Capitalism is economic terrorism.
It’s almost like someone should go and shoot the CEO dead in the street
One could argue that patents and copyright are anti-capitalist
They are, actually. The point of patents and copyright is not to protect the creator- that’s a temporary effect. The point is to release the thing to the public afterwards. The problem is that capitalism corrupts the process and finds ways to make the temporary effects permanent. Disney has succeeded in making copyright last effectively forever.
They are literally monopolies on whatever they concern.
Correct. Patents and copyrights are state granted monopolies that are in direct opposition to free market forces that capitalism thrives on.
Free market? As in, competition between different enterprises? And what do you think happens when one company “wins” that competition? It will use that power to establish a monopoly (or a cartel with a couple buddy companies). Both “free market” and “private monopoly” are capitalist fenomena, just at different stages of development of industry.
Sure, everyone should work for free except you, of course.
Patents only last 15 years. why isn’t the government making insulin.
Your affection for patents does not disprove my original statement.
Copyrights and patents generate enormous amounts of wealth from rent seeking. This wealth has been used to continue to entrench these draconian concepts into our legal and governmental systems.
Even worse they have been used to stop the spread of information and monopolize development thus slowing down technological advancement. So many people have died so these clowns can make a buck.
One could argue that artificial scarcity is a farce, but unless you have more money than the people who benefit from IP, your voice will not be heard on a policy level.
So, you agree patents and copyrights are contrary to capitalism and free markets?
Personally, I think that if small business capitalism actually existed then it would run contrary to that.
There would be no need for copyright or patents. These systems create artificial scarcity which hinders society as a whole to benefit a minority.
I feel like our existing system of laissez-faire capitalism fully embraces the rent seeking found in intellectual property.
I think there is a balance to be made. Some anti capitalist measures are needed to encourage innovation. But the use of patent laws as a defence, or copyright to seek excessive rent are far too aggressive.
If there is any chance of reform it would have to still appeal to all parties. We definitely need to think about solutions that have not been proposed before.
As much as I would like to advocate for abolishment of IP, I recognize it is an unrealistic demand.
After all, IP didn’t magically appear. It took hundreds of years of court cases and laws passed to get to the arguably ridiculous point we are now.
I like the idea of having to pay a fee to retain copyright. And that fee doubles every year.
It starts off low but after a decade or two it becomes more economical to let the copyright lapse.
Patents should be scrapped completely.
And no capitalist would want to get rid of them.
Sam Altman very much wants to get rid of copyright.
Technically a funnel system for 1%.
I genuinely think that in some third world countries, as part of the middle class, you can have a better life than in the USA.
Something I’ve noticed is when untraveled people in the USA try to contextualize themselves with other countries they pick the worst examples they can think of. Favelas in Brazil or slums in South Africa for example. We do this to the point where our entire conception of countries (or in the case of Africa, continents) is the worst imagery we can think of. I think they genuinely don’t believe that, for all their troubles India, Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, etc also have smartphones and big buildings and libraries and universities and laboratories, and educated people living decent lives.
They also can’t see how the overcrowded jails full of pretrial prisoners, the barefoot children carrying buckets for water in Appalachia, the rundown schools full of illiterate kids, the impunity of rich private interests, the corrupt sheriffs and judges, and on and on, puts us in the company of the “third world countries”. Yes we have nice places too, but SO DO THEY. A broken society in the 21st century isn’t people living in mud huts, it’s children shitting in the street next to a glass skyscraper with LEED Platinum certification.
And it’s not just “overcrowded jails full of pretrial prisoners, the barefoot children carrying buckets for water in Appalachia” but the grad students in LA living out of their cars, or grandpa sleeping on a bus stop, or people in the Rockies surviving off roadkill and forage.
Seattle tent cities/tiny homes make some Favelas look real swanky.
Logically, it’s not about how much money you make, it’s about purchasing power. It is irrelevant if you earn only $400 a month when you can eat well for $1 and pay $100 for your housing, you have free health care and education. That is the reality in some third world countries.
Third world doesn’t mean poor, it just means not aligned with US or Russia
No one really uses that word in its Cold War context anymore. It’s the common term for “developing countries” and the like.
People believe that only because they haven’t learned what it actually means.
You’re right that they either never learned what 1st-2nd-3rd world really means, or they forgot what they were taught in history class. Unfortunately it still is the main term to refer to poor countries even though it’s incorrect. Language seems to be biased towards the common meaning over the technically correct meaning.
Spain isn’t third world, it already had shown the middle finger to Trump and also has few to do with Rusia. Third world countries don’t certainly mean people starving, the people there often have all what they need, but this, you’ll see few Ferraries there and chalets with swimming pool. Someone is rich, not necesarly because a lot of money, but because he need only few. We often enter in a rabbit hole of the consumism, spending a lot of money in things we really don’t need, we work like a dog to have enough money to pay a journey to Hawaii to recover us from the burnout, which we wouldn’t have working less, no needing this journey.
If you can eat well for $1 then it is definitely a poor country relative to the US. Differences in purchasing power are a direct result of differences in wealth.
I think that the US is a third world country, it’s rich but most money is used for weapons and to make richer the billonairs and big corporations, in the social and cultural sphere, it is one of the most backward in the world. Now with Trump the US is turning in a running gag for the most countries. A country where 40 milloncof citizen don’t have enough to eat at least 2 times a day, isn’t a rich country.
Usa is the hub of first world. Russia is the second. Thirds is everyone else.
USA is an total dystopic country, any Banana Republic has more culture. US is only powerfull because use all the money for weapons, developed by foreigner scientifics. First world is anything else.
