Is IP Property?

An anonymous reader writes "In a recent article, Stanford Law Professor Mark Lemley argues that intellectual property is not 'property' in the traditional sense. According to Lemley, while 'free riding' off of someone else's land or other physical property rights is always undesirable, freely benefitting from someone else's intellectual property rights is often the best way to form a free and creative society. Lemley's distinction also points to the unusual fact that in IP, traditional liberals are often calling for less and less government, while conservatives demand regulation in order to protect their exclusive right to use their intellectual creations."

Comments

I think no

[Ckwop]

Lemley's distinction also points to the unusual fact that in IP, traditional liberals are often calling for less and less government, while conservatives demand regulation in order to protect their exclusive right to use their intellectual creations.

I don't think this is all that suprising. Conservatives believe what's good for the corporations is good for everyone. Liberals believe that what is good for the people is good for everyone. Strong IP laws favour the big companies - weak IP laws favour the little guy more.

IP isn't property. It never has and never will be. For example, A granted patent isn't valid if there's prior art. How could you apply that principle to say the ownership of a car? I don't think you can. I can smash, steal, set fire to or urinate on a car - I can't do any of these things with a patent! When patent infringement occurs it isn't even stealing in the traditional sense. When someone steal something wealth is transfered atomically. When infringement occurs wealth can be diverted (and that's a dodgy word) away from the patent holder but it's never a transfer from the patent holder directly to the infringer. It's just not correct to call IP property in the traditional sense of the word.

Simon.

Re:I think no

[Phixxr]

Bring that patent over here... I'll smash, steal, set fire to and urinate on it... _Phixxr :)

Re:I think no

[JWW]

Yeah, I sure know that my senator, minority leader Tom Daschle would never propose bad IP laws, being the good liberal that he is. ... Oh wait, hes a co-sponsor of the INCUCE act which would make any device even capable of infringing on copyright illegal.

Yep, those liberals, they never support strict IP laws.

I hate it when broad brush generalities are used like this. It always seems like the distinction is being made to justify that the person making the statement belongs to the "correct" party. In the case of IP laws if you really want to show you want fewer of them your voter registration should be Libertarian....

Re:I think no

[Rei]

Generalties *are* relevant, however.

Check out the 8 worst internet laws. Of the 93 worst offenders, only 18 were democrats. Only 2 were in the top 25.

If you really want to show that you want fewer of them, go vote Libertarian (assuming that you support all forms of deregulation among businesses and want to work for the "eventual repeal of all taxes" (if I'm remembering the official party platform plank's wording properly) as well). If you want to show that you want fewer of them and don't support that other stuff, vote Green.

However, if you want to *make* there be fewer of them, go vote Democrat. Me? I'm a pragmatist. You're free to be idealists if you so choose.

Re:I think no

[Ryvar]

The voting records of House/Senate Democrats and Republicans are equally horrifying - both are clearly sold out to big media in an all-too-sharp commentary on the current status of bribing (known as 'lobbying') lawmakers in America.

Where the article writeup is probably a little more correct is amongst the constituencies of these supposed representatives - most of the liberal people I've met both in the real world and online have been passionately against IP laws in their current form, even the musicians and the game developers. I can't say the same thing for many of my conservative friends - with some notable exceptions.

The point is - it may be true that there is something resembling a liberal/conservative divide on IP laws amongst the general populace (there are quite a few exceptions, as with everything - I'm a pro-gun liberal, a friend of mine is an anti-IP conservative) but that this stance has yet to be really reflected by either party's legislative representatives, both of which are having their pockets lined by the corporations. There's no profit for the representatives in actually, *gasp*, representing their constituency (you have to really screw up badly in order to get voted out), and so they don't.

--Ryv

Re:I think no

[maxpublic]

If this is true, then the Republicans aren't even close to being conservative. The government has *increased* in size since Bush took office, and we now have the largest deficit in U.S. history. A true conservative is also FISCALLY conservative, which the Republicans are not. In fact, it seems they're even worse at wasting tax money than the Democrats now.

A real conservative under your definition would be, I think, a libertarian.

