[OT] "The Condescending UI" (was: Do we need Win95/98/Me support?)

[foobar]

On Monday, 23 January 2012 at 22:50:15 UTC, Jonathan M Davis 
wrote:
> On Monday, January 23, 2012 17:37:59 Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> IP is evil. That's what I love about China: Not much respect 
>> for IP. Thanks
>> to China's disregard for such things, I have an adaptor that 
>> lets me use the
>> fantastic DualShock2 on Xbox1, GC or PC. That would *never* 
>> happen in the
>> US or any heavily-US-influenced country. The corporations and 
>> lawyers just
>> wouldn't allow it.
>
> IP is not entirely evil. For instance, I think that it's 
> perfectly legitimate for an author to want to be paid for the 
> book that they wrote. The same goes for a song or a movie. And 
> if I write code, and I don't release it under an open source 
> license, then no one has any business using it without my 
> permission as long as the copyright holds. The problem is that 
> companies take it way too far. Too much is protected - the 
> prime example of this being software patents (it's ludicrous to 
> patent an idea IMHO) - and companies go too far in protecting 
> it (e.g. MPAA or RIAA).
>
> The end result is that instead of legitimately protecting 
> innovation and inventions, IP is now frequently used to stifle 
> innovation and prevent competition.
>
> The basic concept isn't necessarily bad, but how it's been 
> applied has gone way too far.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

IP can't be evil, it's the basic protocol of the internet ;)
seriously though, the term IP is highly misleading and doesn't 
have a hold in (legal) reality. It's a collection of unrelated 
laws with separate agendas and purposes: copyright, patent, 
trademarks. Each individual law *supposed to* make sense, but at 
a whole they really don't. Yes, it is perfectly legitimate for an 
author/artist/musician/font creator/etc to want to be paid and 
they really should be. it is not hover at all legitimate that a 
book publisher/record company/etc be paid if that business model 
isn't justified anymore in the market place. Forcing those on the 
market when they aren't necessary is the true meaning of evil. I 
also disagree that it's the companies' fault. They simply want to 
make money. That their purpose. The government is the responsible 
party to set the rules for corporations and not vice versa and 
the US government is completely at fault for this huge mess. It's 
like children setting the rule for their parents.