Guy Berger

I think Ron's questions are all good ones. I don't do much trading, but I have downloaded a bunch of stuff from the website-that-must-not-be-named that I haven't listened to. I'm guessing that I will listen to it someday, since it's by artists that I like a lot (Keith Jarrett, Miles, Coltrane, Paul Motian, Weather Report, etc), but it's easy to lapse into mindless accumulation. Guy

C'mon, someone jump in and vouch for my integrity! Guy

Several different things fit under "values and its worldview". The first is things like western culture, which people in other countries are DEMANDING -- no imposing going on whastoever. The people that complain about "imposition" are usually those trying to DICTATE to their fellow citizens what choices they can or cannot make. Second is demanding representative government and better human rights from countries with poor records. Maybe this needs to be done with more subtlety, consistency, etc (and without threat of military action), but this is fundamentally the right approach. In almost all cases this is what "the people" want. Third are things like armed interventions in Kosovo, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq -- sometimes right and sometimes wrong. Fourth are things like supporting dictators in other countries -- sometimes avoidable, sometimes unavoidable. When unavoidable, we need to do our best to push those guys hard on improving human rights. Not sure which category the EU & Turkey falls into. The EU isn't imposing anything, it's the Turkish government. Turkey is a democracy and if they don't agree with the government's policies, Turks can throw it out in the next election. -------- Actually -- in relation to the sales window in question -- westernization of the Arab world's elite classes has been around for decades, so I'm not surprised to find such a photo (particularly from a cosmopolitan place like Dubai). Guy

I think this is a pretty silly statement. The whole point of IP is to put up obstacles to cheaper alternatives. But IP protection varies from country to country. In countries that don't offer much IP protection, patents aren't an obstacle. Guy

I thought this was pretty amazing. This chimp is obviously intelligent enough to participate in the politics forum. That's one smart monkey. Guy

This pretty much sums up my thoughts, but more succinctly! Guy

This is a great album. Guy

But it's also true that the ability to collect profits is what drives investment in innovation. I don't think it's clear that this is true. It may be in large part a myth that's popular and heavily promoted because it serves to justify the collection of those profits and the mechanisms that make them possible. It sounds like it could be plausible on the surface, but I've seen little in the way of facts and evidence. It's usually offered rhetorically, as if true by assertion. If you have any particular facts on this I'd be happy to look at them. In pharmaceuticals (and intellectual property in general), lack of IP protection means that the product gets priced at marginal cost immediately, ie no economic profits. With most markets that isn't a problem; but in a market like pharmaceuticals, where up-front investment is required before the product goes to market, that's a huge disincentive because a firm that invests upfront in R&D only to sell at marginal cost will make a loss. Hence, some sort of intellectual property protection is necessary. Of course it does. Without IP, any competitor can sell at marginal cost, driving the flow of profits to zero. With IP, owners of IP rights can use monopoly power to earn economic profit. But if Coltrane hadn't been able to earn money from his music, there would have been a lot less of it. Guy

That's what I have. FWIW, does this Verve release (and the tapes in Ravi's closet) also come from the FM broadcasts? Guy

But it's also true that the ability to collect profits is what drives investment in innovation. (Though AIDS in Africa is somewhat tangential to this point -- most ARVs are either donated, or sold at near production costs.) Guy

Wow... looks like I will have to pick this up! Guy

I'm guessing that one will be coming out pretty soon as an RVG since it is available internationally, but have no insider knowledge. Andrew Hill's Smoke Stack should be getting a domestic issue soon as well. Guy

Yes, but that gets back to my analogy. If I go grab stuff from my neighbor's house, my neighbor doesn't have the stuff anymore. It's not the same thing. ← What if I go and (peacefully) grab stuff from my neighbor's house which I know with absolute certainty he won't need for the next X hours, and which I'll return when I'm done, and which he's told me explicitly he doesn't want me to use? FWIW, the conception of physical property rights that we are using as a benchmark isn't universal across time or geography. Guy Guy

Yes, and it was the ripping off of ideas by the lazy and unscrupulous is why intellectual property was thunk up. Also, the growing importance of intellectual property, along with rapidly falling costs of disseminating ideas, have made intellectual property rights increasingly necessary in our society over the past X years. Guy

But why do you feel these things are meaningfully similar? If you take the musician's car he doesn't have the car anymore. He can't use it and he can't give others permission to use it. If you tape the concert he can still play the concert, and others can still listen to the concert. Wouldn't a more apt analogy be taking a picture of his car, rather than taking the car itself? Josh -- that is a poor analogy as well. (Though I agree with you on the fundamental difference between intellectual and physical property.) When someone "creates" intellectual property, surely they have the right to control the fruits of their labor? And if that right includes the right to sell those fruits, surely we need some concept of intellectual property protection? Yeah, but presumably I can't go and (peacefully) grab stuff from my neighbor's house without permission in my "pursuit of happiness". Guy

Most people make livings without owning/selling "ideas", and everyone did a few hundred years ago. For musicians, it can be performances, services, recordings..etc. None of these require the ownership of ideas or the selling of them. Yep. You can already use the ideas. If you want to buy what you already have just because you want someone else to have a more "comfortable life", good for you, but that doesn't mean you should make everyone else do it. The ability to sell ideas only comes about by getting cops to attack other people for commiting thoughtcrime. Unlike a piece of physical property, you can use their ideas while they're using them, and so can everyone else. Ownership doesn't need to take place, and selling doesn't need to take place. ← Are you arguing that composers shouldn't get royalties? Guy

He whispered something similar in my last seance, but it was more like "fuck owner rights, Teo". Guy

I like English Settlement, but seem to remember a lot of filler. Guy

I liked M better than Metropolis, though I was positively surprised by both films. (I'd recently seen both Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, both of which hadn't aged very well.) Guy

It takes work to create ideas. Maybe giving people ownership of their ideas for some period of time is the best way to make sure that people put in that work. Guy ← Or maybe not. I don't think Einstein ever owned the idea of relativity theory, yet he created it anyway. Maybe it's also a good thing that he didn't have to first write a check to each 'owner' of the previous ideas he used before he could create it, or maybe he wouldn't have bothered. ← I'm not sure what academic publishing norms were like in the early 20th century, but I'm guessing that somebody (his publisher, I assume) did "own" his published papers for a time, and that anyone who used his work in their research had to cite them. Guy

It takes work to create ideas. Maybe giving people ownership of their ideas for some period of time is the best way to make sure that people put in that work. FWIW, I still am not convinced by your "financial suicide" claim. The overwhelming majority of jazz fans are indifferent to the fruits of taping. Guy

Never underestimate a good seance. Guy

What about Japan? I assume NZ and Australia count as "United States, Canada, and Western Europe"? Crazy! Guy

I wish I could make it to this... but my students are having a midterm on Wednesday and I have to give them extra office hours. Hope everyone has fun at the gig. Guy

Well, we are talking about Apple so I wouldn't be surprised. Guy