http://rainwarrior.thenoos.net/music/moon8.html
Dan C sent me this. It is the greatest thing I've ever heard. Dark Side of the Moon as covered by an 8 bit NES.
Torrent:
http://btjunkie.org/torrent/Brad-Smith-MOON8-8-Bit-cover-of-Pink-Floyds-Dark-Side-of-the-Moon/44324af1c59a254af39f277da7ad88de030d18afebd4
Direct downloads:
http://bombhot.se/files/922803/moon8.zip
http://www.mediafire.com/?ntvmjmyvmmk
http://rapidshare.com/files/369743217/moon8.zip
First track on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euLdKW_Db1k
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Court Says President Bush Violated Wiretapping Laws With Warrantless Wiretap
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100331/1228088813.shtml
If you haven't been following the fight over the legality of warrantless wiretapping, this case, involving lawyers working with the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, is extremely important. When it was revealed that the Bush administration was wiretapping phonecalls without a warrant, lawsuits were filed -- but the "problem" was that the parties (such as the ACLU) that filed the lawsuits didn't have "standing" because they had no evidence that they, personally, were impacted by the warrantless wiretapping. This created a ridiculous Catch-22 situation. As long as the government hid its illegal activities and never said who it spied on, it could spy on anyone illegally. No one could bring a lawsuit, since there was no proof that they had been impacted by the illegal spying.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
New Litigation Targets 20,000 BitTorrent-Using Downloaders
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/03/30/2352256/New-Litigation-Targets-20000-BitTorrent-Using-Downloaders
2. Since only a small fraction of people are paying the amount paid must be very high.
3. There is a small chance of having to pay a large sum of money.
4. People begin taking out insurance policies to protect from the rare but large payouts.
5. ???
6. Profit!
"The Hollywood Reporter reports that more than 20,000 individual movie torrent downloaders have been sued in the past few weeks in Washington DC federal court for copyright infringement and another lawsuit targeting 30,000 more torrent downloaders on five more films is forthcoming in what could be a test run that opens up the floodgates to massive litigation against the millions of individuals who use BitTorrent to download movies. The US Copyright Group, a company owned by intellectual property lawyers, is using a new proprietary technology by German-based Guardaley IT that allows for real-time monitoring of movie downloads on torrents. According to Thomas Dunlap, a lawyer at the firm, the program captures IP addresses based on the time stamp that a download has occurred and then checks against a spreadsheet to make sure the downloading content is the copyright protected film and not a misnamed film or trailer. 'We're creating a revenue stream and monetizing the equivalent of an alternative distribution channel,' says Jeffrey Weaver, another lawyer at the firm."1. Media companies begin using lawsuits as a revenue stream.
The difference between the MPAA's past approach and the new one being offered by the US Copyright Group is that the MPAA took a less targeted approach going after a smaller sampling of infringers in a single suit for multiple films, to send a message. In contrast, the US Copyright Group is using the new monitoring technology to go after tens of thousands of infringers at a time on a contingency basis in hopes of coming up with the right cost-benefit incentive to pursue individual pirates."
2. Since only a small fraction of people are paying the amount paid must be very high.
3. There is a small chance of having to pay a large sum of money.
4. People begin taking out insurance policies to protect from the rare but large payouts.
5. ???
6. Profit!
The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 Passes Senate Panel
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/10/03/30/136249/The-Cybersecurity-Act-of-2009-Passes-Senate-Panel?art_pos=10
"The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 passed a Senate panel, giving the president unprecedented power to issue a nation-wide blackout or restriction on websites without congressional approval. The bill, written by Sen. Jay Rockefeller [D-WV] and revised by Sen. Olympia Snow [R-ME], was drafted in an attempt to thwart internet-based terrorist threats, and gives the president this 'kill switch' without oversight or explanation. The bill is up in for Senate vote."
"The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 passed a Senate panel, giving the president unprecedented power to issue a nation-wide blackout or restriction on websites without congressional approval. The bill, written by Sen. Jay Rockefeller [D-WV] and revised by Sen. Olympia Snow [R-ME], was drafted in an attempt to thwart internet-based terrorist threats, and gives the president this 'kill switch' without oversight or explanation. The bill is up in for Senate vote."
Friday, March 26, 2010
Correlation Between Gun Laws and Deaths?
