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Neither Intellectual Nor Property
Techdirt's Mike Masnick is writing a series of short articles on topics around intellectual property. His latest focuses on the term itself, exploring the nomenclature people have proposed to describe matter that is neither intellectual nor property. The whole series (starting here) is well worth a read.
Actually, anything with that many lawyers has gone way past intellectual and we all know the lawyers end up with more of the property than anyone else...so yes - I'd say he's right.
I better go RTFA now
The Mothership
I want to start a band that makes music that is actually not music at all, but poor quality recordings of terrible noises. Something so stupid and so utterly annoying and maddening to listen to that there isn't a single person on the face of the planet that would bother to pirate it even if paid to do so. Not to mention that playing it back would probably damage any good speaker.
Then, I would get some dirty lawyer to represent my band in court, claiming that thousands of people are illegally pirating my valuable intellectual property. I can just see the looks on the faces of the jury when the so-called "music" is played in the court to demonstrate just how valuable said intellectual property is.
So you're saying that you owe society nothing for providing the stimulus to your amazing brain? That everything that comes out of my brain is MINE MINE MINE and has nothing to do with the world I live in? You know this kind of bullshit thinking harks back to Aristotle right? and that even he decided it was wrong.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I don't understand why this is so difficult for you idiots to comprehend. The "property" around that MP3 you're warezing isn't the file itself; it's the *copyright*, which can not be duplicated and which is scarce. Now, you may not think such a thing *should* exist in order to be property and Richard Stallman may have told you that it's thoughtcrime to think such a thing, but the fact is that in our legal system it *is* property. All this sophistry about scarcity is completely missing the point.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
You're right, the answer is simple. No it does not exist. There is nothing physical, thus while you have the right to share or commercialize it, you cannot prevent anyone else from doing so as well, once they either learn of the idea or come up with it on their own. No matter what the facist corporatists say.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
That said,Sounds nice, but I don't think it holds merit at all. The very purpose of property and property rights is self-interest and the philosophical right to pursue self-interest. It has nothing to do with managing allocation of resources. It's human nature to declare ownership (ever been around a two-year-old?) because ownership of things translates to better survival and reporductive rates.
At any rate, I'm sure I'm gonna get modded into oblivion here, since my post runs counter to the opinions of some of the more rabid libertarian/anarchist moderators. I'm not going to get into some of the other things in his blog specifically in relation to IP... since rebuttal of same is apparent in the comments to so many articles have come before.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
It's easy to argue about nomenclature differences, but in the most general terms, Intellectual Property refers to the "property" (song, poem, etc.) created "intelectually" by the author (band, writer, etc.)
"Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies." -Thomas Jefferson
That's (one reason) why people get so upset over IP law - there's nothing stopping them copying ideas EXCEPT the law (it's so rare that something is produced by one person that it may as well be discounted), and there's no harm done by copying IP (RIAA/MPAA might argue that, but you could just as easily argue that their business system is based solely on the law, which means that it would be different/redundant without that law).
That's as succinctly as I could manage to summarise the article, and none of it seemed like intellectual wankery - this argument has serious ramifications IRL, and looking at the fundamentals of it seems as good a place to start as any. So, what you generate with your brain IS your property, but just like your money, it's completely useless if you don't SPEND it.
Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
So if you happen to simultaneously invent something with someone who beats you to the patent office by 20 minutes, you're happy paying him for his intellectual property that you clearly stole (telepathically)?
-- Alastair
IANAL (I don't even play one on TV), but it seems to me that IP might be considered a legal fiction, much like the equally disputed concept of corporate personhood. Maybe our resident NYCL could set me straight on this.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Code/music/data are no more than a sequence (pretty large sometimes) of numbers, that is, bytes. If I came up with sequence, say, 5, 10, 11, 35, 255 - can I claim it to be my property and sue you for copying it? If not, how long should such sequence be in order to allow this?
Coding etudes
Even if it is a nickel, it would solve so many problems. If it is worth so much to protect then there should be no problem in paying tax to cover for the mess it makes.
You should ask yourself why you want to be paid forever for something you do once.
