Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Stefan Schreiber]

Michael Chapman wrote:


Sorry, ... but: No.

It would be useful if people replied to the points posted,
and not to what they wished people (seeming, regarded as
opponents;-(> had said.

Michael
 



What I wrote was:


Sorry, no. This thread started with a lot of wrong assumptions on
"another patent", so it is not a good start to discuss whole the IP
system,  "as such".



I didn't write:


Sorry, ... but: No.
 





What I wanted to say was that this thread has started in a biased way, 
and under some wrong assumptions. The discussion has been amplified, < 
for me > actually in some impressing way...(The initial impression which 
was given was that the patent system is kind of stupid, can't work etc. 
Just re-read...)


I am certainly not the only one who is/was pointing this out:

This thread was about 
an invalid patent; we're happy that it was rejected, and we can now all move 
 


along.


(Marc Lavallée)

I was actually answering to this:


It would have been interesting to discuss some of the points
that this thread has raised. That seems to be a lost hope.



So, what actually IS this thread about? Is it "another patent", or the 
"copyright and patent system"?



Either we didn't stick to the thread topic at all (first posting), or we 
actually have discussed some of the points you wanted to have discussed. 
Where is the lost hope, then?!


I don't want to seem pedantic  :-D , but we see a different thread 
topic, how it seems.


Just to clarify why I wrote "Sorry, no", which refered exactly to the 
two cited phrases above.


I admit that this was not an ideal way of answering, because this was a 
little bit unclear. (My English is obviously not native.)



It would be useful if people replied to the points posted,
and not to what they wished people (seeming, regarded as
opponents;-(> had said.


I actually thought I did...  :-[ :-)


That seems to be a lost hope.



But if we would have some clear thread topic (which already has "OT" 
included), maybe there would have been  far less room for any 
misunderstandings?



Best,

Stefan Schreiber


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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Richard Dobson]

On 23/09/2011 09:34, Dave Malham wrote:
..

Anyone with a university login can search and download all IEEE papers
freely via the "IEEEXplore" facility, even an unpaid external
"visiting research fellow" such as myself. It would be nice if the AES
provided a similar resource.

Richard - the cost to the University is an order of magnitude greater
for IEEEXplore access than it is for them to subscribe to the AES
equivalent. This is, of course, partly because the IEEE library is very,
very much larger. IEEEXplore is not cost-free except in as far as
Universities decide to make it so to users. It _is_ a fantastic
resource, as is the AES library. We've been trying here to persuade the
Uni here to subscribe to the AES library for years, but with no luck yet
- there are just so many other demands on the limited funds the library
has available.




Indeed. I still hope to try again with Bath Uni. I would guess it is 
probably an either/or issue, and as you say even though expensive, the 
IEEE archive is so much larger (and I assume covers a much wider range 
of topics) that it is the preferred option. As most of the people 
writing papers I am likely to be interested in are now presenting to 
DAFx, the need for me to subscribe to the AES dwindled considerably. 
People like myself really get more mileage out of core textbook 
resources unfolding an integrated studyable progression than from a 
multitude of individual papers. The Zolzer DAFx book is my pride and 
joy, even though at £75 (!) I suspect I have yet to make sufficient use 
of it to claim it has repaid itself. It has at most two pages discussing 
Ambisonics.


Which of course is also why I continue to wait for a full comprehensive 
and authoritative reference book on Ambisonics covering all the 
post-Gerzon and HOA material which is presently scattered all over the 
place, partly in the archives of this list, partly in a smattering of 
papers here and there, and partly still tucked away inside the heads of 
the most active developers and researchers. The absence of such a text 
(what - forty years on?) makes me wonder whether much of the subject is 
in fact sufficiently controversial or debatable for any one individual 
to be not prepared to go quite that public.


Richard Dobson
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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Dave Malham]

Scientific information ought to be public domain.
Anything else is a cheat of the intention of sciece.
Only to the very limited extent that it costs
money to distribute things should there be any charge.
The AES ought to be ashamed of trying to line the organizations
pockets by selling old reprints and reports.



I wasn't going to come back into this but, Robert, I do think you are being a little hard on the AES 
here - as a member, it's only about 107 euros (price of a dozen bottles of reasonably good wine or 
one hundred Mars bars) for a year's access and the number of items you can download is unlimited. 
Don't forget, it's not just the distribution costs you have to factor in but the cost of maintaining 
the archive and, more particularly, of producing it in the first place. It's not just a case of 
pushing the "save as as .pdf" button as we would do these days, because the vast majority of the 
archive had to be scanned in from paper sources, many of which would have to be unbound then rebound 
(all the early journals and most of the early conference/convention proceedings, for instance). I 
think the AES should be commended for doing it, not condemned.




Anyone with a university login can search and download all IEEE papers freely via the "IEEEXplore" 
facility, even an unpaid external "visiting research fellow" such as myself. It would be nice if 
the AES provided a similar resource.
Richard - the cost to the University is an order of magnitude greater for IEEEXplore access than it 
is for them to subscribe to the AES equivalent. This is, of course, partly because the IEEE library 
is very, very much larger. IEEEXplore is not cost-free except in as far as Universities decide to 
make it so to users. It _is_ a fantastic resource, as is the AES library. We've been trying here to 
persuade the Uni here to subscribe to the AES library for years, but with no luck yet - there are 
just so many other demands on the limited funds the library has available.


 Dave

--
 These are my own views and may or may not be shared by my employer
/*/
/* Dave Malham   http://music.york.ac.uk/staff/research/dave-malham/ */
/* Music Research Centre */
/* Department of Music"http://music.york.ac.uk/";   */
/* The University of York  Phone 01904 432448*/
/* Heslington  Fax   01904 432450*/
/* York YO10 5DD */
/* UK   'Ambisonics - Component Imaging for Audio'   */
/*"http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/mustech/3d_audio/"; */
/*/

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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Richard Dobson]

On 22/09/2011 18:38, Robert Greene wrote:


Wonderful! The whole point of science is
to give the information to other people.



Scientists have done and do just this, all the time - primarily to 
fellow scientists. On top of their myriad internal channels they have 
arXiv (open access), CiteSeer, Nature (which for 51 print issues a year 
is really very cheap) and any number of other readily accessible 
outlets, so I think they are probably doing as well as they can, 
especially given that most of the time they are prevailed upon by their 
Universities to raise their publication rate simply for profile and 
fund-raising purposes, all of which rather cuts into precious research 
time.




Scientific information ought to be public domain.
Anything else is a cheat of the intention of sciece.
Only to the very limited extent that it costs
money to distribute things should there be any charge.
The AES ought to be ashamed of trying to line the organizations
pockets by selling old reprints and reports.



The AES (along with the IEEE, about which similar complaints are voiced) 
stands somewhat apart, as it is not strictly speaking a scientific 
organisation but (as the name indicates) an engineering (industrial R&D) 
one - we might almost call the JAES a "trade journal". You have to 
qualify to be a full voting member of the AES. So they are unashamedly 
commercial/industrial in orientation, not least because the majority of 
its members are too. It is not a prime outlet for science research in 
the way Nature is, it is more of a club for working engineers. Companies 
employing them typically subscribe to the large AES CD and DVD and 
online libraries, so that having to download and pay for an individual 
paper hardly figures at all.


Anyone with a university login can search and download all IEEE papers 
freely via the "IEEEXplore" facility, even an unpaid external "visiting 
research fellow" such as myself. It would be nice if the AES provided a 
similar resource.


To the independent developer and researcher of course, where every 
dollar matters, yes it is all rather expensive, especially when you 
can't check a whole paper beforehand to make sure it is actually useful. 
 On the other hand, anyone can ask to join an AES working group - no 
payment involved. I am a member of the AES31-related group (file format, 
project interchange), on which I had precisely no impact (they went 
ahead and ratified the horrible RF64 file format anyway), and I find 
that as such I can still access standards documents, such as on the 
newly announced AES50 HRMAI ("High resolution multi-channel audio 
interconnection"), which may be of interest to this list (a dizzying 24 
channels each way at 24/96 over Cat-5 cable), so the picture is not all bad.




Richard Dobson
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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Robert Greene]

Wonderful! The whole point of science is
to give the information to other people.
Otherwise, science is no different from
what Peter Hoeg says about it in Smilas Sense of Snow,
that it is inevitably about money.