Gun laws are a subject many people feel strongly about, and as with any subject people feel strongly about there are no shortage of data and statistics that seem to support either side. I decided to look into any correlation I could find between gun laws and deaths in the US. Just like with political parties and deficit spending I didn't really have any expectations, but would probably guess that there wasn't much correlation.
Before I go any further I'll pretend like it is necessary to give a brief background on my stance on guns in general. I've never owned a gun, and don't really have any strong desire to own one. On the other hand I was in the Marines for 4 years and certainly am not uncomfortable around guns (I literally slept with a rifle for 22 days straight). I am opposed to gun laws as I believe the largest threat to our society is government itself. A well armed populace will be harder to subjugate. A slight increase in deaths would be worth adding a layer of protection of our basic freedoms. I'm also a big fan of personal freedoms, and I think people should be free to make decisions for themselves. I think most of the opposition to guns in general comes from people that simply don't like guns because they are scared of them, and not because of any rational reason.
I've seen both sides of the gun control debate claim statistics support their side. I'd like to think I'm being as impartial here as possible (as opposed to most people, who think they are biased). I decided to do this comparison after I read this web page, which implies a correlation between Brady score and murders. The Brady Campaign is an anti-gun group; they give each state a score 0-100 based on how strict its gun laws are. I'll use their scores as a gauge of how strict gun laws are. It is simply the only convenient measure I can think of, and I think it is likely to fairly accurate.
The first problem though is what to compare the score to. This is likely the first place people looking to make statistics support their cause will diverge. There are a number of different stats that could be used, all of which would appear similar to a causal inspection. Deaths from guns are sure to higher in states with more guns. Deaths from X are sure to be higher in states with more X. On the other hand it is no secret that the upper New England states have both some of the laxist gun laws and lowest crime rates out of any states in the Union.
It is important to remember the old adage: "Correlation does not imply causation". If it turned out that states with less gun laws tended to have less crime it wouldn't necessarily mean that the lack of gun laws caused the lesser crime. Rather, it could be that the lesser crime caused the lack of gun laws, or that some third unknown variable caused them both. Of course, it could be that the lack of gun laws did cause the reduction in crime. The point is that if you do discover a correlation it is a starting point, not an ending point. You need to find out what is causing the correlation. You can't just assume that one thing causes the other.
I grabbed a bunch of different stats and found the correlation for all of them. I got the data from here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States_by_state
http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparemaptable.jsp?cat=2&ind=113
I then popped them into OpenOffice Calc, and used the correlation function, which "Returns the Pearson correlation coefficient of two sets of data". If you don't know what correlation coefficient is, it is a number that ranges from -1 to 1 and tells how strongly related two sets of data are. A correlation of 0 means no relation at all, while 1 means completely dependent. In practice anything < 0.1 is no correlation, 0.1 to 0.3 is small, 0.3 to 0.5 is medium, and 0.5 to 1.0 is large. A correlation of -1 is also completely dependent but in the opposite direction. For our data this means that as the number gets closer to 1 there is a connection between a high score (stricter gun laws) and a higher whatever rate. As the number gets closer to -1 it means there is a connection between higher score and lower whatever rate. Since we are generally measuring something negative (murder, robbery) this effectively means that closer to -1 supports gun control, while closer to 1 supports gun freedom.
Here are the correlation results:
First allow me to explain some of the categories "Gun Deaths" is the only one that doesn't come from Wikipedia. Based on the description from the site it appears to be exactly what it sounds like, all deaths from a gun, accidental or intentional. I would guess "Rape" is only forcible rape (and not statutory rape), although the Wikipedia page doesn't specify that. All of them are the per capita rates, except the last two, "Murders Total", and "Population Total".
What does the data tell us? It should be no surprise that as the number of guns increase the number of deaths from them increase as well. The pro gun counter would be that the increase in accidental deaths would be countered by the decrease in murders. The rape one is interesting. However, the fact that the rest of the violent crimes are so close to 0 leads me to believe that it is arbitrary. The property crimes are pretty much meaningless. You'd be hard pressed to convince me that an increase in guns somehow leads to an increase in burglary or larceny. Yet there is a clear small to medium correlation between the two. If nothing else this should show how meaningless these connections are.
