i just discovered stefan g bucher's 'daily monster' site, and it is premium. read about his involvement in the new 826LA. I'm a big fan of the whole mcsweeny's/826 scene and hope to volunteer at 826MI in ann arbor soon... i encourage everyone to get into this fine writing soon.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
local food politics
its sad how much news there is about local food and how little difference it seems to make... some good articles from the new york times:
The Vegetable-Industrial Complex
My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables)
enjoywhy isn't intellectual 'property' taxed?
some intellectual property borrowed from the LA Times:
Copyright This
Intellectual property’s social value may trump copyright law.
By Dallas Weaver
February 20, 2008
Jon Healey correctly points out that the debate over intellectual-property theft is complex because we are often dealing with "non-real properties." These properties cost nearly nothing to produce, and an infinite number of people can use the same property at the same time. And yet, we still want to treat them as if they were "real" property.
Significantly, some of these non-real properties have major effects on human welfare. Take, for example, the formula for "oral rehydration therapy," a mixture of salt, sugar and water. Although it could potentially be copyrighted, it has saved more lives in the Third World than almost anything else. The world is lucky that this formula is in the public domain, not copyrighted and subject to use charges that people who need it couldn't afford.
The present system treats these copyrighted works as a funny kind of real property with no carrying costs, taxes or significant fees. Without carrying costs, copyrights remain in force almost forever - even though, over time, the demand for the copyrighted material can fall to almost nothing. As the demand decreases, the value may remain, but it becomes effectively unavailable to, as the Constitution puts it, "promote the progress of science and useful arts." Witness all the copyrighted books, scientific journals, audio works and visual works that are out of print or otherwise unavailable because copyright law prevents the new, low-cost methods of distribution from being utilized.
In the scientific field, this has devastating effects on the advancement of human knowledge - which is just the opposite of the intent of copyright law.
As a member of a scientific journal's editorial board - and as a senior citizen - I see reams of manuscripts that just reinvent the wheel. Because the whole scientific enterprise has become so complex that non-electronic research is effectively impossible, many young scientists don't know and can't find out what has already been done from older, copyrighted, paper-based literature. This results in a huge waste of resources. The same can be said for copyrights in creative areas such as music and writing, in which older works with limited distribution could be built upon to "promote the progress of science and useful arts."
A solution to determining which works are in the "Mickey Mouse" category of copyrights and which are in the more socially valuable "oral rehydration therapy" class of work is not feasible for a government bureaucracy. However, if all copyrights were taxed at a fixed (but significant) amount per year to maintain the copyright (all registered through the copyright office and searchable), there would be a significant carrying cost and most of the copyrighted material would revert to "public domain" and become available to "promote the progress of science and useful arts." As intellectual property and copyrights become an even more significant part of our economy, and as copyright holders (not necessarily the creators) make claims of "stealing" as though it is real property, it should be taxed. Relative to copyrights' significance in our economy, the amount of revenue from this source should be in the hundreds of billions of dollars per year.
With a proper tax system, publishers like the L.A. Times or scientific journals may maintain a copyright for only a year or so before letting the content revert to public domain and letting Google and everyone else utilize the material for its small, but socially significant, remaining value. The human enterprise could continue to build on itself in these creative, sustainable and non-resource-consuming ways, with copyrights only applying to a small subset of this enterprise.
It should also be noted that some of the most valuable and significant intellectual property and creative works can't be copyrighted. For example, Mickey Mouse is copyrighted, but E=MC2 could not have been. Which was truly the more significant creative work?
Dallas Weaver is a scientist and consultant.
Copyright This
Intellectual property’s social value may trump copyright law.
By Dallas Weaver
February 20, 2008
Jon Healey correctly points out that the debate over intellectual-property theft is complex because we are often dealing with "non-real properties." These properties cost nearly nothing to produce, and an infinite number of people can use the same property at the same time. And yet, we still want to treat them as if they were "real" property.
