From: gt7219a@prism.gatech.EDU (Christopher Michael Lawyer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.starwars
Subject: Re: SCRIPT : NEW HOPE (long)
Keywords: *THIS POST IS VERY LONG*
Date: 27 Jul 92 00:00:48 GMT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology

In article <1992Jul23.223415.13049@midway.uchicago.edu> wag5@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>
>Thank You. Yes, you are right. I repent.
>Tomorrow I begin a crusade.
>I will ask everyone who has a problem what that problem is,
>and I will take every able-bodied, intelligent person in the
>work force and put 100% of our time and effort into solving those
>people's problems who have problems in as short a time as possible.
>And yes, I have complete faith that I will completely remove all
>human injustice, misery and death from the face of the planet through
>my unwavering actions.
>	Through our hard work and investment in capital 43 people
>who die of a single rare disease will be saved.  But then, many
>such diseases will be solved! Perhaps hundreds, even thousands will
>be able to live a few more years! And that, my friends, means everything
>to me.  Of course, those industries which do seem to rake in a profit
>without government support will not receive attention, and perhaps
>those peole who eem to demand a good so much to actually pay real
>money for it will go without, but then, if they have so much money
>who cares, right? They can always find an alternative.
>	It is, however, absolutely necessary that we divert as much
>of our finite resources as possible to attempting to save those
>poor, unfortunate souls threatened by disease or happenstance.  After all,
>if the government doesn't help them, who will? Nothing has been done to
>assist people in need without the governments help, right?  And if they
>do happen, they take too long, or wait for opportune discoveries, right?
>	*Yah right*. Get real. If someone is dying they will happily
>fork over half their 'life savings' to live longer. If you think
>industry won't respond to that, you are mistaken.  Are Lamborghini's

Your whole arguement stems from the idea that there is out
there somewhere in corporate America greedy companies who are
trying to monitarily bleed the consumers dry of every last penny.
There is some truth to that.  BUT is it then unreasonable for    
the company to expect to make some sort of profit for developing
the new drug that will cure cancer?  There are the humanitarians
out there who are willing to devote their life/money for such a cause
and then are willing for the knowledge to go to public domain.  I 
applaud them sincerely.  But suppose that there is a company out
there is in the process of developing two drugs.  One will cure
cancer, the other AIDS.  They don't want to profit from it, but to
break even.   So they work hard, invest let's say $30 million towards
the cancer drug, and due to determination/skill/luck they create
the drug and patent it.  They try to sell it so they will make their
money back when some "pirate" sells their drug for less without
first recieving permission to use it in the first place.  The company
is now $30 million in debt.  They may not go on with their research
on the AIDS drugs because they can no longer afford to pay their         
R&D department or anyone else in the company.  The company has to fold.
And we never find out if they could have produced the AIDS cure.  Of
course, most drug companies are not this noble.  And the ones who
exploit the sick make my skin crawl.  But some are and their work 
*SHOULD* be encouraged.  

>sales protected by the government?  Not ours.  But peole seem to want
>them and they pay for them. As a result, notwithstanding lack of protection,
>the Japanese came out with a whole slew of sportscar look-alikes,
>in respond to demand. Some may argue that in terms of price/performance,
>a Toyota MR-2 is better than a Lamborghini.  But Goldstein would have
>the Lamborghini protected, so it is only available to the rich, his
>uncle Joe with the Porsche and the royalty income.  Yes, Mr. Goldstein,

It is very rude to assign someone else's viewpoints to your analogy.
It is worse to do it incorrectly.  That being said,  I will give my
interpretation to what Mr. Goldstein would have.  Better yet I will
give my interpretion and see if he agrees with me.  I would have it
be illegal to try to sell a car that looks exactly like a Lamborghini.
Selling a Toyota MR-2 is perfectly okay, so long as it is not mede to
fool the consumer into thinking that he is buying a Lamborghini.  In
my opinion, the Toyota looks nothing like the Lamb and from what I've
read their engine designs are different so they are nothing alike and
therefore okay.  The drug analogy would be if one company came out
with a cancer cure involving a penicillian(sp?) derritive while another
made a cure from peanut butter, ice cream, and spam.  Both drugs might
cure cancer, but they probably weren't influential upon each other (the
guy who made the "peanut butter" cure probably didn't steal the designs
from the other guy.)  The automobile may be trademarked based on     
style or a new function.  The reason that the automobile cannot be        
patented as a concept is that no one person has ever been credited with
the design.  Many people from all over the world were working on it at
the time, and communication was bad so it never was settled as to who 
made the first one.  Had this been settled this too would have fallen
into copyright and patent laws.  The patents would probably have expired
by now, though.
     


>if protection is removed maybe the companies will not be *panting*
>to do research, but at least my family and those families who are
>poor can benefit from what does happen witjout going into severe debt.

Maybe they will do no research at all.  And then nobody will get any
benifit.  Which is why I am nervous about piracy.  

>Again, you argue for a strict income class separated society, where
>the rich will get the expensive, government protected drugs and
>the poor will have to go into the debt of the rich, and thus the slavery.

Not true.  I am arguing that everyone should pay their fair share, and
no more.  Some buisnesses charge *way* more than the fair share, like
software companies for example.  $50 for a computer game is rediculous.
They don't realize that if they charged less more people would buy
their games.  People would pay a reasonable amount of money, say $12
for the game for the manuals and quality and the safety from viruses
that store-bought products have.  People wnt to be honest if you let
them.  But let us bring this back to the topic of Star Wars.  I have
bought lots of SW stuff over the years.  I do this for Star Wars and
other companies to encourage them to continue.  And when I see a good 
product that is reasonably priced I encourage my friends to buy it to
have them support the company as well.  When a company earns my trust
I like for them to stay in buisness.  When you posted the Star Wars
script you clearly broke US laws.  I can understand that.  I try to
break a few of them myself periodically.  Especially the speed limit.
So I am not particularly mad with you on that specific point.  A couple
of things did irritate me:  Your breaking them could hurt Star Wars.  I
really like Star Wars.  I don't want George Lucas to have any excuses
to not make the next movie.  Your breaking them could hurt the net.  I
live in the bible-belt South.  I regularly will be going to the Student
center and see some fruitcake fundamentalist preacher telling everyone
how much of a sinner they are.  People like that are just waiting for
some excuse to shut something that encourages free thought like the net
down.  What if the entire net were dismantled because of over zealous
response by the government to the one law broken in your post?  It seems
unlikely, but I'd rather not risk it.  If you want to mention on the
net that you have it (or something else) fine.  People can e-mail you
for it and any consequences legal or otherwise are yours.  I (ignoring 
the encouragment arguement) have no problems with you breaking the law.
I just don't like you breaking the law for us.  My basic two principles 
are: 
1.  People should have the right to do what they want so long as it
doesn't harm someone else.
2.  You don't dick over your friends.
I have posted earlier on a legal standpoint.  I have tried here to argue
with morals.  I am not trying to flame anyone.  I didn't name call or
other such babyish things.  If you have a problem with my logic, (which
has been known to be broken and incoherent in the past) why don't we
take this to e-mail?  It has deviated enough from the rec.movies.sf.starwars.

>			J. Wagner
>

the manatee gt7219a@prism.gatech.edu


ps.  On the other hand, if you were distributing illegal copies of
The New Kids on The Block, I would probably donate money to further
the cause.  In fact I would probably volunteer to help.