Or, more usefully, try to identify the advantages of a long-term source of income that does not require constant work
I believe that a reasonable answer to this line of inquiry might lead to IP laws that benefit the largest number of people (including the people they are intended to protect).
Really? I suggest you go down to your local book store and look at the spines of the books. By far, the majority will list exactly one person as the author.
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So you're saying that you owe society nothing for providing the stimulus to your amazing brain?
I thought he was saying that he owes the estate of Aristotle for his use of that idea, and he owes some money to various Germanic tribes for their contributions to the English language. I'd imagine that is keyboard is illegal, as it didn't include any payment to the estate of Christopher Sholes, inventor of the QWERTY keyboard layout. Does his power company pay rights to Tesla's decedents for their use of alternating current to power that computer? Is there anything that we as humans can make or do that doesn't utilize the ideas of other people?
We are all just people.
...all intellects, and all property thereof, are one.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
So, lawyers have been thinking about the nature of property for hundreds of years, and have come up with the idea that property is a bundle of rights in a thing. And, there are some very real parallels between Real Property (ie land) and Intellectual Property:
The right to exclude: If you own real property, you can prevent trespassing; if you own intellectual property, you can prevent infringement.
The right to convey: If you own real property, you can sell it; if you own IP, you can sell it.
The right to subdivide: If you own real property, you can break it up into smaller units, or sell off parts of it (like, for example, Mineral rights). Similarly, with Copyright, you can sell off the right to distribute or the right to publicly perform it, and with patent, you can sell off the right to import it, or make products based on it.
The right to control how something is used: If you own real property, you get to say what happens with it. Same things with IP. (Both of these have limits)
The main complaint about IP as property comes from it not being "rivalrous" -- unlike, say, a coffee cup, which can only be used by one person at a time, IP can be used by any number of people at a time. However, there are non-rivalrous goods out there in which we attach property rights. For example, a public golf course near us has a public easement over the back yards of adjoining houses -- if you hit your golf ball onto their lot, you have the right to go and get it. That is a non-rivalrous property right: my ability to get my golf ball is not impeded by the number of other people who have that right.
IP resembles real or personal property a lot more than it resembles anything else.
Letters from lawyers are neither, particularly considering some have even told us where we can post them. They "cease and desist", something well known within the legal community for many years.
The link is a myminicity(or whatever the hell it is). Avoid.
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
Well, no, apparently Masnick doesn't understand the way language works. Modifiers (here, "intellectual") indicate that things are different from other things in the modified class (here, "property"), not that they are "just like" the other things in the modified class. This is true of "real property", "personal property" (and more specifically "tangible personal property" and "intangible personal property", where the additional modifier ["tangible" or "intangible"] indicates that not only is the item different from other types of "property" but also from other types of "personal property".)
Masnick may have written before, but its not accurate as a matter of fact (the reason for "property" and "property rights" factually is that people who had stuff wanted to justify continuing to have it and excluding other people from taking it), nor is it the only retrospective justification offered for it (management of scarce resources is often argued as a justification of property, a more general argument for promoting the general welfare by increasing the incentive to create and preserve value -- which includes, but goes beyond, management of scarce resources -- is often offered, and a number of a priori reasons are often offered as well.) So there is no sense in which the claim that that there is a single purpose of property and property rights is true other than a as a subject statement of personally preferred justification.
If you start from Masnick's premise that property is solely about managing scarce resources, this is true. If one takes the view that property rights exist to create incentives to create and/or preserve value, a framework within which management of scarce resources to prevent waste is subsumed, the absence of scarcity doesn't obviate the utility of property. It might recommend different treatment of property rights where scarcity isn't a major concern, but then rights in intellectual property are already very distinct from those in tangible personal property which are very distinct from those in real property.
As for the suggested alternative terms:
This one is fairly accurate, in that all property rights are legally-enforced monopolies of one kind or another. Of course, its just as accurate to call real property "land monopoly" and tangible personal property "movable objects monopoly".
Also accurate, in that all monopolies are privileges granted by law and, as discussed previously, all property is monopoly. But, again, the "privilege" label would be no less accurate applied to any other existing form of property.
