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The Demise of IP?

Posted by Zonk on from the unlikely dept.

meetmeonaholiday writes "CNet has an interesting article on why intellectual property owners should worry. Melanie Wyne explains how open source and open standards will lead to the downfall of IP and hurt competition rather than aid it." From the article: "As part of the discussion between Massachusetts and software developers who would be affected by the state's mandate, the designer of the OpenDocument Format policy, Eric Kriss, flippantly stated: 'Here we have a true conflict between the notion of intellectual property and the notion of sovereignty, and I'd say that 100 percent of the time in a democracy, sovereignty trumps intellectual property.' This sounds positively pre-Boston Tea Party to me ... It reflects the currently fashionable idea that confiscatory government policy must be used to even the score (whatever that means), thrusting highly demanded, privately risked IP out of the hands of legitimate property owners and into the hands of other, favored actors to further 'develop' it."

5 of 429 comments (clear)

  1. Backed By Microsoft Shill by Kope · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Initiative for Software Choice is backed by Microsoft.

    Yet another shill decrying the evil of sharing information.

    1. Re:Backed By Microsoft Shill by NickFortune · · Score: 3, Informative
      Nice trick: imply that your opposition is Evil/mean/cruel/selfish/etc by restating their position with inflamatory language, then attack their position based on that language that you used to restate it.

      I believe the phrase you're looking for is "Straw Man".

      --
      Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
  2. article written by Initiative for Software Choice by empraptor · · Score: 2, Informative
    At the bottom of the article it says...
    Melanie Wyne is executive director of the Initiative for Software Choice, a global coalition run by the Computing Technology Industry Association.

    I seemed to vaguely remember something about ISC and MS so I searched and got this explanation of Initiative for Software Choice.
    I'll talk about the Initiative for Software Choice first, since it is the easiest to dismiss. Although it is nominally under the auspices of CompTIA, the Computing Technology Industry Association, there seems little doubt that it was nudged into existence by Microsoft following the open source bills introduced in 2002 (CompTIA is a legitimate industry group that runs the A+ certification program, among others).

    Why doesn't cnet not point out a connection like this? I can't remember every damn organization and who they're affiliated with.
  3. Re:Nonsense! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    The ODF was a bad example because Microsoft isn't being asked to give up IP, just to store the customer's data in a clearly defined way readable by others.

    A more pertinent example would have been the Blackberry case, where the Justice Department asked for a delay in the shutdown of the 'patent infringing' device because they like using it.

  4. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion