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

[Richard Stallman]

    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'?

"A copyright", perhaps?  Why not?

Calling it "a property" wouldn't be a falsehood, but would be an
error.  That term leads people to look at the issue from Rowling's
point of view.  Not the real Rowling's real point of view, rather an
imaginary greedy Rowling's imaginary point of view.  That would lead
them to support the publishers' demands for making copyright as strict
as possible.

If this is not your aim, you'd be better off chosing another way
to talk about this situation.

Alan Story wrote:

    >Yes, we may not like the term "intellectual property" and we can certainly
    >agree that the propertiness of IP is very different from the propertiness of
    >a piece of land or your toothbrush, but to say that they are not really
    >property rights is, in my view, simply not accurate.

This is true, but it doesn't relate to my point.  I am not saying it
is *false* to refer to copyright as "intellectual property".  I am
saying that the term is biased and encourages overgeneralization.

Calling copyright "intellectual property" is not false, but use of the
term "intellectual property" leads people to say things that are
false.  For instance, the similarities between copyright and patents
that Story lists do not apply to all kinds of "intellectual
property"--for instance, they do not apply to trademarks.  If you turn
these points into statements about "intellectual property", some would
be false.

In any case, these points are so general that they don't relate to
the specific practical issues of copyright or patent policy.

Even within one area, such as patents, trying to be general means
missing the important issues.  For instance, patents today are
controversial in three areas: drugs, seeds, and software.  The three
issues of drug patents, seed patents and software patents are
completely different in nature.