Scientific information ought to be public domain.
Anything else is a cheat of the intention of sciece.
Only to the very limited extent that it costs
money to distribute things should there be any charge.
The AES ought to be ashamed of trying to line the organizations
pockets by selling old reprints and reports.

Robert

On Thu, 22 Sep 2011, umashankar mantravadi wrote:



when i was a child my grandaunt told me the story of a demon who lived in old 
banyan tree. he would swoop down on unwary travellers, but the travellers 
always ran away. one day, one traveller could not run, and the demon stopped 
him. he said, sit down under the tree, and learn everything i know. that is the 
only way i can stop being a demon. i was turned into a demon for refusing to 
teach what i knew. i want to be freed of that curse. umashankar

i have published my poems. read (or buy) at http://stores.lulu.com/umashankar
> Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:06:38 -0700

From: gre...@math.ucla.edu
To: richarddob...@blueyonder.co.uk; sursound@music.vt.edu
Subject: Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent


RD's analysis was very interesting. But about "Informantion wants to be
free":  People certainly deserve protection for the value of their
intellectual work. But greed transforms this plausible principle
often enough into abuse.

Let me give an example: Scientific  research papers and textbooks.
Publishers in the past had to charge money for journals, just to pay for
the cost of distriubtion and physical production of the journal in the
first place.  Same with books.
Now along come changes. First of all,technology made  the things
cheaper to produce,
for example because authors supply not typed material that needs type
setting
but computer ready copy where the type-setting is just a matter of pushing
a button. Second, the distribution becomes free.
Moreover, older papers and books are free to the publisher-the publisher
already owns them.

So what ought to happen? Books ought to get cheaper, the authors ought to
get more of what they do cost(the authors are now doing some of the work
that formerly was done by the publisher), and old papers ought to be free
entirely on line.

Did this happen? Well, somewhat. Some older parts of mathematical journals
are free on
line now. But not all. The AES is charging for old papers on line and so
is Springer for example for mathematical journal articles, even old ones.

And books are not cheaper at all. Textbooks for example are a deliberate
money scam, with texts on ancient unchanging subjects like calculus going
through frequent multiple editions with only meaningless changes to make
sure that
used copies cannot be used by students. This is a deliberate attempt to
work the students over and extract money for nothing. (The changes are
trivial but are such that
students can no longer use an old eidtion, e.g., changes in the numbering
and details of homework exercises).

Publishers in short are being greedy, as are textbook authors. In a big
way. Well, it is the publishers' last
hurrah. Soon they will cease to exist and they deserve to. In a way, that
is too bad. I
like books. But many publishers are running a scam on the public. They
deserve the fate that will soon be upon them.

I was looking the other day for a cheap old calculus book to use as a
text. The subject of
couse and also how it is taught have not changed in the last fifty years
or so so I figured I could find an old cheap textbook still in print but
reissued cheap in paperback that I could use instead of asking the already
financially stressed students(suffering from the collapse of public
funding for public education in the USA) to spend nearly $200 on a
new and unnecessarily expensive textbook.

This search has failed , so far. Such is the greed of people that even
books by authors long dead are still being offered, forty years later, at
full price. The authors are no longer even around but their grandchildren
(or whoever constitutes their estate) are still trying to make money
out of books written in the 1960s.

Fie upon them. The authors of calculus books were in those days, befor the
thing became an industry, were not even making a living out of writing the
books. They were taking time from being university professors, already (at
that time) well paid and trying to make more money. This is all quite
contrary to the proper academic spirit.

Information really ought to be free, in many cases. The opposite approach
serves only to entrench the culture that says that only the rich have
access to much of anything.

Robert
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An HTML 

Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Michael Chapman]

Sorry, ... but: No.

It would be useful if people replied to the points posted,
and not to what they wished people (seeming, regarded as
opponents;-(> had said.

Michael



> On 22/09/2011 15:32, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
>> On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 12:31:40PM +0100, Richard Dobson wrote:
>>> On 22/09/2011 00:52, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
>>> ..

 The only point I wanted to make is that the very concept of
 'property',
 of 'owning' things makes sense only if it is recognised by others -
 it is a social agreement and not a law of nature.
>>
>>
>>> Well, lets look at that a bit more closely.
>>> ...
>>
>> Again, I never wrote any of 'Information wants to be free', 'I want it
>> herefore it is right', etc, I did not interpret Darwin, and I'm not
>> stating any moral imperatives.
>>
>> So please stop blaming me for what may be some people's ideas or errors
>> but certainly not mine.
>>
>> Ciao,
>>
>
> It's a discussion. Relevant since there is an interest in the principles
> and problems of intellectual property (or whatever else we call it) on
> this list - to say nothing of the broader issues around free v
> commercial, the GPL, etc. Ultimately, ~all~ arguments not purely about
> hard facts hinge on the conflict between moral imperatives, and draw on
> rhetorical techniques to present them. I am not accusing or blaming
> anyone here. This is a very general issue.  But the words "social
> agreement" inherently imply an imperative of some kind  - the idea that
> ownership is relative or sanctioned, rather that absolute (if only in
> the sense that breaking the agreement might be judged under another
> imperative, or justified by it). I give simple examples to illustrate
> and clarify. These things are present in the words, whether we like it
> or not, intentional or not, and we ~all~ call upon them frequently, one
> way or another, perhaps the the more so the more "political" we are.
> Topics just on this list have included copyright, DRM and  watermarking,
> as well as patents, and I have surely perpetrated quite a few moral
> imperatives myself, in unguarded moments!
>
> Richard Dobson
>
>
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>

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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Richard Dobson]

On 22/09/2011 15:32, Fons Adriaensen wrote:

On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 12:31:40PM +0100, Richard Dobson wrote:

On 22/09/2011 00:52, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
..


The only point I wanted to make is that the very concept of 'property',
of 'owning' things makes sense only if it is recognised by others -
it is a social agreement and not a law of nature.




Well, lets look at that a bit more closely.
...


Again, I never wrote any of 'Information wants to be free', 'I want it
herefore it is right', etc, I did not interpret Darwin, and I'm not
stating any moral imperatives.

So please stop blaming me for what may be some people's ideas or errors
but certainly not mine.

Ciao,



It's a discussion. Relevant since there is an interest in the principles 
and problems of intellectual property (or whatever else we call it) on 
this list - to say nothing of the broader issues around free v 
commercial, the GPL, etc. Ultimately, ~all~ arguments not purely about 
hard facts hinge on the conflict between moral imperatives, and draw on 
rhetorical techniques to present them. I am not accusing or blaming 
anyone here. This is a very general issue.  But the words "social 
agreement" inherently imply an imperative of some kind  - the idea that 
ownership is relative or sanctioned, rather that absolute (if only in 
the sense that breaking the agreement might be judged under another 
imperative, or justified by it). I give simple examples to illustrate 
and clarify. These things are present in the words, whether we like it 
or not, intentional or not, and we ~all~ call upon them frequently, one 
way or another, perhaps the the more so the more "political" we are. 
Topics just on this list have included copyright, DRM and  watermarking, 
as well as patents, and I have surely perpetrated quite a few moral 
imperatives myself, in unguarded moments!


Richard Dobson


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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Fons Adriaensen]

On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 12:31:40PM +0100, Richard Dobson wrote:
> On 22/09/2011 00:52, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
> ..
>>
>> The only point I wanted to make is that the very concept of 'property',
>> of 'owning' things makes sense only if it is recognised by others -
>> it is a social agreement and not a law of nature.


> Well, lets look at that a bit more closely.
> ...

Again, I never wrote any of 'Information wants to be free', 'I want it
herefore it is right', etc, I did not interpret Darwin, and I'm not
stating any moral imperatives.

So please stop blaming me for what may be some people's ideas or errors
but certainly not mine.

