Deconstructing Stupidity - Why is IP Policy Bad?

An anonymous reader writes "There is a good attempt on the Financial Times site by James Boyle to explain why intellectual property policy making is so bad. From the article: 'These are the ground rules of the information society. Mistakes hurt us.... Why are we making them? To some the answer is obvious: corporate capture of the decision making process. This is a nicely cynical conclusion. But wait. There are economic interests on both sides. The film and music industries are tiny compared to the consumer electronics industry.'"

Comments

choice quote:

[ShaniaTwain]

We extend protection retrospectively to dead authors, perhaps in the hope they will write from their tombs.

perhaps they arent writing because they don't have enough economic insentive on account of those filthy pirates? did you ever think of that you insensitive clod?

I've heard of ghost writers, but what about zombie writers?

Re:Money

[flyingsquid]

That's the way patent laywers think these days, they try to patent the whole world. I think its a flaw of the system, becuase these broad ones get passed with way too much. More than they deserve.

Actually, I did patent the entire world. Read US Patent Number 5,764,932: "Method for an inhabited world".

ABSTRACT

A method and system for an inhabited world. The "world" consists of a large (~12000km diameter) spheroid of rock. The method for production involves accretion from many small planetesimals. The inhabited world has a molten interior, or core, and a hardened exterior, or crust. Approximately 75% of the crust is covered by highly saline water. A gaseous layer composed of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, .9% argon and various trace gases is present. Bacteria, plants and animals inhabit the upper layers. The system for producing these organisms involves adding large amounts of organic compounds to water and allowing them to undergo evolution via "Natural Selection"(patent pending) for 4 billion years.

...naturally, I'm going to be expecting royalty checks from every individual who makes use of my novel "world" concept. If you don't like that, just go live in an orbital colony or a Dyson sphere. Plus, I'm going to sue this "God" character for patent infringment- I really have no choice but to defend my intellectual property. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go patent the neutron.