Imaginary Property
Not very good. It is property, of course, but the only way the imaginary works is if imaginary is taken as equivalent to "intangible". But IP is but one small subclass of intangible personal property, so this would be a particularly bad label.
All the examples given under this heading are labels that could apply to all property as written, without modification. All legal property rights constitute "use monopolies", all legal property rights are "imposed monopoly privileges", and all legal property rights are "Government-Originated Legally Enforced Monopolies".
The argument for this po
The right to exclude [...] The right to convey [...] The right to subdivide [...] The right to control how something is used With the rights associated with real property come responsibilities, such as the payment of property tax in addition to the payment of tax on income derived from the property. What analogous responsibilities come with copyrights?
is commoditized...? Once we can use 3D printers to home produce items of great complexity there will be only two items of value in the world. 1) The raw materials to feed the 3D printers and 2) the software blueprints that instruct the printer to produce certain items. Now that will really throw IP law for a spin. Not to mention the world economies.
"Is there anything that we as humans can make or do that doesn't utilize the ideas of other people?"
well that's a tough question, but I'd definitely go with spitting up milk. after all nobody teaches a baby to spit up, they're not using any other human idea, of what to make or do... a close second is 'wee ourselves' and 'poo ourselves in the pants' although doing so in a toilet is obviously using someone else's idea, and doing so intentionally then you have to wonder where you got past your training of not to do so intentionally and who's thought it was to go against something ingrained in children by their parents when they're most vulnerable.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Why is it that every time I see one of these "I'll probably get modded down but..." posts, it's modded up.
The first thing we need to do is abolish the term completely. It's a conglomerate that practically begs to promote FUD through worst case intersection of applicable law.
For starters, there are three entirely different kinds of intellectual properties, and different laws apply to each kind.
You have trademarks, which are distinctive names or designs used for branding. Almost like a name for your product, like Nike, Microsoft, or McDonalds. Linux is a trademark that applies to the operating system by the same name, for example.
Trademarks need to be registered before use, and can be renewed indefinitely so long as the mark remains distinctive. Infringing a trademark is most comparable to forgery, rather than theft.
Copyrights are rights of exclusive derivation, and apply to works of information. If you write an original book, you have a copyright. If you take a picture of the Grand Canyon, you have a copyright. If you write a kick ass program, you have a copyright on the source code.
Unlike trademarks, copyrights exist upon fixation in a durable medium, and last for life plus some odd number of years, unless it was made by a corporation. Unlike a trademark, you don't break a copyright if you come up with an idea on your own. If two authors on opposite sides of the country simultaneously write exactly the same work, both of them enjoy copyright on their versions. With a trademark, however, the winner is whoever gets to the USPTO first. A copyright mostly applies to works of art and have creativity and expression as a key part of what they protect.
Patents apply to more physical things, like processes, devices, machines, and stuff that is more tangible. They last for 20 years, and, like trademarks, grant the owner exclusive use of the patented invention. Anyone using your idea without your permission is liable for patent infringement.
The problem with IP is that, owing to the "play it safe" attitude of many people, the copyright portion will often be applied to a patent, and vice versa.
As far as I know, nothing can be both copyrighted and patented at the same time. However, the ambiguous term of "Intellectual Property" doesn't specify which applies, so FUD-mongers get to delight in scaring people into honoring both styles, even though only one likely applies.
Intellectual Property is not trespassed upon by someone having an idea, as that is not within the scope of the exclusive rights conveyed by any form of IP. The actual things that constitute violations are things that are, conceptually at least and often in practice, just as subject to vigilante enforcement as are the exclusive rights in real or personal property; indeed, we've seen plenty of articles on slashdots about IP owners and their agents attempting vigilante enforcement. And, anyhow, one of the main reasons for having legal rights in real and tangible personal property is to allow the creation of stores of wealth greater than could possibly be practically defended by vigilante enforcement (on the theory, at least in utilitarian justifications, that this doesn't just lead to the concentration of wealth and the deprivation of the losers, but that this results in creating greater net wealth, and that even those least well off are better off with this system than without it; whether this is true in any particular application is debatable though it at least seems plausible that combined with the right other policies it could be true.)