Ciao,

-- 
FA

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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[umashankar mantravadi]

when i was a child my grandaunt told me the story of a demon who lived in old 
banyan tree. he would swoop down on unwary travellers, but the travellers 
always ran away. one day, one traveller could not run, and the demon stopped 
him. he said, sit down under the tree, and learn everything i know. that is the 
only way i can stop being a demon. i was turned into a demon for refusing to 
teach what i knew. i want to be freed of that curse. umashankar

i have published my poems. read (or buy) at http://stores.lulu.com/umashankar
 > Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:06:38 -0700
> From: gre...@math.ucla.edu
> To: richarddob...@blueyonder.co.uk; sursound@music.vt.edu
> Subject: Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent
> 
> 
> RD's analysis was very interesting. But about "Informantion wants to be 
> free":  People certainly deserve protection for the value of their 
> intellectual work. But greed transforms this plausible principle
> often enough into abuse.
> 
> Let me give an example: Scientific  research papers and textbooks. 
> Publishers in the past had to charge money for journals, just to pay for 
> the cost of distriubtion and physical production of the journal in the 
> first place.  Same with books.
> Now along come changes. First of all,technology made  the things 
> cheaper to produce,
> for example because authors supply not typed material that needs type 
> setting
> but computer ready copy where the type-setting is just a matter of pushing 
> a button. Second, the distribution becomes free.
> Moreover, older papers and books are free to the publisher-the publisher 
> already owns them.
> 
> So what ought to happen? Books ought to get cheaper, the authors ought to 
> get more of what they do cost(the authors are now doing some of the work 
> that formerly was done by the publisher), and old papers ought to be free 
> entirely on line.
> 
> Did this happen? Well, somewhat. Some older parts of mathematical journals 
> are free on 
> line now. But not all. The AES is charging for old papers on line and so
> is Springer for example for mathematical journal articles, even old ones.
> 
> And books are not cheaper at all. Textbooks for example are a deliberate
> money scam, with texts on ancient unchanging subjects like calculus going 
> through frequent multiple editions with only meaningless changes to make 
> sure that
> used copies cannot be used by students. This is a deliberate attempt to 
> work the students over and extract money for nothing. (The changes are 
> trivial but are such that 
> students can no longer use an old eidtion, e.g., changes in the numbering 
> and details of homework exercises).
> 
> Publishers in short are being greedy, as are textbook authors. In a big 
> way. Well, it is the publishers' last
> hurrah. Soon they will cease to exist and they deserve to. In a way, that 
> is too bad. I
> like books. But many publishers are running a scam on the public. They 
> deserve the fate that will soon be upon them.
> 
> I was looking the other day for a cheap old calculus book to use as a 
> text. The subject of 
> couse and also how it is taught have not changed in the last fifty years 
> or so so I figured I could find an old cheap textbook still in print but 
> reissued cheap in paperback that I could use instead of asking the already 
> financially stressed students(suffering from the collapse of public 
> funding for public education in the USA) to spend nearly $200 on a
> new and unnecessarily expensive textbook.
> 
> This search has failed , so far. Such is the greed of people that even 
> books by authors long dead are still being offered, forty years later, at 
> full price. The authors are no longer even around but their grandchildren
> (or whoever constitutes their estate) are still trying to make money
> out of books written in the 1960s.
> 
> Fie upon them. The authors of calculus books were in those days, befor the 
> thing became an industry, were not even making a living out of writing the 
> books. They were taking time from being university professors, already (at
> that time) well paid and trying to make more money. This is all quite 
> contrary to the proper academic spirit.
> 
> Information really ought to be free, in many cases. The opposite approach 
> serves only to entrench the culture that says that only the rich have 
> access to much of anything.
> 
> Robert
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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Robert Greene]

RD's analysis was very interesting. But about "Informantion wants to be 
free":  People certainly deserve protection for the value of their 
intellectual work. But greed transforms this plausible principle

often enough into abuse.

Let me give an example: Scientific  research papers and textbooks. 
Publishers in the past had to charge money for journals, just to pay for 
the cost of distriubtion and physical production of the journal in the 
first place.  Same with books.
Now along come changes. First of all,technology made  the things 
cheaper to produce,
for example because authors supply not typed material that needs type 
setting
but computer ready copy where the type-setting is just a matter of pushing 
a button. Second, the distribution becomes free.
Moreover, older papers and books are free to the publisher-the publisher 
already owns them.


So what ought to happen? Books ought to get cheaper, the authors ought to 
get more of what they do cost(the authors are now doing some of the work 
that formerly was done by the publisher), and old papers ought to be free 
entirely on line.


Did this happen? Well, somewhat. Some older parts of mathematical journals 
are free on 
line now. But not all. The AES is charging for old papers on line and so

is Springer for example for mathematical journal articles, even old ones.

And books are not cheaper at all. Textbooks for example are a deliberate
money scam, with texts on ancient unchanging subjects like calculus going 
through frequent multiple editions with only meaningless changes to make 
sure that
used copies cannot be used by students. This is a deliberate attempt to 
work the students over and extract money for nothing. (The changes are 
trivial but are such that 
students can no longer use an old eidtion, e.g., changes in the numbering 
and details of homework exercises).


Publishers in short are being greedy, as are textbook authors. In a big 
way. Well, it is the publishers' last
hurrah. Soon they will cease to exist and they deserve to. In a way, that 
is too bad. I
like books. But many publishers are running a scam on the public. They 
deserve the fate that will soon be upon them.


I was looking the other day for a cheap old calculus book to use as a 
text. The subject of 
couse and also how it is taught have not changed in the last fifty years 
or so so I figured I could find an old cheap textbook still in print but 
reissued cheap in paperback that I could use instead of asking the already 
financially stressed students(suffering from the collapse of public 
funding for public education in the USA) to spend nearly $200 on a

new and unnecessarily expensive textbook.

This search has failed , so far. Such is the greed of people that even 
books by authors long dead are still being offered, forty years later, at 
full price. The authors are no longer even around but their grandchildren

(or whoever constitutes their estate) are still trying to make money
out of books written in the 1960s.

Fie upon them. The authors of calculus books were in those days, befor the 
thing became an industry, were not even making a living out of writing the 
books. They were taking time from being university professors, already (at
that time) well paid and trying to make more money. This is all quite 
contrary to the proper academic spirit.


Information really ought to be free, in many cases. The opposite approach 
serves only to entrench the culture that says that only the rich have 
access to much of anything.


Robert
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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Richard Dobson]

On 22/09/2011 00:52, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
..


The only point I wanted to make is that the very concept of 'property',
of 'owning' things makes sense only if it is recognised by others -
it is a social agreement and not a law of nature.



Well, lets look at that a bit more closely. Many people likely own 
things (or information) that nobody else knows about (secrets, in other 
words, or just extremely personal and private stuff). This does not make 
the ownership any the less. It does not fully fit reality to regard 
everything in the world as somehow "managed" or "recognised" by 
"society". That arises much later in the evolution of a group. It is of 
course how many (who identify their individual self with that society) 
want to see it. The fact that "society" generally ~wants~ to know as 
much as possible about everything and everyone is evident, but not 
always acknowledged. It is simplest by far to declare that an individual 
had no a priori right of secrecy, ownership or privacy to begin with. 
Many a dictatorship has been built on that very principle.


The problem is that what starts out as a seemingly objective 
sociological analysis, which it is assumed nobody would think to 
question,  all too easily gets transformed into a moral imperative. This 
is any assertion of the basic form "I want it therefore it is right", 
or, equally, "I don't want it therefore it is wrong". The fundamental 
aspect of it is that it is ~personal~, even if, for example, "God" is 
substituted for "I". At best, it is an ongoing public negotiation 
between personal privacy and public interest, moderated by a (nominally) 
independent and disinterested legislature. At worst, all it takes is a 
little reinterpretation. Darwin's famous "survival of the fittest" got 
changed very rapidly from the proper scientific meaning of "best adapted 
to their environment" to "the strongest", and this instantly justified 
"scientifically" all manner of individual, group, and national 
aggression. Misuse (or, charitably, misunderstanding) of that phrase 
still pervades thinking today, and so it continues to be extremely 
dangerous. It led, among other things, to the journalistic hacking of 
mobile phones, an extreme example where the supposed supremacy of 
information outweighed all other imperatives.


"Information wants to be free" (who said it first is irrelevant; who 
uses it as a rallying cry is very relevant) is of course much less 
extreme, but it is a moral imperative nevertheless - a justification for 
a desire. Many an oppression has been founded on the verbal rhetoric of 
an aphorism, as of course Orwell famously demonstrated, including the 
inspired "... but some are more equal than others".


