Seegras Logbook

Whenever technology solves a problem with scarcity, somebody steps in to keep the scarcity by means of politics, wealth, power, propaganda.

• case in point: patents were probably NOT introduced to further innovations, but to keep others innovations down, so the own innovations would be worth more.
• case in point: copyright. As it became easy to print and reprint, and content-producers (or more often, the printers) wanted to have a temporary monopoly on it. As it became even more easy trough the internet, the laws became more draconian.
• case in point: revenue services. Not only it fills the coffers of the state, but it also keeps foreign competition out of the own markets. And with trademarks, it can be used to keep cheap imitations out of the market.

The irony of this when it pertains to intangible goods, is that the corpus of works is much bigger than anyone on earth can digest. In effect, the availability of such an enormous amount of works has created an “economy of attention”. Since every living being has access to more works he can read, listen to or watch in his lifetime, you need to goad him into “consuming” your work; and preferably to pay for it. Apart from marketing, how do you do that? Maybe by putting a monopoly on works you’re not even interested in? With the hope that most of those works will not be available to the public…

Die Kosten im Gesundheitswesen steigen, und mit Ihnen kommen diverse Lösungsvorschläge die sich entweder in Missachtung der tatsächlichen Gründe dafür oder aber mindestens an Absurdität zu überbieten suchen.

Auszumachen sind als tatsächliche Gründe vorallem folgende Dinge: Gesteigertes Krankheitsbewusstsein (man geht öfter zum Arzt, wegen geringereren Problemen); erhöhte Rate gesundheitlicher Probleme aufgrund variabler gestiegener Umweltkontamination (Allergene, resistente Bakterien aufgrund Antibiotika-Einsatzes in der Landwirtschaft usf.); veränderte Altersstrukur; sowie als grosser Faktor, garantierte Monopole für die Pharma-Branche. Die Gewichtung dieser Faktoren bedarf durchaus noch weiterer Untersuchung, und es ist auch möglich dass sich da noch weitere ausmachen lassen. Aber interessant sind vorallem die momentan propagierten “Lösungen” die sich nur mit kompletter Verleugnung der Realität erklären lassen.

Unfreie Arztwahl

Da wurde zum Beispiel der Vorschlag “die freie Arztwahl aufzuheben” gebracht. Ganz logisch führt das dazu dass die Krankenkassen den Ärzten die Preise diktieren, wer sich nicht an deren Tarife halten will fliegt raus und bekommt nur noch diejenigen die es sich leisten können. Mittelfristig entwickelt sich eine Zweiklassenmedizin. Aber es kommt noch besser, längerfristig geraten alle Ärzte unter diesen Druck, was effektiv dazu führt dass die Krankenkassen die Ärzte komplett kontrollieren. Wir haben ein Monopol der Krankenkassen auf die Ärzte, nicht viel anderes als eine Planwirtschaft.

Diese Gesundheits-Planwirtschaft durfte ich persönlich schon erleben, sie nennt sich “Schulzahnärzte”. Dabei werden die Schüler arbiträr einem Zahnarzt zugewiesen der denen einmal im Jahr das Gebiss untersucht, und ebenso arbiträr Karies findet. Nachdem ich wegen 3 dieser “Löcher” aufgeboten wurde lies mich dieser Schulzahnarzt eine Stunde warten, als ich endlich zu fragen wagte was denn los sei, kanzelte er mich ab, worauf ich die Praxis verlies. Das beste was ich tun konnte. 15 Jahre später hatte ich immer noch keine Karies.

Und heute habe ich ebenfalls so einen Vorgeschmack auf eine derartige Planwirschaft erhalten, in Form eines Briefs von einer Zahnarztpraxis:

Um Zähne und Zahnfleisch gesund zu erhalten, ist eine regelmässige Kontrolle und periodische Zahnreinigung in der zahnärztlichen Praxis erforderlich.

Wie vereinbart möchten wir Sie daran erinnern, dass diese Massnahmen in den kommenden Wochen wieder fällig werden. Für die Vereinbarung eines Termines können Sie bei uns unter der Telefonnummer 0444 XXX XX XX anrufen.

