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

[michael.davis@law.csuohio.edu]

Richard Stallman apparently wrote:

>> Accepting the term "intellectual property" is the path to defeat.
>
>

That's a bit much, even for Richard. Much as I agree with many of
Richard's positions, and with his objection to the term intellectual
property, I hardly think that the term is the path to defeat. The path to
defeat can be found just by backtracking, and it involved a lot more than
a term, as loaded, propagandistic, and misleading as that term is.

Michael Hart wrote:

> I'm going for human nature, that one is hard enough.
>

If that's your salvation, be prepared to suffer the same defeat over and
over again, along with Richard.

The forces allied against us are almost insuperable. They are funded with
unlimited resources. They will almost certainly win this and every other
battle in which they engage.


The only hope, and a pitifully slim one at that, is that the undeveloped
world, whose potential is surprisingly greater than that of the IP
industry, but whose organization is dwarfed by it, might still organize to
either defy or repeal TRIPS. All those who work along the edges, including
some in UPD, gaining a foot while losing a mile, are basically selling
out. The enemy is not one phrase, but everything captured within TRIPS; or
to put it another way: The IP industry would willingly give up the term
intellectual property if they could be sure that TRIPS was absolutely
secure. It is not the phrase, but the substance, they value and as long as
TRIPS exists, phraseology will not win the day.