There are many variations of this basic pattern of moral imperative, of 
which perhaps the most pervasive these days is "I want it, therefore it 
is my right". An increasingly common one is "I deserve it therefore it 
is right". Both are expressions of a peculiarly 20th-Century post-war 
and growing narcissism**. It seems to be a fundamental aspect of an 
individual in a society (perhaps even a definition) that we are ashamed 
of our desires despite the necessity of expressing them (or the near 
impossibility of not expressing them), and will go to any lengths to 
represent them in some more acceptable form. Modern western culture is 
absolutely saturated in such moral imperatives, wherever possible taking 
the form of something quasi-scientific, ~non~-personal, so that they 
become immune to any sort of challenge, or, best of all, become 
effectively invisible, hidden so to speak in plain sight. It is not 
always  a conspiracy, as much of the time it is done unconsciously, 
instinctually (so in that sense property is indeed a law of nature), but 
it is the mother of all "memes". Without it most public media, 
particualrly the tabloids, would have absolutely nothing to print, and 
the speeches of politicians would become numbingly dull. The price, as 
usual, is eternal vigilance.


Perhaps this is the time to resume normal service?


Richard Dobson


** see for example "The Narcissism Epidemic",
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1416575995




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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Dave Malham]

Well, what a whole load of freely given information my original posting 
provoked! :-[

Dave

PS. A final (please) thought "Money is a sign of poverty" (in case I get accused of IP theft, this 
is a "Culture" quote from Iain M. Banks)


--
 These are my own views and may or may not be shared by my employer
/*/
/* Dave Malham   http://music.york.ac.uk/staff/research/dave-malham/ */
/* Music Research Centre */
/* Department of Music"http://music.york.ac.uk/";   */
/* The University of York  Phone 01904 432448*/
/* Heslington  Fax   01904 432450*/
/* York YO10 5DD */
/* UK   'Ambisonics - Component Imaging for Audio'   */
/*"http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/mustech/3d_audio/"; */
/*/

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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Michael Chapman]

> Michael Chapman wrote:
>
>>
>>This may all be OT, but if:
>>-ambisonics had developed twenty years later
>>-if there had been no patents on it
>>would the World have been different?
>>
>>Michael
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> Michael, I don't want to be unpolite. But some people should stop this
> whining about "what would have been if" and go on, at least by now.
>
I wasn't whining. I was posing a question. A question that I do not
know the answer to.

> Patents didn't play a role in the failure of Ambisonics.
>
I don't think I said they did.
Even if you take my question as some sort of disguised statement
(which it wasn't), that response ignores the 'time shift' in the
question.


Personally I find "what if" questions very revealing, if not
directly useful ;-)>
I remember one very good essay on what might be the
situation if the thermionic valve was invented after
the transistor . . .

Perhaps it is cultural ... as I also remember a university entrance
examination that asked candidates to discuss the hypothetical
situation that children reached adult stature (or ?more) at
some given quite early age.

It would have been interesting to discuss some of the points
that this thread has raised. That seems to be a lost hope.
The reactions engendered have though increased my
understanding of various broader issues, so I cannot
complain.

Michael


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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Michael Graves]

On Tue, 20 Sep 2011 11:49:37 - (GMT), Michael Chapman wrote:

>> The modern day pharmaceutical industry is perhaps the one exception to
>the rule that patents are bad to humanity. Why is that? Well, because
>it's remained the most sacred, shielded, unquestioned, and especially
>for the longest time. In part because of the huge and quite possibly
>unfounded shielding it has. Sometimes that actually works.
>
>I've been holding my tongue, but seeing as Sampo has added an
>[OT] tag:
>
>Is it not strange that Medicine relies on patent medicines,
>whilst Surgery relies on published 'open source'
>procedures .  .  . ?

Yes, curious isn't it? 

Similarly, often a surgery can be curative. In contrast, most drug
treatments are not. They are often intent upon supressing, but not
curing, the underlying issue while sustaining the revenue stream
derived from perpetual ongoing treatment.

Michael
--
Michael Graves
mgravesmstvp.com
http://www.mgraves.org
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skype mjgraves
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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Marc Lavallée]

Le Wed, 21 Sep 2011 23:12:47 +0100,
Richard Dobson  a écrit :

> On 21/09/2011 17:11, Marc Lavallée wrote:
> ..
> >
> > "Information wants to be free" is a 40 years old aphorism, not a
> > scientific statement, and it does not come from the free software
> > movement. Its author said later: "Information Wants To Be Free.
> > Information also wants to be expensive.".
> >
> 
> More like 27 years. See:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_wants_to_be_free

You are right. It was in 1984. Here's the authoritative source:
http://web.me.com/stewartbrand/SB_homepage/Info_free_story.html
This is freely available information, attributed to the author himself.

> According to that page, Stallman reformulated it to use the phrase 
> "generally useful information" together with the inevitable "should"
> - without indicating who or what decides what qualifies as "generally 
> useful". 

Who? Yourself, if you want. What? Any organization, for example.
We're collectively responsible.

> Presumably the same disinterested people (anyone other than
> the author, in fact) who decide whether to 'agree' I own something,
> or not, as the case may be.

You can claim that you own something, like the expression of an
idea. Then wait for interested people to complain...

If you don't want your work (or "claimed original expression of
an idea") to be owned at all, you can release it into the public
domain. Then wait for interested people to complain or create
interesting derivative works.

--
Marc

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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Fons Adriaensen]

On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 10:50:47PM +0100, Richard Dobson wrote:

> On 20/09/2011 22:24, Fons Adriaensen wrote:

>> That doesn't really matter. If a number of individuals interact
>> you have a society. Once that happens, things are 'yours' only
>> because the others agree the are. Such agreements arise because
>> they bring mutual benifit.
>
> Interesting choice of words. You say  "agree", I would say "recognise".

Okay, English is not my first language, so 'recognise' could be
more accurate than 'agree'.
  
> My thoughts (which you appear to equate with "things") are my own,
> and if I choose to share them with anyone else that is my choice,
> and their privilege.

Agreed. I was mainly talking about ownership of physical things.

>> The alternative is living isolated, or having to physically
>> protect and defend your 'property' all the time, which sort
>> of defeats the purpose.

> What purpose is that? Who decides what the purpose is?

The 'purpose' (maybe again a bad choice of words) of owning
things is being able to use them, in the most general sense,
without interference of others. If the ownership itself is
contested, there is interference.

> Unfortunately, not all societies are so "enlightened". The days where  
> one needed no lock on one's front door are long gone; if they ever  
> really existed much anyway. I have been burgled three times, by  
> individuals (aka "society" according to you) who clearly did not "agree"  
> that my Tannoy DC200 dual-concentrics, or my gold signet ring with the  
> family seal on it inherited from my father, belonged to me.

Yes, some members of your society may ignore the rules, but such
behaviour is not deemed acceptable, and they will be prosecuted
and punished if found out. Which means your ownership is 'recognised'.

The only point I wanted to make is that the very concept of 'property',
of 'owning' things makes sense only if it is recognised by others - 
it is a social agreement and not a law of nature. And as such it can
be reviewed if the need arises. And even if the basic idea is never
put to question the modalities can be. 

> Seems to me  there are plenty of people around who would treat my
> thoughts in the same way, if they could. Perhaps a few of them are
> even on this list. You just can't slap a GPL licence on a person
> and call it "natural".

I never mentioned 'thoughts wanting to be free' or 'slapping a GPL
on a person and call that natural'. 

Ciao,

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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Richard Dobson]

On 21/09/2011 17:11, Marc Lavallée wrote:
..


"Information wants to be free" is a 40 years old aphorism, not a scientific
statement, and it does not come from the free software movement. Its author
said later: "Information Wants To Be Free. Information also wants to be
expensive.".



More like 27 years. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_wants_to_be_free

So, two anthropomorphic statements, which form an opposition or an 
extended oxymoron.  Perhaps a bit like "money wants to be free".


According to that page, Stallman reformulated it to use the phrase 
"generally useful information" together with the inevitable "should" - 
without indicating who or what decides what qualifies as "generally 
useful". Presumably the same disinterested people (anyone other than the 
author, in fact) who decide whether to 'agree' I own something, or not, 
as the case may be.


Richard Dobson



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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Stefan Schreiber]

Marc Lavallée wrote:


Le 21 septembre 2011 10:19:27, Stefan Schreiber a écrit :

 


Remember,
the original proposition was "Intellectual property... does not exist
naturally - it is something granted by society to individuals", which I
regard as mere sophistry, at best - a typical example of what I could
call "GPL fundamentalism",  in which "information wants to be free"
remains the most daft pseudo-anthropomorphic statement ever said by
anyone. "information" is an abstract mathematical or philosophical
concept, possibly a "thing", but definitely not a sentient life-form who
"wants" anything.
 