Max

Re:I think no

[GOD_ALMIGHTY]

That's an utterly crap explanation. Conservatives have a literal interpretation of the Constitution to match their literal interpretation of the Bible. The Liberals have an interpretation based on the principles and ideology of the Constitution to match their spiritual, running throught the fields interprative dance ideology of religion (or lack thereof).

Ultimately, the current "Conservative" movement in America represents a cultural movement rather than a coherent political ideology, in other words, Intellectual Conservatism is dead. Liberals however, have recast themselves as Progressives to avoid association with the self-marginalizing far-left. The far-left is about as unintellectual as the far-right these days, both seem to be driven by moral worldviews than valid political ideology. The moderates on the Conservative side, those that still retain an actual political ideology, have been marginalized by culturally motivated groups like the Christian Coalition. The moderates on the Liberal side, after watching the far-left self-marginalize, now dominate the Left and only have to worry about the far-left getting too much voice while they fight off the far-right. Meanwhile, the moderate right is sitting on it's ass, still in complete denial that it has been marginalized by loonies.

I'm sure someone will consider this flaimbait or nonsense, but it's a hell of a lot more accurate than the parent.

Re:I think no

[Bingo Foo]

Those of us who are more nuanced prefer to call the two major parties "the Statist Party" and "the statist party."

Re:I think no

[Rei]

Substitute the word "conservative" for "liberal", and the post is equally valid. In fact, the best-phrased post would simply substitute "human" for "liberal", as:

"Most humans refuse to believe that there might be more approaches to solving a problem than the one they happen to favor, or that solving a particular problem simply isn't possible in the manner they wish to pursue. Or, at times, that their "solution" may do more harm than good."

Re:I think no

[jc42]

At least with strong IP laws ... the little guy will get paid under the law.

Hmm ... In my business (software development), this doesn't seem to be the way it works. In my hobby (music), it doesn't seem to work that way, either.

With software, if I want a paycheck, I have to agree that all rights to everything I write belong to my employer. When the job is done (Is it ever done? ;-), I'm laid off, the employer sells the software, and I get nothing further. If I don't like this, well, I don't have to work there. But all other employers require the same contract, so if I don't sign over all my rights, I don't have a job.

With music, if I want my work to be heard through any of the traditional distribution media, I must sign an "industry standard" contract that gives all rights to my music to the company that handles the recording and distribution. They claim to pay a royalty, but they deduct all their costs from this, so in fact I can't make any money at all unless I'm one of the top 3 or 4 sellers in the Market. If I don't like this, I don't have to sign, but then nobody will ever hear me.

In both cases, the Internet is the core of a pending big shakeup. With software and music, I can put it online, and then people can use it. I don't make much money this way, but at least someone will see/hear my stuff. And people do tend to want things like hard copy, new features, support, live bands, etc., and if I've made a name for myself, I can charge for these things without sharing the money with a corporation.

We really haven't figured out a good way to reward inventors and innovators. We have figured out a way to allow corporations to claim everything produced by the actual creators. Those corporations understand that it's in their interest to have a few showcase examples of people who "made it big", so they pick a handful of creators to publicly reward. This system fails badly for the overwhelming majority of the creators.

The best solution so far seems to be in the sciences, where we have a tradition that knowledge must be published openly for everyone to use. This doesn't itself give income; it gives reputation. But there is no "Intellectual Property", and the scientific community has developed ways to translate reputation into grants and salaries for most of the people involved. Few people strike it rich, but a lot of people make a good life for themselves and their family.

Music hasn't been able to do this. Software has succeeded to some extent, but there's no job security, most of us work anonymously, and the future doesn't look any better right now.

It's possible that the Internet can materially change this, by making the scientists' approach work for others (such as programmers and musicians). It's also possible that the IP fight will fail, and we'll all have to pull our own music and software off the Net because it's all covered by patents owned by corporations. Or Bill Gates will succeed in owning the Internet, and everything we put there will become his property (as happens now if msn.com is your ISP).

Stick around and watch ...

Re:I think no

[swillden]

the artists often get 15 cents on the dollar.

Not true.