There no meaningful way I can see that IP differs from real and tangible personal property (or other intangible personal property) in this regard (including, of course, the fact that actual implementations often may not serve the net good even though the concept could do so.) I think we'd do a lot better to examine the actual problems with how our systems of property are implemented rather than making spurious and largely semantic arguments against certain classes of property really being "property".
I'm sort of disturbed by the idea that just because you can make 10000 copies of something at no _cost_ to the original creator of the content, you should just be able to make as many copies as you want and never compensate them. Yes, it doesn't cost them anything, but what about compensating people for the work they do, or encouraging them to do more work in the future? There are lots of things I would like to write or produce that I think would be valuable, but rather than simply wondering how many people would like my product and what they would think it's worth, I have to wonder how many would just copy it and steal the product of my labor. Sure, open sourcers would still produce things, and there would be people willing to work for free for the fame or future job prospects or whatever, but not everybody wants to work for free! I like the idea of working hard and getting a higher income than the guy who doesn't, and having a nice house and a new car parked in front of it. I don't understand why people want to reduce the opportunity to do that.
what I generate with my brain is MY intellectuall property and
No man is an island.
The ideas etc that you generate with your brain are not emanating only from you but are generated by your experiences; your education, the society in which you grew up, your life experience.
They do not arise out of some kind of vacuum, unless you really *are* empty-headed.
Hence, if there really is *property* here it must be said to be the property of all of society; you *didn't* come up with it *all* by yourself. Never. Ever.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
So you're saying that you owe society nothing for providing the stimulus to your amazing brain? That everything that comes out of my brain is MINE MINE MINE and has nothing to do with the world I live in? You know this kind of bullshit thinking harks back to Aristotle right? and that even he decided it was wrong.
You're saying that because other people existed, you can't do anything new? Can't add anything to the pool of knowledge? Can't do something revolutionary? Can't do something small?
Even the tiniest contribution to human knowledge has value. Even if you surmise that only 1/10 of an idea is original "MINEMINEMINE", man has every right to be proud of the 10% that wasn't there before.
The last mile can be the most important one; if people are willing to pay you for your work, great. But, attributing everything to others because because they're older is anti-knowledge. (Maybe I'm new here.)
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Of course! Lest we all forget Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell. At least you can expect a lengthy court battle out of the deal.
I, for one, am looking forward to the inevitable
there's nothing stopping them copying ideas EXCEPT the law
Is that a bad thing? In all cases?
Revolutionary, fun, tube-filled things of sparkles and sunshine take research. Research takes money. Without IP law, a company has two options:
Which one do you think will happen more often?
Why do the research to begin with if, by "stealing" someone else's lets you make the same product on the cheap? You have no sunk costs to recover!
Imagine a world of only generic drugs... except there are no longer brand-name drugs to turn into generics.
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what about 'intellectual product' - a simple descriptive, keeps the IP initials, and defines what's being spoken about, because aren't we talking about products of the intellect?
It isn't a question of theft.
It is question of how society assigns rights and interests.
You snooze, you lose.
Elisha Gray filed his telephone patents three hours after Bell.
Gray - no innocent - was an electrical engineer with millions of dollars worth of patents in his name.
But it was Gray in the audience and Bell on stage when the telephone was demonstrated at the Centennial Fair in Philadelphia in June of 1876.
Gray standing next to the Emperor of Brazil who makes headlines when he shouts "My God, it talks!" Gray who drops out of the game and assigns his interests to Western Union.
If he isn't saying it, I will. I owe society nothing for providing me with stimulus, apart from not running around disrupting society. This notion that you somehow owe society the work you create for the benefit of society is absolutely ludicrous. I might agree that it's better to work for the betterment of society, not yourself... but that doesn't mean you owe it to societey to do so.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Do it, I tell you!
I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it.
So you're quite happy to stand on the shoulders of giants but hey, if you want MY contribution then you better pony up.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Or do I have that confused with the recording of trying to drown a cat?
