copyrighting

El Drew wrote:Why do you think government research would be not good/slow/ineffective? Not trying to be argumentative here, I'm genuinely interested.

It's more of a general rule, government companies are not as effective managed as private ones.
(for one thing, government changes every 4-5 years, so management does to, also, CEO's can get the post because of politics, not abilty)

also, would the public agree that millions go to development of things that are useless 90% of the time?
it's necessary, but hard to sell.

I like the current way medicines are managed: the inventing company gets the copyright for a number of years (don't know how much). After that, they should've been able to return the cost of the r&d and made a nice profit and every company can manufacture the medicines, the so called generic medicines.

What I'm getting a bit sick of is companies like Walt Disney that are pushing legislation to extend copyright so they can keep farming old ideas.

it's 20 years as far as I know. For technology, it's untill the inventor is dead =) (in some countries at least)

I'd prefer just lots of government funding to University research teams. I mean, as said previously, no great scientist has been in it for the money, really. And this should apply to drugs too. Expensive in the short term, but the cheaper medicine in the long term is worth it, IMHO.

Well, after 20 years the meds get cheaper. It's only after 20 years that you know the long term effects.
I'm also pro more university funding, but I think the protection of intellectual property is also needed

But what about those companies that simply churn out ideas and patent them, on the offchance that someone will create a working version, then claim royalties? They have a negative effect on the very thing you're trying to create with intellectual property.

PArt of the reason it is so expensive to produce drugs now is because it's been turned into an industry designed to make money. Scientists are beginning to ignore whole fields of medicine and research because there's only money in a few areas. Further copyright can threaten or outright eliminate creative expansion. Look at the development of the great stories which have become the foundation of western civilization, like King Arthur and a number of others. These were repeated and ripped off by a plethora of authors and song writers, each one retelling the same story, but changing just a little this or that they thought would sound better. We have a rich cultural tradition due to what would be considered infringement.

and intellectual property doesn't need to be protected it needs to be shared

Nobody can take back the internet, the days of record companies making money off of cd sales and closed releases is over. If anything it will actually improve the artists and clear out the junk. I think there can be a balance though, in terms of intellectual property rights, but i also know that there are silly things like the extension of copyrights in the UK. i don't like seeing people discuss and make rulings in real courts about issues they really know very little about.

like fox hunting

rastari wrote:like fox hunting

That's a whole different issue entirely.

John Forseti wrote:Government research wouldn't be less good or ineffective, but the fact that it was funded from the tax payer's purse would weigh the projects down with tighter scrutiny and so on, making it slower and more expensive. Imagine a fire & brimstone type catholic politician on the stem-cell research committee.

So we should ignore morality in science to make it more efficient?

committees should accuratelt represent the demographic of the community

I thnk morality and science are a hard thing to work through. Scientists are notorious for working on something and never once asking "is this right?" it is always "can I do it?" I want science reasonably unfettered, but I am petrified they will make genetic manipulation widely available and the de facto way to go in child birth. i shudder at a culture of people who can take thier baby and say "I want them to have green eyes, have the potetnial strength of Arnold Schwarzeneggar, lungs like an olympic swimmer and the mental acuity and disposition of a nobel laureate in physics." It would be wonderful to be able to say "my baby will not have down syndrome, or be crippled for life" but if it was a choice between that and the possibility of genetic super people taking over I'll take handicapped.

twaters wrote:

John Forseti wrote:Government research wouldn't be less good or ineffective, but the fact that it was funded from the tax payer's purse would weigh the projects down with tighter scrutiny and so on, making it slower and more expensive. Imagine a fire & brimstone type catholic politician on the stem-cell research committee.

So we should ignore morality in science to make it more efficient?

There's a difference between oversight and being outright opposed to the idea.

Nemo Mobilis wrote:I shudder at a culture of people who can take thier baby and say "I want them to have green eyes, have the potetnial strength of Arnold Schwarzeneggar, lungs like an olympic swimmer and the mental acuity and disposition of a nobel laureate in physics." It would be wonderful to be able to say "my baby will not have down syndrome, or be crippled for life" but if it was a choice between that and the possibility of genetic super people taking over I'll take handicapped.

If you made it compulsory then after two or three generations there wouldn't be any genetic super people, as everyone would be a genetic super person. Wouldn't that be nice?