[music-dsp] [OT] Patent: Efficient convolution withoutinput/outputdelay

[Sampo Syreeni]

On Thu, 15 Mar 2001, Mike Berry wrote:

>	Let's set aside the issue of price for a second, and consider control.
>If someone can copy my music for free, can they use it in a political ad
>promoting genocide?

They ought to be able to. You cannot know beforehand whether that will
actually carry some benefit, as unlikely as it may seem. That's the reason
there is such a thing as freedom of speech.

>	Intellectual property has developed to formalize and legalize respect
>between parties, modeled after the respect of physical property.  An
>owner of IP is by all means allowed to license any use they wish for
>free.  But it is their decision, just as I can let you use my car, but
>you shouldn't steal it.

The difference is, there is no scarcity. If I use 'your' information, you
will still have it. You haven't lost anything. Hence the comparison is
flawed. If you want to keep your data to yourself, keep it. That's called
keeping it a secret, a time proven concept. But you shouldn't be able to
have it both ways.

Besides, copyrights were originally conceived by sheet music publishers as a
way to enforce their monopoly. Nothing to do with the rights of the artist
and the other current high-brow reasoning surrounding IP. Similarly, patents
and the enlarged sphere of copyright we witness today are usually
legitimized as something to promote public good (e.g. US's 'to Promote...'),
not the welfare of the artist. That is why patents and copyrights are
granted for limited terms. It's not property, it's an incentive, and one
that I think was ill-conceived from the word go. There is little evidence
that IP has actually resulted in a 'vibrant intellectual commons', as it was
supposed to.

>choice.  However, in order to convince me that you are reasonable, you
>need to offer some replacement mechanism by which I will get the respect
>that I desire.  Certainly I will agree to respect others, but what is my
>recourse if others do not respect me?  Harsh words? Weaponry?

First you'd have to show that people need to have a right to IP, or what
you call 'respect'. It is not at all difficult to show that something like
the concept of private property is needed for a working economy to form.
The same does not hold for IP, a concept newer than the intellectual
economy people are so afraid would collapse if IP law was weakened.

>	So, please, rail against the IP system.  But offer something to insure
>its protections to me as a creator, so that I don't run away to build
>physical objects instead, the only things that you deem valuable.

Oh, I have the highest regard for non-physical production. I just think that
you cannot own information, or control the rights of others to copy it once
you've relinguished control to it. Intellectual creations formed long before
IP ever did. In fact, the most important of such creations, i.e. scientific
discoveries, are still in the open. Yet science continues to flourish. IP is
rent-seeking, nothing else. People do not need state enforced monopolies to
create useful things. If you run, someone will simply take your place.

Sampo Syreeni <decoy at iki.fi>, aka decoy, student/math/Helsinki university


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