How Intellectual Property Works | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. welcome to stuff you should know a. production of iHeart. [Music]. Radio hey and welcome to the podcast I'm. Josh and there's Chu and Jerry's here. and this is the don't turn it off it's. actually more interesting than it sounds. Edition yeah and can I just write off. the bat shout out Livia uh this was a I. don't know it's not the most fun topic. but but she really dug in and it's great.

yeah yeah she's amazing at it actually. and this is yeah she figured it out like. there is something interesting in. intellectual property and she found it. so agree hudos IP yeah we are talking. about intellectual property today. everybody's heard that term You' have to. have been living under a rock to not. heard it but we'll still tell you what. we're talking about because we're those. kind of people I'm just teasing. everybody we're not talking about the. great book uh the Yellow River by IP.

freely no no okay no uh or a building by. I pay nothing like that although that. would fall under I'm sure some sort of. intellectual property protection. intellectual property is basically the. fruit of your mental labor it can be an. invention it can be a slogan yeah. screenplay song yeah yeah it can be a. movie you wrote it could be um a way to.

do business like business methods it's. gotten so crazy now that types of um. strains of certain kinds of bacteria mhm. can be um can be protected and the. algorithm yeah that's another one like. it just keeps going and going but. anything that you can imagine it doesn't. even have to be a tangible thing like an. algorithm is not tangible even when you. put it down into Cod it's not tangible. it's an idea that you can make a. computer um use to do really neat tricks.

with but it's it's intangible and and. again Coke is it it's a slogan that's. not at all tangible and yet it's treated. in most developed countries in the world. um or most industrialized countries in. the world. as the same thing as a property like. your car or your house or your um. wedding ring like it's protected and the. way that it's protected is in really. weird ways it intellectual property and. intellectual property law are a very.

unique animal but what they all boil. down to Chuck is that if you get some. sort of protection for your slogan for. your for your invention for the. screenplay you. wrote the government says that's yours. you are the only person who has any. claim to it for X number of years M and. congratulations on the thing you came up. with using your creativity and the whole. purpose of having protection for um.

intellectual property is to Spur. creativity to Spur Discovery to Spur. invention to get it going because if you. if you incentivize that if you say hey. if you come up with this screenplay. we're gonna we're going to make it so. that no one else can just come along and. make the movie that you wrote that's. yours it's going to make you want to. keep pursuing a a um a career of writing. screen plays but if you wrote a. screenplay and you wrote it and it just. didn't belong to you from the moment you. finish the last sentence and anybody.

could come along and make the movie and. not give you a dime for your creativity. for your labor you probably wouldn't do. that and so the public domain the. cultural public domain would suffer as a. result we wouldn't have movies we. wouldn't have algorithms we wouldn't. have Coke isit amazing slogans like that. we would be culturally bereft if it were. not for intellectual property protection. and yet it is one of the most Insidious. um legal protections around today.

because it's been so thoroughly. perverted from its original um intent. wow it's been a while since you had one. of those I feel pretty strongly about. IP uh here's a a stat that Livia found. for us which I think is pretty. interesting as far as like how big IP is. uh and I think that this is from the US. patent and trademark office and things. have been ticking up as far as IP and. how valuable it is and how you know how.

much people are are registering IP and. buying up IP since the 90s and the the. US PTO uh said by 2019 say a few years. old that IP intensive Industries. accounted for. 41% of the US gross domestic product. that's C and 33% of all employment was. IP based yeah that's startling we used. to invent things we used to make. machines we used to um develop airplanes.

and cars and stuff like that um but now. we invent ideas although we still invent. stuff too sure of course um but for the. most part that really kind of goes to. show you like we have come to say like. no we're trading in ideas and those. things are very valuable and you can. build an entire industry around certain. kinds of ideas which is pretty nuts if. you think about it totally uh so if. you're talking about us law there are. four kinds of uh IP that law covers uh. and we've talked about some of these. here and there I think we did a whole.

episode on patents didn't we well if we. haven't we will uh patents are granted. by the government and everyone kind of. knows what a patent is I think that's. when you invent an idea or a process or. a design uh and you can get different. kinds of patents you can get design. patents or uh utility patents things. like that if you're if you're like a if. you invented the Reebok Pump mechanism. for the rebok shoe that we talked about. you would get maybe a design patent and. a Utility Patent that says no one else. can put another pump in a shoe uh that.

kind of thing so it has to be novel. which is the real key uh useful and. nonobvious if it qualifies and you're. generally it depends but you're going to. get about 20 years out of that patent. and you got to pay for it uh to get it. and it's not cheap to get a patent you. have to pay an attorney to do all the. leg work and that's never cheap right. the next one chug is trademarks which um. everybody knows what a trademark is. especially if you grew up in the second. half of the 20th century that's when. trademarks were everywhere and kind of.