No, he's saying the opposite -- you may not do so well on your own without the support of this society thingy. That includes your family, your country and the Greek philosophers.
But, attributing everything to others because because they're older is anti-knowledge.And so is keeping a perpetual right on what you invented. So?
It's up to each individual to choose for themselves, and if they choose to work for their own benefit, then they have a right to do so... and society has an obligation to make sure that no one tries to force that individual's hand. We don't have an obligation to compensate them for their work, of course, but we do have an obligation to keep others from taking the individual's work against their wishes.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
What you say is so stupid that it's almost like you want people to expose the idiocy in what you say. Actually, I now think you were just trying to be funny. But I'll reply anyway. What is in your brain is yours, but what you've written down and sold to others is no longer yours. Whereas you keep the initial copy of the information in your brain, other copies do not belong to you. To quote Thomas Jefferson,
Officially, yes.
But most books use ideas developed by other people. Things like elements of plot, cliches, language, etc.
Most books are also read by people like editors and family members, whose feedback usually leads to changes. That makes them contributors.
For example, Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" is now readable online for free. Sure he wrote the book, there's only his name on the cover, but I'm sure various people's opinions had influence on the content, and the mythology was definitely not his original idea.
Funny how it's "society" that came up with the idea of IP. But I digress.
Nobody outside of Mickey Mouse has ever argued that you should keep "perpetual right" on inventions.
The fact that nobody does anything "on their own" is a non sequitor. Let's see where Ford's family, society, and Greek philosophers would have been without the assembly line and the Model A.
If you discount the value of the individual, you will, one by one, discount society.
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In the past the artist had a patron: The church. The state. The merchant prince. The patron's one rule is that the art he commissions remains unique. You do not embarrass Nero by building a knock-off of his golden house.
You should ask yourself why you want to be paid forever for something you do once.
Because it is something no one else has ever done - perhaps no one else could ever do. Harper Lee has written one novel. But that novel is To Kill A Mockingbird.
Well, first of all it is not "society" that came up with the idea of "intellectual property", it is IFPI that came up with that idea in the early 60s. They've been paying for its promotion since then. If you don't know this, you simply have no idea what you're talking about. That's allright though, a lot of people here are the same way.
Then, what is not the point declaring something a property unless making it permanent? Property is by definition permanent. The reason IFPI is using the word "property" is they want to make it permanent. The people who buy the soundbite may have different ideas, but that's it what it's coming to. I'll let you guess why.
What is the point of the rest of your comment? The society, the Greek philosophers, the Ford family and even automobiles were there long before the assembly line. So what?
"Well, if you get income from your land, then you have to pay tax on it, just like you have to pay tax on any other income." Yet land is still subject to an additional tax. What's the difference?
So what downside do you see to amending various national laws to tax the copyright in each work not published under a free license, even if it is only a nominal amount?
This notion that you somehow owe society the work you create for the benefit of society is absolutely ludicrous. Exactly. So, am I safe to assume that if I copy your work to my benefit, screwing you up badly in the process, you'll come after me personally and beat me up instead of using the mechanisms (courts, police, etc.) that the society provides for you? If you do, you can claim the notion you owe society is ludicrous. If you don't, you're just talking out of your ass.
The most annoying thing about the term "intellectual property" is that when invoked it's virtually always in reference to copyrights. The amount of trademark and patent infringement is tiny by comparison, and is almost always undertaken by commercial entities for significant commercial gain. The number of people who engage in trademark or patent infringement is relatively tiny when compared to copyright infringement, which is being practiced worldwide by tens of millions of people.
Honestly, I doubt we'd be having any of these discussions if the length of copyright was something short and fixed, like twenty years. We'd all have the sense that creative contribution needs to be relatively continuous, rather than being something that you can get lucky on once and then live off forever. You know what, if you can't figure out a way to make a profit on something after twenty years, too bad, you should lose your chance. If you weren't able to make anything else in those intervening twenty years that's worth buying, too goddamn bad for you, but We the People are giving you a limited monopoly on profiting from your (easily reproducible) work so that we can get the benefit of it going into the public domain some time later. If we don't get that benefit as a people, then why the blue bloody fuck are we giving you a long copyright?
