Erik writes about video games at Forbes and politics at Mother Jones. He's the editor of The League though he hasn't written much here lately. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter.
“Maybe if we thought of small tech companies and tech entrepreneurs the way we thought of small farmers, we’d have more sympathy for them. ”
Or, possibly, less sympathy, because it’s easier to understand how infringement is occurring on a farm. For example, when 98% of a farmer’s crop is grown from proprietary seeds that the farmer didn’t buy but instead harvested from the dozen or so plants that did turn up on his land…
Obviously there are other chip makers. That isn’t the point. nVidia is part of a duopoly in the graphics chip market.
Furthermore, the entire point I’m making is that there should be no food patents. Who cares if a farmer uses those seeds? Seeds should not be the subject of intellectual property laws.
And Sun makes server chips. The few non-Intel non-AMD chip manufacturers occupy a tiny portion of PC sales.
Cyrix actually used to make desktop processors. I used to own one! There were also others, back in the day, like Winchip. We are actually better served by the duopoly. Once the dust had cleared and AMD rose to be Intel’s primary competitor, Microsoft had to start supporting AMD chips as thoroughly as they did Intel*. And that allowed AMD to really challenge Intel, which in turn forced Intel to lower their prices and eventually create better chips (AMD really had them whipped for a while).
The same evolution also occurred with video cards. There used to be a lot of makers. Native OS support was not very good because there was so many. The number eventually got whittled down to two. This wasn’t because nVidia got out early in the game and nobody could compete, but rather because they had a number of competitors… and they failed.
Really, though, we can’t ask for much more than we’ve gotten from either chipset industry. Processors and video cards are capable and cheap. If you want something high-end, it does get pretty expensive, but what’s low-end now was high-end not long ago. Compare this to the software industry, where prices have not gone down and the software has not gotten better by leaps-and-bounds.
* – Something similar is happening in the world of smartphones. Windows Mobile went down, in part, because it tried to support all kinds of processors. Coming back with Windows Phone, they support only one. As does Apple with its iPhone. Android isn’t processor-specific, but they have their recommendations (the same as WinPho), which almost all of the big-name makers go for because they’re easier to support.
Notably, however, whatever influence Intel and ATI had with with computer processors, they were unable to be the supplier-of-choice for smartphone-makers, which turned out to be Qualcomm.
All good points. No doubt duopolies are infinitely preferable to monopolies.
“[T]he entire point I’m making is that there should be no food patents.”
You’ve heard the term “stud horse”, right? That idea is inherently supportive of the notion that “food” (or, rather, agricultural-related genetic information) can be patented and have value and be subject to property-rights protections. Same thing with frozen bull sperm; if any old sperm would do then farmers would just buy their own bull.
I think you’re comparing apples to oranges. The stud horse’s sperm is analogous to a physical copy of a book or a physical iteration of a machine which you paid for or made from physical materials that you own, and which is in your possession — things no “intellectual property” opponent would deny you own.
That’s fundamentally different from ownership of the right to replicate a pattern, even to the extent of invading someone’s space to prevent them using their own materials to replicate the pattern.
“The stud horse’s sperm is analogous to a physical copy of a book…”
Not if you have access to a resequencer, and you can just about buy those off the shelf these days.
There’s still a fundamental difference between taking actual sperm that you own and that is in your physical possession, and replicating the DNA sequence using your own material property.
You might as well say “not if you have access to a torrent site and can set up a pdf of somebody’s book with a POD publisher.” That’s not the same as stealing an actual copy of the book.
“There’s still a fundamental difference between taking actual sperm that you own and that is in your physical possession, and replicating the DNA sequence using your own material property.”
Yes; presumably you will eventually run out of sperm and have to buy more. Just like a farmer will, presumably, run out of seeds and have to buy more for next year’s planting. What you’re not allowed to do is work out the gene sequence, replicate it, and perform artificial insemination using that reproduced sample. Just like you’re often not allowed to harvest seeds from your current crop and replant them next year.
Incidentally, it’s not like Monsanto are the only people who ever do anything like this. “Non-propogation agreements” are pretty common for nurseries that create their own hybrids. Indeed, some nurseries declare that you can’t even sell fruit from their trees without further agreement!
Thanks, Erik. You’re just begging to get booted out of there, aren’t you?
Ha! I hope not. They knew what they were getting into when they took me on.
I try to avoid old-style patented software technology, sticking to open source solutions where I have any say-so in the decision. It’s a strategic move: it’s easier to support the work product. My clients love the price point. Lately, I’ve been killing off installations of a stupidly-implemented SOA product with open source. In a sense, I have come to depend on closed solutions: killing them off puts money in my pocket.
I used to be more closely tied to the hardware stack, but my work peacefully coexists with very large mainframe solutions in virtualized Linux servers.