what we wore on our t-shirts and stuff. right Coke is it who didn't have that. t-shirt or a a Bud Light T-shirt with. Spuds McKenzie surfing on it h I had a. Spuds MacKenzie shirt so trademark is. basically a brand name can be a slogan. and it is something that you. specifically associate with a specific. company or a specific brand yeah and you. actually don't even have to trademark or. register your trademark just from using. um you know the Spuds McKenzie drawing.

that you see everywhere or used to um. you're you're exercising your right to. use that trademark and you can actually. enforce in in um action against. infringement on it so if you haven't. registered something you'll see the TM. that means that hey this is our. trademark don't mess with it we haven't. gone into the trouble of registering it. a registered trademark is that r capital. r in a circle that means that they. actually did go to the trouble of. registering it and you really better or. not mess with them yeah like an example.

is when you you've seen court cases. plenty of times where you'll see a. company go in and say here are 150. examples of where we used this over the. years that's people trying to argue that. they that's their trademark because they. didn't copyright it or they didn't. trademark it that's why McDonald's had a. legitimate case against. mcdows. right oh man great movie there's also. copyrights that's another big one I. think every every body's pretty familiar.

with that but those that screenplay that. you wrote or the computer program that. you came up with that you coded um it's. a it's essentially a creative work and. you as the copyright owner you as the. Creator have the sole right to do as you. please with that to to turn that. software into um something that you sell. over and over and over again turn that. screenplay into a movie like it's. totally up to you and nobody else can do. it while you hold that copyright and.

copyrights are the ones that last the. longest I don't know if we said. trademarks never run out right uh we. didn't say it as long as you're using as. a trademark you you never it it your. exclusivity never runs out with patents. like you said I think 20 years with. copyrights it's um 70 plus years after. creation. typically uh I thought I think it's 70. years after the death of the Creator. right that's plus the whole Creator's. life is INS sconed in that plus symbol.

all right okay I got you uh and we'll. talk about that later that came from. 1978 uh as far as screenplays and stuff. you I think you can get a copyright uh. but the wga has registration methods you. can register your script but you don't. even have to do that stuff uh but you. would be wise to um because then you. would have to if you haven't you would. have to prove that uh it was your ID F. idea first and someone didn't rip it off. yeah there's that other way to do it. which is mail it to yourself in a sealed. on I don't know but it seems like if you. don't have to go to the trouble of.

registering it that that would help your. claim quite a bit Yeah the poor person's. copyright I've heard that before sure uh. and what else we got Trade Secrets and. that's recipes strategies uh customer. customer information which is big uh any. kind of process like industrial process. that you don't want another competitor. to know about and I don't think you need. to register these either no uh and I. meant to look up whether or not that's. an actual down side because then you. would have to disclose things no you oh.

if you if you registered it that might. be why you don't have to register it. because I don't know if we said it or. not one of the reasons that patents are. um so beneficial is because you have to. disclose exactly how that thing works so. that after your patent Runs Out somebody. can come along and and make the same. thing from your your patent Trade. Secrets yeah you would not want to do. that because they never run out just. like trademarks they're your secrets for. as long as you actively work to keep.

them secret like you make employees send. sign ndas remember that episode that was. a good one yeah or you um you keep the. recipe to um Kentucky Fried Chicken's. original chicken like under lock and key. with armed guards standing outside that. would be a pretty pretty good. demonstration of actively protecting. your Trade Secrets yeah they don't need. to register it they have guns exact. exactly uh where this all started is. pretty interesting we'll kind of quick. go through the the history um it could.

go as back as far as ancient Greece uh. but as far as IP as we think of it today. you can point to 1421 in the Republic of. Florence and June 19th of that year when. uh the government uh said hey filipo. brunelli no brunoli ski ski remember it. it's is it really k k sound with ch in. Italian filipo. breski there you go okay I'm doing the.

accent you guys we heard from Italians. that said keep doing it there you go uh. filipo Was An Architect and had a patent. for a technique to move marble over a. barge and they said hey this was really. smart and you should make money off this. and only you and that kind of kicked the. whole thing off and over the next you. know 100 years or so governments across. Europe started sort of doing the same. things and getting together uh these. ideas that you should be able to patent.

and own uh processes and ideas uh. including the Venetian patent statute of. 1474 yeah which said hey it's up to us. and our government can grant you a. 10-year Monopoly on the use of a. technology that you have made up and if. you violate it you can get fined or you. can get like a public citation yeah and. again like by by um using government. power to um protect people's inventions. and ideas helps. creativity and Discovery and new.

inventions um and it wasn't just the. venetians who figured this out U about. 150 years later England um said hey. we're going to pass our statute of. monopolies and it it basically said that. um you if you have a new invention you. have a monopoly to it for a certain. period of time very similar to what we. have now for patents but what's. interesting about that is that that. actually rolled back uh even more.

