Not how that works

It’s exactly how it works. You can patent the code, the solution, the material, whatever the fuck you want. That’s what a patent IS.

You keep switching between moral and legal arguments. They are not the same.

Oh, do elaborate!

Deflection

Example of a similar thought-process.

Strawman

Huh? That wasn’t an argument, mate, that was an assumption and a question. Are you OK?

I still kinda’ hope I’d get an answer, though.

Literally mirroring your words back at you

Well, not “literally” and not quite “mirroring”. I think you need some rest, mate, you seem tired and unfocused.

Does a patent protect the concept or the specific code?

Depends on the patent.

according to your definition of theft I’m 100% certain that’s the case

It’s not “my definition of theft”, it’s “theft”. If you’re 100% certain, hit Amazon lawyers up, I’m sure they’ll love to talk to you about it - it’s literally free money for them and maybe a big payout for you, right?

Thanks to those, or in spite of? You are focusing on outliers and expecting that to be a convincing argument to describe the typical.

The hilarious thing is that you’re like so many other “revolutionaries” who come in and go: “oh no, the X rules are stifling the market/competition/free exchange of information/whatever” while being completely ignorant on how these rules came to be.

It’s like these capitalists of today saying that OSHA needs to go because they’re losing profits to it, completely oblivious to the fact that it was the capitalists of the XIX century who created them to increase profits (because having to replace skilled labourers became a high cost factor).

You strike me as someone who thinks that copyright and other IP protection laws are something that was set up in XX (maybe XIX) century as a means to protect the wealthy. Am I wrong?

Fair, I was attempting to limit scope with only discussing patents

Right. So when I refused to change the scope, you decided to call me an idiot. How very gentlemanly of you.

Microsoft did copy and paste though: Yammer, Bing and Azure respectively

So, you fully and honestly believe that Microsoft has stolen Google’s and Amazon’s code? As in: you’re 100% certain that’s the case here?

Also worth mentioning the duopoly nature of those 2 specifically.

No. It’s not worth mentioning in a topic that has nothing to do with that fact…

Rather telling that all your examples are Fortune 500 companies?

It amazes me how you see a company NOW being a Fortune 500, and going “waagh, IP protection only serves the massive corpos!!!” without realising how many of those companies became Fortune 500 thanks to those protections.

It equally amazes me how you see the law being used by said companies most of the time (because, you know, they’re larger) and go “we can do without these laws” without blinking an eye, or a single neuron firing towards the thought that… these laws ALSO serve the smaller companies.

We’re not talking copyright laws, we’re talking patent laws

Mate, are you lost or something?

This is what my reply was to:

Copyright and patent laws need to die.

Do I need to put “copyright” in bold here?

Do you know why there doesn’t exist automated fencepost painters?

I’m just impressed that you managed to miss the point by so much.

Yes, because you just described what businesses throughout the Western world do to your mythical small business and projected it onto some mythical far east.

Correct. Which is precisely why copyright law was established in the first place and why companies like Facebook, Google or Amazon were able to become what they were without Microsoft or Apple just copy-pasting what they did.

The copyright laws are not perfect, far from it. But they give smaller companies SOME form of defence against the corps.

You do realize that is the point of IP right? To allow legalized theft in this exact manner?

Do you also believe that OSHA was created to control the poor employee into submission by their great corporate overlord?

In the exact article this comment chain is discussing palworld did their due diligence to verify they weren’t violating any of Nintendo’s IP and then Nintendo modified their patent filing so that they were with the express goal of stealing their product.

Yes, like I said: the copyright laws are not perfect. But saying that it would better WITHOUT ANY COPYRIGHT LAWS is insanity.

If it’s a perfect 1:1 copy why does it matter? Can you explain how this isn’t just a stance rooted in xenophobia?

First of all: very often it’s literally a 1:1 copy.

Secondly: imagine you make an innovative product. I don’t know, automatic fence painter, whatever. It sells well, but you don’t have the money to start a large-scale production, you’re doing OK with sales and are looking for investors, but things are fairly slow. In comes a Chinese dude, buys one auto-painter from you, brings it home, dismantles the thing, copies everything (potentially making some changes), and starts a massive-scale production in his factory. Due to the mass-production, worse materials, and lower labour costs, he sells the product at 20% the price of yours. The market is saturated with his knock-off, you’re left with zero money.

Is this xenophobia to you? Or someone stealing your product and killing your business?

The goal of the vast majority is to be acquired

Yeah, I’m not talking about them being acquired. What gave you that idea? I specifically used the words “steals their idea”.

I just wanna know which amazing video game innovations We are protecting here in America

First, I’m not talking specifically about America. Second, I’m not talking about “amazing innovations”. Copyright is also for trademarks, very characteristic gameplay mechanics, etc. For example, Playrix made “Fishdom” which was copy-paste Worms. Team17 won the case and protected their IP.

Are we talking about the failing franchises that have been milking their customers for 15 years?

Umm… No? What does that have to do with copyright or IP protection…?

Have we done anything really innovative recently?

Have you tried looking at titles from other publishers than Ubisoft, EA or Activition?

I don’t care where the company making the claim is from, as long as it acquired the IP legally and has a valid claim for protecting it.

The way the patent system works is bad in many, many, MANY ways, but saying “copyright and patent laws need to die” is just idiotic. As it is, we at least have a semblance of rules. Without it, it’s just “whoever can reproduce and mass produce a promising product faster”. And that means: China because they already make everything.

They favour the big guy, not the little guy

That’s the US law system, not the IP system in general.

There are examples of smaller companies managing to protect their IP (Finjan vs Symantec, Unwired Planet vs. Huawei, Neo Wireless vs. Sony, etc., etc - that’s just from a quick search).