And this is coming from someone who is trying to make a living selling copyrighted works; I don't want my work being copyrighted more than twenty years either. Everything I release (for the forseeable future) will be under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license anyway, and after 20 years will be released into pure public domain. And I'm making a bet that my writing's good enough that I'll still be able to make a living doing it.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Sure, be proud of your 10% contribution, as long as you rightfully attribute and compensate (in the same way you expect yourself to be) the authors of the other 90%. Otherwise, you'll either be an hypocrite, or agree with the rest of society that believes that thoughts and inventions should, after a reasonable time, pass on to become property of society at large instead of being perpetually controlled by one single individual.
If the former, the problem is obvious, but if the latter then we'd have to debate about how to balance the "MINEMINEMINE" instinct with society's interests to find the optimal lenght of such a period, something that neither your post nor, specially, the OP seem to recognize at all.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
oops, sorry, that'd be WIPO, not IFPI. that's what happens when you post with one eye in the other tab.
Now if I were saying I shouldn't pay taxes, you'd have a point. As it is, you really don't.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I'd much rather side with the socialist leeches. I deserve the fruits of the hard work of others, and they deserve nothing in return. That way, I win. They might lose, but fuck it. I'm the greater good here.
I like how naked greed can be justified, so long as you couch it in the right terms. Then the hippies call it ethical. Glorious.
Now mod this down, hippies. Bury the truth. Hide your shame beneath a mountain of mod points.
You've shifted goalposts somewhat from your original comment, but even in this case you don't owe nothing to society for providing you with inspiration, except anything you borrow from the culture you were brought up with. It'll be interesting to see what kind of inspired work you'll prouce if you were to remove all traces of your cultural background from it.
You want white noise, not random numbers. Or, maybe your tastes go to pink noise. Make yourself a UNIX filter to convert dev/random/ into white noise, and then, golly, you could probably get lots of IP and copyright protection. Plus, your speakers will thank you.
I will create a sig when innovation restarts in the U.S.
In any case, I maintain that I owe society nothing. Even though I may borrow elements from the culture I was brought up in, and the experiences I've had, I still do not owe society the work that comes about as a result. It behooves me to show some gratitude for those influences, and try to give back to society, but it is not required of me.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Half the reason patent lawyers have no interest in filing quality patents is because that would cut down on patent litigation.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
$4k and $8k? Dude, you forgot a zero. Otherwise: Please post the contact information of the attorneys that work for this money. Are they in india?
"Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose...Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city, as well."
Bigstrat, you sound just like that guy who wears a golf club in his head.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
Everything in the world builds on what came before. However, the work involved in creating a novel is creative and considerable. I know; I've finished three (not published, as yet) and am working on a fourth. Friends and family might have some input, but the author has the last word and has to make the final decision. And, more often than not, that's a single person, not a team.
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....and it was Antonio Meucci who invented the telephone before Bell ....but could not afford the Patent....
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
explain to me how walmarts business survives without the law?
Without the law, I can walk into any bricks and mortar store, or for that matter, your house, with a machinegun, and take what the fuck I want.
All commerce is only possible because ultimately, there are legal ramifications for breaking the rules. That's as true of shoplifting as it is of copyright theft.
The only difference is, that in some areas now, it is easier to break copyright law than laws applying to B&M stores. That doesn't magically make one business model substantially different to the other.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Actually, the term "intellectual property" dates back to the French revolution (1790's) and the patent system. The older term used to be "exclusive privilege" and referred to the monopoly over a market that the sovereign would grant to his friends in business. After the revolution the French patent industry decided to rebrand itself and also began to discuss the idea of perpetual copyright.
Here is a description of this old debate.
My blog
The example you gave is one where IP laws failed in their stated aim of encouraging further creative output ;-)
;-)
At risk of offending the original poster, he didn't say his IP was any good - yet he expects to be paid forever.
It's about money, not quality or contribution to mankind.
I was really asking him what he would do with all that money
The answer to that question might lead to a better way of rewarding his contribution to society or the welfare of mankind (and cut out a few middlemen).
