[A2k] User Rights full circle

[Bob Jolliffe]

>
> Or do you consider NIPMO as "devinely given" and these scholars as heretics?
>

NIPMO is the necessary creation of the South African National
Department of Science and Technology.   Necessary in the sense that
this same department cannot justify its existence (and budget) by the
same measures of service delivery as other departments such as Health,
Education or Social Welfare.

So it has to *deliver* something.  But how on earth do you deliver
science and technology?  The output of scholarly research papers is
claimed by the Department of Education.  The output of actual
innovation leading to improvements to the economy is claimed by
Department of Trade and Industry.  The promotion of S&T as a purely
faith-based activity (keep putting your money in the box - science
will somehow, somewhen provide returns) has become increasingly hard
to sell.  So when the Bah-Doylists, Microsofties and other "IP"
thieves, hypocites and liars came sniffing around the department with
neatly packaged theories of measuring innovation by counting patents,
the department welcomed them in.  The last two years of intense
political battle within the ruling alliance have been unsettling
politically in South Africa, so the certainty of gospels was
particulalrly welcome.

The big beneficiaries of the Department of S&T's budget - the large
national research councils - have found themselves a medium term
solution to continued funding.  They are best placed to reap benefits
from NIPMO.  And the department has something it can say it is
delivering to the nation - the "creation" of property which is somehow
national.

I do find myself full square behind RMS on this use of the narrative
of IP (I'm less worried about the words but narratives are usually
promoted with words) to rip off the public.  In South Africa at least,
I think NIPMO is the proof of his pudding.  I think to take him
further than perhaps he would go, the terminology of intellectual
property "protection" is the most misleading and deliberately
confusing of all.  It is after all only people and corporations who
enjoy "protection" to greater or lesser degree.  IP is mostly a
vehicle to afford some people more protection and others (the
majority) less.

Regards
Bob

PS.  If the pursuit of S&T in South Africa is indeed a largely faith
based endeavour, then I guess its fair to assume that NIPMO might be
"divinely given".