Draconian law where basically the king. could hand out patents or sell patents. to whoever they wanted and you could get. a patent on vinegar so like there. existing stuff if you were a friend with. the King you could be the sole producer. of vinegar if the king gave you a patent. for vinegar and the Parliament said this. is actually stifling uh progress and. Discovery um we're going to say this is. limited to new inventions and for period. of time which were two really good uh.

kind of points to add to that whole idea. totally well and it prevented uh you. know they were definitely getting. Kickbacks and or just outright selling. stuff right the sing yeah the King was. um so here in the US our Constitution's. patent and copyri Clause uh gives uh. Congress the power to quote promote the. progress of Science and useful Arts by. securing for limited times to authors. and inventors the exclusive right to.

their respective writings and. discoveries uh this was uh I think past. I think the first patent was in 1790. granted to one Samuel Hopkins uh who was. producing had a method of producing po. as and they're like hey congratulations. you are patent number one he said wow. gee that's amazing I've never been first. at anything that's right Tri on his. shoelaces that's right he was first on. the internet commenting all the time but. no one counts that so this whole thing.

if you if you stop and think about it's. all legal fiction like the government is. saying you have a monopoly on it but. that's that doesn't there's no actual. concrete anything going on here they're. just saying nobody else can use this. thing that you came up with we the. government we're saying so but the whole. concept of protecting intellectual. property uh actually is rooted it has a. philosophical basis there's a few. different um justifications for it the. first came from well I don't know if.

it's the first but the first in this. list came from Hegel the German. philosopher who said that intellectual. property is an extension of you like if. you go out and you buy some seeds and. you have you buy some land and you grow. crops from those seeds on that land. those are your crops you mixed your. labor with your own resources and. created something and that's yours why. would it be any different for your ideas. you used your resources say schooling or.

inspiration and you used your brain. power to turn it into a a a an idea or a. thought that you could um tell other. people I can't do that but you know. other people can according to Hegel why. would you not own that as well just as. you would those crops now what's the. difference between that and. Loan uh loan. is there's actually not a lot of. difference to tell tell you the truth. okay so that's just.

another you know similar school of. thought from another philosopher yeah an. earlier philosopher too by a couple. hundred years I think but it's. essentially the same thing from what I. can tell well there's also uh. utilitarian which means uh you're. incentivized to create uh something. which is what you've been talking about. and the fact that you know no one's. going to spend a lot of time doing this. stuff if they it's all about money if. you don't have the incentive eventually. of Fortune then uh you're not going to. spend your time doing it probably yes.

and I I understand the difference now if. I just kind of May correct myself lock. was the one who is essentially saying. you just like mixing seeds with land and. and growing crops you same thing with. your thoughts Hegel was saying like you. own your thoughts just as much as you. own your body you own your your thoughts. and that that they're your thoughts and. they should belong to you so there's. definitely a distinction between the two. I was confused as happens. sometimes so let's take a break good.

idea all right we'll be right. [Music]. back. [Music]. J all right uh we're back everyone and. we're here to talk about some criticisms. of the whole concept of Ip uh and things. have really changed a lot since um the.

internet age and the tech boom as far as. IP goes things really really ramped up. and took off and there is a legal. philosopher named Samir Chopra uh and. Livia found this article in Aon and uh. basically said that you know kind of. grouping all this stuff together and. it's not just choer like other critics. will will argue the same thing if you. say trademarks and copyrights and. patents and trade secrets and everything. is all the same thing which is is IP it. really just sort of diminishes each.

one's specific purpose uh cuz they all. have a specific purpose and calling it. just intellectual property uh you like. using the word property even makes it. sound like you're a a Thief that you're. taking something tangible when in fact. it still exists like if you if you. download a song for free you're not. taking that song from the artist you're. just getting that song for free and that. song still exists. and the artist still owns it yeah that.

was a big part of Cho's point that um. that calling it intellectual property. theft or crime makes it a a moral thing. whereas if you just call it copyright. infringement it sounds like a. bureaucratic issue you know what I mean. yeah yeah that makes sense and that. that's unfair semantically to kind of. put it all together but even more so. they they don't all really relate to one. another as easily as as you would think. by being all lumped together under one. term and so like most most legal. protection probably all legal protection.

of intellectual property around the. world um they say well there's actually. we'll put some limitations on here one. of the big ones is that there's a a Time. limitation on it yeah and again the. reason why is because they're they're. say there's a very difficult balance. that's being struck here one is that um. you want to um Foster discover you want. to incentivize people to go out and. invent new things and come up with new. ideas because everyone benefits from. that but at the same time you don't want.

to incentivize it so much that you. actually disincentivize it by giving. people too long of a a monopo so you. give them 20 years for a patent or. something right which works out because. you know if think about it think about. if the first mobile phone had like a a. 70-year patent where we'd be right now. you know so so 20 years seems fair I. guess in that context well also that. gives you that's basically saying like. you got this amount of time to do. something with it M yeah good or or else. somebody else is going to do it or.

