel cannot use full force to seize all the Palestinian land. In both cases, international treaties and laws prevent the stronger country from using its power against the weaker country, and the result is an artificially strengthened sphere of influence for the weaker group.
This is all theoretical of course, since I don't think that the US should go invade these countries. I just think (like you) that laws should be endorced, and a failure to comply with these treaties should carry a meaningful sanction from the WTO or elsewhere.
You keep talking about the stronger country in some way losing to the weaker country. But if the stronger country were really stronger, then it wouldn't be losing, would it? I mean, saying "stronger" and "weaker" are extreme generalities. The reality of what's occuring is that the local country is stronger in it's own IP laws (and other physical property laws) than the USA when in that locale.
Edit: sorry this is directed at SKFM in general.
The US is a very powerful country but it cannot be powerful everywhere at once. It would fall apart if it tried. Stop focussing on how strong the US is and more on how strong it is in these violating countries.
Remember that invasion is never going to be economically viable. So that is off the table.
Force projection into other countries via arresting their citizens for violation of US law is A. Global political suicide/ Act of War. B. Incredibly expensive and dangerous. C. Domestic political suicide too, if any of your men die in the process.
Your only remaining options are sanctions, and the money flows both ways here, so it will cost the US as well. It will also take the government wanting to act on the interests of private companies in a very obvious fashion.
Really it is just not worth it. So why bother. You might be "stronger" but you are not going to be "stronger" against the whole playground.
I agree and have made this arguement myself. Additionally, sanctions will only aid other foreign governments in becoming stronger unless those governments also join in on the sanctions (i.e. like against Iran or Korea). And sanctions are well known to leak like sieves, with items like iPhones ending up in Iran.
So, what we would need to do is come up with a third method. In a way, that's what Warner Brothers was trying to do by making cut-rate legal DVD's available in China. But the reality is that ethically, in China, copyright infringement isn't that big of a deal.
The questions becomes then how to incentivise other countries to follow the US model for copyright/trademark/patent laws?
If you put it to a democratic one-man-one-vote, most of the world's population would be in favour of things that work for poor countries rather than rich countries, because most people alive today are poor.
It's not that they are jerks, inasmuch as they think that this doesn't belong to you.
And now we are returning to the type of rhetoric that first prompted the suggestion that more force ought to be used against these countries. Countries can lose legitimacy when they fail to protect their people's property rights. It seems to me that telling foreign citizens from powerful nations that you don't care about their property and are taking it from them would not be the most prudent course of action if said nation cares about remaining a nation in good standing in the international community.
which, as I pointed out, is true of pretty much every raising of taxes that affects foreigners to some degree
now there is much to be said against the notion of going to war against countries that dare to nationalize your stuff, on moral grounds, but as a practical matter this is no longer credible as a threat. even at the height of colonial extraction, expenses generally exceeded gains. it was only ever attractive because the gains went to a tiny elite, whereas the costs could be widely distributed. today war is even more costly and non-war is ever more attractive, even if it means accepting that someone has the audacity to tax you. If you still desire war, your opponents are not five thousand miles across the sea. Your opponents are sitting opposite you, across the benches, and they very much doubt that the allegedly fabulous gains from proto-colonial conquest will accrue to them.
I am the last person to object to the argument from prudence. There are endless frothing socialists who are shocked, shocked that when a plucky anti-colonial revolutionary movement seized farmland and mines, their newfound revolutionary government suddenly found all their nearby enemies being armed with Western guns. We only failed because the capitalists of the world turned against us! Well, yeah, I wonder why? But I also recognize that in general Americans did not benefit much from Latin American adventurism.
This again goes back to your point about consistent enforcement. A tax is the result of a formal government enactment, and once you know of it, you can plan accordingly. Not so with the illegal and random seizure of rights by a foreign government. I grant that governments have the right to tax, but that does not mean that they have the right to just seize anything from anyone at any time.
Really? So governments are not allowed to change tax law, merely because someone has already bought stuff in anticipation of such and such a level of taxes on its return?
Of course tax laws can be changed, but such change is affected through a prescribed, lawful process. It is also an axiom of tax design that taxes should only be prospective in nature, and that effective dates should be far enough from the date of passage to give people that chance to plan ahead.
What we are talking about is not akin to a tax anyway. It is the illegal (i.e., in contravention of treaties), ad hoc total taking of one individual's rights. If a country was to pass a law with a prospective effective date saying that from that date on they will not respect any IP, that would be fine IMO. But they are never so consistent or above board.
While I disagree with that law pretty strongly, yes, that legitimizes the actions of these countries w/r/t drugs. Still doesn't help with things like DVDs or handbags though.
On what grounds do you disagree with that law?
You've already made allowances for violations of property rights in times of grave need - technically, its called necessity, and it includes cases where you need to break into a house to get a phone to call an ambulance, stealing a car to rush someone to the hospital etcetc - so you're on board with the principle that property rights can be violated if the need is sufficiently large on the individual scale.
You've previously argument that a government legitimately engage in ethnic cleansing, and aside from outright genocide, there's no violation of property rights more fundamental than using the threat of force and/or adverse economic conditions to force someone of their land, so you can't object to the idea of the TRIPS exception by arguing that the government has some obligation to maintain property rights that goes aboves the individuals obligation to respect them. Nor can you really object to the fundamental idea that the government can seize property "from anyone at an any time" - there's hardly any property seizure more arbitrary than one precceded by a military invasion.