"Information wants to be free" is a 40 years old aphorism, not a scientific 
statement, and it does not come from the free software movement. Its author 
said later: "Information Wants To Be Free. Information also wants to be 
expensive.".


 


Well spoken. This was the reason why I was talking about certain "circles".

Believing that < any > software needs a GPL sticker on it (cos this is
"best for society" etc.) doesn't mean everybody has to join this religion.
   



Free software rely on IP. I would advise to read or ask any knowledgable IP 
lawyer about free software before calling it a religion. This thread was about 
an invalid patent; we're happy that it was rejected, and we can now all move 
along.


--
Marc

 



I don't called free software a "religion". (In fact, we are all using a 
lot of free stuff.)



Believing that < any > software needs a GPL sticker on it (cos this is
"best for society" etc.) doesn't mean everybody has to join this religion.



Clear enough?! Yes, I know it is a little bit polemic, but whole this 
patent discussion was polemic fom the first minute. GPL, Apache and 
other licenses fit into the IP system.


Best,

Stefan


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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Marc Lavallée]

Le 21 septembre 2011 10:19:27, Stefan Schreiber a écrit :

> > Remember,
> > the original proposition was "Intellectual property... does not exist
> > naturally - it is something granted by society to individuals", which I
> > regard as mere sophistry, at best - a typical example of what I could
> > call "GPL fundamentalism",  in which "information wants to be free"
> > remains the most daft pseudo-anthropomorphic statement ever said by
> > anyone. "information" is an abstract mathematical or philosophical
> > concept, possibly a "thing", but definitely not a sentient life-form who
> > "wants" anything.

"Information wants to be free" is a 40 years old aphorism, not a scientific 
statement, and it does not come from the free software movement. Its author 
said later: "Information Wants To Be Free. Information also wants to be 
expensive.".

> Well spoken. This was the reason why I was talking about certain "circles".
> 
> Believing that < any > software needs a GPL sticker on it (cos this is
> "best for society" etc.) doesn't mean everybody has to join this religion.

Free software rely on IP. I would advise to read or ask any knowledgable IP 
lawyer about free software before calling it a religion. This thread was about 
an invalid patent; we're happy that it was rejected, and we can now all move 
along.

--
Marc


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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Stefan Schreiber]

Richard Dobson wrote:


On 21/09/2011 09:38, Michael Chapman wrote:
..


What purpose is that? Who decides what the purpose is?



Unless one rejects inheritance taxes, wealth taxes, etc., etc. one
is left with the fact that one has accepted a situation where one has
'a balance'. Perhaps the worst imaginable situation ... except all
the others ... but there it is. Akin to "all property belongs to the
 monarch and one holds it under licence", but nowadays "society" not
 the "monarch". Those taxes pay for the police who I hope -if
vainly- may catch your burglars and return your property.



Last time I checked, taxes have to be paid with hard cash; and the
principle has been long established at least in liberal democracies of
"no taxation without representation".  If I could pay my tax by handing
even 10% of my "intellectual property" (including knowing how to teach
people to play the flute, which I also consider part of my personal IP)
to the state, that would be great. Of course, that skill (however
uniquely and inventively expressed) is not patentable anyway.  Remember,
the original proposition was "Intellectual property... does not exist
naturally - it is something granted by society to individuals", which I
regard as mere sophistry, at best - a typical example of what I could
call "GPL fundamentalism",  in which "information wants to be free"
remains the most daft pseudo-anthropomorphic statement ever said by
anyone. "information" is an abstract mathematical or philosophical
concept, possibly a "thing", but definitely not a sentient life-form who
"wants" anything.



Well spoken. This was the reason why I was talking about certain "circles".

Believing that < any > software needs a GPL sticker on it (cos this is 
"best for society" etc.) doesn't mean everybody has to join this religion.


Best,

Stefan

P.S.: "Strangely", professional programmers are mostly not consulted in 
these discussions. If you would ask them, I bet > 90% would vote against 
GPL fundamentalism. If this matters at all...


P.S. 2: I know that Mr. Stallman thinks otherwise, but still...



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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Stefan Schreiber]

Michael Chapman wrote:



This may all be OT, but if:
-ambisonics had developed twenty years later
-if there had been no patents on it
would the World have been different?

Michael

 




Michael, I don't want to be unpolite. But some people should stop this 
whining about "what would have been if" and go on, at least by now.


Patents didn't play a role in the failure of Ambisonics.

Facts:
- Different quadraphonics systems had failed in the 70s/80s

- UHJ stereo didn't make it. Disadvantages if played back without decoder?

- Dolby Stereo and (after) Dolby Digital / DTS occupied the cinema 
surround space...



Obviously, Dolby Labs owned a lot of patents. Therefore, patents are  
very probably not the reason for the failure of Ambisonics in the market!



Regarding the next suround-system, the requirement list usually includes 
things like "independent of speaker configuration" and "3D Audio". 
Therefore, the (future) chances for application of Ambisonics are good.

(There are obviously plans  to include "3D audio" in "3D movies". )

WFS is not a 3D technology, unless you apply 300+ speakers. (?)

Parametric attempts I don't like, in the sense that you don't know how 
much memory the audio channels would require, and especially what audio 
bitrate is needed for transmission. Could be pretty high, and you might 
not know how much...  Suround for broadcast television, which has a 
channel stucture? Mobile Internet?


(Please note that the required video bitrate for HD video might be a lot 
less in the near future, thanks to H.265/HEVC. It is quite odd if you 
need a higher audio bitrate than video bitrate, which might happen with 
parametric and "up to 32 channel" approaches. I am not going into details.)


Therefore, I think Ambisonics 3rd order (including mixed oders) is 
well-defined, has a very reasonable performance and is an "efficient" 
approach, compared to WFS and  parametric poposals.



Best,

Stefan Schreiber

P.S.: In other words

IF they need a 3D audio technology, Ambisonics had this "feature" from 
day one, and a huge lead to anything else.



P.S. 2:  5.1 is still a valid surround technology, such as certain 
binaural techniques etc.


My personal interest would be to use suround techniques for music 
recording/reproduction, because very obviously you will have a much more 
realistic experience than stereo can ever offer.


IMHO, the recording labels have failed in this area, and are not 
considering that they have a certain obligation to offer certain 
high-quality technologies to the customer. 5.1 has been around since 20 
years!   (Instead, the trend to MP3, range compression and "mastered for 
iTunes".)


Even if the introduction of available technologies would not help them a 
lot in the shot term, it is no long-term strategy at all  to ignore any 
progress which is available on the recording side.


(The hundreds of failed and existing Internet music services are mostly 
or maybe all no game changer, in  the sense that all this is more about 
trade and the access to music. The music industry  also didn't care 
about  any premium format whereas Hollywood DID. Strangely, the vinyl 
sales  have increased seveal hundred percent during the last 5 years or 
so, showing some obvious demand where currently no offer is. The vinyl 
renaissance won't save the music industry, though...   O:-)


Therefore, the  lack of success  of Ambisonics  in the recording 
"industry" is related to the complete lack of interest in any mid- or 
long-term strategy to establish anything improved, to grow something 
new, etc. It was / is even not so much about costs. Decision makers in 
the recording business are usually too uninformed, don't have any 
technological department to consult and are not prepared to go into 
something they don't know. They currently try to strike some content and 
right deals with the dozens of Internet startups. This might be not 
enough in a time when people already own physical AND digital libraries 
of music. The scapegoat for any lack of success is piracy, which existed 
always. Didn't we "tape" music when we were teenagers? Was even legal 
then, probably cos Sonie sold all these tapes... They don't sell enough 
hard discs or Flash memory, though.   :-) )



P.S. 3: End of rant.
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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Richard Dobson]

On 21/09/2011 09:38, Michael Chapman wrote:
..

What purpose is that? Who decides what the purpose is?



Unless one rejects inheritance taxes, wealth taxes, etc., etc. one
is left with the fact that one has accepted a situation where one has
'a balance'. Perhaps the worst imaginable situation ... except all
the others ... but there it is. Akin to "all property belongs to the
 monarch and one holds it under licence", but nowadays "society" not
 the "monarch". Those taxes pay for the police who I hope -if
vainly- may catch your burglars and return your property.



