Comments for Dan Braganca

Comment on The King’s Indian Defense of Ron Paul by Dave

Dave — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 02:35:53 +0000

I’ve been listening to The History of Rome podcast lately, and now that I’ve gotten through the Second Punic War, the comment about Hannibal makes a lot more sense.

Comment on Sub Specie Ego by Dave

Dave — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:52:17 +0000

It’s be interesting to see the same photo at “night”- I imagine it’d be similar to the famous one of North Korea and its neighbors, only with Kansas filling that dubious honor.

Comment on Sub Specie Ego by Dan Braganca

Dan Braganca — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:57:39 +0000

@Dave You'll also notice that the US isn't covered in population centers and infrastructure as people often assume. It reminds me of one of my favorite statistics from Ed Glaeser: "95 percent of the United States remains undeveloped and that if every American were given a house on a quarter acre, so that every family of four had a full acre, that distribution would not use up half the land in Texas." @Andreas Ya, those colors are beautiful - I got the chance to see them up close last summer on a cruise to the carribbean.

Comment on Sub Specie Ego by Andreas Kluth

Andreas Kluth — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:11:09 +0000

The green in the waters of Florida and the Caribbean stands out.

Comment on Sub Specie Ego by Dave

Dave — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 02:15:09 +0000

Does make the US look kinda arid, though.

Comment on Patently Absurd* by Dan Braganca

Dan Braganca — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:49:08 +0000

Again, your argument assumes that I’m totally against all IP protection. As I said, I’m not. But I think their benefits are wildly overestimated. I’ve heard all of these justifications before, but until we see some actual evidence that IP protection at this level is somehow at the ideal equilibrium for encouraging innovation I think our bias should be toward liberalizing IP protection not tightening it.

A quick note on your thought experiment. I think it’s far fetched to think I couldn’t prove the words were originally mine. My blog is the best evidence – I could screen capture exact times of posting if someone started trying really hard to take credit. Chances are that without the benefit of legal protection, I’d still be able to ruin the reputation of someone plagiarising me. I doubt I’d have the money to sue someone now with all the laws in place; but, reputation is a powerful safeguard against abuse.

Also, any rap thief would be exposed pretty quickly. You can’t fake Jay-Z’s delivery and voice and it’d be pretty curious when the fraud’s talent dries up when he’s not able to have immediate access to Jay-Z’s musical reservoir.

That said, and to play devil’s advocate a bit, even if someone did successfully appropriate my content it’s not self-evident that’s bad for the general population (which is the point of copyright after all). If Ezra Klein or some HuffPo writer copy and pasted my words on their sites, my ideas would be reaching a far wider audience and would have a greater chance of persuasion – and isn’t that the point of making arguments anyway?