How can you express dislike for a law that enshrines the legality of an act you've argued a government is obliged to take whether its illegal or not?
edit: I misplaced an important negation >_>
My disagreement is based on the breadth of the rule and the strong/weak country case. I agree that the countries have an obligation to advance the interests ahead of their citizens, but I don't like how the weak government's sphere of influence is artificially expanded, much like how the Pslestinian government is allowed to take pot shots at its stronger neighbor without much fear of retaliation, while the stronger neighbor cannot just take over the weaker neighbor and end the situation.
But that's ok. You can disagree with valid laws. Doesn't change the fact that they are valid, and make government action in this one case legitimate. But like I said before, it doesn't validate the non-enforcement taking place w/r/t other IP.
Which is a silly position because there is no natural state in which intellectual property is domestically, much less universally, recognized - it is by its very design an artificial construct - nor is there, under your nation-building paradigm where a government is not loyal to principles of governance (like the declaration of human rights) rather than the shifting "interests" of the people, a natural state in which one nation is morally obliged to recognize the IP of another nation.
Basically, your idea of the "natural sphere of influence of strong nations", that would shrink when we opt for treaties rather than multipolar wars, is completely disconnected from reality. It is not at all what actually happened throughout history.
Don't get me wrong, since I do believe in the declaration of human rights my personal opinion is that IP should be protected - while need creates entitlement, you never really need a handbag with "Guci" on it - and that countries who sign treaties and enact laws should fucking follow them, whether they're about the treatment of designer shoes or occupied territory. What sticks in my craw is how you mangle your own framework into incoherence to squeeze in moral outrage over a governments lax attitude towards IP theft - a "low class" activity apparently, that you couldn't dream of condoning - while accepting ethnic cleansing as a valid method of governance, and lamenting the fact that the option of ethnic cleansing is no longer available to nations that wish to call themselves civilized.
And incoherence aside, your acceptance of the latter makes your outrage at the former reek of violent self-interest rather than moral fiber.
You are misconstruing my position. First, we should not use "natural rights" because that is really irrelevant (if they even exist). The rights that matter are only those that your government recognizes. Foreign governments are free to choose whether or not to recognize these rights, but the powers of any government only exist as fear as they can project them. I see no inconsistency in lamenting that the US cannot force IP protections in poor nations and that Israel cannot use full force to seize all the Palestinian land. In both cases, international treaties and laws prevent the stronger country from using its power against the weaker country, and the result is an artificially strengthened sphere of influence for the weaker group.
This is all theoretical of course, since I don't think that the US should go invade these countries. I just think (like you) that laws should be endorced, and a failure to comply with these treaties should carry a meaningful sanction from the WTO or elsewhere.
You keep talking about the stronger country in some way losing to the weaker country. But if the stronger country were really stronger, then it wouldn't be losing, would it? I mean, saying "stronger" and "weaker" are extreme generalities. The reality of what's occuring is that the local country is stronger in it's own IP laws (and other physical property laws) than the USA when in that locale.
Edit: sorry this is directed at SKFM in general.
The US is a very powerful country but it cannot be powerful everywhere at once. It would fall apart if it tried. Stop focussing on how strong the US is and more on how strong it is in these violating countries.
Remember that invasion is never going to be economically viable. So that is off the table.
Force projection into other countries via arresting their citizens for violation of US law is A. Global political suicide/ Act of War. B. Incredibly expensive and dangerous. C. Domestic political suicide too, if any of your men die in the process.
Your only remaining options are sanctions, and the money flows both ways here, so it will cost the US as well. It will also take the government wanting to act on the interests of private companies in a very obvious fashion.
Really it is just not worth it. So why bother. You might be "stronger" but you are not going to be "stronger" against the whole playground.
I agree and have made this arguement myself. Additionally, sanctions will only aid other foreign governments in becoming stronger unless those governments also join in on the sanctions (i.e. like against Iran or Korea). And sanctions are well known to leak like sieves, with items like iPhones ending up in Iran.
So, what we would need to do is come up with a third method. In a way, that's what Warner Brothers was trying to do by making cut-rate legal DVD's available in China. But the reality is that ethically, in China, copyright infringement isn't that big of a deal.
The questions becomes then how to incentivise other countries to follow the US model for copyright/trademark/patent laws?
It happens naturally, as a country shifts from net IP import to export, because the country wants to protect its own IP in the world at large.
The bigger problem facing copyright is that the tech industry is pushing against it, but only in a way that benefits them - the killing of the push for the Affero clause in the GPL is a good, if not well known example of the tech industry wanting to make sure things aren't too tight.
If you put it to a democratic one-man-one-vote, most of the world's population would be in favour of things that work for poor countries rather than rich countries, because most people alive today are poor.
It's not that they are jerks, inasmuch as they think that this doesn't belong to you.
And now we are returning to the type of rhetoric that first prompted the suggestion that more force ought to be used against these countries. Countries can lose legitimacy when they fail to protect their people's property rights. It seems to me that telling foreign citizens from powerful nations that you don't care about their property and are taking it from them would not be the most prudent course of action if said nation cares about remaining a nation in good standing in the international community.
which, as I pointed out, is true of pretty much every raising of taxes that affects foreigners to some degree
now there is much to be said against the notion of going to war against countries that dare to nationalize your stuff, on moral grounds, but as a practical matter this is no longer credible as a threat. even at the height of colonial extraction, expenses generally exceeded gains. it was only ever attractive because the gains went to a tiny elite, whereas the costs could be widely distributed. today war is even more costly and non-war is ever more attractive, even if it means accepting that someone has the audacity to tax you. If you still desire war, your opponents are not five thousand miles across the sea. Your opponents are sitting opposite you, across the benches, and they very much doubt that the allegedly fabulous gains from proto-colonial conquest will accrue to them.