Last time I checked, taxes have to be paid with hard cash; and the
principle has been long established at least in liberal democracies of
"no taxation without representation".  If I could pay my tax by handing
even 10% of my "intellectual property" (including knowing how to teach
people to play the flute, which I also consider part of my personal IP)
to the state, that would be great. Of course, that skill (however
uniquely and inventively expressed) is not patentable anyway.  Remember,
the original proposition was "Intellectual property... does not exist
naturally - it is something granted by society to individuals", which I
regard as mere sophistry, at best - a typical example of what I could
call "GPL fundamentalism",  in which "information wants to be free"
remains the most daft pseudo-anthropomorphic statement ever said by
anyone. "information" is an abstract mathematical or philosophical
concept, possibly a "thing", but definitely not a sentient life-form who
"wants" anything.




This may all be OT, but if: -ambisonics had developed twenty years
later -if there had been no patents on it would the World have been
different?



Probably not. The issue with Ambisonics has never been the technology,
nor even with the patents; it has been with imagination (how to present
it) and ambition. The latter is now expressed, as I have argued
hopelessly here before) in the deprecation of good old first-order (even
over four speakers!) in favour of HOA which remains utterly beyond the
scope of a mass or otherwise popular market. The core patents in audio
have all been for lossy compression tools, which have enabled  a huge
range of affordable toys for people, demonstrating the power of
something that is palpably flawed, but nevertheless for most users "good
enough". That is where the big money and distribution will always be. It
could have been a vehicle for new potentially with-height content
(where even POA is manifestly better than what we now have in 5.1, which
nevertheless also qualifies as "good enough"), whereas discussion at
least on this list has become concerned almost entirely with adding a
bit of extra ambience or "realism" to stereo, something of importance to
perhaps the 0.0001% of the population who pay 4-figure sums for their
amps and 5-figure sums for their speakers (and probably 3-figure sums
for their cables).

So it is irrelevant whether there are any patents on it or not, as it
has very little the behemoth that is the audio/music industry will be
interested in enough to change direction, now. Had it been used for the
original  soundtrack for Star Wars or Close Encounters, it would have
had a chance. It wasn't, dedicated tools for composers  (FOSS or
otherwise) scarcely exist, and "the rest is history". Fons has referred
to "things", including IP; but Ambisonics is not a "thing", it is an
idea, and an increasingly polymorphic one at that, which may or may not
be a Good Thing.

Richard Dobson
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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Michael Chapman]

Richard Dobson wrote:
> On 20/09/2011 22:24, Fons Adriaensen wrote:

> Interesting choice of words. You say  "agree", I would say "recognise".
> Do "they" put it to a vote? My thoughts (which you appear to equate with
> "things") are my own, and if I choose to share them with anyone else
> that is my choice, and their privilege.
>
>> The alternative is living isolated, or having to physically
>> protect and defend your 'property' all the time, which sort
>> of defeats the purpose.
>>
>
> What purpose is that? Who decides what the purpose is?
>

Unless one rejects inheritance taxes, wealth taxes, etc., etc.
one is left with the fact that one has accepted a situation where
one has 'a balance'. Perhaps the worst imaginable situation ...
except all the others ... but there it is. Akin to "all property
belongs to the monarch and one holds it under licence", but
nowadays "society" not the "monarch".
Those taxes pay for the police who I hope -if vainly- may
catch your burglars and return your property.

I nearly said, also, unless one believes patents should be
eternal. But that would be false. A patent is a trade off.
You can keep your invention secret (and unprotected)
or publish/patent it and receive limited protection.

(As for anthrax, IIRC at the time the hype was that 'Cipro'
was "the only licensed product".
And that fitted with Sampo's experiences.

Bacterial resistance is a totally different argument: Anyway
I read an article recently that it is politically incorrect to go
into the alleged causus belli for an ilegal war of aggression,
when it was in fact a 'home goal'. My argument was about
licensing not weaponising.)

This may all be OT, but if:
-ambisonics had developed twenty years later
-if there had been no patents on it
would the World have been different?

Michael




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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Richard Dobson]

On 20/09/2011 22:24, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
..

Wow. How far back in time does this arrangement go? Which came first -
the individual, or the society?


That doesn't really matter. If a number of individuals interact
you have a society. Once that happens, things are 'yours' only
because the others agree the are. Such agreements arise because
they bring mutual benifit.




Interesting choice of words. You say  "agree", I would say "recognise". 
Do "they" put it to a vote? My thoughts (which you appear to equate with 
"things") are my own, and if I choose to share them with anyone else 
that is my choice, and their privilege.



The alternative is living isolated, or having to physically
protect and defend your 'property' all the time, which sort
of defeats the purpose.



What purpose is that? Who decides what the purpose is?

Unfortunately, not all societies are so "enlightened". The days where 
one needed no lock on one's front door are long gone; if they ever 
really existed much anyway. I have been burgled three times, by 
individuals (aka "society" according to you) who clearly did not "agree" 
that my Tannoy DC200 dual-concentrics, or my gold signet ring with the 
family seal on it inherited from my father, belonged to me. Am I now 
supposed to "agree" that they really owned them all along? Seems to me 
there are plenty of people around who would treat my thoughts in the 
same way, if they could. Perhaps a few of them are even on this list. 
You just can't slap a GPL licence on a person and call it "natural".


Richard Dobson




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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Fons Adriaensen]

On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 09:23:37PM +0100, Richard Dobson wrote:
> On 20/09/2011 20:38, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
>> On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 02:15:19PM -, Michael Chapman wrote:
> ..
>> Intellectual property, just like property of physical
>> goods, does not exist naturally - it is something
>> granted by society to individuals in the hope that
>> society will benefit by doing so. If that doesn't
>> happen there is no reason why it should exist.
>>
>
> Wow. How far back in time does this arrangement go? Which came first -  
> the individual, or the society?

That doesn't really matter. If a number of individuals interact
you have a society. Once that happens, things are 'yours' only
because the others agree the are. Such agreements arise because
they bring mutual benifit.

The alternative is living isolated, or having to physically
protect and defend your 'property' all the time, which sort
of defeats the purpose.

Ciao,

-- 
FA


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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Richard Dobson]

On 20/09/2011 20:38, Fons Adriaensen wrote:

On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 02:15:19PM -, Michael Chapman wrote:

..

Intellectual property, just like property of physical
goods, does not exist naturally - it is something
granted by society to individuals in the hope that
society will benefit by doing so. If that doesn't
happen there is no reason why it should exist.



Wow. How far back in time does this arrangement go? Which came first - 
the individual, or the society?


Richard Dobson





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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Fons Adriaensen]

On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 02:15:19PM -, Michael Chapman wrote:

> I must disagree.
> Patents _do_ distort the market.

As does any monopoly, even a temporary one.

I'd very much want to see some changes to patent
law, like for example a patent being cancelled if
within a reasonable time there are not at least
four or five effectively competing licencees, all
of them bound to the same conditions.

Intellectual property, just like property of physical
goods, does not exist naturally - it is something 
granted by society to individuals in the hope that
society will benefit by doing so. If that doesn't
happen there is no reason why it should exist.

Ciao,

-- 
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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Stefan Schreiber]

Ok, the Wikipedia links just don't work and distort everything. Even not 
in (plain) text mode.


I am apologizing...


Best,

Stefan



Stefan Schreiber wrote:


Oops, I try to send the same message in another format...  :-[

Michael Chapman wrote:


Sampo Syreeni wrote:

  


On 2011-09-19, Stefan Schreiber wrote:






 


What she does *not* know is that the oldest, simplest and cheapest
NSAID medication works even better. I mean, today, now that I ran out
of my prescribed NSAID, I again took a gram's worth of aspirin
(acetosalicylic acid). As before, it worked twice as well as the 30x
more expensive newer -coxib.





 


That's how patents and the like distort real life, in the medical
circuit. ...



I am obviously sorry for this incident. If you are right, this is a 
case

of wrong treatment or prescription, not really patent-related.

  



I must disagree.
Patents _do_ distort the market.