Then come the big four. Murders, Serious Assaults, Gun Murders, and Violent Crimes. They are all amazingly close to 0. I wouldn't have guessed there would be so little correlation, negative or positive, between violent crimes and gun laws. I doubt gun laws have any effect on car theft so, like rape, I'd guess that is just noise. Robbery is fairly high, I suppose it is possible that the fact that a potential victim could be armed could be deterring some robberies. Perhaps it is distinct from the other violent crimes in that if someone is going to murder someone else a gun won't stop them; while if they are only looking for some money the thought of getting into an armed conflict may stop them. Still I'd lean towards just random chance or some other factor as the reason.
The last two, "Murders Total" and "Population Total" don't mean much as far as gun laws and murder go. It's no secret that as population goes up so do murders. The only mildly interesting thing here is that there is a clear correlation between high population states and stricter gun laws. Really though, that shouldn't be a surprise either.
So in summary it would seem gun laws have little correlation with violent crimes. Feel free to distort and skew these results to fit whatever your pet beliefs are.
Before I go any further I'll pretend like it is necessary to give a brief background on my stance on guns in general. I've never owned a gun, and don't really have any strong desire to own one. On the other hand I was in the Marines for 4 years and certainly am not uncomfortable around guns (I literally slept with a rifle for 22 days straight). I am opposed to gun laws as I believe the largest threat to our society is government itself. A well armed populace will be harder to subjugate. A slight increase in deaths would be worth adding a layer of protection of our basic freedoms. I'm also a big fan of personal freedoms, and I think people should be free to make decisions for themselves. I think most of the opposition to guns in general comes from people that simply don't like guns because they are scared of them, and not because of any rational reason.
I've seen both sides of the gun control debate claim statistics support their side. I'd like to think I'm being as impartial here as possible (as opposed to most people, who think they are biased). I decided to do this comparison after I read this web page, which implies a correlation between Brady score and murders. The Brady Campaign is an anti-gun group; they give each state a score 0-100 based on how strict its gun laws are. I'll use their scores as a gauge of how strict gun laws are. It is simply the only convenient measure I can think of, and I think it is likely to fairly accurate.
The first problem though is what to compare the score to. This is likely the first place people looking to make statistics support their cause will diverge. There are a number of different stats that could be used, all of which would appear similar to a causal inspection. Deaths from guns are sure to higher in states with more guns. Deaths from X are sure to be higher in states with more X. On the other hand it is no secret that the upper New England states have both some of the laxist gun laws and lowest crime rates out of any states in the Union.
It is important to remember the old adage: "Correlation does not imply causation". If it turned out that states with less gun laws tended to have less crime it wouldn't necessarily mean that the lack of gun laws caused the lesser crime. Rather, it could be that the lesser crime caused the lack of gun laws, or that some third unknown variable caused them both. Of course, it could be that the lack of gun laws did cause the reduction in crime. The point is that if you do discover a correlation it is a starting point, not an ending point. You need to find out what is causing the correlation. You can't just assume that one thing causes the other.
I grabbed a bunch of different stats and found the correlation for all of them. I got the data from here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States_by_state
http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparemaptable.jsp?cat=2&ind=113
I then popped them into OpenOffice Calc, and used the correlation function, which "Returns the Pearson correlation coefficient of two sets of data". If you don't know what correlation coefficient is, it is a number that ranges from -1 to 1 and tells how strongly related two sets of data are. A correlation of 0 means no relation at all, while 1 means completely dependent. In practice anything < 0.1 is no correlation, 0.1 to 0.3 is small, 0.3 to 0.5 is medium, and 0.5 to 1.0 is large. A correlation of -1 is also completely dependent but in the opposite direction. For our data this means that as the number gets closer to 1 there is a connection between a high score (stricter gun laws) and a higher whatever rate. As the number gets closer to -1 it means there is a connection between higher score and lower whatever rate. Since we are generally measuring something negative (murder, robbery) this effectively means that closer to -1 supports gun control, while closer to 1 supports gun freedom.
Here are the correlation results:
| More Lax Gun Laws | |
| Gun Deaths | -0.545 |
| Rape | -0.398 |
| Larceny | -0.313 |
| Burglary | -0.257 |
| Property Crime | -0.219 |
| Murder Rate | -0.029 |
| Serious Assault | -0.025 |
| Gun Murder Rate | -0.001 |
| Violent Crime | 0.020 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 0.216 |
| Robbery | 0.417 |
| Murders Total | 0.434 |
| Population Total | 0.476 |
| More Strict Gun Laws |
First allow me to explain some of the categories "Gun Deaths" is the only one that doesn't come from Wikipedia. Based on the description from the site it appears to be exactly what it sounds like, all deaths from a gun, accidental or intentional. I would guess "Rape" is only forcible rape (and not statutory rape), although the Wikipedia page doesn't specify that. All of them are the per capita rates, except the last two, "Murders Total", and "Population Total".