I am the last person to object to the argument from prudence. There are endless frothing socialists who are shocked, shocked that when a plucky anti-colonial revolutionary movement seized farmland and mines, their newfound revolutionary government suddenly found all their nearby enemies being armed with Western guns. We only failed because the capitalists of the world turned against us! Well, yeah, I wonder why? But I also recognize that in general Americans did not benefit much from Latin American adventurism.
This again goes back to your point about consistent enforcement. A tax is the result of a formal government enactment, and once you know of it, you can plan accordingly. Not so with the illegal and random seizure of rights by a foreign government. I grant that governments have the right to tax, but that does not mean that they have the right to just seize anything from anyone at any time.
Really? So governments are not allowed to change tax law, merely because someone has already bought stuff in anticipation of such and such a level of taxes on its return?
Of course tax laws can be changed, but such change is affected through a prescribed, lawful process. It is also an axiom of tax design that taxes should only be prospective in nature, and that effective dates should be far enough from the date of passage to give people that chance to plan ahead.
What we are talking about is not akin to a tax anyway. It is the illegal (i.e., in contravention of treaties), ad hoc total taking of one individual's rights. If a country was to pass a law with a prospective effective date saying that from that date on they will not respect any IP, that would be fine IMO. But they are never so consistent or above board.
While I disagree with that law pretty strongly, yes, that legitimizes the actions of these countries w/r/t drugs. Still doesn't help with things like DVDs or handbags though.
On what grounds do you disagree with that law?
You've already made allowances for violations of property rights in times of grave need - technically, its called necessity, and it includes cases where you need to break into a house to get a phone to call an ambulance, stealing a car to rush someone to the hospital etcetc - so you're on board with the principle that property rights can be violated if the need is sufficiently large on the individual scale.
You've previously argument that a government legitimately engage in ethnic cleansing, and aside from outright genocide, there's no violation of property rights more fundamental than using the threat of force and/or adverse economic conditions to force someone of their land, so you can't object to the idea of the TRIPS exception by arguing that the government has some obligation to maintain property rights that goes aboves the individuals obligation to respect them. Nor can you really object to the fundamental idea that the government can seize property "from anyone at an any time" - there's hardly any property seizure more arbitrary than one precceded by a military invasion.
How can you express dislike for a law that enshrines the legality of an act you've argued a government is obliged to take whether its illegal or not?
edit: I misplaced an important negation >_>
My disagreement is based on the breadth of the rule and the strong/weak country case. I agree that the countries have an obligation to advance the interests ahead of their citizens, but I don't like how the weak government's sphere of influence is artificially expanded, much like how the Pslestinian government is allowed to take pot shots at its stronger neighbor without much fear of retaliation, while the stronger neighbor cannot just take over the weaker neighbor and end the situation.
But that's ok. You can disagree with valid laws. Doesn't change the fact that they are valid, and make government action in this one case legitimate. But like I said before, it doesn't validate the non-enforcement taking place w/r/t other IP.
Which is a silly position because there is no natural state in which intellectual property is domestically, much less universally, recognized - it is by its very design an artificial construct - nor is there, under your nation-building paradigm where a government is not loyal to principles of governance (like the declaration of human rights) rather than the shifting "interests" of the people, a natural state in which one nation is morally obliged to recognize the IP of another nation.
Basically, your idea of the "natural sphere of influence of strong nations", that would shrink when we opt for treaties rather than multipolar wars, is completely disconnected from reality. It is not at all what actually happened throughout history.
Don't get me wrong, since I do believe in the declaration of human rights my personal opinion is that IP should be protected - while need creates entitlement, you never really need a handbag with "Guci" on it - and that countries who sign treaties and enact laws should fucking follow them, whether they're about the treatment of designer shoes or occupied territory. What sticks in my craw is how you mangle your own framework into incoherence to squeeze in moral outrage over a governments lax attitude towards IP theft - a "low class" activity apparently, that you couldn't dream of condoning - while accepting ethnic cleansing as a valid method of governance, and lamenting the fact that the option of ethnic cleansing is no longer available to nations that wish to call themselves civilized.
And incoherence aside, your acceptance of the latter makes your outrage at the former reek of violent self-interest rather than moral fiber.
You are misconstruing my position. First, we should not use "natural rights" because that is really irrelevant (if they even exist). The rights that matter are only those that your government recognizes. Foreign governments are free to choose whether or not to recognize these rights, but the powers of any government only exist as fear as they can project them. I see no inconsistency in lamenting that the US cannot force IP protections in poor nations and that Israel cannot use full force to seize all the Palestinian land. In both cases, international treaties and laws prevent the stronger country from using its power against the weaker country, and the result is an artificially strengthened sphere of influence for the weaker group.
This is all theoretical of course, since I don't think that the US should go invade these countries. I just think (like you) that laws should be endorced, and a failure to comply with these treaties should carry a meaningful sanction from the WTO or elsewhere.
