[Upd-discuss] Did You Say "Intellectual Property"? It's a Seductive Mirage by Richard M. Stallman

[Richard Smedley]

On Tue, 2005-02-22 at 14:35 -0500, Sigmascape1@cs.com wrote:
> I can see both sides of the issue. However, I have to say that I feel the 
> term 'intellectual property' is a valid term. Here's an example why... 
> JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books. She owns the copyrights to the 
> books, and from a commercial standpoint, Harry Potter is most certainly 
> an intellectual property. JK Rowling owns the 'property'.. property meaning 
> the copyright of the book and its various licensing offspring. I don't own 
> it, RMS doesn't own it, only Rowling. What would you call it other than a 
> 'property'?
> 
> I agree with RMS on a lot of issues, this not being one of them.

Hmm - `property' has traditionally referred to physical
objects. Taking away my property leaves me with nothing.
This cannot be said about ideas, or anything that can be 
represented with electrons (books, software, digital
photographs).

What can be taken away by making copies is some of the 
ability to exploit an idea for money, and some control
over the idea.

Copyright protects creative work (books, software, digital
photographs), and patents and trademarks (in different ways)
give temporary(!) protection from competition.

Interestingly, while Rowling, whom you give as your example,
holds copyright on the five Harry Potter novels and two 
spin-offs, and she (or WB) have an HP trademark, the idea
of Potter - the /soi-disant/ Potterverse - is there for
anyone to use, and with the author's blessing. HP fan fiction,
instances of which number some tens of thousands, exists
with Rowling's blessing, as she enjoys the different development
given to `her' characters by thousands of readers. 
In taking this `property' from Rowling (something people
would be unable to do were there a Harry Potter patent ;^)
the books (and their profitability) remain undiminished.
Were someone to copy and sell the books themselves
(breaking copyright law), the books' profitability would
be damaged (though the books themselves would still sell).

If we go around calling patents, trademarks and copyright just
`property' it hides all of these differences, and makes it
easier for large corporations, and the politicians that 
they own, to criminalise the reasonable things that people
do with things that they /own/ - things that, ironically, 
they're free to do with other property that they purchase. :-/

 - Richard Smedley

--

``Say, for what were hop-yards meant
  Or why was Burton built on Trent?
  Oh many a peer of England brews
  Livelier liquor than the Muse,
  And malt does more than Milton can
  To justify God's ways to man''        - Housman