It's fair enough for Johnj to point out that certain big players have made a nuisance of themselves over copyright and skewed the system. But they haven't entirely succeeded in locking up content. How copyright works depends on how the courts let it work, e.g., to take a current issue, what the US courts let Google Books get away with - a lot, as it turns out. "Open source" plans are good for some stuff, e.g. academic papers, but don't adequately protect those who have a good saleable idea. It's somewhat ironic that one of the open source projects you mention calls itself "Gutenberg", given that most of what we know about the real Gutenberg comes from the legal documents in his endless litigation to protect his rights in his amazing invention...

More generally, just complaining about what's wrong with IP is a mild instance of the leftist disease of which FrankGol's comments above are a terminal case. Either you maintain ideological purity and your self-image of "solidarity with the oppressed" by complaining endlessly, or you work out how the system does right what it does do right so you can see how to extend it to the cases it misses. But you can't do both.

JimF

Throwing labels around beats putting up a decent argument, doesn't it James? Beats contending with contrary views?

Has my alleged 'ideological purity' challenged your 'ideological purity'? Is your Catholic social justice at odds with 'the leftist disease'? Hiding behind cliches is intellectual bankruptcy.

God's in his heaven and all's well with your socially just world, eh? No room for debate?

I presume then, James, that you're conceding that copyright is not the "perfect model of social justice" then? Google may win in court, on the basis of "Fair Use", a copyright exception that we don't have here in Australia....

You accuse me of having a "leftist disease" and suggest that I must "maintain ideological purity and your self-image of "solidarity with the oppressed" by complaining endlessly, or you work out how the system does right what it does do right so you can see how to extend it to the cases it misses." Funnily enough, I thought I was critiquing your argument. You claimed that copyright was a perfect model, I disagreed and cited both evidence and alternative models. That's not complaint, that's debate.

I'm afraid your post is full of bluster and cliche. Not to mention factual error: eg you can't copyright or patent an "idea" (you can only copyright the expression of an idea, not the idea itself).

As for Johannes Gutenberg, the cases brought by Riffe, Dritzehn and Heilmann, and by Furst seem to have mainly revolved around money. His main tactic to prevent competitors was secrecy (which is partly why we know so little about him).

Well, OK, "perfect" model was a bit strong. I didn't really mean that actually existing IP law was perfect, but that the concept of IP, realised imperfectly in law though it is, is a good model of social justice that we can appreciate free of the ideological carryings-on that tend to cloud some other topics.

The slogan that you can't patent ideas but only their "expression" is approximately true, but isn't holding up very well in marking the boundary as it now is. Yes, you can't patent the number 3 or Newton's Second Law, but you can patent a reasonably detailed mathematical algorithm, which is an idea, whether or not you've expressed it in software. Really, just about everything that's patented is what would normally be called an idea.

The fact that Gutenberg had to rely on secrecy - in his day even table s of compound interest tended to be guarded as industrial secrets - goes to show exactly why strong IP law is needed to protect his rights of people like him.

Oh dear Jim, surely you're joking? You complain of "ideological carryings-on", when your own posts are full of pejorative political slurs. It wasn't me who used "leftist disease", "ideological purity" or "solidarity with the oppressed" was it? I'm happy to argue a position without name-calling and I hope you're grown-up enough to do the same.

But, putting that to one side, perhaps we might consider IP further, specifically the World Wide Web. The basis of the web are open standards such as TCP/IP, HTTP, XML and DHCP, which ensure interoperability between a wide variety of software and hardware platforms. I can use an open source browser (such as Firefox) or proprietary one (like Internet Explorer or Safari) running on a proprietary operating system (Windows, OSX) or open source (Linux).

Imagine for a moment the idea that Tim Berners-Lee had patented the Web and charged royalties for implementing HTTP. Sir Tim would no doubt be rich, but the Web (and the world) would be poorer. The Web is a transformative technology of the same order of magnitude as the printing press and it has succeeded partly because no-one owns it.

Some past and present legal campaigns (try searching on DirecTV, BT hyperlink, SCO vs Novell, or RIAA) suggest there is a bizarre parallel world where justice is about the last thing that IP has anything to do with. Unless, of course, you've got plenty of money. There is a place for copyright, but it is not a model for "social justice". To think otherwise would seem to be a "utopian fantasy".

Lev “For example, is there a just moral claim to the ownership of natural resources? Many thinkers argue there is not - and also argue that all individuals have equal right to a share of its proceeds.”

Lev I would note land and other natural (and some unnatural) resources are licenced by government for use.

Examples – mining exploration licences, radio and tv broadcast licences, gaming licences etc

Through the process of government “licencing”, the collective tax revenues generated there from being applied to say the operation of schools, hospitals etc; “all individuals” acquire a share in the proceeds.

That we individuals do not see such proceeds directly is neither here nor there. Without licence revenues, other taxes would need to be higher to meet the same expenditure needs.

On the matter of “tax reform” I am an ardent supported of tax reform. However, my interest is to simplify it and not use it as an instrument to enforce some form of “wealth distribution”.

If “society” wanted to “get real” about that sort of stuff, death duties would be set at 100% of all estates, be they wealth or modest. No politician is ever going to get elected on that policy.

My view remains, as a supporter of small government, of which one of the worlds leading proponents and champions, I have already appropriately quoted, in my earlier post.

An increase in the impediment of taxes is the least effective way for a “society” to advance, since all that is achieved is the “reward”, which motivates the individual is directly diminished through taxation, for some supposed “benefit of society”.

Further, I have never heard of anyone in society being motivated because they received some benefit or bequest from government.

Indeed, if Australians of aboriginal descent are used as an example, the receipt of special benefits from the state appear to have had as demotivating an influence as would extra taxation.