I’m not saying that the copyright system in place is perfect, but saying “copyright and patent laws need to die” is just delusional.

WTF are you talking about??

How about you come back to me when you can read?

I’m not defending Nintendo, I’m saying that “copyright and patent laws need to die” stance is naive.

Chinese companies famously ignore patent law and do make copies and try to flood the western market with them.

But western companies at least have a tool to fight back or limit the flood.

Most startups don’t have the time and/or money to patent their ideas and big corps do squash them/steal their ideas routinely once they become noticeable.

Ah, the usual “if the solution is not absolutely 100% perfect, let’s throw out the solution”. Come on…

If anything, startups can’t develop their ideas because some company will hold a generic patent like “clicking a button does something” (or “glide with a pet”) from 30 years ago.

Yeah, this happens all of once every billion times. Clearly the system is stupid and needs to be killed so that nobody who isn’t extremely rich can actually develop anything new without being immediately put out to pasture.

Copyright and patent laws need to die.

This is such an extremely naive thing to say.

Do you enjoy having every good, innovative US or EU product die immediately due to China/India making a 1:1 copy and flooding the markets with it?

Enjoy innovative products that startups create? How about not having any of that because as soon as a startup makes something, a big corp comes in with their money, steals the idea, and floods the market?

EDIT: no arguments, just downvotes? Damn, I thought this place was supposed to be better than Reddit…

I think it’s important to note that the method you linked to only works for Nvidia GPUs.

How do you usually deal with that aspect? What I do is to make the documentation easily skimmable (for advanced readers) and just accept the need for rework.

Confluence’s “Expand” element. Make everything into an easy to read task-list, but if more details are necessary, just expand a step and get an “idiot proof” description. Bookstack allows that as well, even better, because you can nest them (Confluence had that up until they “updated” the editor and killed half the features).

EDIT: “Include Page” in Confluence also works wonders here. For example, I have an article describing how to RDP to our AD server. In all articles that describe a process that needs to be done on the AD server, I just include that page. If any connection details change, I just edit the original article and the changes immediately propagate to all the other instances.

I write mine with a simple mindset: “imagine we go outside with a net, catch a random person off the street, sit them at the PC and tell them to do X. Will they manage, following this documentation?”

I also number every step (even if they’re stupidly simple and could technically be jumbled into a single sentence), so that when a user calls me asking for help with something documented, all I need to do is ask them “at which step of the instructions are you encountering the problem”, and then they hang up because they never read the instructions in the first place. Saves a lot of hassle!

Pro-tip: stop being a fundamentalist, and you won’t be getting compared to one.

Small steps? What small steps are you talking about? We both know there are none

Yeah, absolutely nothing’s been done (other than two court cases, one ban, and a bunch of further actions I outlined).

It’s a shame that you’re so thoroughly brainwashed into this tribal attitude, mate. You seem like a smart person, but somehow, when it comes to this “us vs them” you revert to a mindless fundamentalist no different than a Taliban blowing up statues…

I hope you find it in yourself to take a step back and look at things from a wider perspective, to see that you can applaud the good moves of a bad party, while still pointing out the bad ones.

Peace!

try and look at what I am saying outside the lens of internal US politics.

I’m not from the US, I think this is how I’m looking at this.

An oligarch gang does not engage in good faith with respect to anti-trust

I already said this a couple of times, but seems like I have to repeat it: nobody in the conversation (Yen included) believes Trump did anything “in good faith”. I specifically stated that I believe whatever anti-trust policies and actions Trump has made were done explicitly in bad faith, as an attempt to get back at “Big Tech” for being “anti-right-wing”.

To try and imply otherwise (and be all high and mighty about it) is essentially mocking your customers.

He didn’t “imply otherwise”. Not once has he stated that he “believes in the long term mission of the Republican party to fight for the rights of the consumers”. He only said that Reps became anti-Big Tech recently and that it’s good.

Again: there are no statements of intent, ONLY statement of fact.

The examples you cited mean nothing

I’m sorry, what??

You asked “what were the good things [Reps did]”. I gave you examples. You didn’t ask “what did the attempts accomplish”, did you?

Considering it’s the US we’re talking about, and how hilariously long some court cases can take, it’d be a miracle to see ANYTHING come out of these cases before 2030 (assuming they’re not trashed now that Big Tech is back in bed with Trump, of course).

However, it is an undeniable, objective FACT that these cases are a start, that these examples show anti-Big Tech attitude, and that these are examples of Trump admin’s (accidental) fight for the betterment of the life of “the little guy”.

then you would actually highlight some real world results

Did you forget about the Tik-Tok ban? Again, you asked for examples of actions, not results. Considering how fresh things are (it all started fairly late into his previous term), I don’t know why you’re expecting many examples of results, that’s just being extremely unrealistic.

Although I will say there is a beautiful irony in the following phrase (…)

Well, that’s because you still seem to be thinking in a kind of “all or nothing” way. It’s either “Trump == Hitler” or “OMG I love Trump” for you - no inbetween. It’s either “they completely obliterated Big Tech” or “absolutely nothing accomplished”. It’s like you don’t believe in small steps? I honestly am baffled by your responses so far.

This whole situation is baffling. It’s literally:

Me: Guy said X, not Y.

You: Well, he shouldn’t have said Y.

Me: But he didn’t.

You: But he very well didn’t say Z, therefore he meant Y.

It’s just… weird to me.

Anyway, maybe read THIS comment by Yen which he made just 3 months ago, and THIS post from a day later… It sheds some more light about his stance on things.

I don’t see any malicious intent in there, do you?

OK, so you missed the point of the discussion and have nothing constructive to add. Got it.

Then what does this mean?

Elsewhere, yes, I will happily call the proton guy a nazi supporter