Significantly, some of these non-real properties have major effects on human welfare. Take, for example, the formula for "oral rehydration therapy," a mixture of salt, sugar and water. Although it could potentially be copyrighted, it has saved more lives in the Third World than almost anything else. The world is lucky that this formula is in the public domain, not copyrighted and subject to use charges that people who need it couldn't afford.
The present system treats these copyrighted works as a funny kind of real property with no carrying costs, taxes or significant fees. Without carrying costs, copyrights remain in force almost forever - even though, over time, the demand for the copyrighted material can fall to almost nothing. As the demand decreases, the value may remain, but it becomes effectively unavailable to, as the Constitution puts it, "promote the progress of science and useful arts." Witness all the copyrighted books, scientific journals, audio works and visual works that are out of print or otherwise unavailable because copyright law prevents the new, low-cost methods of distribution from being utilized.
In the scientific field, this has devastating effects on the advancement of human knowledge - which is just the opposite of the intent of copyright law.
As a member of a scientific journal's editorial board - and as a senior citizen - I see reams of manuscripts that just reinvent the wheel. Because the whole scientific enterprise has become so complex that non-electronic research is effectively impossible, many young scientists don't know and can't find out what has already been done from older, copyrighted, paper-based literature. This results in a huge waste of resources. The same can be said for copyrights in creative areas such as music and writing, in which older works with limited distribution could be built upon to "promote the progress of science and useful arts."
A solution to determining which works are in the "Mickey Mouse" category of copyrights and which are in the more socially valuable "oral rehydration therapy" class of work is not feasible for a government bureaucracy. However, if all copyrights were taxed at a fixed (but significant) amount per year to maintain the copyright (all registered through the copyright office and searchable), there would be a significant carrying cost and most of the copyrighted material would revert to "public domain" and become available to "promote the progress of science and useful arts." As intellectual property and copyrights become an even more significant part of our economy, and as copyright holders (not necessarily the creators) make claims of "stealing" as though it is real property, it should be taxed. Relative to copyrights' significance in our economy, the amount of revenue from this source should be in the hundreds of billions of dollars per year.
With a proper tax system, publishers like the L.A. Times or scientific journals may maintain a copyright for only a year or so before letting the content revert to public domain and letting Google and everyone else utilize the material for its small, but socially significant, remaining value. The human enterprise could continue to build on itself in these creative, sustainable and non-resource-consuming ways, with copyrights only applying to a small subset of this enterprise.
It should also be noted that some of the most valuable and significant intellectual property and creative works can't be copyrighted. For example, Mickey Mouse is copyrighted, but E=MC2 could not have been. Which was truly the more significant creative work?
Dallas Weaver is a scientist and consultant.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
renews my interest in putting my sabot where it doesn't belong
I found this through my international law class and i find it amazing the CIA would distribute this. The whole contra thing is amazing... how did these people not get hung as war criminals? How can people still dig Reagan after our involvement in Nicaragua? I mean, I like this pamphlet, but I'm also a radical. But America, this bastion of democracy, would encourage sabotage as a means of political change is disappointing. After all the effort these people put into destroying a non-existent communist threat, how does the public trust them when they talk about the 'threat from islamo-fascists!'? Anywho, more about it on the wiki, and while you're there check out this documentary i have yet to watch but fully plan on doing soon...
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Forget oil, the new global crisis is food
The financial post has an insightful article on the coming food crisis. I personally welcome the change and hope it will drive consumers to be more responsible in their eating. It boggles my mind that so many people "just have to" live in the suburbs and have a yard, just for the pleasure of spraying it in chemicals and mowing it with a dirty two stroke lawnmower. Last year i bought a dirty two stroke rototiller and used it to tear up the lawn and plant vegetables. I had about a hundred and forty plants, many of them growing bigger than i could have imagined. I had to give food away to my friends and have slow food potluck\cookout\dinner parties just to try and use most of it. I do feel bad for people that don't have yards to grow their own produce, but they should look to community gardening. I'm (hopefully) starting a community gardening class soon, so i'm sure i'll have more to say on this...
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