You keep talking about the stronger country in some way losing to the weaker country. But if the stronger country were really stronger, then it wouldn't be losing, would it? I mean, saying "stronger" and "weaker" are extreme generalities. The reality of what's occuring is that the local country is stronger in it's own IP laws (and other physical property laws) than the USA when in that locale.
I disagree. I don't think these countries have any meaningfulness strength. All they have is the good fortune to benefit from a world order that is calibrated in a way that lets them get away with a lot. Take that away, or recalibrate it slightly, and you have a situation where these poorer, weaker nations would not be able to get away with such things. Back in the days before the current relative world piece, a country in Africa could not very well stand up to an imperial power.
But we have already beaten this to death, I think. Not sure what there is to be gained from continuing, especially since we all agree that under the current world order it just isn't worth doing anything about these infringements.
There are no more imperial powers. Two things in different situations have different outcomes! Beating up on weaker nations is now frowned upon!
Which is exactly what I am lamenting. Like I said, I don't think there is anywhere else to go with this.
We're better off with those strategies dying. Though asshole governments, like Dubya's regime, try their best to bring that back onto the international stage. Humanity deserves better we're civilized, not barbarians.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
There are no more imperial powers. Two things in different situations have different outcomes! Beating up on weaker nations is now frowned upon!
Which is exactly what I am lamenting. Like I said, I don't think there is anywhere else to go with this.
We're better off with those strategies dying. Though asshole governments, like Dubya's regime, try their best to bring that back onto the international stage. Humanity deserves better we're civilized, not barbarians.
Is it really civilized to say "we will accept people firing rockets over our borders and killing our citizens forever instead of crushing the people taking the potshots at us and ending it once and for all?" I would argue it is not.
There are no more imperial powers. Two things in different situations have different outcomes! Beating up on weaker nations is now frowned upon!
Which is exactly what I am lamenting. Like I said, I don't think there is anywhere else to go with this.
We're better off with those strategies dying. Though asshole governments, like Dubya's regime, try their best to bring that back onto the international stage. Humanity deserves better we're civilized, not barbarians.
Is it really civilized to say "we will accept people firing rockets over our borders and killing our citizens forever instead of crushing the people taking the potshots at us and ending it once and for all?" I would argue it is not.
When discussing international IP laws starting wars starting wars or doing extreme political actions that could lead to wars to protect IP rights (for large corporations that own those rights, no less) is not a civilized response in the modern era.
Agreed. I actually think this thread has more than run its course.
Probably. Your interest has waned and you don't seem that inclined to listen to the opposition's opinion on matters you've decided to stubbornly uphold. The fact so many posters in this thread have argued against you should be a wake-up call to rethink your ideas on this subject IMO. Bringing up comparisons with Israel isn't a good idea, either, and not on the proper subject which is IP law.
There are no more imperial powers. Two things in different situations have different outcomes! Beating up on weaker nations is now frowned upon!
Which is exactly what I am lamenting. Like I said, I don't think there is anywhere else to go with this.
We're better off with those strategies dying. Though asshole governments, like Dubya's regime, try their best to bring that back onto the international stage. Humanity deserves better we're civilized, not barbarians.
Is it really civilized to say "we will accept people firing rockets over our borders and killing our citizens forever instead of crushing the people taking the potshots at us and ending it once and for all?" I would argue it is not.
I would argue that the topic of proportionate retribution in international law deserves its own thread
Agreed. I actually think this thread has more than run its course.
Probably. Your interest has waned and you don't seem that inclined to listen to the opposition's opinion on matters you've decided to stubbornly uphold. The fact so many posters in this thread have argued against you should be a wake-up call to rethink your ideas on this subject IMO. Bringing up comparisons with Israel isn't a good idea, either, and not on the proper subject which is IP law.
I am not ignoring anything, I don't think. I'm just not interested in retreading old ground. I think we are all in agreement about whether or not it is practical to push for stronger enforcement under the current world order (it is not). There is a disagreement as to whether there could be a tweak to the world order which would make enforcement more practical, but that isan empirical question that no one here can really answer. The last open points as I see it are whether there is a moral right to IP (which I think has gone as far as it will in this thread) and whether or not it is a good thing that the age of imperialism has ended, which, as Ronya has pointed out, is a discussion for another topic.
There are no more imperial powers. Two things in different situations have different outcomes! Beating up on weaker nations is now frowned upon!
Which is exactly what I am lamenting. Like I said, I don't think there is anywhere else to go with this.
We're better off with those strategies dying. Though asshole governments, like Dubya's regime, try their best to bring that back onto the international stage. Humanity deserves better we're civilized, not barbarians.
Is it really civilized to say "we will accept people firing rockets over our borders and killing our citizens forever instead of crushing the people taking the potshots at us and ending it once and for all?" I would argue it is not.
I would argue that the topic of proportionate retribution in international law deserves its own thread
Agreed. I actually think this thread has more than run its course.
Probably. Your interest has waned and you don't seem that inclined to listen to the opposition's opinion on matters you've decided to stubbornly uphold. The fact so many posters in this thread have argued against you should be a wake-up call to rethink your ideas on this subject IMO. Bringing up comparisons with Israel isn't a good idea, either, and not on the proper subject which is IP law.
I am not ignoring anything, I don't think. I'm just not interested in retreading old ground.
I didn't say you ignored anything, only that you weren't pragmatic enough to consider your opinions weren't logical options to pursue in reality.
I think we are all in agreement about whether or not it is practical to push for stronger enforcement under the current world order (it is not).