Comment on Patently Absurd* by Dave

Dave — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:02:29 +0000

Okay, so we’re not really that far off, you and I.
But I still think there are a couple points to your answer that I’d like to touch on. First, I suggest to you that copyright protection is more than a mere financial incentive. It is also a protection of authorship. Let’s say I were to start stealing all of the posts you make on this blog- I set up a program that immediately cut and pasted your words onto my own blog- and claimed them for my own. It’s possible you might not mind- maybe you’d be flattered, or happy for the expansion of your ideas. But they wouldn’t be your ideas. To anyone reading my blog, they would be my ideas. And you would have no legal recourse to do anything about it.
Other mechanisms do exist for enforcing a “don’t steal ideas” cultural norm- see standup comedy and high-end cooking- but those mechanisms do not work perfectly and I don’t want to assume you think that would work for all artistic endeavor.
To make the scenario scarier, what if it were Ezra Klein or Arriana Huffington who started stealing from you? Then you’d be a very junior blogger attempting to make your case against an established element, which is harder to do. Assuming you even bothered to fight for attribution at all. This all becomes even more frightening if we take this out of the realm of blogging and look to, say, literature:
What if my friend Ernest showed me a manuscript he’d just finished? He’s spent years on it; painstakingly editing it down to reflect his voice, a voice he thinks will define a generation. He gives it to me to see what I think. But, rather than edit it, I run to the nearest publisher and publish it under my name. I call it, A Goodbye to Guns. Now, of course, neither of us stand to make much money off the sale, since anyone who has access to the contents can copy it to their hearts content (even Xerox the whole thing and pass it out on the street for free), so why pay for the book? But even setting the money aside, Ernest will have a tough time convincing the world he’s the source of those beautiful words.
The same could have happened to Jay-Z. See, the problem I have with your Hov example is that is presupposes his success. He had to rise to fame before he could take over anything. And if record companies could just send agents to underground clubs to record every hot new song to hand off to a known quantity to perform, Jay might have just vanished back into the Ether.
As for Girl Talk, the reason why he’s still around is because he does fit within the copyright regime as it exists today, at least so far. Girl Talk’s music is protected under a doctrine called “fair use,” which- not to get too technical- allows for a little infringement if done in specific ways and/or for specific purposes. And Girl Talk knows this- if you ever read an interview with him, he beats fair use like a drum (pun intended). And the record companies know this, which is exactly why they haven’t sued him yet. Which isn’t to say they would definitely lose, they might win, but he has a good enough case and enough high-level IP scholars and lawyers at his back that, thus far, they’re afraid to try.
Turning finally to patent: yes, sampling is valuable in science, too. But one of the nice things about patents is that they don’t let scientists get lazy. Because they’re not allowed to simply copy, they’re forcing to come up with something new, to innovate. That’s why there are currently a dozen different tablet computers on the market right now, instead of a dozen iPads. A little competition and variety is good.
And patent accomplishes other things, too. It encourages disclosure. In order to benefit from the temporary monopoly that is your reward for invention, you are forced to publish the specs to the invention. That means that getting patents encourages Apple to put its designs and innovations out into the public sphere of knowledge, for everyone to enjoy eventually, rather than forcing Apple to protect its designs the only other way it could, by using trade secrets. Keeping innovation secret retards the spread of knowledge. Thus, patents encourage the growth of public knowledge.

Comment on Patently Absurd* by Dan Braganca

Dan Braganca — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 05:18:20 +0000

I'm not arguing that we shouldn't have any IP laws, but I do want to hack away at the theoretical justification for them. I can only ever seem to find strong hypothetical arguments; actual evidence of their necessity is hard to come by for copyright at anywhere approaching the levels they exist in today. Like I said before, I keep hearing that copyright gives artists financial incentive to create, but artists created a lot of art before copyright law. I believe it does give them incentive but I don't think it's a vital incentive. Artists can be inspired to create for art's sake and can get financial incentives through charity, government, schools, and non-copyrighted commerce. Touring is hugely lucrative for the top-artists. Do you think Hova is just going to give up the $500k/show he reportedly makes because he doesn't get quite the amount he earns now from his government provided monopoly on songs? Should we start banning cover bands too? Jay-Z's fortune isn't only from selling copyrighted music, he's used his success in music to become a successful entrepreneur. And imagine if IP prevented other musicians from using non-original music? How did Jay-Z become the CEO of hip-hop anyway? A hostile Takeover. The strictest copyright would blackout The Grey Album and would muzzle Girl Talk. Who's to say liberalizing IP wouldn't lead to a proliferation of more art? It's difficult to appreciate music and technology that's not made because of IP law. Sure, we have wonderful iPads and iPods partially enabled by IP, but think of the gadgets that other companies and tinkerers could create using the base tech invented by Apple and other companies. Inventors benefit from "sampling" just as much as musicians.

Comment on Patently Absurd* by Dave

Dave — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 02:19:26 +0000

There’s definitely an argument to be made about the strength of our IP laws (and I definitely think copyright law, in particular, has gotten out of hand in this country), but your post seems to be arguing that we shouldn’t have any IP protection at all (correct me if I’m wrong, of course). I can’t really get behind that. Copyright law promotes the arts by giving artists a financial incentive to create. Certainly artists would still produce art without the monetary prompt, but I think it’s logical to assume fewer would feel motivated to do so if they couldn’t be guaranteed a financial return on it. Jay-Z’s career might have gone differently if every other rapper to hear one of his songs could have started performing it themselves. And I doubt Hova could have relied on getting the the patronage that funded Shakespeare, Mozart and Da Vinci.
Your argument also focuses exclusively on the copyright side of the equation and neglects patents and the protection of invention- the “sciences” part of the equation. Would Apple have given us so many neat devices if they knew Microsoft would be selling iPhones within a week of their release?

Comment on Patently Absurd* by Dan Braganca

Dan Braganca — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:39:52 +0000

I’m not sure I understand the question.