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

[Seth Johnson]

>From a quick, personally guided Google lesson, it seems to me
that non-exclusive rights provisions address certain rules
covering how licensing and certain relationships work.  If I
understand correctly, they basically mean that authors can assign
their (exclusive) rights in such a way as not to be exclusive to
the assignee.  "Exclusive rights" is still the basic enabling
language, and what I'm getting at isn't about how licensing
works, just about the fact the nature of the rights is statutory,
deriving from the same part of the Constitution as the Commerce
Clause.  I don't mind that there may be such details in the law;
it still remains that Congress accords whatever rights will be
exclusive to the author to start with.  If I understand,
"non-exclusive rights" are the product of a licensing
arrangement, and wouldn't that mean that they are the product of
a mutually consenting contract?  Whereas the rights that the
author starts out with, she can control without the consent of
the parties affected by her terms.

I'm not quite ready to say that "non-exclusive rights" agreements
are enough of a reason for me to stop pointing at the enabling
language as preferable over the term "intellectual property"

And isn't it in fact the case that the statutes that create the
rights refer to them as "exclusive rights," whereas provisions
about "non-exclusive rights" are really talking about how certain
license transfers of rights work?  For me, these are talking
about different things, and that doesn't quite seem enough of a
reason for the term "exclusive rights" to not serve as a good
general term.

I also think when you're thinking about negotiations among
interested parties, you tend to work with the conventions for how
licenses work as established, so the difference between exclusive
and non-exclusive is of more immediate concern, and it seems more
significant than it needs to be for a discussion of what kind of
policy is best in the big picture.

I hardly think I really understand the area you mention, but this
is the way I respond when I hear your comment.  I'll look into it
more, but for now I'm not sure I see enough reason to not use the
term.


Seth


James Love wrote:
> 
> The problem with the phrase "exclusive rights" is that intellectual
> property rights are not always exclusive.  Sometimes they are non-
> exclusive rights on remuneration.   Indeed, we sometimes prefer the
> latter.  Sometimes we don't.  Jamie
> 
> On Oct 21, 2005, at 12:49 AM, Richard M. Stallman wrote:
> 
> >     I have just found that "exclusive rights" enables me to transform
> >     discussions.  Even the behavior of those who continue to insist
> >     on using the term "intellectual property" very quickly becomes
> >     self-evidently spurious.
> >
> > I think you're saying that if you start by substituting the term
> > "exclusive rights" for "intellectual property", this makes it easy to
> > proceed subsequently to abandon the generalization of "exclusive
> > rights" for discussion of specific laws.  Am I right in understanding
> > it that way?
> >
> > If the method regularly achieves that goal, then it sounds good to me.
> > It would be interesting for others to try it in discussions, and
> > report on their results.
> > _______________________________________________
> > Upd-discuss mailing list
> > Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org
> > http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss
> >
> >
> 
> ---------------------------------
> James Love, CPTech / www.cptech.org / mailto:james.love@cptech.org /
> tel. +1.202.332.2670 / mobile +1.202.361.3040
> 
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