What does the data tell us? It should be no surprise that as the number of guns increase the number of deaths from them increase as well. The pro gun counter would be that the increase in accidental deaths would be countered by the decrease in murders. The rape one is interesting. However, the fact that the rest of the violent crimes are so close to 0 leads me to believe that it is arbitrary. The property crimes are pretty much meaningless. You'd be hard pressed to convince me that an increase in guns somehow leads to an increase in burglary or larceny. Yet there is a clear small to medium correlation between the two. If nothing else this should show how meaningless these connections are.
Then come the big four. Murders, Serious Assaults, Gun Murders, and Violent Crimes. They are all amazingly close to 0. I wouldn't have guessed there would be so little correlation, negative or positive, between violent crimes and gun laws. I doubt gun laws have any effect on car theft so, like rape, I'd guess that is just noise. Robbery is fairly high, I suppose it is possible that the fact that a potential victim could be armed could be deterring some robberies. Perhaps it is distinct from the other violent crimes in that if someone is going to murder someone else a gun won't stop them; while if they are only looking for some money the thought of getting into an armed conflict may stop them. Still I'd lean towards just random chance or some other factor as the reason.
The last two, "Murders Total" and "Population Total" don't mean much as far as gun laws and murder go. It's no secret that as population goes up so do murders. The only mildly interesting thing here is that there is a clear correlation between high population states and stricter gun laws. Really though, that shouldn't be a surprise either.
So in summary it would seem gun laws have little correlation with violent crimes. Feel free to distort and skew these results to fit whatever your pet beliefs are.
First Anti-Cancer Nanoparticle Trial on Humans a Success
http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/03/24/2232241/First-Anti-Cancer-Nanoparticle-Trial-on-Humans-a-Success?art_pos=47
"Nanoparticles have been able to disable cancerous cells in living human bodies for the first time. The results are perfect so far, killing tumors with no side effects whatsoever. Mark Davis, project leader at CalTech, says that 'it sneaks in, evades the immune system, delivers the siRNA, and the disassembled components exit out.' Truly amazing."
"Nanoparticles have been able to disable cancerous cells in living human bodies for the first time. The results are perfect so far, killing tumors with no side effects whatsoever. Mark Davis, project leader at CalTech, says that 'it sneaks in, evades the immune system, delivers the siRNA, and the disassembled components exit out.' Truly amazing."
Facebook Goes After Greasemonkey Script Developer
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/03/26/0515224/Facebook-Goes-After-Greasemonkey-Script-Developer?art_pos=16
"The popular Facebook Purity greasemonkey script (now renamed Fluff Buster Purity) has been used by thousands to rid their Facebook feeds from the likes of Mafia Wars, Farmville, and other annoying things. Now, Facebook is threatening the developer of this script. Does Facebook have the right to govern their website's design and functionality once it's in the browser?"
A shrewd business move, generate tons a bad publicity and accomplish nothing.
"The popular Facebook Purity greasemonkey script (now renamed Fluff Buster Purity) has been used by thousands to rid their Facebook feeds from the likes of Mafia Wars, Farmville, and other annoying things. Now, Facebook is threatening the developer of this script. Does Facebook have the right to govern their website's design and functionality once it's in the browser?"
A shrewd business move, generate tons a bad publicity and accomplish nothing.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_Reorganization_Bill_of_1937
The Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937, frequently called the court-packing plan, was a legislative initiative to add more justices to the Supreme Court proposed by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt shortly after his victory in the 1936 presidential election. Although the bill aimed generally to overhaul and modernize all of the federal court system, its central and most controversial provision would have granted the President power to appoint an additional Justice to the U.S. Supreme Court for every sitting member over the age of 70½, up to a maximum of six.
During Roosevelt's first term in office, the Supreme Court had struck down several prominent New Deal measures intended to bolster economic recovery during the Great Depression, leading to charges from New Deal supporters that a narrow majority faction of the court was obstructionist and political. Since the U.S. Constitution does not limit the size of the Supreme Court, Roosevelt, having won an expanded electoral mandate in his reelection, sought to counter this entrenched opposition to his political agenda by expanding the number of justices to create a pro-New Deal majority on the bench. Opponents viewed the legislation as an attempt to stack the court leading to the name "Court-packing Plan".