Not really. Everyone else seems to think that's fine or could use some improvements - you still think its a black and white situation where violence and sanctions on weak foreign countries should be enforced with extreme prejudice. The consequences be damned.
There is a disagreement as to whether there could be a tweak to the world order which would make enforcement more practical, but that isan empirical question that no one here can really answer.
We do have an answer. Extreme retaliation on foreign 'weaker' powers don't work in the modern world, it would prove a disaster to sell to the American public, it'd fray alliances, it'd be very expensive and the cost would hurt companies rather than bolster their bottom line. That's why we have the status quo - which you've been adamant in your opinion that's it's stupid.
The last open points as I see it are whether there is a moral right to IP (which I think has gone as far as it will in this thread)
I don't think anyone was really bothered by that too much. Only that your methods for restricting IP was too costly to be put into practice to protect them to a greater degree.
and whether or not it is a good thing that the age of imperialism has ended, which, as Ronya has pointed out, is a discussion for another topic.
I can tell you what a thread about imperialism would be like. The world is a better place without its existence. End of.
There are no more imperial powers. Two things in different situations have different outcomes! Beating up on weaker nations is now frowned upon!
Which is exactly what I am lamenting. Like I said, I don't think there is anywhere else to go with this.
We're better off with those strategies dying. Though asshole governments, like Dubya's regime, try their best to bring that back onto the international stage. Humanity deserves better we're civilized, not barbarians.
Is it really civilized to say "we will accept people firing rockets over our borders and killing our citizens forever instead of crushing the people taking the potshots at us and ending it once and for all?" I would argue it is not.
I would argue that the topic of proportionate retribution in international law deserves its own thread
Agreed. I actually think this thread has more than run its course.
Probably. Your interest has waned and you don't seem that inclined to listen to the opposition's opinion on matters you've decided to stubbornly uphold. The fact so many posters in this thread have argued against you should be a wake-up call to rethink your ideas on this subject IMO. Bringing up comparisons with Israel isn't a good idea, either, and not on the proper subject which is IP law.
I am not ignoring anything, I don't think. I'm just not interested in retreading old ground. I think we are all in agreement about whether or not it is practical to push for stronger enforcement under the current world order (it is not). There is a disagreement as to whether there could be a tweak to the world order which would make enforcement more practical, but that isan empirical question that no one here can really answer. The last open points as I see it are whether there is a moral right to IP (which I think has gone as far as it will in this thread) and whether or not it is a good thing that the age of imperialism has ended, which, as Ronya has pointed out, is a discussion for another topic.
I think its ridicolous that you continue to lament the loss of 19th century imperialism as a political system of international relations and claim that we can't "empirically really answer" whether it would be a good idea to "tweak" our way back to it.
World wars that killed more people than any war in the history of the species - twice - and saw the development of weapons that could reduce our entire civilization to ash in the less than a day. Genocide, ethnic cleansing, massacre, slaughter, starvation - all of these and more we made for ourselves.
But you guys, we can't empirically answer whether imperialism is practical or not, because reasons that must involve not opening a history book, ever.
Eh. In some ways, SKFM has a point. Countries right now are empowered to be assholes in ways they weren't before. While a full-on return to Imperialism might not be the correct road, it would be nice if we as a global community were more efficient at putting such nonsense down.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
There are no more imperial powers. Two things in different situations have different outcomes! Beating up on weaker nations is now frowned upon!
Which is exactly what I am lamenting. Like I said, I don't think there is anywhere else to go with this.
We're better off with those strategies dying. Though asshole governments, like Dubya's regime, try their best to bring that back onto the international stage. Humanity deserves better we're civilized, not barbarians.
Is it really civilized to say "we will accept people firing rockets over our borders and killing our citizens forever instead of crushing the people taking the potshots at us and ending it once and for all?" I would argue it is not.
I would argue that the topic of proportionate retribution in international law deserves its own thread
Agreed. I actually think this thread has more than run its course.
Probably. Your interest has waned and you don't seem that inclined to listen to the opposition's opinion on matters you've decided to stubbornly uphold. The fact so many posters in this thread have argued against you should be a wake-up call to rethink your ideas on this subject IMO. Bringing up comparisons with Israel isn't a good idea, either, and not on the proper subject which is IP law.
I am not ignoring anything, I don't think. I'm just not interested in retreading old ground. I think we are all in agreement about whether or not it is practical to push for stronger enforcement under the current world order (it is not). There is a disagreement as to whether there could be a tweak to the world order which would make enforcement more practical, but that isan empirical question that no one here can really answer. The last open points as I see it are whether there is a moral right to IP (which I think has gone as far as it will in this thread) and whether or not it is a good thing that the age of imperialism has ended, which, as Ronya has pointed out, is a discussion for another topic.
I think its ridicolous that you continue to lament the loss of 19th century imperialism as a political system of international relations and claim that we can't "empirically really answer" whether it would be a good idea to "tweak" our way back to it.
World wars that killed more people than any war in the history of the species - twice - and saw the development of weapons that could reduce our entire civilization to ash in the less than a day. Genocide, ethnic cleansing, massacre, slaughter, starvation - all of these and more we made for ourselves.
But you guys, we can't empirically answer whether imperialism is practical or not, because reasons that must involve not opening a history book, ever.
