Bayer has decades of marketing behind it and is not a valid counter argument.

We've already said this, but will try again. You spend 10 years designing and testing a new widget. The widget is innovative and unique. You bring it to market and within a month ACME releases the same widget at a price you can't match. How is that fair?

I use it but religiously tag and work through all mails. Basically the inbox of all my accounts is empty most of the time. Works pretty well but I'm by no means a power user.

This is just the labour theory of value in different words. Maybe if you'd get early adopters and people to use your product to solve their problems during the 10 years already you'd have all the advantage in the world. The idea of research for a long time and release seems broken to me anyways. Maybe they should get kickstarter type money up front and if they show they can produce they are more likely to get funds again in the future.

If they can't show enough profit from their innovation than their business models is broken and they deserve to get punished.

What's fair? How is it fair that I can't use the resources I own to produce something I need because some other company can prevent me from doing this. Fairness cuts both ways.

[either way my view is utterly utopian and never going to happen so it's not worth debating except for intellectual value]

What should authors do? Someone spends 3 years writing a book and gets it published only to have counterfeit copies take all their sales.

I have the option for Bachelor's in 3 years or Master's in 4 from a top ten CS program. Master's is the no-brainer right? Obviously don't need to decide yet, but I can't see how it is not the play especially given all the extra interesting/useful classes you can take from the grad school.

I think the argument for limited copyright is stronger then the argument for patent protection (especially on software), because it's not as easy to raise the kinds of objections to your hypothetical that clown has raised, but it's worth keeping in mind that they are two separate legal regimes.

although perhaps clown is in favor of eliminating both, I don't recall and I've just been skimming.

edit: it's been a long time since I read the original but Lessig's section on Intellectual Property in the book Code still seems good to me.

Kickstart the book. If it's any good the next one said author writes will get kickstarted for even more etc.

Writing books is pretty much all reputation.

Actually you can just write the book and publish it DRM free. People pay for stuff like that eventhough they can get the book for free RIGHT NOW.

This model will work. It's a mixture of the principle of reciprocity and wanting further books from the author if it's good and thus having an interest in that guy not giving up writing to become a pig farmer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recipro..._psychology%29

There might be even better models.

Edit: The entire argument of "oh look it took me so long now I should be rewarded" seems a bit absurd to me. You can rephrase it as "people shouldn't be rewarded for basically being leaches" and it's much stronger though (which you did just clarifying)

I'd go for the masters for sure. Unless you want to go the BA->PhD route which does not exist over here so I have no idea how it works.

Lol, so your answer to no protection in the market place for ideas is to try and raise money for the idea before anyone knows whether it is good or not?

Wow for a second I thought I was in PU.

That damn lirva got me riled up...

Awesome thanks. It can be done here and if I did choose to get a PhD, I would be doing slightly more work than necessary, but I can't really see wanting to get a PhD before getting a good amount of work experience in (if ever).

The reasoning for wanting the master's is the fact it'd only take 1 additional year vs the normal 2 and frankly an undergraduate CS program doesn't offer enough upper-division elective hours to really delve deep into something. You sort of get the basic broad CS treatment with maybe 3-5 electives.

I'd rather hang around another year, get the chance to really get deeper into artificial intelligence / machine learning / data mining and get to take more statistics on a graduate level as well. Plus I'd get an extra year of internship experience before seeking full-time employment.

Of course all plans are subject to change and I'm planning pretty far ahead, but it's nice to know where I'm intending to go with all of this. Appreciate the help.

Yes it's called entrepreneurship

i really respect your posts but honestly your argument is pretty absurd.

EDIT: i say this with some hesitancy as this argument seems like a dangerously close proxy for a political debate....

Bachelors + really cool job after?? There are other options for a grad from top 10 school

Copyright has nothing to do with patents, does it?

I have them conflated in my head, but they are separate things.

For the sake of this argument though they're basically the same. The idea that someone creates something and then gets some sort of legal protection to keep others from copying their work.

This is totally dodging the issue.

Most entrepreneurs still need to do work and development before getting money.

Metrotown - I'd lean towards doing Bachelors+Masters, but from a purely financial perspective it probably won't be worth it. I don't think a lot of places pay more for a person with a Master's degree in CS and so you're giving up a year of employment as well as the cost of your tuition for not very much gain in future earnings.

No, they're not. You can patent stuff you haven't even created.

Didn't this start as a discussion about software patents? Patents and copyright couldn't be more different really, at least when it comes to software. Software patents are stupid. Copyright is reasonable.

Do you mean stupid software patents are stupid? Stupid non software patents are stupid as well. Or do you think all software patents are all stupid?

Yeah, you missed the point.

Yes, they could be much different. One could involve protecting intellectual property and one could be a puppy.

Its kind of hard to take you seriously when you make statements like this.

Oh, when you state it like this I'm convinced...

hmm sublime + vintage mode seems like a win/win. Luxuries of a richer user interface with the keybindings of vim.

Agreed, we should just drop it. Talking about stuff like this (discussion is pretty much always the same) is one of my vices