You will say that the US is a first world country, it’s better for your health
I really should just put a full block on lemmy.ml. Thanks for the reminder!
There’s a reason countries like Vietnam are so popular with digital nomads.
It’s also much harder to become a middle class in those countries.
If he wanted it to be freely available, why did he even sell the patent ? Just disclaim at the patent office. Selling is just asking the new holder to start enforcing.
They sold the patent to the University of Toronto, so they didn’t exactly sell it to a for-profit patent troll.
But also, that was in 1923, so the patent has long since expired.
They also don’t make insulin the way that he did back then. Not justifying the price hike cause the way its made now is way cheaper than it was with the old method (which was basically grinding up animal parts to extract insulin). These fucks are just profiting off of the suffering of Americans who have literally no choice but to use their drug.
I mean, that’s better than selling to a private person, still feels weird, since disclaiming a patent is absolutely possible, and has a 100% chance of leading to the desired outcome, vs whatever small chance there may be that the University starts taking profits on it. Or even just sees themselves forced to sell the patent, because of potential financial issues.
Yeah, the risk is small, but eliminating it in it’s entirety would’ve been easily possible, so it just feels a bit weird he didn’t do it.
Remember, the 1920s is long ago. Giving the patent to the equivalent of a non-profit organisation was probably better than disclaiming it, since it’s easier to have one large, well-known entity that will fight off people trying to re-patent it than to disclaim it and hope that no patent clerk ever lets a fraudulent re-patent go through.
In 1920 you couldn’t just google for prior art when fighting a fraudulent patent.
Ok, that is a fair point I hadn’t previosuly considered. Though disclaiming a patent doesn’t loose you all legal recourse.
If someone else tries to repatent it, even if it gets approved, you can still file a challenge against the new patent with the PTO. You (or anyone else, really) would also have a virtually guaranteed court win, even if someone got the patent through and tried to enforce it. All you’d have to prove in court is that prior art of the invention exists, therefore the patent is invalid and unenforceable, granted or not, so it’s unlikely someone would even bother trying to enforce such a patent. A previous, diclaimed patent, of literally the identical technology being on record is pretty iron clad and unavoidable evidence that the patent isn’t original.
Nowadays you just google for other patents and done. But back then, I guess that searching for prior art was quite a lot more difficult. Gifting the patent to an university so that they defend open access to the patent sounds like a more reliable plan.
I mean, even nowadays patents are greenlit my patent offices even though there’s clear prior art (Nintendo’s recent patent for catching monsters in a ball in a game comes to mind, which Nintendo would have to have patented before publishing their first game with that mechanic around 30 years ago), and even today it’s really difficult and expensive to get such a clear nonsense patent invalidated.
So difficult that e.g. Palworld opted to change the mechanic instead of fighting the patent.
So I do understand why someone would instead gift the patent to an university under the condition that they keep access to it open, especially 100 years ago.
For Australian diabetes patients the insulin Fiasp is $31.60 on the PBS, but Americans pay $930, while the medication Jardiance is $619 to $698 in the US compared to again $31.60 for the 220,000 Australians who access it. (I’m on Jardiance)
Damn, the Jardiance in America must be some strong shit!
It is widely available, just not in the US
Invented by a Canadian, exploited by an American.
Sold the patent for $1, that’s so Canadian.
If a transaction occurs for no consideration e.g. a gift, then there is always a chance for a progenitor to sue and claim rights as the transaction “never happened”. This happens when a company acquires another and tries to strip benefits, so the company fires and rehires all employees so that is the consideration. I have personally reviewed hundreds of land sales for 10$ in Texas so there is legally binding consideration exchanged. Functionally it is a legally bulletproof gift.
Wait until you find out how much the guy that invented the I ternet sold it for.
How is it even possible to afford $800 for insulin? It boggles the mind
In Canada it is still considered expensive, but not even close to $800/month. It’s only considered expensive because most shit like that is free or a very nominal fee, but repeated need is what it is.
'Murica, fuck yeahhhh!
Yeah, just dismantle the state and give it to private companies… What could go wrong?
There’s no business in curing diseases. The whole pharma is mostly a “subscription” model.
do people just not have credit cards?
ah yes they should pay for the 7th most expensive liquid on Earth, which they will die without, with a credit card just so they can be sure to pay for interest on top of the original cost. Are you an idiot or just plain evil?
I’m a person who knows cost benefit analysis. When death is on the table, who chooses death over paying some interest?
???
Meanwhile, 10 euros per vial here in Europe. At least his original plan for widespread and easy availability has partially succeeded.
Even worst, my dog got it for free from the public vet university for years. They even gave us the syringes. It’s the same human insulin and my dog got it for free. Guess his plan worked better than he thought… only no in the us
It did succeed, humanity just didn’t take the win and run to keep it going.
If you talk about killing the few people like these that are the root cause of all these problems, you’re a terrorist. You go to jail
These people actually kill people by the thousands, millions, and we call them smart CEO’s and celebrate them 🥂
Free Luigi.
There is plenty of propaganda on social media to exalt the billionaires and CEOs. Instagram is especially really bad at it. I don’t know why the algorithm suggest heavily to me about “entrepreneur” pages (maybe my investing platform sold my data), although some of these pages whitewash literal fraudulent and underhanded behaviours from celebrity CEOs and fraudsters, spinning their past behaviours as “another way to get rich”. I also think the posts and profiles were written by bots, because the language and syntax used sound almost identical from one another, in spite of these profiles supposedly being independent from one another.