Natürlich habe ich da nichts vereinbart, tatsächlich war ich in dieser Praxis nur einmal wegen eines Notfalls.

Wir können uns also darauf freuen zu unserem zugewiesenen Arzt zitiert zu werden, welcher dann seine zugewiesene Kostenquote zufallsmässig über seine Patienten verteilt.

Kurpfuscher aus dem Mittelalter

Im späten Mittelalter stellte man fest, dass da diverse Ärzte auf Europas Strassen unterwegs waren, die nicht nur diagnostizierten, sondern gleich Ihr Wundermittel eigener Produktion verkauft haben. Man stellte sich also die Frage wie man dieser rampanten Kurpfuscherei habhaft werden könne, und kam mit einer Lösung: Ärzte dürfen keine Medikamente verkaufen, sondern nur Rezepte ausstellen die eine unabhängige Kontrollinstanz ausführt und abgibt. Da man gerade eben kein Amt für Medikamentenkontrolle hatte, und auch keine langwierigen Verfahren um Medikamente freizugeben, und sowieso das ganze wenig Standardisiert war, gab man das Monopol Medikamente zu verkaufen an die Apotheken.

Die Apotheken haben dieses Monopol natürlich nun immer noch, obwohl die Kontrolle über Medikamentfreigaben schon längst staatlichen Stellen obliegt. Das ist ja wunderschön traditionell, diese Zunftmonopole, aber ich glaube nicht dass IKEA-Mitarbeiter immer noch in der Tischlerzunft sein müssen um Möbel zu verkaufen.

Mit anderen Worten: Wir haben da ein Monopol aus dem Mittelalter erhalten welches mittlerweile nicht nur obsolet ist, sondern vorallem auch teuer. Der Arzt muss zur Nothilfe ja sowieso Medikamente vorhalten, wieso soll er die nicht verkaufen? Es ist ja nicht so dass er da selber “Hausmittelchen” erstellen würde die er dann verkauft. Und warum soll da eine zusätzliche Kontrolle durch den Apotheker stattfinden, die Medikamente wurden schon durch den Staat geprüft (und dessen Resourcen hat der Aptheker nicht) und durch den Arzt verordnet (und dessen Diagnose kann der Apotheker auch nicht stellen).

Wir haben also wegen irgendwelcher mittelalterlichen Kurpfuschern immer noch ein Monopol der Medikamentenabgabe für Apotheken. Und wie jedes Monopol kostet auch dieses.

Renten für Pharmariesen

Vermutlich hat noch kaum jemand das überhaupt in Relation mit den Gesundheitskosten gesehen, ganz sicher nicht der Bundesrat welcher neuerdings auch Patente auf Gensequenzen zulässt, aber ein grosser Teil der Gesundheitskosten machen Medikamente aus, und ein überwältigender Teil dieser Kosten wird mittels Monopolen, in diesem Fall Patenten, garantiert.

Der Staat hat es der Pharma-Industrie erlaubt gnadenlos grössenordnung 20-30% sämtlicher Kosten im Gesundheitswesen als Rente einzusacken, indem er sukzessive Patente auf Prozesse (1954), Patente auf Produkte (1977) und nun Patente auf Gensequenzen (2006) garantiert hat.

Über irgendwelche Innovationsfördernden Eigenschaften von Patenten müssen wir gar nicht diskutieren; dieser Nachweis wurde nie irgendwann auch nur für irgendwelche Industriebereiche erbracht. Im Bereich Software/Prozesse wurde hingegen schon nachgewiesen dass Patente Innovationsschädigend sind; der Nutzen von Patenten ganz generell ist also eher zweifelhaft. Was Patente hingegen unbestritten tun ist ein Monopol bieten, und es wäre etwas ganz neues wenn Monopole plötzlich zur Kostensenkung führen würden.

Was auch immer man tun möchte um die Kosten im Gesundheitswesen zu senken, ganz sicher ist es falsch der Pharmaindustrie noch mehr Möglichkeiten für Patente zu garantieren.