Although artists' contracts usually state royalty rates of between 15% and 18%, few artists working with big labels get anywhere near that much. The labels employ all sorts of tricks to keep the actual royalty rate down. Little things like arbitrarily reducing the sales figures by 10% before beginning to calculate royalties. How do they justify that? Well, back before the advent of vinyl records, music was distributed on records made of fragile shellac, many of which broke en-route to the stores. Since it was too much trouble to work out exactly how many broke, they arbitrarily called it 10%. In 2004, CDs are subject to the same "breakage" reduction. How many do you think actually break?

And that's just the beginning. The labels generally recoup nearly all of the advertising and marketing expenses from the band's royalties, as well as any and all advances, recording expenses, legal fees, and anything else they can think of. Some of that is reasonable, much is not.

My favorite trick though is the simplest one: Often, after the labels take out every penny they can justify, they look at the total royalties due the band and only pay part of it. The rest? "Settle on audit" is the operative phrase. The only way the band will see that money is if they hire an auditor firm to analyze the figures and formally dispute the royalty payments. Labels sometimes even intentionally make the auditors' jobs hard by providing all of the reports on paper, not electronically, out of order, and mixed in with other stuff. This way the auditors' fees discourage bands from auditing the records. Tens of thousands of auditor fee dollars later, the auditors will have compiled their version of what the band should have been paid. The label will then negotiate a settlement. At the end of it all, the band will get most of the royalties they're due -- after breakage, recoupment, etc., of course.

Most bands that put out a CD never see one thin dime in royalties. Most successful bands net 10% or even less.

Re:I think no

[Fnkmaster]

Stop this misleading claptrap. There was no meaningful opposition from either party to these bills. Clinton didn't push them through, and a veto would have been fairly pointless and pretty much unprecedented, as the DMCA was passed UNANIMOUSLY in the Senate (don't know about the House vote). Presidents don't generally stand up and oppose unanimous legislation, going against both their own party and the opposition. Don't get me wrong, I think if he knew what it really said and understood the consequences to personal freedoms and fair use rights, he absolutely should have vetoed it and made a big stink. But don't blame this one on Clinton, the President doesn't always study the detail of every piece of legislation he signs into law, and is far more likely to do so when it seems controversial (which clearly the DMCA didn't seem at the time).

Now the Sonny Bono copyright extension act didn't pass unanimously, and was obviously more controversial. However, it still passed by well over a 2/3rds margin and thus was probably unvetoable.

Also remember the power of the veto was never meant to be overused. Clinton picked and chose his veto battles carefully. And he learned his lesson with vetoes too, as I remember, several times he vetoed bills only to have slightly different legislation passed repeatedly until he signed it (I don't know if he ever actually had a veto overturned). So blaming Clinton for the DMCA and Sonny Bono? I won't say he did enough to prevent them, but I also don't think it's fair to point the finger first, second or even third at him.

The only reason Bush hasn't passed more of these sorts of bills is because the Republicans already pushed most of them through during Clinton's second term when they had the House and the Senate more cleanly under their control, if I remember correctly. Bush has however presided over some real civil liberties gems, like the PATRIOT Act.

Not buying it.

[nate1138]

I'm not buying the liberal/conservative bit. Wasn't Clinton's administration responsible for bringing us the DMCA?

Silly

[pyth]

That's not really true. There are plenty of Liberals who support Intellectual Property, and plenty of Conservatives who do not.

Use any definitions you like, but the distinction between Left and Right is moot for IP.

WTF?!?!

[zulux]

Lemley's distinction also points to the unusual fact that in IP, traditional liberals are often calling for less and less government, while conservatives demand regulation in order to protect their exclusive right to use their intellectual creations."


Let's get this correct: True Liberals and true conservitives, both, want less regulation - or alt least, reasonable balances between the public-domain and free enterprise.

It's the self-serving politicians that want more regulation - regardless of their labels.

Remember: it took both a Republican house/senate and a Democrat president to pass DMCA and idea-monopoly extensions (read copyright extensions)

Remember: it was Democrat politicians that were pushing for the v-chip and music labels.

Remember: it was Republican politicians that were being bought by Disney.

Both parties suck.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

the whole IP issue is invalid

[Anonymous Coward]

The owners of copyrighted material often say they suffer "harm" and "economic loss" resulting from illegal copying. Like most arguments put forth by copyright enthusiasts, it holds little water - for several reasons:

The claim is mostly inaccurate because it presupposes that the copying individual would otherwise have bought a copy from the publisher. That is occasionally true, but more often false; and when it is false, the claimed loss does not occur.