should do it for sure there's also like. with copyright um law as well there's. like fair use like we talked about in. The Mad episode how parody is allowed or. you can comment on it um that there's. there are some exceptions to the rule. it's not just like Ironclad and for good. reason because again this is a very. difficult balance to strike yeah and. we've had our struggles with that over. the year uh in our own show when we're. doing an episode on something where.

would be like uh hip-hop or something or. record scratching like those really lend. themselves to playing. examples uh and we've never been super. clear on the actual law we could. probably get away with it but we. different companies we've worked for. over the years had different tolerances. for just getting you know even having to. suffer through the hassle legally of. seeing if it's okay to do that so we've. always just not done it generally yeah I. mean we have a few times um like I think. at the Disco episode we did but we were.

clearly commenting on the stuff we. weren't just using it for fun like hey. yeah and there's also a time limit that. we were never sure like you can play so. many seconds and you have to comment on. itut and Jerry was always the fun killer. you know Mom had to come in and say guys. you can't do that and uh not a great. position for Jerry to be in no but a. highly natural one it felt. right uh the other thing thing we should. talk about is the cost to Consumers.

which is uh there are people that say uh. and of course this is when we're going. to talk about pharmaceuticals because. that's a big part of Ip but there. there's an economist named Dean Baker. and others uh who say like you know the. effect of this IP law is really making. the the 1% just even more rich and. there's a transfer of wealth to the tune. of about a trillion dollars a year. because largely because of. Pharmaceutical companies there're a big. chunk of that trillion dollars when you.

uh Grant uh a monopoly on a drug and. sometimes even the government funds that. to help make it happen but then this one. company has this drug and they can. charge whatever they want for it and. then uh all of a sudden there's a. trillion dollars being you know put in. this rich person's pocket and then. transferring it to another rich person's. pocket oh yeah and the trillion dollars. he calculated is that's the amount we. pay a year. beyond what we should be paying yeah.

like higher price Pharmaceuticals mainly. yeah that's a really good easy example. he calculated they make up about 385. billion of that trillion trilon but. there's also other stuff too there's. like um types of fertilizer and types of. seed that are patented that um because. they own a patent uh and be if you want. this life saving medicine or you want. this one kind of seed um you have to pay. whatever price we want because we're the. only ones who can sell it because we.

have a government sanctioned Monopoly. that all of that adds up to about a. trillion dollars more a year that we're. paying um and like I said the. pharmaceutical companies in particular. are they're an easy target but the. reason they're an easy target is because. they demonstrate so thoroughly the. problems with intellectual property. protections and that is like you were. saying they make ridiculous amounts of. money they charge whatever they want to. charge because they're the only ones. making this drug for X number of years.

like 20 years or something like that. right and then to add insult to injury. they have tons of government funding in. the United States the National. Institutes of Health kick in $40 billion. for research um and I think the. pharmaceutical industry total spends. about another 90 billion that's a lot of. money on research but they found that um. they in 2020 the 10 largest. pharmaceutical makers spent more on. selling and marketing existing drugs.

than they did on research for new drugs. they also spent 747 billion dollars. between I think um 20 2001 and 2020 in. stock BuyBacks and dividends and stock. BuyBacks are not the worst thing in the. world there's definitely worst things. you could do with your corporate cash. you're essentially paying back loans. that investors gave you nothing. inherently wrong with stock BuyBacks but. pharmaceutical industry it's a different. example. and one of the things they could be. doing with that extra money rather than.

upping their share price is pouring it. into more and more research and. development because there's a lot of. diseases that still need to be cured and. they're instead spending it on um ads. that you see on like Nightly News yeah. true uh that is why there are some. people out there and Livia found this. one guy from Columbia University an. economist named Joseph uh stiglets great. name uh that said what we should be. doing is giving out big cash prizes.

for uh a new discovery a new. pharmaceutical Discovery that's like a. GameChanger and instead of spending your. money on advertising and marketing or on. like drugs for uh balding and erectile. dysfunction not not saying that those. aren't issues I don't want to diminish. anyone's problems with any of those. things to be clear but a cure for cancer. would be better I think we can all agree. and uh or or you know drugs to treat.

malaria when uh developing countries are. being ignored because they're uh. concentrating on something like a cure. for baldness so like let's give a cash. prize instead of a monopoly and say hey. we'll give you I mean I'm just throwing. out numbers since it wasn't from uh from. stiglets but here we'll give you $500. million if you come up with a cure for. cancer and then that's just a cash award. given to your company and then it's open. source and any pharmaceutical company in. the world can make this stuff and get it.

out there super fast and competitively. speaking probably cheaper yes and if you. they threw out that 500 million figure. the pharmaceutical industry we' be like. huh yeah that's I 500 million so um s. knew was he uh he you're like Dr Evil. $500. million totally so stiglet was saying. like you don't want to just do away with. the patent and trademark protection like. you want to keep that because it does. incentivize research in other areas what.