Bill Would Require Public Information To Be Online
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/03/22/1515206/Bill-Would-Require-Public-Information-To-Be-Online?art_pos=50
"A bill that was introduced in the US House of Representatives last week would require all Executive Branch agencies to publish public information on the Internet in a timely fashion and in user-friendly formats. The Public Online Information Act would also establish an advisory committee to help craft Internet publication policies for the entire US government, including Congress and the Supreme Court. Citizens would have a limited, private right of action to compel the government to release public information online, though common sense exceptions (similar to those for FOIA) would remain in place."
Two questions. Why wasn't this done 10 years ago? Why does it only apply to the executive?
"A bill that was introduced in the US House of Representatives last week would require all Executive Branch agencies to publish public information on the Internet in a timely fashion and in user-friendly formats. The Public Online Information Act would also establish an advisory committee to help craft Internet publication policies for the entire US government, including Congress and the Supreme Court. Citizens would have a limited, private right of action to compel the government to release public information online, though common sense exceptions (similar to those for FOIA) would remain in place."
Two questions. Why wasn't this done 10 years ago? Why does it only apply to the executive?
Monday, March 22, 2010
Copyrights, Patents, and Trademarks
There is a lot of confusion over copyrights, patents, and trademarks. I'll attempt to explain them somewhat, as well as rant on how things should be. I'll start by explaining each:
Trademark is probably the least important to most people. The purpose of trademarks is to ensure that when someone buys something they know who they are buying it from. They protect logos and brands for an indefinite time. In order to get trademark protection you pretty much have to start using the logo for commerce. Later, if someone else tries to use the same name or symbol you can sue them. Trademarks can be generic words (Apple, Delta, or Shell), but the word can't be connected to the industry. You couldn't get a trademark for "computer" for a company selling computers. You probably could get it if you sold fruit (the opposite case of Apple). Also multiple entities can trademark the same word, as long as they are totally different industries. You could probably start a car company called Apple and trademark it.
As said above, trademarks last forever, as long as they are used and defended. You must defend your trademark if others try to use it. If you fail to sue people using your trademark then you will lose legal protection. The question to ask yourself in regards to trademark is this, "when people hear X in relation to industry Y, do they think of this specific brand?" If a brand becomes too well know, and becomes synonymous with that item then it becomes a genericized trademark and can lose its protection. Some examples from Wikipedia, Aspirin - Bayer AG, Escalator - Otis Elevator Company, Zipper - B.F. Goodrich, Kerosene - Abraham Gesner, Heroin - Friedrich Bayer & Co, Videotape - Ampex Corporation. However, not all genericized trademarks have lost their protection. Examples again from Wikipedia, Band-Aid (Adhesive bandage) - Johnson & Johnson, ChapStick (Lip balm) - Wyeth Consumer Healthcare, Frisbee (flying disc) - Wham-O, Jell-O (Gelatin dessert) - Kraft Foods, Post-its (Sticky notes) - 3M.
Patents typically apply to physical objects or inventions. Their purpose is to encourage people to disclose the workings of their inventions, by giving them a monopoly for a limited time, after which all may benefit from having the workings known. The way a patent works is you come up with some new way of doing something, then you submit the details of the process to the patent office and receive a patent. If someone else comes along and copies your idea then you can sue them and win, as long as you can prove they likely copied your idea. Out of the three, patents are the only ones that require registration to enforce. You must detail the workings in order to receive a patent, so that when the patent expires others may use your idea and build upon it. As opposed to what I implied above you can patent abstract ideas and processes, those patents are usually rubbish.
Copyright is the big one today. Copyright has a similar concept to patents, it gives the creator an incentive to create by granting them a limited monopoly. However, since things that should be copyrighted are media you don't have to disclose anything. If you write a book the text of the book is copyrighted, you don't have to submit the text for a copyright because everyone will have access to it if they have the book. You don't have to submit for a copyright, everything you create automatically has one. However, getting a formal copyright will make it easier to prove your creation in court, and increase the damages you can collect.