Man stelle sich vor, ein weltweiter Markt, ohne Schutzzölle, ohne Handelshemnisse, ohne Protektionismus, ohne Subventionen!

Gute Idee. Die Frage ist, wann kommt er? Und wann werden diese Hindernisse endlich abgebaut? Es stellt sich beim näheren Hinsehen nämlich heraus das genau die Proponenten dieser Globalisierung Ihre grössten Feinde sind!

• Subventionen: Natürlich kann ich billiger produzieren indem ich in China meine Umwelt versaue. Effektiv subventioniere ich mit Schäden an öffentlichem Gut meine Exportartikel. Das betrifft nicht nur das Beispiel China, sondern es betrifft auch den Internationalen Transport; da werden mittels nicht-besteuerung von Treibstoff die damit angerichteten Schäden an die lokalen Steuerzahler abgewälzt. Dies ist auch National der Fall, das schweizer Bundesamt für Verkehr hat ausgerechnet dass der Benzinpreis um SFR 2.50 erhöht werden müsste um nur schon die Schäden und Kosten abzudecken die der Steuerzahler jetzt schon bezahlt (in Form von Gesundheitskosten, Unfällen, Aufforstung, Umweltkatastrophen, Trockenheit usf.).
• Schutzzölle: Es ist ja durchaus verständlich wenn man Wegzölle erheben möchte, um .z.b. zum Erhalt von Verkehrswegen beizutragen. Es ist bedingt sogar verständlich dass man Zollkontrollen machen möchte um die Einfuhr unerwünschter Waren zu verhindern. Was aber nicht verständlich ist, ist dass diese Globalisierungsgegner vom Zoll irgendwelche Pakete (deren Inhalt sogar deklariert ist) öffnen, die Verpackung mittels Klebeband wieder zusammenbauen und dabei von eckiger in runde Form bringen, die Zustellung eine Woche verzögern, bei 100 SFR Warenwert SFR 6.25 Zoll draufpappen und dafür auch noch SFR 30 Bearbeitungsgebühr verlangen. Was für ein immenser Aufwand um ein Handelshemniss darzustellen!
• Patente: Das Allergrösste ist ja dass die WTO, die sich selber die Globalisierung auf die Fahnen schreibt, gleichzeitig der grösstmögliche Globalisierungsgegner darstellt wenn es darum geht irgendwelche Monopole zu schützen, und entsprechende TRIPS und WIPO-Abkommen in der ganzen Welt gegen jeglichen lokalen Widerstand versucht durchzuprügeln.
• Copyright: Etwas ganz ähnliches wie Patente, nur wir hier ein Verwertungsmonopol gegeben statt allen anderen das Verwertungsrecht zu nehmen. Hier geht es um Monopole, deren Geltungsbereich von ursprünglich 14 Jahren nach Erscheinen des Werks in letzter Zeit auf 70 Jahre nach dem Tod des Autors aufgeblasen wurde. Und was versuchen die Globalisierungsgegner von der WTO durchzuwürgen? Natürlich, die grösstmöglichen Monopole die irgendjemand haben könnte. Das Maximalmonopol soll als Internationaler Massstab durchgesetzt werden.
• Parallelimporte: Was anderes als eine Monopolvergabe ist ein Verbot von Parallelimporten? Wie kann es dazu kommen das solche Verbote noch im 21. Jh. erlassen werden? Wie kommt es dass irgendwelche Globalisierungsgegner es wagen dürfen einen Datenträger mit “Regionalcode” zu versehen?

Scheinbar geht die Globalisierungsfreundlichkeit nur soweit wie es den eigenen Vorteil, oder besser gesagt, den Vorteil von irgendwelchen schon bestehenden Monopolisten betrifft. Meine Herren, das nennt man nicht “Globalisierung”, das nennt man “Merkantilismus“!

The world economy doesn’t like trade-barriers, protective tariffs and other obstacles of free trade. They only benefit domestic monopolies, but hurt nations and the world economy as a whole. But the biggest, all-encumbering of those are not even disputed, they are sought to be enforced globally on a ever wider-reaching scale. They’re patents.