You are conflating two things I said. The empirical question is where the cost benefit balance is achieved on IP enforcement (I don't think we live in some Leibnizian perfect world here). That doesn't require dismantling the world order, just tweaking it and not neccesarily in ways that mirror imperialism at all.
The second question is whether we should have abandoned imperialism at all, or to the degree we did. That seems like a question for another topic. . .
Eh. In some ways, SKFM has a point. Countries right now are empowered to be assholes in ways they weren't before. While a full-on return to Imperialism might not be the correct road, it would be nice if we as a global community were more efficient at putting such nonsense down.
They really, really aren't.
We've been over this, in this very thread. The weaker powers playing the stronger powers off against eachother, the stronger powers competing with eachother over influence of the weaker, did not - empirically - actually lead to a stable community of international actors who adhered to some code of honour which favoured peace, prosperity, freedom and justice for everyone.
It lead to goddamn world war. On the asshole scale, I'm going to rate "employed mustard gas" somewhere above "violating an artificial limited monopoly to provide medicine". That goes for handbags too. "Used mustard gas" is up here, "did not adequately combat counterfeit designer label handbags" is very much not up here.
edit: To be a bit more to the point about it: The Geneva Convention is a typical example of an international accord that very much deempowers nations when it comes to being assholes to other nations and people.
Calixtus on
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Eh. In some ways, SKFM has a point. Countries right now are empowered to be assholes in ways they weren't before. While a full-on return to Imperialism might not be the correct road, it would be nice if we as a global community were more efficient at putting such nonsense down.
They really, really aren't.
We've been over this, in this very thread. The weaker powers playing the stronger powers off against eachother, the stronger powers competing with eachother over influence of the weaker, did not - empirically - actually lead to a stable community of international actors who adhered to some code of honour which favoured peace, prosperity, freedom and justice for everyone.
It lead to goddamn world war. On the asshole scale, I'm going to rate "employed mustard gas" somewhere above "violating an artificial limited monopoly to provide medicine". That goes for handbags too. "Used mustard gas" is up here, "did not adequately combat counterfeit designer label handbags" is very much not up here.
edit: To be a bit more to the point about it: The Geneva Convention is a typical example of an international accord that very much deempowers nations when it comes to being assholes to other nations and people.
That you favor one form of asshole behavior (IP infringement) over another does not mean that they aren't both asshole behaviors. Just because we once lived in a world where strength of arms meant the weaker could not defy the stronger and bad things happened does not mean that it is ok for the weak to defy the strong now. I don't see why it is so unreasonable to despise the kids with the pea shooters taunting the tiger now that he is in a cage.
Eh. In some ways, SKFM has a point. Countries right now are empowered to be assholes in ways they weren't before. While a full-on return to Imperialism might not be the correct road, it would be nice if we as a global community were more efficient at putting such nonsense down.
They really, really aren't.
We've been over this, in this very thread. The weaker powers playing the stronger powers off against eachother, the stronger powers competing with eachother over influence of the weaker, did not - empirically - actually lead to a stable community of international actors who adhered to some code of honour which favoured peace, prosperity, freedom and justice for everyone.
It lead to goddamn world war. On the asshole scale, I'm going to rate "employed mustard gas" somewhere above "violating an artificial limited monopoly to provide medicine". That goes for handbags too. "Used mustard gas" is up here, "did not adequately combat counterfeit designer label handbags" is very much not up here.
edit: To be a bit more to the point about it: The Geneva Convention is a typical example of an international accord that very much deempowers nations when it comes to being assholes to other nations and people.
That you favor one form of asshole behavior (IP infringement) over another does not mean that they aren't both asshole behaviors. Just because we once lived in a world where strength of arms meant the weaker could not defy the stronger and bad things happened does not mean that it is ok for the weak to defy the strong now. I don't see why it is so unreasonable to despise the kids with the pea shooters taunting the tiger now that he is in a cage.
There are degrees here. This is a complex situation revolving around geopolitics. It isn't a matter of who's right and who's wrong entirely as much as we'd all like it to be. That said, the strong imposing on the weak can be a slippery slope. "Weak" countries exploiting IP law isn't significant an issue to your analogy that its akin to kids using pea shooters into a tiger cage* - it's an issue no "strong" country is ever going to war about.
* the analogy fails unless the tiger is released from its cage. Until then it poses no danger to anyone. Therefore it's the kids who are the stronger party in that scenario.
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... what? You don't think that the rise of Mega and the return of DDL sites has anything to do with, say, the cheapness of bandwidth and server space? It's all down to the malevolence of the Big Men of IT history, without whom there could surely have been no other possible malefactors?
You still need money. Which is the whole issue.
Those reports have a regular turn-over in ad companies, even though these are companies that have to swap cash with brick and mortar at some point, precisely because server-hopping has become much easier.
So you're saying that it's impossible to track where the ads are going?
given the prevalence of ads that push actively illegal malware...?
I don't think that law enforcement needs to be very costly or ineffective. It just requires new laws.
The drone strike suggestion was a bit over the top, no? I have been talking about sanctions or our military coming into other countries (with the permission of said countries) to help them root out physical piracy like drug or DVD pirating plants. That is as far as I have gone, I believe. Anything more than that, and I think the cost benefit analysis becomes problematic, given world reaction. If the first world all agree that drones are appropriate? Then it's a different story,but in practice, the cost is probably still higher than the benefit, unless we allowed rights holders to foot the bill, maybe. But this is all moot, because there is no way that the world would approve. Also ultimately, as much as I hate to say it, no one is telling IP holders that they need to use the cheap labor in these countries. The real world calculus is complex and filled with less than pure motives like actually liking that a country is lax on law enforcement in general, because you like having workers with no effective legal protections more than you hate IP infringement.
