Re: FN-FORUM: Stolen design - your thoughts...

date posted 14th January 2008 13:03

On Saturday, January 12, 2008 4:37 PM, Nigel Rogers wrote:

> Hi all, picking up on some of the recent threads.
>
> If something is successful, it will be copied!
>
> As a business person you consider how protectable what you do is, a
> criteria often missed by designers. Perhaps this should be part of the
> criteria in web awards, or a new category?
>
> What online technologies/solutions do you think afford the most
> protection or do you think the internet is by it's nature unprotectable?
>
> Nigel

If it can be patented, copyrighted or trademarked then it's protectable. I
suppose business practices can also be protected to a degree but if one of
your employees leaves you to work for a rival there's only so much you can
do.

I don't see the need for any more protection beyond what already exists.
Patent and Copyright law were not created to reward entrepreneurs; but to
encourage disclosure of information. Trademark was created to distinguish
brands in the market. It was felt that writers would not write books unless
they were affored a living by means of copyright. Patents were explicitly
created to reward disclosure because it was felt that new working methods
were being kept secret so that the inventor could keep ahead of the
competition. That was NOT considered to be beneficial to society; better to
reward the inventor with a royalites for a limited period.

The narrow-minded view, common in the creative industries and widely
propagated by Hollywood, that we all need to have our livelihoods protected
from copiers is a development of a rather pathetic Western capitalism which,
unable to make profits any other way, must now shackle us all with rent,
which it calls copyright - yep the same Hollywood industry which refuses to
pay the actual writers their due has now become rentier general. [prior to
1974 the term of US copyright was only 25 years - there have been a huge
number of intellectual copyright laws passed by US Congress since then -
coincidence that the inception coincided with a crisis in US capital
profitability? - no way. ]

The reason why disclosure of information is considered useful is that the
more information we have, the better we can potentially do our job and the
more we are able to contribute to society in terms of better technology and
working methods. In the end what makes us all better off - increasing the
level of productivity throughout society - or enforcing rents backed up by
the state as bailiff of last resort?