Patents serve the holders to get a monopoly on the production of a good, but they don’t grant it, they just grant that others are unable to produce it (without paying the holder, that is). The original idea was that they should foster innovation; but this has proven to be wrong. History tells a different story. From the swiss pharmaceuthical industry, which developed until 1954 (where patents on processes were legalized) without patents at all, and only got patents on products in 1977, to the thriving italian pharmaceutical industry which was in fact annihilated in 1978 when italy allowed patents on products. No patents definitly don’t mean no innovation: in the mid-ninteenth century, switzerland held the second highest number of exhibits per capita on the World Fairs. Plus received disproportionate shares of medals for outstanding innovations.

In the last few decades, patent-protection was ever made stronger, and the effect is that patent-litigation has overtaken patent-licensing by a factor of five in every field but pharmacy and chemistry. Innovation at Risk: The empirical case that today’s patent system discourages innovators—and how it might be fixed documents this. This means, in clear language: Every field of endeavour apart from pharmacy and chemistry would be much better off without patents at all. Still, lawyers and people obviously against globalization continue to try to make patents even stronger, lobby hard to get even more rents and even more rights for patent-holders.

Though the patent-system works in pharmacy and chemistry, it’s only the system that works — but it’s not that the patents “promote science and innovation”, as set down in the reasons why patents should exist in the first place. In this case, patents are to blame for about 50% of our health-care costs. And the swiss federal counsel allowing the “patenting of gene-sequences” on pressure of the few biggest pharma-companies, and against any and all small biotech-companies, obviously only serves to increase the rent those big companies already get, and reads thus as “federal counsel decides on increasing the cost of health-care”. Either someone here was bought and paid, or we’re ruled by neanderthals.

Why can organisations such as the WTO, which claims to stand for “free trade” sanction something like the TRIPS-agreement which tries to plaster the world with monopolies? The absolute anti-thesis of free trade?

Patents are simply an anachronism which has to be abolished better sooner than later; otherwise they will continue doing damage, no matter how much we fight the symptoms of “submarine patents” or “patent trolls”. For pharmacy and chemicals, we need to change some of the rules for the tests of the drugs first, in order to take some (state-mandated) burden off the companies; but for all other fields, we can abolish them immediately.

If you think this article lacks substance, anecdotes or hard data, please read Against Intellectual Monopoly which covers all the mentionned topics in detail. It even goes further than that, it also argues that the other intellectual monopoly — copyright — should be abolished as well. I’m not quite sure whether this is a good idea, but copyright has grown like fungus in the last few decades, and there is certainly something very wrong with it as well. Forever Minus a Day? argues that copyright should last 14 years after creation, no more. And I’d be happy with these 14 years and throw in a
“renewable once for another 14 years” as a tradeoff, but I won’t agree to more than that. With patents, I won’t give in to anything else besides complete abolishment.

Software Piracy (‘soft-“wer ‘pI-r&-sE): Robbery of software on the high seas; the taking of software from others on the open sea by open violence; without lawful authority, and with intent to steal.

Property, you see, is a tangible good. A natural monopoly. If you give it away, you don’t possess it anymore, you can’t sell it twice. And states and countries levy taxes on it.

Would you really want copy-able works of art to be “property”? I guess not. I could buy a copy (or the original, since it doesn’t matter, does it?) of your novel, reprint it and sell it cheaper. No. What you want is a monopoly, and this is exactly what you’ve got with copyright.

Even more detached are patents. Whereas with copyright, you’ve got a monopoly on usage of a given work, even if its not a natural monopoly, with patents you don’t even get that. You don’t have the right to implement a patent, you only have the right to exclude others from doing it. It is, in a sense, the opposite of “property”, a right to keep others from enjoying their property or their monopolies.

So maybe you should stop making analogies to “property”, or “thievery” or even “piracy” pertaining to said copyrightable work.

So what you are talking of is “Intellectual Monopoly”. Get used to it.

Abstract

A how to guide on polluting the world with your genetic creations, and sue everyone else for it, thanks to patents. It seems to me a lot of abominations which are generally attributed to genetics are actually effects of patents.

