Royal Society Issues IP Charter

An anonymous reader writes "The Economist and the Guardian both have stories about the release of the Adelphi Charter – an international blueprint for how intellectual property should be made – by Britain's Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce. The Economist says “The Adelphi group are a varied crew ranging from Gilberto Gil, the Brazilian culture minister (and pop star) to Sir John Sulston, a Nobel-winning scientist who helped decode the human genome, and James Boyle, a law professor at Duke University. They believe that the intellectual-property system is starting to lean so far in favor of private enrichment that it no longer serves the public interest.” The charter calls for evidence-based policy, and a balance between rights protection and the public domain. It also condemns business method and software patents."

Comments

In other news....

[russotto]

...top mice vote to bell cat.

Perhaps the first thing that they patent...

[TooMuchEspressoGuy]

...should be the MI6 website?

Hey, even international spies need IP...

Re:Fatalism

[TheGavster]

I wonder how frequently I would need to mail $100 bills with "Repeal the DMCA" on them to my congresspersons before they would do something ...

Re:I challenge ...

[ErikTheRed]

I challenge ... every slashdotter to make 1000 copies of the Adelphi Charter and deliver them to random letterboxes in his/her neighbourhood.

In the US this will get you thrown in jail. The US Postal (mis/dis)Service jealously guards its monopoly on putting junk in people's mailboxes.

Re:Gilberto Gil, biopiracy, and Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

From the Gilberto Gil article:

The two worlds of Gil's music and his politics merged most closely when he announced that he would license some of his own songs for free downloading. Time Warner, which owned the licences in question, quickly announced that, actually, he would not. "That showed me how difficult the situation is," he says. "An author is not the owner anymore. He doesn't exercise his rights. His rights are exercised by someone else, and sometimes the two don't coincide."

Mr. Gil sure is lucky Time Warner is looking after the artists' interests. He almost threw away his motivation to make another album.

Re:Fatalism

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, but we can find out how long it takes to repeal the DMCA by mailing me $100 bills on a continual basis!

Bravo!

[KwKSilver]

Brilliant. You have hit the nail squarely on the head. It would require TRM devices (Trusted Receipe Monitors, i.e. odor detectors) in every room of every house to ensure patent holders are properly compensated--even for microwave dinners. One can almost see it now, when the FLIAA (Food Liscensing Investigating Association Agency) lawyer-goon says, "Sorry, Senator Lardbottom, your daughter copied a chili dog without a liscence. That'll cost you $30,000.00."

Re:Fatalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Ozzy Osbourne!