he was saying is identify the really. terrible diseases that don't have a. financial incentive to to um have. research and development money thrown at. them like malaria it's one of the top 10. killers in the world but it kills people. in less developed lower income countries. who don't have the money to spend on. that kind of drug so the malaria is. allowed to run rampant what SAS is. saying is governments can get together. or the us could do it alone and say. we'll give you $500 billion for a cure.

for malaria and then the other stuff you. guys keep going you know and doing and. making your money off of but how about. an extra 500 billion nothing to sneeze. at so um exactly it's a it's a good idea. but I think there's a flaw in it too. Chuck and that is that if the US. government did this um and made it open. source like he's suggesting like you. said then there there the rest of the. world would benefit from the US. Government funding we' be the drug. research funders for the world uh the.

rest of the world would become Free. Riders who would just get the recipe for. free because the US government handed. out that prize to the company that. created it or discovered it yeah you'd. have to get together and sign a pact. with like most of the major countries of. the world or something yeah that they. all do the same okay I don't know I mean. it would have to be a global push uh. because that's and in fact that kind of. Segways into our next section which is. uh the Global globalist world that we. live in uh it becomes a little sticky.

because uh IP law I think generally just. covers the country that you're in uh I. think when you get a patent you have to. get it in different countries if you. want to sell it in different places and. there is a long long history of. countries uh not respecting IP law from. other countries and stealing stuff uh. China's a big one and in the case of. china it's sometimes it's hey uh why. don't you get me we'll let you do. business in China you know how many. people we have over here we'll let you.

do business here if you give us uh if. you like uh open source your stuff only. to us right right you have to partner. with the Chinese business who will have. full access to your in intellectual. property if you want access right or or. they'll just steal it which also happens. that's a big one there was an operation. that was funded and supported by China's. government um between 2019 and. 2022 where um chines hackers stole. trillions of dollars worth of.

intellectual property from just 30. companies just took it they had. everything to create Pharmaceuticals. create guided missile systems like just. they got everything and there's not a. lot you can do about that like there's. there's basically nothing you can do. about those things now China has those. now and the big argument against that is. that if China can just steal ideas it. doesn't have to spend tons of money on. research and development so that means. that it can make those products cheaper.

than the people who actually whose idea. it was and did spend that money on. research and development and priced the. the legitimate owner right out of the. market and that is about as unfair. competition is you can possibly ever. encounter yeah but it's also something. that has been going on. forever uh it's not new China is not the. first country to do this um liia points. out that when economies are uh emerging. and especially during like Tech booms.

and they're catching up to richer. countries then they will steal ideas I. mean everything from uh I mean it. happens all the time and has for decades. like the the uh lawsuit guitars like. Japan made knockoffs of like Gibson and. Fender guitars in the 70s and 80s uh and. sold a ton of them and they were really. good guitars and I think there may be a. short stuff in there about the lawsuit. era but it's always happened uh even in. the United States we did the same thing. and from the very beginning of our.

copyright law in the 18th century we. very much explicitly Exempted foreign. works from protection so we could go out. and steal things like the power loom and. stuff like that yeah those two Carnegie. endowment guys are saying like this is. just part of the trajectory that. developing economies hit upon at some. point in time it's just way easier to. steal the ideas and use those to grow. your economy but they said that. trajectory also usually includes um more.

strictly enforced IP protections on the. other side of that development and. apparently China is starting to show. signs of that that they're taking IP. protection a little more seriously at. least according to the Carnegie. endowment um people but uh yeah I that's. one of the reasons why we're in a trade. war with China is because of hacks like. that should we take a break yeah let's. hacks like that was almost the name of. our. show we'll be right back. [Applause]. [Music].

[Music]. man I'm still cracked up about hacks. like. that um so one of the things about. intellectual property protection is that. it is kind of grown in lock step as. American industry has because as. American industry grows and um comes up.

with more and more valuable intellectual. property they like to go to the. government and say hey why don't you. guys come up with stricter and stricter. laws giving us longer and longer. monopolies to those ideas to that. intellectual property it's basically the. the um the the snake starting to eat its. tail where the government has now become. Charles I first and the corporations are. like all of Charles the First's friends. get patents on vinegar and stuff like. that it's not quite that egregious but.

it's the same Contours the same idea. basically where incredibly wealth. wealthy people are given unfair. anti-competitive advantage over say. startups or people who have even better. ideas through these. monopolies Contour is one of my words uh. like seller or door it's not a. combination but oh yeah yeah the word. Contour just I don't know that it's. velvety to me heck likes that. so uh like you were saying copyright law.

like it's just sort of extended over the. years as far as how long you could own. these ideas uh in the 1790 when we first. started out it was 14 years you could. renew for another 14 and then you know. over the ensuing like uh couple of. hundred years basically it just grew and. grew and grew until 1998 with the sunny. Bono copyright term extension Act uh. that that's when the 70 years after the.