The claim is partly misleading because the word "loss" suggests events of a very different nature--events in which something they have is taken away from them. For example, if the bookstore's stock of books were burned, or if the money in the register got torn up, that would really be a "loss." We generally agree it is wrong to do these things to other people. But when your friend avoids the need to buy a copy of a book, the bookstore and the publisher do not lose anything they had. A more fitting description would be that the bookstore and publisher get less income than they might have got. The same consequence can result if your friend decides to play bridge instead of reading a book. In a free market system, no business is entitled to cry "foul" just because a potential customer chooses not to deal with them.

The claim is begging the question because the idea of "loss" is based on the assumption that the publisher "should have" got paid. That is based on the assumption that copyright exists and prohibits individual copying. But that is just the issue at hand: what should copyright cover? If the public decides it can share copies, then the publisher is not entitled to expect to be paid for each copy, and so cannot claim there is a "loss" when it is not. In other words, the "loss" comes from the copyright system; it is not an inherent part of copying. Copying in itself hurts no one.

Philosophical v. practical origins of IP law

[lothar97]

This is indeed the Big Question in IP law. I'm an IP attorney myself. I still have my favorite textbook by my desk: "Intellectual Property in the New Technological Age" (1997 edition). The introduction to the book gives 3 philosophical approaches to IP law.

The Natural Rights Perspective. This section quotes John Locke's Two Treatises on Government, in which he writes:

For this "labour" being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what this is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others.

The Personhood Perspective. This section quotes Markaret Jane Radin's Stanford Law Review Article entitled "Property and Personhood." (34 Stan. L. Rev. 957 (1982):

One may guage the strenght or significance of someone's relationship with an object by the kind of pain that would be occasioned by its loss. On this view, an object is closely related to one's personhood if its loss causes pain that cannot be relieved by the object's replacement. ... If a wedding ring is stolen from a jeweler, insurance proceeds can reimburse the jeweler, but if a wedding ring is stolen from a loving wearer, the price of replacement will not restore the status quo.

This section also quotes Hagel:

The person has for its substantive end the right of placing its will in any and every thing, which thing is thereby mine; [and] because that thing has no such end in itself, its destiny and soul take on my will. [This consitutes] mankind's absolute right of appropriation over all things.

The Utilitarian/Economic Incentive Perspective.This book covers a few articles/comments here, and gives this summation:

Thus the economic justification for intellectual property [in the US] lies not in rewarding creators for their labor, but in assuring that they (and their creators) have appropriate incentives in creative activities.

Not wanting to re-read the entire book, I remember the following. The origins of all IP dates back to ol' England, when the King granted rights to produce something exclusively (and pay the King money). This became patent law. Trademarks arose in a similar style, the exclusive right to mark a product's source (in exchange for paying money to the King). Trademarks became a lot more important during the industrial revolution. Until then, people would buy generic products from their local market/seller. As goods were transported distances, they needed some sort of identification so that people could recognize them. I forget where copyright comes from (I'm a trademark and patent guy). Basically, the origins of IP law were a method for the King to tax producers, who then could make exclusive money on their goods/products.

Correction:

[Rei]

Sorry, posted the wrong link. It should be this.

Not buying it

[Experiment 626]

"...in IP, traditional liberals are often calling for less and less government, while conservatives demand regulation in order to protect their exclusive right to use their intellectual creations."

Hollywood must be quite the bastion of conservatism, they way the MPAA is fighting for stronger IP laws. And it is also interesting to hear that the Right has strong conservatives like Fritz Hollings (D-Disney) and Bill Clinton (signer of DMCA and Copyright Extention Act) on their side.

Interesting theory, but no. On this issue, there are good guys and bad guys on both side of the aisle, and which position they take has more to do with who they represent and where they get their funding than how conservative or liberal they are.

those statistics don't tell everything

[Trepidity]

The single worst offender of the past 15 years on internet laws has been a Democrat: President Bill Clinton, who signed into law the Sonny Bono copyright extension, the DMCA, and the CDA. He was the single person in the best position to stop these laws, and he signed them into law.

As a pragmatist, this makes me wary of electing Democratic candidates until I see evidence that they plan to stand up for my civil liberties.

