@Einstein:
"hank you Zarf for supporting... all these socialists made me lonely.."
you called me a socialist. So yes, you must be a lonely guy

@tommie:
"reform the copyright and patent laws to fit this day and age.
keeping them like they are is innefective, abolishing them altogether is even worse..."
This is more or less the same as my own views. Except I would rather abolish them as keep them as they are, but both are bad options. The main point of debate is how much time a patent should last.

@zarf:
finished my reply-reply-reply. Should be somewhere up. Take your time.

If someone else wishes to waste 50,000,000++ and release... I would be ok with it. But I would not because you are taking my property rights away.

> Zarf BeebleBrix wrote:

> Copyrights last for the life of the author+75 years, even in the most generous situations.  Best estimates give that John died in 100 AD, which is 1,400 years before the printing press.

Today, translations of the Bible are copyrighted.  Each translation, and copy thereof, would have had to be copyrighted.  The point is had the printing-press been invented in our legal climate, and if it were used unregulated as it was originally, its use would have been in violation of PIPA / SOPA.  People copied books all the time back then, regardless of copyright, and ushered in the renaissance.

It was the unregulated, unfettered, use of the printing press which ushered in the renaissance.  SOPA / PIPA threatens to sabotaged the onset of another such renaissance. It would be the unfettered use of the internet and computers, with all of their capabilities used to their full potential, unrestrained by such laws as SOPA / PIPA, which would usher in a new renaissance that could solve many if not all of our social ills, regardless or should I say in spite of the ideology of the politicians in power.

It is the free, unfettered, unregulated (and thus inexpensive) use of technology by honest, hardworking, ethical citizens which transforms society for the better, not any sort of political ideology or any particular political party.  History is proof of this.

And yet, here are political / corporate tycoons trying to prevent this from happening.

Why, Einstein?

Answer me why it is political and corporate tycoons insist on circumventing the democratic process and all the values upon which democracy is based in regulating and fettering the use of technology which we could use to improve our lives?

As a political, corporate Tycoon yourself, I'm sure you could provide an answer to this.

China was once a rather powerful nation, inventing gunpowder, the compass, and china. And since we are talking about IP, they have their own unique music, and writing certainly continued without IP rights.,

Simply saying "show how they were advantaged over the United States." and also including certain periods is a little bit irrelevant. That same period saw wars after wars against China (Opium Wars, 2 Sino-Japanese Wars, Civil War) and you say "that because the US was more prosperous in that period, then it must be because it is better" and then somehow linking that into IP rights. You cannot argue like this, all it comes back to is "my country is better than yours", and makes this argument POINTLESS!

"Answer me why it is political and corporate tycoons insist on circumventing the democratic process and all the values upon which democracy is based in regulating and fettering the use of technology which we could use to improve our lives?"

You didn't want this to go into a partisan debate, yet you seek to dispute to discredit "capitalisst corporations"...just saying...

"Today, translations of the Bible are copyrighted.  Each translation, and copy thereof, would have had to be copyrighted."

"There is also some speculation that there may have been two presses, one for the pedestrian texts, and one for the Bible. One of the profit-making enterprises of the new press was the printing of thousands of indulgences for the church, documented from 1454

"War of 1814, Civil War, Spanish American War, Revolutionary War, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Korea, War against Mexico, and I am just scratching the surface."

How much was fought IN the US?

"US invented the Airplane, Machine Guns, Nukes, and assembly line mass production. "

Weren't nukes invented by scientists first working for the germans?

"China making China goes back and while it was an advance, it was not an earth shattering one. As well as Gun Powder being made... no effective uses besides a basic rocket and fireworks was really made by China, nor was research made into other forms of exploding powders... While when the West got a hold of Gun Powder there was research into variances of the powder, different base substances for the powder, and a whole litany of alternative explosive types came out of the wood works. "

What point are you trying to make? That one nation doesn't use gunpowder for destruction? (also, I am pretty sure there is alot of fireworks on July 4th)...

"So yes I challenge that China was ok with a no IP law. You lost innovation, no one tried, because no one could gain. "

No, again it is still not a valid example...a) this is an argument about IP, so give me an example of music/books...using examples of "oh these arent amazing" is irrelevant to the argument, because the argument is nothing gets invented...

But ok, need more? Paper (we still use), the compass (we still use), printing, gunpowder had military applications (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huolongjing#Fire_arrows_and_rockets), invented landmines...there is a long list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions
(I lol'd at the mention of "toilet paper")...also this does not touch on any of the cultural literacy (I keep getting told of famous books/stories that I do not understand , but these sorts of things would be relevant under IP protection)...

There are many other reasons that better explain any stagnation in the Chinese innovation (one being that the leader could simply halt all scientific innovation for half a century easily), and wars that affected the Chinese mainland (which makes a big difference)...

"Sun Tzu is an example of someone ripping other peoples IP's off.

Yeah we love the book today, but I am sure that the people he (you can read in the book how he took other peoples idea's) ripped off were not happy with him"

Have not read the book myself, but googled it, found one reference to taoism and the author of taoism, Laozi, and wouldnt that be more supporting that people continue to work on innovation (since taoism is not about military tactics)...so can you be more specific to your "reference" of him talking about ripping off others?

Should you really be considering military hardware as IP-protected?  I mean... it's not like the Soviets said "wait a second... the atomic bomb is still under a US patent... we can't build it until 1965!"

EDIT: Well, at least in Europe, people had no problem with reverse engineering things.  I'm pretty sure gunpowder wasn't really reverse engineered in East Asia, so it actually could be argued that, as far as military technology goes, China is the  IP-protected example while Europe is the no-protection example.  But then again, Europe was a much more competitive market simply due to geopolitical circumstances, so this is really probably a terrible comparison regardless.

I mean I am arguing FOR the free flow of capital (intellectual capital), and you are calling me anti-capitalist? WTH?

"A company that makes a new product wants protections. If everyone can just copy the product then it is crap for them."

A monopoly makes a product that everyone can just copy, but then bribes government to establish and enforce laws that will continue to allow the monopoly to charge a 2000 % markup, even though people could just copy the product at the cost if not lower than the cost to the company to produce the product in the first place, and you think this is "capitalism"? 

Tough beans.  Suck it up Hollywood, publishing houses, patent offices, etc., the free flow of capital (in all its shapes and sizes) is capitalism, and if you are a proponent of free market economics you'd be the first to agree with me that SOPA / PIPA subverts free market economics and is bad for innovators, bad for society, bad for humanity, bad for consumers, and bad for producers, even - bad for just about everyone all around, except the monopolies.

"even though people could just copy the product at the cost if not lower than the cost to the company to produce the product in the first place"

And then the only ones that make money are those who do nothing to develop, but still with large factories/distribution networks...works out better for the consumer in theory, but not for the business (and this is just a snapshot, I know it will have adverse effects on the whole economy).

Kind of an obscure point, but lets say that everything became so cheap that everyone can afford whatever they wanted (because there is no patents, so factories/companies just mass produce everything). Now, as a consumer, what is my motivation for working hard, or even at all? Money making would all be manufactoring/distribution, so anyone with existing capital would invest in those services, and R&D becomes a dead cause (who would actually invest?). This would lead to a world where existing products are widely available, but noone would move towards developing new products (because this is costs that just involve no garauntee on return, so everyone would just copy others).

Xeno

These are actual microchip manufactorers

Samsung
Intel
Qualcomm
AMD
Toshiba
IBM

And that is a very short list.

Why would AMD research making a brand new top level graphics card if all those companies could copy it and make their own versions?