person's death uh was put in place or if. you're a corporation 95 years from the. original publication or 120 years from. creation whichever is less a little. confusing but it makes sense if you. think about it yeah and that actually. brought the United States into line with. International agreement on um copyright. limitations in and time um frames I. think it it was lower than the other. countries what other countries were at. but regardless people just kind of.

smelled a a rat and snuck around. actually ironically umat sus out a mouse. that's Al frequently called the Mickey. Mouse protection act because around that. time Disney was supposedly in danger of. losing the rights to Steamboat Willie. version of Mickey Mouse uh in 2023 and. they were lobbying uh very hard to make. that not happen to get the sunny Bono. copyright term extension Act passed. which was successful but I've also read.

that Disney wasn't quite behind it like. people say and that um even if Steamboat. Willie does come into public domain this. year I don't think he did but even if he. did just that specific version of Mickey. would be in the public domain and the. Mickey that we know in love will. probably never be in the public domain. because not only does he have copyright. protection Disney also uses him like a. tra like a slogan or like a a brand name. so it's it's like it has he has.

trademark protection and trademark. protection never runs out as long as you. keep using it so Mickey will probably. never enter the the public domain even. if Steamboat will he did I didn't see. that he did. though I don't know I don't think so but. this just occurred to me that with every. year we do our show we can look for a. Halloween podcast story from a year. later in history yeah that's that's why. we ended up doing Philip K dick a couple. years ago because he finally started to.

come into the public domain I love it. and by the way people that wrote in that. either had ideas or wrote their own. stories I haven't looked yet but I say. those emails and we're going to take a. look at those uh all right the next. thing uh we should talk about is in 1998. the delig digigit the Digital Millennium. Copyright Act uh which. basically the way I understand it is. that it covered the internet such that. it created a way for someone to say hey. you're using my thing on your website go.

take it down uh I want to officially. register that you are are taking my. stuff and as long as they take it down. then they are not penalized right um. that was a kind of a big deal because it. allowed the internet to start to. flourish and it kept people who ran. social media sites or YouTube or. something like that from worrying that. they were going to get their pants suit. off and allowed for the spread and and. really kind of boosted the economy quite. a bit as you can imagine um sure one of.

the the problems though with um these. long protections and sometimes in some. cases like trademarks um like Limitless. protection is. that so 70 years beyond the lifespan of. the creator that is a long time yeah um. as you can tell from like the Halloween. stories we pick like sometimes we have. no idea what they're talking about. because the the language they're using.

is English and you understand that. they're English words but the context is. so old that it doesn't really make sense. to us like remember that one thing about. how I I thought the guy was reading tea. leaves or something like that to see who. coming in toally yeah and yeah so that's. a really good example of one of the. problems of it because when we use those. stories we are um building on them we're. taking the we're taking them and and. putting our own spin on them we're. making silly voices yes exactly we're.

creating something new using that. original work as a building block and. that's one of the purposes of creating. um protections for for creative stuff so. that that eventually it will spread out. into the public domain and people can do. new amazing things with them um the. problem is is if it's 70 plus years. before you can do that it it's it's not. as easy to um make new ideas from as it. would be if it were 20 years old or 10. yeah this one I understand in a way.

because like how many great films have. we gotten based on the works of. Shakespeare which is uh Livia points out. that uh who was it uh Jennifer Jenkins. director of Duke University Center for. the study of the public domain that's. pretty specific sure uh that's an. argument that Jennifer Jenkins makes. which is like we wouldn't have you know. these great uh adaptations of the works. of Shakespeare's films and stuff like. that which is true but I also can see a. world where like come up with a new.

idea uh you know well supposedly it. might have been Shakespeare who said it. there there are no new ideas nothing new. Under the Sun like all the ideas have. been essentially come up with and. everything else is just basically a. remix of it yeah what was it there's. like seven real movie plots essentially. or seven dramatic uh I can't remember. how many it is but that there is an. argument to me I made that there are. really only seven different stories that. you can tell but I get and everything.

else is a version of those yes and we. don't protect those specific seven ideas. we would be totally messed if we if we. did the protections are more nuanced. than that it's like how that story. develops what the the characters are. doing in it that's what's protected and. so in that sense yes you are coming up. with a new idea rather than just. remixing a Shakespeare play and I agree. with you I I have the same that same um. kind of uh uh. quibble with that that the idea that you.

can't that it's too long to remix stuff. even though we do that every. Halloween uh the internet is very tricky. though because on one hand you want like. uh the idea of like the pay wall you. want people to hear your stuff and see. your stuff but if you are and Livia uses. a great example if you're like a. reporter in uh the South Sudan covering. something very important to you you want. everyone that you can think of to find.

