[MURG] MU and IP

[Yan King Yin]

From: "Martín O. Baldan" <martinob at arrakis.es>

>>As I pointed out before, IP does not prevent disclosure or
>>publication, it actually facilitates openness.
>
>Well, it does facilitate disclosure by the author or inventor (that's the
>supposed reason patents were created in the first place) when the
>alternative is to easily and securely hide the details of the invention and
>sell the product as a black box. But it undermines disclosure, examination,
>open discussion and experiment among other scientists, engineers and
>amateurs. People are divided into producers and consumers of
>intellectual products. "Consumers" are not supposed to know or try to learn
>anything about the technology they are using. "Producers" are supposed to
>behave as competitors, not colleagues. The sharing of knowledge is
>discouraged.

Open discussion of patents is entirely possible. For example
PCR (polymer chain reaction) is a patented technology but
every biology student study it. What is negatively affected
is perhaps the sharing of knowledge among competitors. Maybe
this happens with a few competitors in the same market, but
with an industry-wide consortium, the sharing of information
may be facilitated through better organization and
communication. The consortium is a way of achieving division
of labor such that competition can be reduced.

>>There isn't much reason to feel sad. Federal funding appears
>>to be free only because it is a hidden cost. Therefore the
>>'spirit of openness' is actually an illusion.
>
>If you are trying to tell me that it would be desirable to find an
>alternative to tax money, then I totally agree.  I dislike the dichotomy
>"openness and tax money vs free market and IP". Remember that freedom is not
>the same as openness. With tax funding of resarch, you've got lots of
>openness because researchers don't have to worry about money, but many
>citizens are forced to pay for things in which they are not interested, and
>this restricts their freedom.
>
>With IP, openness is undermined, for the abovesaid reasons. And what about
>freedom? Well, you are free to buy device only if you want it, but you are
>not free to examine it and make a copy, or even to assemble another device
>which looks too similar, without permission from the patent holder. This is
>no less *state* oppression than taxes are.

That's a good point, it shows that absolute freedom is
unattainable and that *any* organized effort to get the job
done must need to establish rules and thus take away freedom
from people. I agree that MU IP may give its owner an "unfair
advantage" (based on some general ethical considerations).
Therefore the consortium may make some compromise as to how
future profits should be distributed, how pricing should be
set, etc. There is a lot of room for adjustment.

>>Can you elaborate on your idea of fund raising? It doesn't
>>seem very plausible, unless you're talking about charity,
>>in which case the amount of funding would be very limited.
>
>Not quite. I'm talking about a service-based economy. In the example of
>mind uploading resarch, we have:
>
>_A service: resarch on mind uploading
>_Offerents: researchers who would like to work on mind uploading if they
>could live on that.
>_Demandants: People who want resarch on mind uploading and would pay for it.
>
>Some possible problems:
>
>1) If the findings of the research will eventually benefit everyone,whether
>they paid for the research or not, then why pay?

The 'product' of the consortium would be a set of MU
technologies (ready for production) that will NOT be free.
So an MU provider who wants to sell MU services would have
to pay for it. And then the customers of MU would have to
pay those MU service providers.

>2) What if I pay, but few other people does, and the project is cancelled?
>Do I loose my money?

Sadly, yes. The IP tokens would become trash, in a way
similar to the stocks of companies going bankrupt. It is
something fundamental to financing that, people who are
willing to invest in something are taking risks and as a
result they are also able to derive benefits from it (if
the venture turns out successful).

>The main motivation to pay for something that you could get for free is to
>get it as soon as possible and under the best conditions. A good system
>should ensure that researchers know the amount of money they will get before
>they start working, and that payers get their money back if the research is
>not conducted as agreed.

You're assuming that the science behind MU will eventually
be available for free. There're several problems with this.
Firstly it may simply be false -- progress in neuroscience
may not be sufficient to enable MU; Secondly it may take too
long; Thirdly if the consortium establishes IP for it then
(legally) it will not be free.

You second point, the "money back gaurantee", is totally
unrealistic as R&D goes. Any money that is spent on R&D
will not be recoverable after the research is conducted.
This happens to federal funding as well, although the
average citizen may not be aware of it. In the case of
the consortium, if it fails to deliver, then the token
holders will have a claim of the research equipments
(and whatever assets left over) that could be sold to
other people -- it follows exactly the same procedure as
bankruptcy.

>For example, let's suppose that a group of scientists want to conduct a
>particular piece of research which is relevant to MU. They provide an
>estimate of the cost and the time required. An independent institution
>guarantees the credibility of the project. Those who are interested can make
>conditional donations, through the internet or by other means. A typical
>scheme of conditional donation would be the following: once you make a
>donation, you can't in principle get it back, except if the project is not
>finished according to the independent institution when the deadline expires.

Your scheme is entirely based on donations. The amount of
funding that you can raise this way MUST be way smaller
than with IP. And how is this not a serious problem? Again,
you're not looking at the big picture to fully understand
the tradeoffs involved -- amount of funding, time to arrival,
etc.

>It is convenient to distinguish the operative costs (in equipment and the
>like) from the bonus given to researchers as an incentive. The latter can be
>delayed, at least in part, until the research is finished to satisfaction of
>all parts involved. The former is necessary, and it's spent, during the
>research. So, there should be some kind of "research insurance" institution
>to refund the contributors if the research fails to produce acceptable
>results for any reason. I think it would be quite natural if the
>certifying institution were funded by potential contributors and the
>insurance institution were funded by the research community, always on a
>voluntary basis.

This sort of insures that donations will be used towards
the successful completion of MU research. But this does not
pay back the donors at all.

>So, you may ask, if it is possible to finance research this way, then why is
>it not done? I think that some of the reasons are:
>
>1) If a researcher (or an engineer) wants to make big money, there's a
>better alternative: intellectual property. There's nothing like getting the
>help of monopolistic laws to make a profit. While the scheme I propose could
>probably be realised rigth now, it could only become predominant after the
>abolition or substantial weakening of IP.
>
>2)There's already an institution which is supposed to promote research: the
>State. People pay taxes and some of that money is supposed to sustain
>research. A voluntary research funding system would permit a substantial tax
>cut. But the change from the old system to the new one would probably be
>slow and careful.
>
>I hope my position is somewhat clearer now.

I can understand you points, but your scheme is still 100%
based on charity (plus federal funding as usual).

I think in the near future we might expect the US to become
more socialist in terms of wealth distribution, following a
trend in European countries. This is possible because of AI
and automation, and given democracy. And If this happens,
the IP scheme may not create much of an unfairness. Besides,
there are various ways to design the consortium to make it
less like a profit-maximizing organization.

YKY



____________________________________________________________
Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages
http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10