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

[Michael Hart]

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On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 Sigmascape1@cs.com wrote:

> I prefer to use Intellectual Property. It is accepted in the world of 
> commerce, but I do understand why the phrase is potentially misleading. I 
> also have decided that in certain circumstances, the term 'franchise' can be 
> used to describe 'ownership' of certain media, such as my example of JK 
> Rowling and Harry Potter. Franchise does provide a wide-ranging description

However, you can sell a franchise without selling the IP. . . .


> -----> JK Rowling owns the Harry Potter Franchise ------> JK Rowling does not 
> own boys who grow up to be wizards (as a concept).
>
> Mitch
>
>
> Tim Hubbard <th@sanger.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> At 8:55 am -0500 24/2/05, Richard Stallman wrote:
>>>     I agree the term is not perfect, and possibly even misleading for
>>>     certain things, but I don't know what else to call it.
>>>
>>> If you really want to speak of copyrights, patents, trademarks,
>>> perhaps trade secrets or perhaps not, and miscellaneous other laws,
>>> all as if they were a single thing you could call "it", then you would
>>> need either the term "intellectual property" or one of the various
>>> replacements people have suggested (such as "intellectual
>>> monopolies").
>>>
>>> However, once you shrug off the influence of the term "intellectual
>>> property", you will find that you rarely want to speak of this "it".
>>> These laws are very different and have a little general aspect in
>>> common.  The term "intellectual property" focuses attention on the
>>> common aspect and away from the specifics.  The use of that term is
>>> the main reason why anyone would think of trying to lump copyright,
>>> patents, trademarks and other things together.  Once you stop using
>>> "it", the question of how to speak about "it" won't come up much.
>>
>> I'm with Richard on this one.  You may use IP as a collective term,
>> but the word 'property' associates in peoples minds these industrial
>> regulations with the idea of ownership.  I like to quote 'Originality
>> is undetected plagiarism' - a bit extreme perhaps, but once you
>> invoke the idea of ownership people forget that ideas are built on
>> ideas.  The fact that this term has been adopted so strongly smells
>> like social engineering to condition us to believe that ideas should
>> be ownable.
>>
>> Tim
>> --
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Dr Tim Hubbard                      email: th@sanger.ac.uk
>> Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute     Tel (direct): +44 1223 494983
>> Wellcome Trust Genome Campus        Tel (switch): +44 1223 834244
>> Hinxton                             Fax: +44 1223 494919
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>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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