this and Discover it but you also like. it costs money for you to be there and. to be on the ground in the South Sudan. for a year doing this intensive. reporting like a company needs to be. paying you to do that and to fly there. and to stay there and perdum and all. that stuff and they're not not doing. that out of the goodness of their heart. so they may say well we got to put this. behind a pay wall cuz we got to make. money yeah and when the internet came. along in the beginning it it uh followed. a hacker ethos which was that it should. be free and open to everybody.

information is now easy as pie to. disseminate and we should it should all. be free and unfettered um and we. actually see that that colliding with. what you were just talking about how you. know someone's reporting is valuable and. is worth money with colliding with the. idea that information should be free on. the internet with Canada right now where. um I think Canada passed a law that says. that if you are like a social media. aggregator news aggregator you have to. pay the creator of th that news some.

form of compensation for aggregating. that news because you're making money. off of it but you're just taking their. work for free right and Canada is in a. real pickle right now because Google and. Facebook said okay well we're just not. going to be available in Canada anymore. because we're not going to pay that and. what's Canada going to do so that that. seems like that fair it's very ironic. the free. internet in the form of the most um.

profitable most expensive and valuable. companies in the world is is crushing. the the um the journalistic value that's. brought by people who create news and. come up with the articles that those. companies make their money off of it's a. terrible jam it really is uh and over. the years of course we've had um sort of. activist. Crusaders uh like Aaron Schwarz who in. 2011 was indicted for uh downloading uh.

one of our favorite uh websites J store. jst database what does that stand for. Actually I don't even know I can't even. possibly come up with anything on this. short of notice Chuck okay believe me uh. but anyway Schwarz downloaded millions. of academic articles from uh the J store. database which is uh behind a pay wall. and the idea you know presumably was. that he was going to share those and and. he even had a Manifesto the Guerilla. Open Access. Manifesto where he's like there's a.

moral imperative to have these academic. articles available to the world and to. to someone who might not have the money. uh in the global South these. institutions that can't pay for these. journals maybe like we should get it out. there and J store did not press charges. but us uh us attorneys came after him. and he took his own life at the age of. 26 and 2013 before the trial started. yeah us attorneys Carmen Ortiz and. Steven hayon um really aggressively. pursued charges against him and um it's.

kind of explain that he was the. scapegoat in the post Wikileaks World. they were seeking to make an example out. of him um and yeah he he took his his. life at 26 and like a real luminary was. lost especially if you stop and consider. what he was doing and especially if you. stop and consider that J store was like. you gave the Articles back we're not. going to press charges right and if you. want to know like a little Peak behind. what Aaron Schwarz was doing if you're. like that's a weird thing to die over.

scientific journal um articles who cares. there's a an amazing um article from. priceonomics that Alec mayasi wrote in. 2013 called why is science behind a pay. wall and everyone should read that. because it's about the scientific. journal publishing racket that is. basically keeping science in the hands. of just the wealthiest um universities. in the world out of everybody else's. hands because they make tons of money.

off of it even though science is. supposed to be spread everywhere far and. wide so people can try new things based. on those findings because money is the. root of all evil right there's an. article um that I think Dean Baker wrote. is IP the root of all evil oh. interesting that's what were talking. about earlier yeah uh so enforcing this. stuff especially on the internet has. been very tricky over recent years uh. when you talk about websites like bit. torrent and um Napster back in the day.

lime wire is what I use remember lime. wire mhm and what was the other one with. the. why I can't remember but yes I don't. know someone will write in and let us. know uh but Napster uh if you don't know. about that and you're uh pretty young. and you were a kid when that happened. that was sort of one of the first free. music downloading sites and it was all. over the news at the time because it. devastated the music industry uh in a. lot of ways and a lawsuit shut them down. in 2001 but this was a case where the.

world and the um the internet and the. music industry pivoted eventually uh. when things like Spotify and Pandora. came along and said hey we can't police. this you cannot shut down people trading. music online the the genie has left the. bottle it's too late but why don't we. get together and at least we'll start. these Services where people can sign up. and they can pay for this stuff cuz we. think people will do that uh they may. not buy your records anymore but they'll. pay 10 bucks a month or whatever for.

unlimited music and then we'll give you. a tiny little piece of it and they said. all right I guess that's the best we can. do uh this is a stat Livia found in 2022. inflation adjusted dollars uh revenue. from and this is just um music sales. like selling a CD or whatever at the. time MH uh in 1999 it was 26 almost 26. billion which was the PE PE uh went all. the way down to 8.3 billion in 2014 and. 2015 and it's back up uh as of a couple.

years ago to about 16 billion which is. still you know a little more than or a. little less than half I guess of the. peak uh because of uh largely because of. like paid sub subscriptions and stuff. like that but that's a huge Decline and. the only reason music like if you. complain about the price of concert. tickets it's because you stopped paying. for recorded music that's there's a line. you can draw between musicians having to. make money somehow and you stealing.

