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Royal Society Issues IP Charter

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the things-that-could-use-a-little-spit-polish dept.

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."

6 of 250 comments (clear)

  1. Cue Idiot Who Doesn't Understand Libertarians by Shihar · · Score: 4, Informative

    No offense, but you have absolutely no clue in the world what in the hell you are talking about. Go do a Google search with "libertarian intellectual property". Now before you post anything else, read a few of the hits you get.

    Oh... what is this? It turns out that libertarians actually fall somewhere between against IP laws or vaguely in favor of weakened IP laws. I know that +1 insightful karma tastes wonderful, as you did manage to throw in a bunch of libertarian buzz words combined with IP law and disparaging remarks, but you can do it without posting in complete ignorance.

    The libertarian position in IP law is weak at best. They do NOT have a universal stance on the issue. Libertarians do NOT like the idea of a government enforced monopoly via IP laws. Only the utility of IP laws has led some libertarians to abandon the extreme position of no IP laws at all to favor something more limited. In other words, your average libertarian is more likely somewhere left of your average democrat on the issue. The most pro-IP law libertarians are moderates at best.

    So, thanks for your ignorance. It really livened up my day. Hey, how about you make a post showing that libertarians are pro-war and how they love drug laws. I bet you can score another insightful post off that ignorant bullshit too.

  2. Gilberto Gil, biopiracy, and Brazil by wwwrench · · Score: 5, Informative

    Gilberto Gil is a pretty interesting guy. A few days ago, the guardian had this pretty interesting article about him, which talks a bit about Brazil's stance on free software. What is going on in Brazil is pretty interesting, also in terms of patents on food. For example there was a huge outcry after a Japanese firm patented a modification of the delicious cupuaçu fruit. The term "biopiracy" is part of popular language over there.

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    Deconstruct the State
  3. Misleading Title (as ever) by 2008 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Royal Society* is an organisation that promotes UK science, The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce is different.

    *Yes, they should call themselves The Royal Society of Britain or something else a bit more specific to prevent confusion like this.

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    I quit!
    1. Re:Misleading Title (as ever) by sane? · · Score: 2, Informative

      They do, they call themselves the Royal Society of Arts (, Manufactures and Commerce) or RSA. Its an accident of history that the Royal Society isn't called the Royal Society of Science but since both organisations have been going for over two hundred years I don't think things are going to change now.

  4. UK developments WRT software patents are amazing! by FlorianMueller · · Score: 4, Informative
    About a year ago, someone talked to me about some ideas he had for campaigning against software patents in the UK. He saw my NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign and wanted to do something like that specifically for the UK, not primarily on the Web but in political/lobbying terms. At the time, I was so pessimistic that I honestly told him I viewed the UK as a strategically lost position for us: They had those key pro-swpat MEPs (Harbour on the right wing, McCarthy on the left wing), a radically pro-swpat government, a national patent office that used tax money to promote the idea of software patents, and case law that upheld some really bad software patents (almost as bad as that of the in-house courts of the European Patent Office).

    In the meantime, there has been remarkable progress on most of those fronts. The two individuals who deserve most of the credit on the campaigning and lobbying side are Rufus Pollock and Gavin Hill of the FFII UK. Gavin is the "someone" who contacted me last year. In fact, that contact resulted from a slashdot discussion. And in parallel to the political stuff, we've now seen some really good rulings by Judge Prescott of the High Court of England and Wales who has already invalidated a few software patents.

    Someone said in this thread that people should make suggestions for how to make political decision-makers more aware. Here's a suggestion:
    Vote Against Software Patents / Vote For Your Right To Program

    We're doing this online campaign and we've already had a very good start. This is about the most important political award series in the EU, and if our camp once again demonstrates its Internet campaigning power (we're trying hard!), then this will make politicians, press and the public more aware of the software patent issue.

  5. Re:Can we get some protection for receipes?! by po8 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually, a lot of recipes are protected. When was the last time you cooked up some KFC or made some Coca Cola?

    There are a great many ways of making "southern-fried chicken", and you're welcome to follow any recipe you like. You can't make Kentucky Fried Chicken(tm) unless you're KFC. The situation is just the same for software - you're free to write your own word processor, you just can't write Microsoft Word.

    Actually, you are confusing not two, not three, but four distinct kinds of "Intellectual Property" law. (One can see from this example why Stallman hates the term so much. Disclaimer: IANAL.)

    1. A copyright would prevent folks from reproducing and selling the recipe without a license, but would still allow folks who had the recipe to cook with it. Recipes are not copyrightable under current US law, though collections of recipes (recipe books) are. If you have the KFC recipe, you may give or sell it to anyone you want.
    2. A patent would require that the recipe be disclosed, but would prevent anyone from legally cooking from the recipe without a license. Recipes are not patentable under current US law. If you have the KFC recipe, you may make KFC all you like.
    3. A trademark would prevent folks from calling the recipe or the food produced from it by its commercial name without a license. Recipes are no more entitled to use trademarked names than anything else under current US law. If you have the KFC recipe, you may not publicly call it "the KFC recipe" nor the chicken you cook "KFC" or "Kentucky Fried Chicken".
    4. A trade secret would not allow you to obtain the recipe from its corporate author without a license. US law (and US state law) is currently somewhat confused on this issue. Suffice it to say that unless and until the KFC recipe became widely known, if it was taken from the KFC corporation illegally you would probably be liable for posessing and/or sharing it under trade secret law.

    Incidentally, according to William Poundstone's book Big Secrets, the "secret" recipe for KFC is salt, flour, pepper, and MSG: cook in a pressure baster. By telling you this, I have as far as I know violated no US laws. Go cook up some chicken that tastes "Southern Fried" and contemplate the complicated world of the simple recipe.