You'll pardon me if I did not read Burmese co-operation into this.
As for three-strikes laws, you may be interested to learn that ISPs are unenthusiastic instead. Might you be able to guess why?
Basically, your idea of the "natural sphere of influence of strong nations", that would shrink when we opt for treaties rather than multipolar wars, is completely disconnected from reality. It is not at all what actually happened throughout history.
Don't get me wrong, since I do believe in the declaration of human rights my personal opinion is that IP should be protected - while need creates entitlement, you never really need a handbag with "Guci" on it - and that countries who sign treaties and enact laws should fucking follow them, whether they're about the treatment of designer shoes or occupied territory. What sticks in my craw is how you mangle your own framework into incoherence to squeeze in moral outrage over a governments lax attitude towards IP theft - a "low class" activity apparently, that you couldn't dream of condoning - while accepting ethnic cleansing as a valid method of governance, and lamenting the fact that the option of ethnic cleansing is no longer available to nations that wish to call themselves civilized.
And incoherence aside, your acceptance of the latter makes your outrage at the former reek of violent self-interest rather than moral fiber.
So you advocate fining everyone who plays World of Warcraft?
Bittorrent isn't exclusively for piracy, and is seeing a steady increase in it's use for pushing out legal material to consumers. Specifically large MMO patches and Linux ISOs, which are a legitimate use even if they are the go-to excuse. It's an excellent system for shifting bandwidth costs from the business to the end user, as the business will only have to upload it a couple of times and all the consumers will handle the rest.
And unless someone is going to be paying the ISPs, there's going to be no "gladly" in their assistance. They aren't going to want to pay for massive filitering arrangements or for dedicated staff to trawl through logs just so they can play copyright cop on somebody else's behalf. Not to mention how easy it would be for the ISPs, who do still have deep pockets, to spin it as "Obama wants to watch everything you do on the Internet!" and get it shot down in the court of public opinion.
Don't the management get pressured by shareholders to do that so their profits remain as high as possible? That's a downside to pure capitalism. When your main priority is money ethics and standards go out the window.
It is my understanding that drones are used with the cooperation of the country they are used in in virtually every case, but regardless, I thought that was pretty clearly a hypothetical meant to show that even the strongest play against another country would not result in sanctions against the US.
ISPs already look for ways to stop pirates from using up all their bandwidth, so I am sure you could craft some law that they would be happy to cooperate with, even if it is based on them just sending notices to customers when a content holder complains.
It doesn't matter if there are legitimate uses. There are legitimate uses for lots of things that we make illegal. Remember, the goal here is increased enforcement without a large increase in cost. Giving ISPs the ability to crack down hard on major uses of their bandwidth by a small number of customers seems consistent with that goal.
You are misconstruing my position. First, we should not use "natural rights" because that is really irrelevant (if they even exist). The rights that matter are only those that your government recognizes. Foreign governments are free to choose whether or not to recognize these rights, but the powers of any government only exist as fear as they can project them. I see no inconsistency in lamenting that the US cannot force IP protections in poor nations and that Israel cannot use full force to seize all the Palestinian land. In both cases, international treaties and laws prevent the stronger country from using its power against the weaker country, and the result is an artificially strengthened sphere of influence for the weaker group.
This is all theoretical of course, since I don't think that the US should go invade these countries. I just think (like you) that laws should be endorced, and a failure to comply with these treaties should carry a meaningful sanction from the WTO or elsewhere.
Then Americans have no rights at all.
Unless the nature of geopolitics changes radically that is a non-starter in today's political climate. Might as well wish for unicorns and dragons to solve your problems with IP law.
You keep talking about the stronger country in some way losing to the weaker country. But if the stronger country were really stronger, then it wouldn't be losing, would it? I mean, saying "stronger" and "weaker" are extreme generalities. The reality of what's occuring is that the local country is stronger in it's own IP laws (and other physical property laws) than the USA when in that locale.
The US is a very powerful country but it cannot be powerful everywhere at once. It would fall apart if it tried. Stop focussing on how strong the US is and more on how strong it is in these violating countries.
Remember that invasion is never going to be economically viable. So that is off the table.
Force projection into other countries via arresting their citizens for violation of US law is A. Global political suicide/ Act of War. B. Incredibly expensive and dangerous. C. Domestic political suicide too, if any of your men die in the process.
Your only remaining options are sanctions, and the money flows both ways here, so it will cost the US as well. It will also take the government wanting to act on the interests of private companies in a very obvious fashion.
Really it is just not worth it. So why bother. You might be "stronger" but you are not going to be "stronger" against the whole playground.
I agree and have made this arguement myself. Additionally, sanctions will only aid other foreign governments in becoming stronger unless those governments also join in on the sanctions (i.e. like against Iran or Korea). And sanctions are well known to leak like sieves, with items like iPhones ending up in Iran.
So, what we would need to do is come up with a third method. In a way, that's what Warner Brothers was trying to do by making cut-rate legal DVD's available in China. But the reality is that ethically, in China, copyright infringement isn't that big of a deal.
The questions becomes then how to incentivise other countries to follow the US model for copyright/trademark/patent laws?