Unpatented medicines have no budget for marketing: for
representatives to visit practitioners, for advertising, for stands at
conferences, for sponsorship, for 
(which could bring is back to elegant arguments about ambisonics;-)>

The best example is perhaps the 'anthrax scare'. 'Everyone knows'(TM)
that plain ordinary penicillin is effective at treating anthrax (well 
that's

what the textbooks used to say), but one patented product had a
licence: governments spent fortunes stockpiling the latter, whilst the
former must cost only a few cents a gram 

Michael

 

Sorry, but no. There are forms of anthrax which can't be treated by 
penicillin. If we talk about biological weapons, unfortunately they 
would use these forms.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks



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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Stefan Schreiber]

Oops, I try to send the same message in another format...  :-[

Michael Chapman wrote:


Sampo Syreeni wrote:

   


On 2011-09-19, Stefan Schreiber wrote:

 



 


What she does *not* know is that the oldest, simplest and cheapest
NSAID medication works even better. I mean, today, now that I ran out
of my prescribed NSAID, I again took a gram's worth of aspirin
(acetosalicylic acid). As before, it worked twice as well as the 30x
more expensive newer -coxib.
 



 


That's how patents and the like distort real life, in the medical
circuit. ...
 


I am obviously sorry for this incident. If you are right, this is a case
of wrong treatment or prescription, not really patent-related.

   



I must disagree.
Patents _do_ distort the market.

Unpatented medicines have no budget for marketing: for
representatives to visit practitioners, for advertising, for stands at
conferences, for sponsorship, for 
(which could bring is back to elegant arguments about ambisonics;-)>

The best example is perhaps the 'anthrax scare'. 'Everyone knows'(TM)
that plain ordinary penicillin is effective at treating anthrax (well that's
what the textbooks used to say), but one patented product had a
licence: governments spent fortunes stockpiling the latter, whilst the
former must cost only a few cents a gram 

Michael

 

Sorry, but no. There are forms of anthrax which can't be treated by 
penicillin. If we talk about biological weapons, unfortunately they 
would use these forms.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks

All of the material was derived from the same bacterial strain 
 known as the Ames 
strain . Prior to the 
attacks, the Ames strain was believed to be a common strain isolated 
from a cow in Iowa. After the attacks, the investigation discovered 
that it was a relatively rare strain isolated from a cow in Texas in 
1981 - a critical fact in the investigation.[58] 
[59] 
 First 
researched at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of 
Infectious Diseases 
 
(USAMRIID), Fort Detrick, Maryland, the Ames strain was then 
distributed to sixteen bio-research labs within the U.S. and three 
other locations (Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom).[60] 



DNA sequencing of the anthrax taken from Robert Stevens (the first 
victim) was conducted at The Institute for Genomic Research 
 
(TIGR) beginning in December 2001. Sequencing was finished within a 
month and the analysis was published in the journal Science in early 
2002.[61] 


Radiocarbon dating  
conducted by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 
 
in June 2002 established that the anthrax was cultured 
 no more than 
two years before the mailings.[62] 
 In 
October 2006 it was reported that the water used to process the 
anthrax spores came from a source in the northeastern United 
States.[63] 





On September 11, the president and White House 
 staff began taking a 
regimen of Cipro , a powerful 
antibiotic. The public interest group Judicial Watch 
 filed lawsuits in June 
2002 against federal agencies to obtain information about how, what 
and when the White House knew on 9/11 about the danger of anthrax 
weeks before the first known victim of the anthrax attacks.[41] 
[42] 
 The 
issue, therefore, is on what grounds governmental officials were 
alerted to prepare for the coming anthrax attacks, which were later 
traced to a U.S. army medical research institute.[43] 





Best,

Stefan
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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Stefan Schreiber]

Michael Chapman wrote:


Sampo Syreeni wrote:

   


On 2011-09-19, Stefan Schreiber wrote:

 



 


What she does *not* know is that the oldest, simplest and cheapest
NSAID medication works even better. I mean, today, now that I ran out
of my prescribed NSAID, I again took a gram's worth of aspirin
(acetosalicylic acid). As before, it worked twice as well as the 30x
more expensive newer -coxib.
 



 


That's how patents and the like distort real life, in the medical
circuit. ...
 


I am obviously sorry for this incident. If you are right, this is a case
of wrong treatment or prescription, not really patent-related.

   



I must disagree.
Patents _do_ distort the market.

Unpatented medicines have no budget for marketing: for
representatives to visit practitioners, for advertising, for stands at
conferences, for sponsorship, for 
(which could bring is back to elegant arguments about ambisonics;-)>

The best example is perhaps the 'anthrax scare'. 'Everyone knows'(TM)
that plain ordinary penicillin is effective at treating anthrax (well that's
what the textbooks used to say), but one patented product had a
licence: governments spent fortunes stockpiling the latter, whilst the
former must cost only a few cents a gram 

Michael

 

Sorry, but no. There are forms of anthrax which can't be treated by 
penicillin. If we talk about biological weapons, unfortunately they 
would use these forms.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks

All of the material was derived from the same bacterial strain 
 known as the Ames 
strain . Prior to the 
attacks, the Ames strain was believed to be a common strain isolated 
from a cow in Iowa. After the attacks, the investigation discovered 
that it was a relatively rare strain isolated from a cow in Texas in 
1981 - a critical fact in the investigation.[58] 
[59] 
 First 
researched at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of 
Infectious Diseases 
 
(USAMRIID), Fort Detrick, Maryland, the Ames strain was then 
distributed to sixteen bio-research labs within the U.S. and three 
other locations (Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom).[60] 



DNA sequencing of the anthrax taken from Robert Stevens (the first 
victim) was conducted at The Institute for Genomic Research 
 
(TIGR) beginning in December 2001. Sequencing was finished within a 
month and the analysis was published in the journal Science in early 
2002.[61] 


Radiocarbon dating  
conducted by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 
 
in June 2002 established that the anthrax was cultured 
 no more than 
two years before the mailings.[62] 
 In 
October 2006 it was reported that the water used to process the 
anthrax spores came from a source in the northeastern United 
States.[63] 





On September 11, the president and White House 
 staff began taking a 
regimen of Cipro , a powerful 
antibiotic. The public interest group Judicial Watch 
 filed lawsuits in June 
2002 against federal agencies to obtain information about how, what 
and when the White House knew on 9/11 about the danger of anthrax 
weeks before the first known victim of the anthrax attacks.[41] 
[42] 
 The 
issue, therefore, is on what grounds governmental officials were 
alerted to prepare for the coming anthrax attacks, which were later 
traced to a U.S. army medical research institute.[43] 





Best,

Stefan
-- next part --
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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Michael Chapman]

> Sampo Syreeni wrote:
>
>> On 2011-09-19, Stefan Schreiber wrote:
>>

>> What she does *not* know is that the oldest, simplest and cheapest
>> NSAID medication works even better. I mean, today, now that I ran out
>> of my prescribed NSAID, I again took a gram's worth of aspirin
>> (acetosalicylic acid). As before, it worked twice as well as the 30x
>> more expensive newer -coxib.

>> That's how patents and the like distort real life, in the medical
>> circuit. ...
>
> I am obviously sorry for this incident. If you are right, this is a case
> of wrong treatment or prescription, not really patent-related.
>

I must disagree.
Patents _do_ distort the market.

Unpatented medicines have no budget for marketing: for
representatives to visit practitioners, for advertising, for stands at
conferences, for sponsorship, for 
(which could bring is back to elegant arguments about ambisonics;-)>

The best example is perhaps the 'anthrax scare'. 'Everyone knows'(TM)
that plain ordinary penicillin is effective at treating anthrax (well that's
what the textbooks used to say), but one patented product had a
licence: governments spent fortunes stockpiling the latter, whilst the
former must cost only a few cents a gram 

Michael



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Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Stefan Schreiber]

Sampo Syreeni wrote:


On 2011-09-19, Stefan Schreiber wrote:

Our economy is really based on IP, in some areas. Think of the 
pharmaceutical industry in Britain.



Personally I'm a political pirate, and an economically minded 
classical liberal/libertarian minarchist, at the same time. I'd be 
labelled a federalist in the US circuit, and in the current EU one. 


If you are a pirate, you just "won" the local election in Berlin. Even 
if people who voted for them don't know for what the pirates  stand...  :-)





We all already know that physical ownership is necessary for progress 
and growth. At the same time we do *not* know that "intellectual 
property" is needed for that. 


Because modern economy is much more based on knowledge? Because the 
competition is global? Because Hollywood movies didn't even exist?