Oddly enough, the only person I've seen stringently taking a stand for online civil liberties is that old conservative Republican with whom I disagree on just about all other issues, Jesse Helms.

Re:Removing motivation to create innovative IP

[renehollan]

What a lot of people who take this kind of position often don't realize is the fact that treating IP as property, and protecting peoples' rights to those properties, is what provides the motivation for many of people to be so creative and to pour themselves into their work.

So, the decendents of Og, inventor of the wheel, should receive royalties from everyone who rides, drives, pushes, or pulls devices with "circular freely rotating attachments designed to facilitate movement"? In perpetuity?

Somehow, that strikes me as absurd.

Yes, developing ideas takes effort, and that effort is more likely to be expended if the ideas can be leveraged to produce income, and correspondingly, the source of that income stream protected. Thus, the notion of ideas as property, with the notion of owners, is born.

But, how does one protect one's property? Did Og kill others who also made wheels? Or, did he just smash their "copies"? Perhaps he traded some fur skins, or free wheels he made to bigger, meaner cave-persons to do that for him. In any case, protecting property takes effort and has a cost associated with it.

The trouble with existing laws that provide for the protection of property is the cost of enforcement is borne by all members of society via the taxes they pay and is not directly related to the value of the property so protected. Yes, income taxes are progressive, and physical property taxes are proportional to the value of the physical property, but how does one (a) value ideas, and (b) account for the ease with which they can be used by others (and conversely, the difficult to prevent such use)?

One can keep an idea secret. Perhaps the idea behind the physical manifestation of its application is not obvious (i.e. "my" wheels have roller-bearings between the bodyu and axle that you can't see). But, increasingly, ideas have the greatest value when they can be applied far and wide, to the benefit of the most people, and, in retrospect, are either "obvious", or easily reapplied (software is a perfect example of the latter, being in between an algorithm and an execution thereof). Keeping them secret reduces their potential value.

In a free world, ideas would be secret unless licensed, subject to agreed-upon terms (including, obviously keeping the secret) at a cost that, amount other things, pays for enforcement of the contract, if necessary. This, however, does not scale well. Furthermore, the damage that can be done by one individual breaking the secret can far exceed whatever one could recover from them. While the notion of ideas subject to conditions regarding their use is not a problem, morally enforcing those conditions against those who have not agreed to them is. We need a notion that is so widely accepted, that there is no question that enforcement can be morally applied. "Property" is one such notion. We respect the property of others even though we may not have contracted explicitly to do so. We do this either because we think it is right, or because enough others do that they fund the enforcement of the notion. While a contractarian may have a problem with this "implied agreement", it is easy to show that acceptance can be tied to permission granted to use non-private shared resources: i.e. if you steal, you can't move around in the places you don't own (public roads), and because you broke that deal (having previously used the road to come and rob someone), we'll lock you up. Not only is that effective, someone in jail can't continue their theft spree. (Of course, incarceration carries it's own costs).

So, the notion if "intellectual property" is an easy one to grasp and accept -- no widespread riots opposing it (though, the widespread use of P2P techniques to share copyright music is an interesting form of civil disobedience). We can pay the state to enforce copyrights, patents, and trademarks, at least as far as criminal infringement goes.

The problem however, is, again, that the cost of this enforcement, is not borne in proprotion to the in

intellectual property is artificial

[maxpublic]

It isn't absolute. Absolute property is defined by being physical property, unique and in your possession. No one can deny the existence of that property, although they may deny your continued ownership of it (communists, thieves).

Intellectual property is artificial. It doesn't exist in the real world. It exists only because we allow it to exist, and (currently, at least) grant it the status of absolute property, supposedly for a certain limited period of time. Under the Constitution, the ONLY reason for the existence of artificial property is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries". Nowhere in the Constitution does it mention that copyright is to be used as an absolute guarrantee of profit, nor does it say anywhere that anyone has a right to profit. Profit doesn't enter the equation, except indirectly, by allowing an inventor or creator time to ATTEMPT to make a profit, if he or she so desires.

