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A Replacement Term for 'Intellectual Property'?
femto asks: "Every time I read the words 'intellectual property', I get peeved off. It is an oxymoron. A term loaded with invalid assumptions. To even use such words is an admission that intellect can be owned and controlled like a car, clothing or other thing made of atoms. Can anyone propose a replacement for the words 'Intellectual Property'? Something that implies intellect cannot be owned. Something that implies [what Jefferson once said]: 'He who lites his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.' Once we have this term, we need to get it accepted. Use it in publications. Cite these publications to get it in dictionaries. Get the term into everyday conversation and writing. So far, the best I have come up with is 'Intellectual Controls'. Can Slashdot come up with something better?"
Ours.
I assume you've seend .html
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoi
Personally, I find it easiest to call a spade a spade - if you're talking about patents, call them patents, copyrights copyrights etc. The default nature of information and ideas is free - look at the past 4000 years or so of science. The idea of saying "so and so is mine" or "only I'm allowed to do this" with respect to ideas is pretty new, to the best of my knowledge.
I don't think "intellectual controls" works well. "Intellectual property" is an intentionally dishonest term but only half the problem is with "property." Substitute your least favored pop culture expellers for my examples but I fail to see the "intellectual" property in the music of Britney Spears or a song like "I want to sex you up" by Five. If the assertion that much of what goes by the name of "intellectual property" is "property" is dishonest than the claim that it is "intellectual" is pretentious. Browse over to http://autopr0n.com and tell me if you think those copyrighted images are appealing to your intellect (they may be appealing but they are aimed at a different organ).
Stallman is mostly right when he rails against the conflation of copyright, patent and trademark law into "intellectual property." Right insofar as it is at best sloppy thinking to lump things together that are so dissimilar. Only partially right because the "intellectual property" field also includes things like publicity rights, right to privacy and moral rights. So if it isn't "intellectual property" or intellectual controls", what then? The most accurate term I can think of to cover most of this ground is "expression monopoly."
What copyright, patent and trademark have in common is that they all regulate who can use the expression of certain ideas. Copyright law assigns rights to who can make literal or derivative copies of a specific expression. Patents cover who can express an idea regardless of the the specific form. Trademarks are about who can use specific expressions in a commercial context.
The common denominator is the monopoly power granted by the government.* There are assertions in US law that patents aren't monopolies but it is safe to regard those claims as dishonest semantics (unless arguing before the dishonest judges who make the claims).
Even "expression monopoly" doesn't cover the ground perfectly. For example, moral rights have more to do with mandated expression rather than monopolized ones.
* For those (Americans) who insist on the "property" part of intellectual property, reread the copyright and trademark clause of the Constitution and tell us if there is any reason that Congress must grant authors a monopoly. I can see why the just compensation clause would prevent Congress from nullifying existing copyrights and patents but it would not be unconstitutional for the government could stop issuing new ones tomorrow. Unlike real property, "intellectual property" is a creation of the state and one which it is under no obligation to go on creating. When the government grants something that it is not obliged to, it is generally described as a privilege rather than a right.
I think it's very relevant because usage makes the language. I don't like this either, but it's a fact. I've observed the following instances of people fighting against this.
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ESR's attempts to reclaim the word "hacker" when (to the non computing public) it clearly includes "crackers." This is probably mostly do to the fact that they are the only ones doing anything that would appear interesting on a silver screen. Can you imagine a movie about kernel module development? I'll take Battlefiled Earth thank you. But I digress.
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Liberals true to the ideals set forth early in US history are quite different from Socialists, and in conversation they will point this out and attempt to reclaim the term, unsuccessfully for the most part.
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Bugs, to most people, seems to include any non-aquatic invertebrates that crawl. If you use the term around entomologists, you'll get a speech to the effect that "True bugs belong to the order Hemiptera" and they go on about leathery based hemelytra in much the same helpful and nourishing fashion as CdotZinger above.
The ugly fact these three observations have in common is that common usage adds meanings to words. In some cases these connotations are objectionable, and it doesn't seem at all unreasonable to look for new terms that lack the objectionable connotations.I consider patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets to be what I'm referring to when I say "IP." As such it's a very convenient term to use in conversation.
SCO and other large companies before them have attempted to add an additional, non-legal, but purportedly moral connotation to this term. They have been selling the public on the idea that they do in fact own "ideas." That this ownership is called "IP" and that it is their legal right. They are specifically selling the concept that if they do something first in their software, that every future piece of software that serves the same function is in part their "intellectual property." A term they use very much in the sense of "owned ideas" and not at all in the sense of "products primarily of the labor of the mind."
Even though he elsewhere acknowledges that the parts of Linux that were allegedly copied can be replaced, (thus eliminating the application of Copyright's derived works section), Blake Stowell (SCO spokesman) still maintains: "Linux could still be used; it just wouldn't be free," Stowell said. "These people are upset because they've been enjoying a free ride for some time. They're upset their free ride will potentially be gone."
So exactly what gives him the right to tax our cup of tea?
He doesn't have a patent on SMP. He won't have even have the desperately weak copyright claim 24 hours after the "offending code" gets published. He doesn't own the Trademark, and it's clearly not a Trade Secret.
He is convinced that we who use Linux owe him money based on this nebulous 5th category based on the principal of "idea ownership."
I think femto is very right to want his/her conversations to lack endorsement of this stupidity, and I wish him/her good luck in coming up with a good replacement. Till then when people refer to IP, I will gently and without a hint of corrective authority ask them to clarify which aspect of IP they are referring to, and we'll talk about it "long hand" until such time as someone answers femto's question with a catchy, Jefferson compatible, substitute.
Amazing. You make an excellent case for saying intellectual products , and then without even noticing, you immediately identify product = property .
"Area of the unit sphere = 4 \pi" is a product of Archimedes' intellect. Is it ipso facto "property", with all the connotations of the word in our ambiant ideology?
(Example of such connotations: trespassing your neighbor's property is a crime; in Swiss culture it is a right.)
So no, "Area = 4\pi" is not Archimedes' property. But he has an inalienable right to it, namely to be recognized as the author. What the French legal tradition calls Author's right (droit d'auteur).
Different name, different connotations. Thus for instance, being inalienably yours the author's right cannot be sold in French law. Compare the U.S., where the first thing publishers demand of aspiring songwriters is to sell them the copyright as part of the deal.
Which of course, is the very mechanism through which untalented businessmen end up thinking they own 20th century culture, or UNIX.
Note that this leaves open the question of what material rewards law may, or may not, be attached to Author's right. Certainly one may argue for a mechanism to compensate authors when their (recent) intellectual products are traded in books. Indeed French law has something to this effect.
But to immediately declare it's going to be treated as property, as part of the very grammar, is trumping the cards from the get go.
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
The assumption of unowned Intellectual Property is called (brace yourself): an idea. When it is associated with a person it is my idea or Jim's idea. If its useful then its a useful idea. OK, go ahead and start work on getting this magical wonder word introduced into the dictionary. I'll talk all the lawyers into changing all the IP law.
Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
You could call it "wild sex"!
"SCO sues IBM over wild sex"
"IBM wild sex brings in millions in revenue"
"Here, at CorporateAmerica, we value our wild sex.."
"Wild sex is an important lubricant of the computer business world"
"It is illegal to steal your employer's wild sex."
"After a while, some wild sex falls into public hands"
"Without wild sex, life as we know it could not exist."
"Ask Slashdot: I don't like people using wild sex. Is there something better than wild sex?" the answer: No.
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
Out of the depths came his last wail Precious, and he was gone.