So now that I've explained how they work, it is time to explain the way things should be. Trademarks, for the most part, are fine as they are today. Patents are pretty good as well. The current term in the US is 25 years, which is a bit too long. I would rather it be 10 years, with the ability to renew for another 10 years, for a maximum of 20 years. The fee for the first 10 years should be rather small ($25), however the second 10 years should require much more ($500). It would only make sense to renew patents on things that actually were worth something. Patents on abstract things are usually worthless, however not always. The key is having experts in the fields to review the patent requests and reject them if they are attempting to patent something obvious to someone in the field.
Copyrights, however, are a mess. For a work created today in the US it will be protected for the creator's entire life plus 70 years. Or if created by a non human entity it will be 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation whichever is shorter. What possible added incentive to create could there be in knowing your work will be protected for 70 years after you die? If something you create is still profitable after a few decades then it was profitable enough to make any additional incentive meaningless. It is absurd to think that Led Zeppelin wouldn't have made their music if they knew they would get less than a century of protection for it. You can't legitimately argue that 20 years of monopoly on a work isn't enough to cover all the costs and provide a massive profit (as long as people are willing to pay). Allowing people to earn money on something that was created before they were alive only prevents those people from having to create things of their own. Why should any media company bother to create new works when they can just earn money for things created decades ago?
Copyright should be the same as patents, 10 years, with an optional 10 year renewal. The difference being that the first 10 year period would be automatic, as it is now. The second 10 year period would still cost a larger sum ($500), and require submitting for copyright. Under this system anything made prior to 1990 would be public domain today. Can you honestly argue that if this system were in place, that people and companies would have been less likely to create new works in the 1980's, knowing that they could only milk them for 20 years?
Also you should only be able to patent or copyright something which has actual scientific or artistic worth. You shouldn't be able to copyright a business card, a sign, or a 128 bit number. Likewise software doesn't belong in the copyright group. The source code to a program can't be compared to something like a book, or picture. It is more accurately compared to something like a blueprint. Thus software should be patented and not copyrighted. In order to get a patent on a program you'd have to submit the full source code. Then in 10 or 20 years when the patent ran out that source code would be known for others to use.
You may be asking if there is really any benefit to society to letting people build on others' works. As an example look at Disney, every story they have is based on a public domain work. The irony here is that Disney is one of the biggest reason why we have such absurd copyright terms now. Since they make the bulk of their money from stuff that was created long ago they have a very strong interest in extending copyrights forever.
These large companies have created the term "intellectual property" to cover trademarks, patents, and copyrights. The idea is that creative works are somehow property which should last forever. Just like if you build a house that house will remain yours forever, they think a copyright should last forever. The key difference here is that a house a real object. I can't enjoy the house without depriving you of it. On the other hand a creative work can be enjoyed by everyone at once. The purpose of copyright is just to give the creator a way to make some money from it, so they have some reason to create it in the first place.
We will never have copyright reform though. One the major industries the US exports is this "intellectual property", thus it has an interest in extending its legal protections throughout the world. This is the reason why we have such lengthy copyright terms now. It is also the reason the US is pushing so hard for ACTA.
Trademark is probably the least important to most people. The purpose of trademarks is to ensure that when someone buys something they know who they are buying it from. They protect logos and brands for an indefinite time. In order to get trademark protection you pretty much have to start using the logo for commerce. Later, if someone else tries to use the same name or symbol you can sue them. Trademarks can be generic words (Apple, Delta, or Shell), but the word can't be connected to the industry. You couldn't get a trademark for "computer" for a company selling computers. You probably could get it if you sold fruit (the opposite case of Apple). Also multiple entities can trademark the same word, as long as they are totally different industries. You could probably start a car company called Apple and trademark it.
As said above, trademarks last forever, as long as they are used and defended. You must defend your trademark if others try to use it. If you fail to sue people using your trademark then you will lose legal protection. The question to ask yourself in regards to trademark is this, "when people hear X in relation to industry Y, do they think of this specific brand?" If a brand becomes too well know, and becomes synonymous with that item then it becomes a genericized trademark and can lose its protection. Some examples from Wikipedia, Aspirin - Bayer AG, Escalator - Otis Elevator Company, Zipper - B.F. Goodrich, Kerosene - Abraham Gesner, Heroin - Friedrich Bayer & Co, Videotape - Ampex Corporation. However, not all genericized trademarks have lost their protection. Examples again from Wikipedia, Band-Aid (Adhesive bandage) - Johnson & Johnson, ChapStick (Lip balm) - Wyeth Consumer Healthcare, Frisbee (flying disc) - Wham-O, Jell-O (Gelatin dessert) - Kraft Foods, Post-its (Sticky notes) - 3M.