“Think Intel vs. AMD in the chip market.”
Yeah, because Lord knows that nobody else could EVER make desktop microprocessors a successful business.
“Maybe if we thought of small tech companies and tech entrepreneurs the way we thought of small farmers, we’d have more sympathy for them. ”
Or, possibly, less sympathy, because it’s easier to understand how infringement is occurring on a farm. For example, when 98% of a farmer’s crop is grown from proprietary seeds that the farmer didn’t buy but instead harvested from the dozen or so plants that did turn up on his land…
Obviously there are other chip makers. That isn’t the point. nVidia is part of a duopoly in the graphics chip market.
Furthermore, the entire point I’m making is that there should be no food patents. Who cares if a farmer uses those seeds? Seeds should not be the subject of intellectual property laws.
And Sun makes server chips. The few non-Intel non-AMD chip manufacturers occupy a tiny portion of PC sales.
Cyrix actually used to make desktop processors. I used to own one! There were also others, back in the day, like Winchip. We are actually better served by the duopoly. Once the dust had cleared and AMD rose to be Intel’s primary competitor, Microsoft had to start supporting AMD chips as thoroughly as they did Intel*. And that allowed AMD to really challenge Intel, which in turn forced Intel to lower their prices and eventually create better chips (AMD really had them whipped for a while).
The same evolution also occurred with video cards. There used to be a lot of makers. Native OS support was not very good because there was so many. The number eventually got whittled down to two. This wasn’t because nVidia got out early in the game and nobody could compete, but rather because they had a number of competitors… and they failed.
Really, though, we can’t ask for much more than we’ve gotten from either chipset industry. Processors and video cards are capable and cheap. If you want something high-end, it does get pretty expensive, but what’s low-end now was high-end not long ago. Compare this to the software industry, where prices have not gone down and the software has not gotten better by leaps-and-bounds.
* – Something similar is happening in the world of smartphones. Windows Mobile went down, in part, because it tried to support all kinds of processors. Coming back with Windows Phone, they support only one. As does Apple with its iPhone. Android isn’t processor-specific, but they have their recommendations (the same as WinPho), which almost all of the big-name makers go for because they’re easier to support.
Notably, however, whatever influence Intel and ATI had with with computer processors, they were unable to be the supplier-of-choice for smartphone-makers, which turned out to be Qualcomm.
All good points. No doubt duopolies are infinitely preferable to monopolies.
“[T]he entire point I’m making is that there should be no food patents.”
You’ve heard the term “stud horse”, right? That idea is inherently supportive of the notion that “food” (or, rather, agricultural-related genetic information) can be patented and have value and be subject to property-rights protections. Same thing with frozen bull sperm; if any old sperm would do then farmers would just buy their own bull.
I think you’re comparing apples to oranges. The stud horse’s sperm is analogous to a physical copy of a book or a physical iteration of a machine which you paid for or made from physical materials that you own, and which is in your possession — things no “intellectual property” opponent would deny you own.
That’s fundamentally different from ownership of the right to replicate a pattern, even to the extent of invading someone’s space to prevent them using their own materials to replicate the pattern.
“The stud horse’s sperm is analogous to a physical copy of a book…”
Not if you have access to a resequencer, and you can just about buy those off the shelf these days.
There’s still a fundamental difference between taking actual sperm that you own and that is in your physical possession, and replicating the DNA sequence using your own material property.
You might as well say “not if you have access to a torrent site and can set up a pdf of somebody’s book with a POD publisher.” That’s not the same as stealing an actual copy of the book.
“There’s still a fundamental difference between taking actual sperm that you own and that is in your physical possession, and replicating the DNA sequence using your own material property.”
Yes; presumably you will eventually run out of sperm and have to buy more. Just like a farmer will, presumably, run out of seeds and have to buy more for next year’s planting. What you’re not allowed to do is work out the gene sequence, replicate it, and perform artificial insemination using that reproduced sample. Just like you’re often not allowed to harvest seeds from your current crop and replant them next year.
Incidentally, it’s not like Monsanto are the only people who ever do anything like this. “Non-propogation agreements” are pretty common for nurseries that create their own hybrids. Indeed, some nurseries declare that you can’t even sell fruit from their trees without further agreement!
Thanks, Erik. You’re just begging to get booted out of there, aren’t you?
Ha! I hope not. They knew what they were getting into when they took me on.
I try to avoid old-style patented software technology, sticking to open source solutions where I have any say-so in the decision. It’s a strategic move: it’s easier to support the work product. My clients love the price point. Lately, I’ve been killing off installations of a stupidly-implemented SOA product with open source. In a sense, I have come to depend on closed solutions: killing them off puts money in my pocket.
I used to be more closely tied to the hardware stack, but my work peacefully coexists with very large mainframe solutions in virtualized Linux servers.