Keeping things closed

In the beginning, the world was simple. You had your bacteria, spliced
in the extracted or artificially made gene-sequence for producing
insuline, and you’ve got yourself something like a perpetuum mobile,
a living colony of bacteria endlessly churning out insuline. Put it
in tanks, and with relatively low cost, you can produce a worlds
supply of insuline. As long as your bacteria don’t get stolen, leak
out, or somebody else engineers something similar as well, that is.

In any way, in that scenario, you have a very strong incentive to
keep the product of your research by yourself. Since a leak, some
missing bacteria could cost you a fortune. This changes only if
something else happens:

Patents, Hooray!

With patents, you are granted a 20 year monopoly on anything you
might be granted a patent on. Most notable, you don’t have to be
the one who invented it, but only the first to apply for a patent.
And not only will keep a patent all your competitioners from stealing
the fruits of your labour, no, it also keeps them from finding these
things out by themselves, or applying them to anything without
paying you royalties — which you may or may not grant, since,
after all, its competition, and you might just not want the competition
to produce insuline as well. Might ruin your monopoly.

Neatly enough also, theres billions of species nobody ever has seen on
this planet. Since the patent-office does not know them, you just can go,
scour the amazonas and patent whatever new life-form you might find.

But now comes the best thing of all: You don’t have to give a damn what
happens to your creations. Set it loose, doesn’t matter, nobody can
make any profit out of it, since you got the monopoly on it. And if
somebody uses your product by accident he’s also eligible for a lawsuit!

Ain’t it perfect? Produce genetically enhanced grain which is immune to
a certain pestizide but infertile, sell it and the corresponding
pestizide, and sell both each year again. However, those damned
Aerobacteria you used to splice the genes into the grain in the first
place are at work out in the field too, and as it happens, the other
grain gets to get genes from your grain, and starts to get immune to
the pestizide as well, whereas your grain gets the capability for
reproduction back, plus along the way, some pests get immune to the
pestizide as well. No Problem! You just fucked up a whole ecosystem,
but thanks patents, everyone involved is now in violation of the patent
law and you can sue them blind.

Peter Keel,

If an advertisement insults our intelligence, you should not buy the product — Richard Feynmann

I’m currently boycotting various corporations and entieties because of
the rubbish they do, becaue their commercials question my intelligence,
or because they behave like villains, robber-barons and big brother.

Using patents as weapon

• Amazon.com — for a lawsuit on a “one-click shopping” patent.
• Patent Offices — for being a bad idea
• Unisys — lzw-compression patent enforcing
• Akamai.net — allegedly Digital Island violated their patents.
• British Telecom — patent on Hyperlinks. How stupid can you get?

Enforcing copyright while violating “fair-use”

• Sony Pictures Entertainment — DVD lawsuits, MP3 lawsuits
• Universal Music — MP3 lawsuits
• EMI — MP3 lawsuits
• Polygram — MP3 lawsuits
• Bob Dylan — for using traditional chords but supporting lengthening
  copyright-duration for another 20 years. What a bigot.
• The Chamber Brothers — Copyright bullying, sueing MP3.com
• The Coasters — Copyright bullying, sueing MP3.com
• The Original Drifters — Copyright bullying, sueing MP3.com
• Metallica — Sueing Napster Inc. and Universities which have not
  banned Napster.
• Dr. Dre — Also sueing Napster Inc.
• Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits
• Disney Enterprises, Inc. — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits, cheesy cartoons, plus
  lengthening the copyright from 70 to 95 years; while using heavily
  public domain material like “Aladdin”. Bigots.
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits
• Paramount Pictures Corporation — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits
• TriStar Pictures, Inc. — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits
• Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits
• United Artists Pictures, Inc. — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits
• United Artists Corporation — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits
• Universal City Studios, Inc. — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits
• Warner Bros., a Division of Time Warner Entertainment Company, L.P. — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits
• Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits
• Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) — MP3 lawsuits
• Business Software Alliance (BSA) — Copyright bullying
• Software Piracy Agency (SPA) — Copyright bullying

Otherwise doing bullshit

• Applied Digital Technologies — for producing Big Brother equipment
• Hasbro — for doing bullshit with ex-Avalon Hill products
• Mattel — for CyberPatrol blocking criticism on CyberPatrol and
  sueing People criticising it.
• McDonalds — for trashy products
• Microsoft — for trashy products, playing monopoly, microsoft keyboards,
  proprietary file formats and much much more.
• Doubleclick.net — for spying on web-users
• Etoys.com — for domain bullying against etoy.
• Real Networks (Realaudio) — for spying on users
• National Security Agency (NSA) — spying out the whole world

Better behave

Either they play nice or I’ll boycott them as well.