their music that's the thing dude it's. not necessarily the musicians making. that money like there's huge companies. that make most of the money on a ticket. these days. and that's a oh like a concert ticket. yeah that's why that's why ticket sales. and and prices are so jacked like you. can go on to Ticket Master or something. like that and the show won't be sold out. and yet they're Suddenly at scalper. prices for some reason it makes no sense. it's a total racket um and that's the.

reason why it's a racket is because. again like you said they stopped making. as much money off of recorded music so. they figured out how to make as much. money as they could off of live music. where before that was like that was the. artist's piece the live thing like the. record company got the record money you. go off and do your tour we don't care. have as much fun as you like and when. when the record company's pie was. removed moved by Napster completely just. shattered uh they moved over to live and.

now they have a strangle hold on ticket. prices which is awful yeah I mean back. in the day it was uh ticket prices were. low because you toured to support the. album sales yeah uh you put out a record. you go on a big tour you charge like8. to15 and uh you sold merch you got some. money merch money and you sold a ton of. Records once the record thing went away. they had to make make money and then all. the other you know of course you know. not knocking them cuz we work with these.

people but promoters and venues and they. all take a big piece um Public Service. Announcement if you'll allow really. quickly please uh when you go to buy a. stuff you should know live ticket please. please please only go and make sure. you're looking at your computer screen. make sure you're going to the venu only. because when you type in stuff you. should know live Boston the first thing. that pops up might be a scalper site and. you might not realize it's a scalper. site uh because they don't look like you.

know Shady guys in leather jackets on. the corner anymore uh it looks like oh. this is just the place where you buy the. tickets to Josh and Chuck show and we. had a few people that wrote in and said. like hey I I just paid $200 for this. ticket blah blah blah blah blah and I'm. like you went to a scalper site and they. said no I didn't and I said I guarantee. you did because our tickets are not more. than like whatever like 35 bucks or. something so just people should know. that we never have a chance to say that. so please don't buy scalper tickets.

unless you just can't get a ticket and. you're loaded and don't care yeah and. that's the original price is $35 and. then there's you know whatever fees the. venue puts on it and then once you get. out of away from the venue it just keeps. going more and more people put more and. more egregious fees on it so I think the. the best thing to do is to either if you. can go to the box office and buy them. directly that is far and away your. cheapest that's as closest you're going. to get to face value. and uh if you can't do that look for. pre-sales we always have pre-sales a.

couple of days of pre-sales first that. has the least amount of fees attached to. it there's um the fewest Cooks in the. kitchen at that point and then after. that and regular sale is when it just. turns into the wild west yeah I mean we. love these live shows but I I got to say. once my eyes were really open once we. started doing it as to how it all worked. it's really really kind of like okay. yeah it's and because we can't do. anything about it it's like oh are you. guys going to sell the tickets. yourselves then and no we can't we can't.

possibly do that so we're you have to. deal with the people that you have to. deal with and there are some that are. better than others there's some that are. there's promoters and ticket sellers. that are aware that there is a lot of um. terribleness to their industry and. they're trying to do the opposite and. you can seek them out but they're not in. every city you're eventually going to. run into have having to work with people. that you don't want to work with and. that's just part of being on tour that's. right and this all started because of.

Napster and me talking about Napster. that's right uh I don't know how to. close that Loop other than to say. um I don't know we could just end the. episode I mean I got nothing else okay I. got nothing else either if you want to. know more about intellectual property. protection there's a lot of really. interesting if not kind of dry articles. out there about it uh and since I said. Dry it's time for listener mail. it's time for Chuck uh this is I just.

thought a pretty cool little tidbit uh. from Nicole adrion uh Hey guys wanted to. say thanks for the show love listening. while I drive and learning something new. and you always Infuse some laughter into. my day uh I just listened to the episode. on the Manhattan Grid it's an oldie but. a goodie and as a gal who grew up in the. shadows of New York City on Long Island. spent quite a lot of time there and hold. it near and dear to my heart one thing. you missed out on though was a little. explanation on Broadway you mentioned. that it does not stay consistent with. the grid and here's the thing the.

reasoning for this is because it was a. deer run that indigenous people used to. hunt prior to the Dutch coming in and. colonizing the island there are also. some really interesting studies and maps. that were created to assess what plants. were native to the island before it. became a concrete jungle so Broadway. like that little diagonal thing was a. deer run and it became a road eventually. I guess that's very cool pretty cool uh. anyway thanks for the opportunity to. learn would love to hear an episode on. the Highline uh it's got a great history. and that again is from Nicole adreon.

thanks Nicole we love learning stuff we. didn't know about thanks for taking the. time to write in and tell us and if you. want to be like Nicole and just be super. cool with some great info you can send. us an email to stuff podcast at. iheartradio.com. stuff you should know is a production of. iHeart radio for more podcasts my heart. radio visit the iHeart Radio app Apple. podcasts or wherever you listen to your. favorite. [Music].

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