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

[Michael Hart]

The phrase "intellectual property" is here to stay, so go after the
meaning of the phase and the difference between that and properties
on whicy property tax, luxury tax, etc., are due.

Use the phrase "limited intellectual property" if you like, or make
up something else.

Of course, Stallman is missing the entire point with his distinction,
which is that the term "limited" is what is being challenged, not buy us,
but by the system, as propounded by WIPO and its parent, the United Nations.

Anyone who had any grasp of the future when the Internet first started
realized instantly that copying was going to become rather automatic.

Certainly WIPO realized it, why do you think they reorganized and renamed
themselves at the time and squeezed themselves into the United Nations.

The UN, as a protector of human rights, should never have let WIPO in,
as WIPO's major goal is the elimination of the greatest human right,
that of the public domain.

This is the forest. . .the rest is just a few trees here and there.


Michael S. Hart
Founder of Project Gutenberg
Perhaps the earliest Open Source Site


On Tue, 22 Feb 2005, Richard Smedley wrote:

> 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
>
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