• LucasArts
• Sun Microsystems
• Truste — violating their own privacy policy (a mistake?)

If one thing Microsoft is accomplised, it is a demonstration on how our
current patent- and copyright-laws can be misused and how inadequate
they are.

So the question is how do we fix this. A breakup of Microsoft into smaller
Nanosofts probably won’t do the trick. After all, the same principles still
apply. So there is obviously a need to further restrict Microsoft on
misusing monopoly-power, like:

• Force Microsoft to open their document formats
• Force Microsoft to open their protocol-specs
• Force Microsoft to open their API specs. All of them
• Force Microsoft to license the Windows-Source to whoever wants it.
• Leverage other OS-manufactors to get access to hardware drivers

When there are hundreds of documented and more or less open document-formats out there (XML, HTML, SGML, roff, Postscript, RTF, TeX, only to name a few), how dares Microsoft NOT to release the specs for its document-formats? Or only to release them under NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement)? Other formats like the ones of Wordperfect or Applixware are documented; no problem. Such a politic of sitting on the specs can only have one purpose: Deny competitiors the possibility to make their programs read these document-formats. Probably, as here in the Microsoft-case, they can be used to effectively extort competitiors.

The answer to this is simple, don’t allow anyone to use a document-format which is not fully documented or available in source-code. After all, its a document-format, not a program on which could be said that it contains trade secrets. Furtheron, I’d recommend that it is made impossible to patent such a thing; otherwise it would still be possible to lock out competition, particularly the free software community. An example is the patent on the LZW-algorithm used by .gif-images.

The same as with document-formats goes with protocols. Withelding the protocol-specs from the public only serves the misuse of a monopoly. The solution is relatively simple, as already demonstrated by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task-Force) and the W3C (World-Wide-Web Consortium): Require a free and open-source implementation (preferably BSD-Style license) in order to make a protocol a standard. This should apply to all networking-protocols not exclusively used by games (It makes no sense to force game-programmers to make a free-implementation of their protocols since it would mean effectively open-sourcing the whole game because it will probably be the only implementation of such a protocol to ever exist).

Open the API’s (Application Programmer Interfaces). This isn’t as easy as the ones above. How do you really control whether a company has withheld you parts of its API? You probably would need the source-code to it, but then you’re probably bound by an NDA and can’t even tell the public that there are undocumented API’s. The best possibility to avoid this problems is the next point.

Force the companies to license the source of (at least) operating systems to everyone. So everyone can see whats’ going on, where the API’s are, and so on. Of course, in order to make this a feasible option for the affected company itself, it must be possible to put this under an NDA and probably charge money for it. If a fee is to be allowed, a maximum sum has to be specified. This sum and the NDA have to be the same for all companies and individuals wanting to license the source code.

The last point is somewhat tricky, since it would necessary that every hardware-manufactor either a) provides drivers for every operating system out there b) releases detailed specs or c) releases its drivers open-sourced. The Problem here is that in order to fight a monopoly of some specific company, thousands of other companies need to be “regulated” as well, but I guess this shows the problem of copyrights in the whole.
The point of the hardware-manufactors is that open-sourced drivers or detailed specs possibly allow to gain hints on the nature of the hardware, which is considered a trade secret. On the other hand, some free operating systems licenses do not allow the inclusion of proprietary non-free code or even binaries; effectively making writing drivers under NDA impossible; thus again leading to a delay in availability of drivers. However, several companies no longer consider drivers (effectively the API, not the “program” of hardware) to be trade secrets and freely open the specs or even provide open-sourced drivers. A possibility for law to close in would be to actively force hardware-developers to release specs, since some companies obviously have realized that these are not trade secrets. And if everyone has to do it, nobody can gain unfair advantage.