It happens naturally, as a country shifts from net IP import to export, because the country wants to protect its own IP in the world at large.
The bigger problem facing copyright is that the tech industry is pushing against it, but only in a way that benefits them - the killing of the push for the Affero clause in the GPL is a good, if not well known example of the tech industry wanting to make sure things aren't too tight.
I disagree. I don't think these countries have any meaningfulness strength. All they have is the good fortune to benefit from a world order that is calibrated in a way that lets them get away with a lot. Take that away, or recalibrate it slightly, and you have a situation where these poorer, weaker nations would not be able to get away with such things. Back in the days before the current relative world piece, a country in Africa could not very well stand up to an imperial power.
But we have already beaten this to death, I think. Not sure what there is to be gained from continuing, especially since we all agree that under the current world order it just isn't worth doing anything about these infringements.
Which is exactly what I am lamenting. Like I said, I don't think there is anywhere else to go with this.
We're better off with those strategies dying. Though asshole governments, like Dubya's regime, try their best to bring that back onto the international stage. Humanity deserves better we're civilized, not barbarians.
Is it really civilized to say "we will accept people firing rockets over our borders and killing our citizens forever instead of crushing the people taking the potshots at us and ending it once and for all?" I would argue it is not.
Agreed. I actually think this thread has more than run its course.
When discussing international IP laws starting wars starting wars or doing extreme political actions that could lead to wars to protect IP rights (for large corporations that own those rights, no less) is not a civilized response in the modern era.
Probably. Your interest has waned and you don't seem that inclined to listen to the opposition's opinion on matters you've decided to stubbornly uphold. The fact so many posters in this thread have argued against you should be a wake-up call to rethink your ideas on this subject IMO. Bringing up comparisons with Israel isn't a good idea, either, and not on the proper subject which is IP law.
Space would get banned from that thread before it got too interesting for him to argue his perspective on the matter.
I am not ignoring anything, I don't think. I'm just not interested in retreading old ground. I think we are all in agreement about whether or not it is practical to push for stronger enforcement under the current world order (it is not). There is a disagreement as to whether there could be a tweak to the world order which would make enforcement more practical, but that isan empirical question that no one here can really answer. The last open points as I see it are whether there is a moral right to IP (which I think has gone as far as it will in this thread) and whether or not it is a good thing that the age of imperialism has ended, which, as Ronya has pointed out, is a discussion for another topic.
I didn't say you ignored anything, only that you weren't pragmatic enough to consider your opinions weren't logical options to pursue in reality.
Not really. Everyone else seems to think that's fine or could use some improvements - you still think its a black and white situation where violence and sanctions on weak foreign countries should be enforced with extreme prejudice. The consequences be damned.
We do have an answer. Extreme retaliation on foreign 'weaker' powers don't work in the modern world, it would prove a disaster to sell to the American public, it'd fray alliances, it'd be very expensive and the cost would hurt companies rather than bolster their bottom line. That's why we have the status quo - which you've been adamant in your opinion that's it's stupid.
I don't think anyone was really bothered by that too much. Only that your methods for restricting IP was too costly to be put into practice to protect them to a greater degree.
I can tell you what a thread about imperialism would be like. The world is a better place without its existence. End of.
World wars that killed more people than any war in the history of the species - twice - and saw the development of weapons that could reduce our entire civilization to ash in the less than a day. Genocide, ethnic cleansing, massacre, slaughter, starvation - all of these and more we made for ourselves.
But you guys, we can't empirically answer whether imperialism is practical or not, because reasons that must involve not opening a history book, ever.
You are conflating two things I said. The empirical question is where the cost benefit balance is achieved on IP enforcement (I don't think we live in some Leibnizian perfect world here). That doesn't require dismantling the world order, just tweaking it and not neccesarily in ways that mirror imperialism at all.
The second question is whether we should have abandoned imperialism at all, or to the degree we did. That seems like a question for another topic. . .
We've been over this, in this very thread. The weaker powers playing the stronger powers off against eachother, the stronger powers competing with eachother over influence of the weaker, did not - empirically - actually lead to a stable community of international actors who adhered to some code of honour which favoured peace, prosperity, freedom and justice for everyone.
It lead to goddamn world war. On the asshole scale, I'm going to rate "employed mustard gas" somewhere above "violating an artificial limited monopoly to provide medicine". That goes for handbags too. "Used mustard gas" is up here, "did not adequately combat counterfeit designer label handbags" is very much not up here.
edit: To be a bit more to the point about it: The Geneva Convention is a typical example of an international accord that very much deempowers nations when it comes to being assholes to other nations and people.
That you favor one form of asshole behavior (IP infringement) over another does not mean that they aren't both asshole behaviors. Just because we once lived in a world where strength of arms meant the weaker could not defy the stronger and bad things happened does not mean that it is ok for the weak to defy the strong now. I don't see why it is so unreasonable to despise the kids with the pea shooters taunting the tiger now that he is in a cage.
There are degrees here. This is a complex situation revolving around geopolitics. It isn't a matter of who's right and who's wrong entirely as much as we'd all like it to be. That said, the strong imposing on the weak can be a slippery slope. "Weak" countries exploiting IP law isn't significant an issue to your analogy that its akin to kids using pea shooters into a tiger cage* - it's an issue no "strong" country is ever going to war about.
* the analogy fails unless the tiger is released from its cage. Until then it poses no danger to anyone. Therefore it's the kids who are the stronger party in that scenario.