The modern day pharmaceutical industry is perhaps the one exception to 
the rule that patents are bad to humanity. Why is that? Well, because 
it's remained the most sacred, shielded, unquestioned, and especially 
for the longest time. In part because of the huge and quite possibly 
unfounded shielding it has. Sometimes that actually works. E.g. it 
seems to work with certain very expensive chemotherapeutic agents, 
right now. I don't think they would have gone beyond vancomycin in 
antibiotics, if it wasn't for intellectual property protection. 
Because that stuff already costs *tons*.


But then I actually have a small anecdote to give wrt this, right now, 
in the opposite direction. Because of my own current condition. I 
mean, about three months ago I suffered a rather nasty prolapsus disci 
intervertebralis, which has left me unable to to work or even much 
move around. One of my bigger discs in my backbone decided to rupture 
in a nasty way, and suddenly I experience a rather debilitating pain 
in my right leg.


The real story is that my doctor (a female one if you might wonder 
about that), prescribes me etorixocib. Because it's the newest and 
neatest COX-2 (cyclooxygenase-2) inhibitor around here. Yes, it does 
work, to a point, and no, it doesn't mull your stomach up. She also 
(atypically) knows that paracetamol/acetaminophen works via a 
different route, and prescribes it together in large amounts with 
etoricoxib.


What she does *not* know is that the oldest, simplest and cheapest 
NSAID medication works even better. I mean, today, now that I ran out 
of my prescribed NSAID, I again took a gram's worth of aspirin 
(acetosalicylic acid). As before, it worked twice as well as the 30x 
more expensive newer -coxib.


I've seen this process many times over already, and since I follow the 
clinical and pharmacological literatures as well as I can, this is no 
surprise; really, this just happens even with the best of doctors, 
when the pharmaceutical industry has even a little bit of influence 
upon them. Really, I'm quite certain that my doctor is totally okay 
and thinks she is uninfluenced by anything; yet she prescribes me a 
*very* expensive and newest COX-2 inhibitor, instead of say the stuff 
they give my mom now: naproxen plus a proton pump inhibitor. Which is 
much cheaper, but prolly as- or more effective than what I'm eating now.


That's how patents and the like distort real life, in the medical 
circuit. ...


I am obviously sorry for this incident. If you are right, this is a case 
of wrong treatment or prescription, not really patent-related.




Everybody could copy any medicament, as long as the composition is 
known.



Which is then good?

This ind of industry simply would brea down without IP, because it is 
quite easy to copy a chemical composition if you now it.



Do remember that the original idea behind patents was that they 
eventually *should* be copied. The only question is about how soon. 


If the patent is expired, which is the definitive answer.

And that calculation could very well have changed in the mean time, 
after the first patent paws were passed. I mean, even *you* can't 
*seriously* think technological progress goes along at the same rate 
today, as it did then. Can you?


The first cars, planes and televisions were developped by several people 
exactly at the same time, in every case. Sometimes ideas are ready to be 
realized. And then, the technological progress was very swift.


Think also of microelectronics in the 60s/70s, after the tansistor was 
developped.




Who would any development of new drugs (and perform the costly tests) 
if there would be no ind of protection at all?



Maybe nobody. But answer me this: 1) why is this testing so expensive, 
2) why is it mandated even against the treatmentees wants, 3) why does 
the new drug has to be a cure, instead of a marginal improvement upon 
a previous drug, 4) why precisely is it the drug manufacturer's 
problem if they offer an imperfect drug to wanting recipients, with 
full disclosure, and it then backfires,


Because patient and normal people have to be protected.

and e.g. 5) how 

Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Michael Chapman]

> The modern day pharmaceutical industry is perhaps the one exception to
the rule that patents are bad to humanity. Why is that? Well, because
it's remained the most sacred, shielded, unquestioned, and especially
for the longest time. In part because of the huge and quite possibly
unfounded shielding it has. Sometimes that actually works.

I've been holding my tongue, but seeing as Sampo has added an
[OT] tag:

Is it not strange that Medicine relies on patent medicines,
whilst Surgery relies on published 'open source'
procedures .  .  . ?

Michael





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[Sursound] [ot] another patent

[Sampo Syreeni]

On 2011-09-19, Stefan Schreiber wrote:

Our economy is really based on IP, in some areas. Think of the 
pharmaceutical industry in Britain.


Personally I'm a political pirate, and an economically minded classical 
liberal/libertarian minarchist, at the same time. I'd be labelled a 
federalist in the US circuit, and in the current EU one. Those ideas 
mesh well, because from the economic viewpoint, physical property and 
the intellectual kind really don't have too much to do with each other.


In fact they fight against each other rather badly: either you can use 
your physical DVD as you like, as part of your property/ownership, or 
otherwise somebody else holds some sort of ownership right to it, which 
precludes you from e.g. copying it willy-nilly. That other right pretty 
much has to be an immaterial right, by definition. The same holds for 
patents as well, wrt simultaneous invention (which has always been rife, 
even with Edison, Bell, and fer gossake even Tesla, who's the poster 
child for independent electric invetion, amongst the 
"counter-theoretical" folks at least...


We all already know that physical ownership is necessary for progress 
and growth. At the same time we do *not* know that "intellectual 
property" is needed for that. I mean, come on, it originally started as 
the King's or the Guilds' privilege, so as to suppress 
printing/duplication of subversive materials. The generally, 
historically, first statute to recognize copyright was the Statute of 
Anne, which basically just codified medieval guild rights into the 
rights of the stationery companies of her time. Thankfully it brought 
that stuff under public scrutiny and control for the first time. But 
it's not as though we should make that first effort into anything more 
than it was; the first effort towards something better.


...


The modern day pharmaceutical industry is perhaps the one exception to 
the rule that patents are bad to humanity. Why is that? Well, because 
it's remained the most sacred, shielded, unquestioned, and especially 
for the longest time. In part because of the huge and quite possibly 
unfounded shielding it has. Sometimes that actually works. E.g. it seems 
to work with certain very expensive chemotherapeutic agents, right now. 
I don't think they would have gone beyond vancomycin in antibiotics, if 
it wasn't for intellectual property protection. Because that stuff 
already costs *tons*.


But then I actually have a small anecdote to give wrt this, right now, 
in the opposite direction. Because of my own current condition. I mean, 
about three months ago I suffered a rather nasty prolapsus disci 
intervertebralis, which has left me unable to to work or even much move 
around. One of my bigger discs in my backbone decided to rupture in a 
nasty way, and suddenly I experience a rather debilitating pain in my 
right leg.


The real story is that my doctor (a female one if you might wonder about 
that), prescribes me etorixocib. Because it's the newest and neatest 
COX-2 (cyclooxygenase-2) inhibitor around here. Yes, it does work, to a 
point, and no, it doesn't mull your stomach up. She also (atypically) 
knows that paracetamol/acetaminophen works via a different route, and 
prescribes it together in large amounts with etoricoxib.


What she does *not* know is that the oldest, simplest and cheapest NSAID 
medication works even better. I mean, today, now that I ran out of my 
prescribed NSAID, I again took a gram's worth of aspirin (acetosalicylic 
acid). As before, it worked twice as well as the 30x more expensive 
newer -coxib.


I've seen this process many times over already, and since I follow the 
clinical and pharmacological literatures as well as I can, this is no 
surprise; really, this just happens even with the best of doctors, when 
the pharmaceutical industry has even a little bit of influence upon 
them. Really, I'm quite certain that my doctor is totally okay and 
thinks she is uninfluenced by anything; yet she prescribes me a *very* 
expensive and newest COX-2 inhibitor, instead of say the stuff they give 
my mom now: naproxen plus a proton pump inhibitor. Which is much 
cheaper, but prolly as- or more effective than what I'm eating now.


That's how patents and the like distort real life, in the medical 
circuit. Even for us in the Western countries.


Everybody could copy any medicament, as long as the composition is 
known.


Which is then good?

This ind of industry simply would brea down without IP, because it is 
quite easy to copy a chemical composition if you now it.


Do remember that the original idea behind patents was that they 
eventually *should* be copied. The only question is about how soon. And 
that calculation could very well have changed in the mean time, after 
the first patent paws were passed. I mean, even *you* can't *seriously* 
think technological progress goes along at the same rate today, as it 
did then. Can you?


Who would any development of new drugs (and p