So much to bugfixes. But where do the bugs come from? The copyright and patents.

Both, copyright and patents were meant to stimulate innovation by giving the innovator the means to collect money for its inventions. A second consideration was that the body of innovations, arts and so on available to the public would grow. The idea behind the concept is that nothing gets done unless rewarded with financial gains. This is true in many ways, but has several problems with the implementation.

First off, duration. The longer such a right lasts, the more eager people are to get it. However, as soon as they have it, there is nothing to stimulate innovation. Disney has Mickey Mouse and has not felt like introducing new characters. Instead old stories (with expired copyright, by the way) are newly animated. Instead of being creative, the copyright allows to sit back and collect the tax. And it grows: When copyright was invented, a copyright-grant lasted for 28 years. Now its 75 years and some companies want it to even last longer.

Second, competence. This applies to patents. The patent office does not understand what they are doing. It was easy once, now it’s almost impossible to tell which patents are bogus or have prior art. The effort for doing such researches however will soon get tremendously big.

Third political lobbying, making it possible to patent algorithms. It was the most stupid idea there ever was to make it possible to patent algorithms. Effectively patents on laws of nature. This makes it possible to patent any method used in any software. How can a patent-office ever tell what should be impossible to patent? As a result, more than 4000 software-patents exist, most of them are bogus or trivial. And it hurts the software-industry enormously if they have to check 4000 Patents only to write a program. Nobody can do that, and so the patent-holders may sue anyone writing software at will, because it is almost guaranteed that he reinvents some of those methods. A particular example is the technique known
as Windowing, mapping parts of two-digit decimal years to either 20xx or 19xx. It has been patented in 1996, first use is at least in 1991. It’s moot, but you’ll have to prove it.

Forth, the assumption a patent is valid unless proven it is not. The opposite should be the case. The one who applies should be forced to prove that its patent is really the first time this particular idea gets invented, as far as it is reasonably backdate-able (in Computers, this would mean about 35 years). Since this will result in an unbelievable big effort for both the office and the applicant, a more simple solution is desirable.

Too bad its even possible to base a whole business on nothing but copyrights and patents, selling licenses for things someone else has innovated, probably some half a century ago. Copyright and patents as an end in itself.

Even worse, copyright and patents can be misused to effectively kill innovation. With Lawsuits regarding copyright-infringement, innovators which most often are small and do not have too much money, can be easily put out of business. Patents are even better in respect of killing off innovation, since you probably have a bogus-patent at hand which can be misused for this.

The consequences out of this are that copyrights as well as patents are totally inadequate to ensure competition and innovation. I propose the following to fix it.

• Patents may last no longer than 5 years, after that, it’s all public domain.
• Make it impossible to patent algorithms
• Copyright lasts 30 years. After that, it’s public domain. This inludes software.

for Bartolome De Las Casas

The Internet, El Dorado! When the first people from europe arrived, they were astonished, looked around, saw what was and started building up something. Soon enough, word spread in europe that there were rivers full of gold in the new lands, and the mythic city of El Dorado, full of gold. So other people were sent out, not discoverers but konquerors, the “Conquistadores”. People who were only in it for the money…

The very same happens today with the internet, spammers only being the harmless part of the ongoing commercialization of the net. The real threat comes from the Conquistadores, people who come, see, don’t understand and destroy. Their weapons not swords but the law, sometimes carefully constructed on the political theatre in order to fulfill their needs, their motivation greed, the official reason of course not anymore to
“mission the heathens” but “to enforce copyright”. We’re talking of an industry which values copyrights more than producing something new.