All arguments concerning copyright and the 'right' to profit are pure bullshit. The Constitution never mentions a right to profit, or the right to make a profit from copyrighted materials. That right doesn't exist. Many people here and elsewhere seem to (deliberately) be confusing copyright with a right to profit that does not, and never has, existed. That includes profit which is dressed up in the doublespeak known as 'lost sales'.

The sole purpose of copyright is to spur development by allowing an inventor or creator a LIMITED AMOUNT OF TIME to get the jump on potential competitors. Current copyright laws, while they may fulfill the technical definition of 'limited', are ridiculously long. The copyright has been extended several times to keep works of art which belong to certain powerful corporations out of the public domain, and for no other reason. This directly contradicts the purpose of copyright as defined by the Constitution, even if it doesn't violate the letter of the law. But it seems that the purpose of a law means little these days, and it's only the actual wording that counts in court.

It's rather clear that extending copyright to an absurd extreme does nothing whatsoever for the public welfare, and is designed solely to protect the profits of a few vested interests with the ability to buy Congressmen through bribes (colloquially known as 'campaign contributions' or 'a weekend in Tahiti with a teenage hooker'). But it's gone even farther than this, in that copyright laws are being used to prop up outdated business models in the face of advancing technology, an attempt to put a halt to that technology altogether. Copyright laws are being used as a weapon AGAINST innovation in a vicious, winner-take-all fashion. If the RIAA, MPAA, Disney et. al. have their way a number of new technologies would be banned from the United States altogether.

That's what the most serious issue is. It isn't about a 'right' to profit, which doesn't exist, and it isn't about the 'rights' of authors or musicians or movie makers, who only have the rights we feel like granting them when it comes to artificial property (re the Constitution). The biggest issue is that current vested interests are using whatever weapons they have at their disposal (or 'encouraging' Congress to create new ones) to slow down or put a complete halt to a variety of new technologies. They are, in fact, doing their very best to cripple innovation and impose a form of stasis over the entire American economy (with the help of a whole lot of other businesses who are doing the same thing by abusing the patent system) so that they'll remain at the top of heap, forever, secure that the government will destroy their competition for them.

Whether or not you happen to agree with free market principles (I'm a libertarian, so you can guess my take on this whole sorry business), the only logical outcome of this tangled mess is that America will no longer be a leader in technologica

Lemley's Retarded Reasoning

[querencia]

Lemley makes the grand mistake (made so often by people arguing for an "IP-free state") of making this statement:

In a market econonomy, we care only that producers make enough return to cover their costs, including a reasonable profit . . . . so long as the price stays above marginal cost producers will still make the good."

This is true for a mature product. But we're talking about invention, which implies innovation, which implies risk.

Lemley uses the example of a copy of "Hamlet". If the actual production cost of the book is $5.00, how much should a producer be allowed to make? What is a fair profit? 20%?

Now, say that the product isn't a book. Let's say it's a pill for cancer patients. The pill costs $0.30 to produce (that is the "marginal cost"). Still think 20% is okay?

Lemley would ignore the fact that this company spent billions of dollars on the research that led to the cure, in addition to billions of dolloars on ongoing research that never leads to a cure. How do they afford this? They have shareholders who are willing to take a risk: let's spend billions of dollars, and maybe we can get a return on our investment. Lemley says that "rent ['unfair' profit] seeking behavior" is "socially wasteful." Nothing could be further from the truth. Rent-seeking behaviour is the essence of entrepreneurship, and it is the very behavior we should encourage.

The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward that is required to make entrepreneurs take that risk. Any academic who uses the rhetoric of "covering costs, plus a fair profit" should be summarily ignored. Entrepreneurs do not take giant risks and invest in the creation of world-changing technology for "a fair profit."

The stuff you create, whether physical or intellectual, should be yours, and you should be able to do what you want with it, at least for some period of time. If it is in your interest to release your property under the GPL (as it most certainly is for some companies and their software assets), you should be able to do it. If you want to be the Grinch and stuff it under your mattress, you should be able to do that, too. For the good of the world and everyone in it, entrepreneurs should be allowed and encouraged to seek profit. And "zero-sum", "profit is wasteful", "you-should-only-have-'fair'-profit" academics like Lemley should be dismissed.

Thomas Jefferson's opinion

[Anita Coney]

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself, but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it.

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breath, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.

Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."

Makes sense to me!