Patents typically apply to physical objects or inventions. Their purpose is to encourage people to disclose the workings of their inventions, by giving them a monopoly for a limited time, after which all may benefit from having the workings known. The way a patent works is you come up with some new way of doing something, then you submit the details of the process to the patent office and receive a patent. If someone else comes along and copies your idea then you can sue them and win, as long as you can prove they likely copied your idea. Out of the three, patents are the only ones that require registration to enforce. You must detail the workings in order to receive a patent, so that when the patent expires others may use your idea and build upon it. As opposed to what I implied above you can patent abstract ideas and processes, those patents are usually rubbish.
Copyright is the big one today. Copyright has a similar concept to patents, it gives the creator an incentive to create by granting them a limited monopoly. However, since things that should be copyrighted are media you don't have to disclose anything. If you write a book the text of the book is copyrighted, you don't have to submit the text for a copyright because everyone will have access to it if they have the book. You don't have to submit for a copyright, everything you create automatically has one. However, getting a formal copyright will make it easier to prove your creation in court, and increase the damages you can collect.
So now that I've explained how they work, it is time to explain the way things should be. Trademarks, for the most part, are fine as they are today. Patents are pretty good as well. The current term in the US is 25 years, which is a bit too long. I would rather it be 10 years, with the ability to renew for another 10 years, for a maximum of 20 years. The fee for the first 10 years should be rather small ($25), however the second 10 years should require much more ($500). It would only make sense to renew patents on things that actually were worth something. Patents on abstract things are usually worthless, however not always. The key is having experts in the fields to review the patent requests and reject them if they are attempting to patent something obvious to someone in the field.
Copyrights, however, are a mess. For a work created today in the US it will be protected for the creator's entire life plus 70 years. Or if created by a non human entity it will be 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation whichever is shorter. What possible added incentive to create could there be in knowing your work will be protected for 70 years after you die? If something you create is still profitable after a few decades then it was profitable enough to make any additional incentive meaningless. It is absurd to think that Led Zeppelin wouldn't have made their music if they knew they would get less than a century of protection for it. You can't legitimately argue that 20 years of monopoly on a work isn't enough to cover all the costs and provide a massive profit (as long as people are willing to pay). Allowing people to earn money on something that was created before they were alive only prevents those people from having to create things of their own. Why should any media company bother to create new works when they can just earn money for things created decades ago?
Copyright should be the same as patents, 10 years, with an optional 10 year renewal. The difference being that the first 10 year period would be automatic, as it is now. The second 10 year period would still cost a larger sum ($500), and require submitting for copyright. Under this system anything made prior to 1990 would be public domain today. Can you honestly argue that if this system were in place, that people and companies would have been less likely to create new works in the 1980's, knowing that they could only milk them for 20 years?
Also you should only be able to patent or copyright something which has actual scientific or artistic worth. You shouldn't be able to copyright a business card, a sign, or a 128 bit number. Likewise software doesn't belong in the copyright group. The source code to a program can't be compared to something like a book, or picture. It is more accurately compared to something like a blueprint. Thus software should be patented and not copyrighted. In order to get a patent on a program you'd have to submit the full source code. Then in 10 or 20 years when the patent ran out that source code would be known for others to use.
You may be asking if there is really any benefit to society to letting people build on others' works. As an example look at Disney, every story they have is based on a public domain work. The irony here is that Disney is one of the biggest reason why we have such absurd copyright terms now. Since they make the bulk of their money from stuff that was created long ago they have a very strong interest in extending copyrights forever.
These large companies have created the term "intellectual property" to cover trademarks, patents, and copyrights. The idea is that creative works are somehow property which should last forever. Just like if you build a house that house will remain yours forever, they think a copyright should last forever. The key difference here is that a house a real object. I can't enjoy the house without depriving you of it. On the other hand a creative work can be enjoyed by everyone at once. The purpose of copyright is just to give the creator a way to make some money from it, so they have some reason to create it in the first place.
We will never have copyright reform though. One the major industries the US exports is this "intellectual property", thus it has an interest in extending its legal protections throughout the world. This is the reason why we have such lengthy copyright terms now. It is also the reason the US is pushing so hard for ACTA.
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