Powered by self-righteousness, ignorance and greed, Pizarro went to the Incas, didn’t even realize that he could become the Inca himself (and thus gain much more wealth than he ever would have in service of Spain), destroyed everything and submitted the poor rest to Spain. A broken country, destroyed, raped of their culture. Hundreds of thousands of writings, pictures and statues destroyed, prospering cities besieged. South America hasn’t really recovered from this in the past 400 years. Now, conquistadores spot El Dorado in the internet, spot probable
violations of their copyrights and destroy, not realizing they could make a fortune by supporting the very people which probably infringe their copyrights. But no. Incapable of delivering what people really want they tinker around with their own unsuccessful sites; and whenever someone more successfully builds something up, they charge, send in hordes of lawyers costing more money than the “enemy” site ever saw. Effectively, it is possible due to sheer masses of money to “buy” cases in court. The actual case might be relatively unclear, but when attacked by someone who is willing to spend some hundred thousand “reales” in order to shut your site down, many companies and private sites retreat. They’re not even able to spend money for _one_ trial — if they would, and if they would win, the conquistadores would go to the next instance…

Most surprising in this whole case is the inability to see the profits but instead to wreak havoc on wherever happens to stand in the way — wherever they want to go, or wherever they don’t want to go. As mentionned, Pizarro had the opportunity to become Inca, that is, ruler of all Incas. He didn’t. He destroyed everything precious, melted the golden artwork and shipped it to spain. Of course, later on he was slain by his brother in arms. He had everything and lost it through greed and ignorance. The entertainment industry, for instance, does the same. Instead of realizing the endless possibilities of marketing made possible by fansites (well, the incas thought of the spain as something like gods…) they shut them down.

The List of dead bodys is long. AlienQuake, a Level for the popular game Quake modeled after the movie Alien was taken down by Warner, Dozens if not hundreds of fanpages for the Simpsons, Millenium and the X-Files were taken down by 20th Century Fox, lyrics pages were taken down by Warner and Chapell, StarTrek Fanpages were taken down by Viacom/Paramount; another score by Warner was the taking down of several Babylon 5 fanpages,
in turn Harry Fox Agency took down the Online Guitar Archive (OLGA). Of course, this goes not only against fans but (for instance) against musicians as well. Billy Idol, the Beastie Boys and Public Enemy have all been forced to remove MP3’s of their songs from their webpages. Symbol has been warned beforehand.

Not only movies and music are involved, but the printing press as well, though not as aggressive. But the copyrights for artistic works which last for 70 years after the dead of the artist speak for themselves.. On a related note is Disney now up to (which means the US-congress is up to) lengthen the life of copyrights from 75 to 90 years since they would loose copyright on some famous Disney-characters in 2003.

Shutting down sites has not been the only destructive measure the Conquistadores wanted to take. In the recent DVD debate, they want to make sure their DVDs aren’t copied. Divx is one thing, country codes are another (do they really think DVDs could hurt the cinema business?), but far the worst is the idea of encrypting the whole thing. This is okay, but they actually tried to make any action and tool which could be used to reverse-engineer software copy-protection measures illegal. Evidently, they don’t trust their encryption (and have a good reason not to trust it: You can’t encrypt data for consumers without giving them the key to use it), and rather render
the whole computer security and antiviral research illegal.

What these corporations are doing is mass-destruction of internet culture, perverting copyright, trademarks and patents to something they were never meant to be.

The above lines have been written february 1999, since then the DVD- encryption indeed has been cracked, and the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) has proven to be no lesser a conquistador than the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). People were sued for distribution of DeCSS, the utility to decrypt the DVD content scrambling system (CSS). They even tried to get an injunction against people who linked to DeCSS. So we got a new all-star hitparade
of conquistadores: Disney, Sony, MGM, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Universal Studios, Warner Bros, EMI, Polygram, and of course, Francisco Pizarro, Hernan Cortez, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, Diego de Almagro, Hernando deSoto and Panfilo de Narvaez.

Links and References

Dead Bodys

• Alien Quake — in short words from the authors.
• B5 Episode Guide — where it once was.
• OLGA Shutdown — as reported on slashdot.
• International Lyrics Server — taken over, lyrics removed. worthless now.

General Information about sites which were shut down

• OpenDVD.org — defending against the DVD-CA madness
• 2600 — Also charged because of spreading DeCSS; now heavily attacking MPAA.