Today's publishing system is generally more benign than the patronage system you described: since publishers are paid by the public, there is a better chance of the public being exposed to the artist's output (at least, during the artist's lifetime, if at all). You do not embarrass Nero by building a knock-off of his golden house. I think you're talking trademarks here
Anyway, Nero's showbiz career was was made possible by the fact that he was a patron: again, not the best example
People generally have this set of ideas about what rights they have with regard to anything they consider "their property"; these ideas were largely developed with tangible property in mind. When those preconceived ideas don't mesh well with a new category of "their property", it may be easier to convince them "this new stuff (IP) isn't really property, and therefore doesn't automatically get the rights you associate with property" than to convince them "this new stuff (IP), while still your property, isn't subject to the same rules as your other property". This may seem like an unimportant semantic difference to a thoughtful and intelligent person, but in practice minor semantic differences can greatly affect popular acceptance of an idea.
Or, to put this more succinctly, the spin you put on the idea can make a world of difference when you're trying to persuade someone to change their mind.
Going after the excesses of the RIAA, etc., by trying to convince the world that we've all been thinking wrong for the last millenia is typical sophomoric engineer think.
Property doesn't need to be matter. It only needs to be a product of someones mind to be "intellectual". Not smart or broundbreaking, just a product to someone's brain.
Do you draw a salary? Invest in stocks and bonds? There're all your property, right? Yet, they exist as nothing more than some organized bits in some databases.
Pick a goal: Stop the RIAA or change the way the rest of the world deals with property. The former seems considerably easier than the second, considering how many people earn their livings making intellectual property (like the people that own this site and like every software developer on the planet, for starters.)
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
A(2) - Show them a lovely black girl with a big bubble ass - they'll not bother with the white bitch!
So you're saying that you owe society nothing for providing the stimulus to your amazing brain? That everything that comes out of my brain is MINE MINE MINE and has nothing to do with the world I live in? You know this kind of bullshit thinking harks back to Aristotle right? and that even he decided it was wrong.
I was thinking that if IP really was property then why isn't it taxed?
We tax everything else. And I mean the owner should be taxed. After all, isn't all other property taxed?
If they don't like it then perhaps after a few years it should revert to the public domain.
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
Ah, pedantry, the household of greed.
Yes.
"No man is an island."
No man is a kumquat either. Trite sayings belie what will follow.
Um, screw communism and the horse it rode off with and yes, it's communism as your argument leaves not one whit of self.
I have already given back to society in the form of reciprocity of ideas, help, etc. Therefore, my personal work done by me to benefit me is only mine and not yours, your grandmas or anyone else's unless they wish to reciprocate and I and only I can set the terms with which I accept the reciprocation. If others do not like my terms, they are free to disassociate from me.
I always love reading the logic of how others owe everyone their work framed in extreme pedantry and cast to make it seem like those being ripped off are morally inferior for not supplying vasoline as well as their products and how everyone else has made unspoken and unprovable contributions to the producer's life justifying said ripoff.
The truth is you are too scared to produce something, so you slave under a salary for material gains. Perhaps I don't know you personally, but I do recognize your defeated attitude. Opportunity hasn't been reduced by piracy or digital communications, it has been enhanced. It's just that people like you haven't adapted to the new landscape.
"how can they call it a MINE if everything here is THEIRS?!?!" -Straight Jacket
I tend to regard property as needing to possess at least one of the following: tangibility, fungibility, or liquidity. If not one of these is present, how is it property?
Tangibility is self-expalanatory-- if you can touch it (or sense it with one of the other senses), it exists. It's something physical and in some way uniquely identifiable, and necessarily exclusive. In this way, I actually would have to side with artists who use their voices (as they have exclusive use of their own vocal cords) and/or instruments (specific instruments or play styles and skill are exclusive) in the copyright of art they produce. This would be a tad shakier on written copyright, but anyone who's used to my babbling would recognize my writing style and thought processes, which makes them nearly as tangible as my own voice; this is really the case with any composition, and copyright protects the specific manner of expression (this is the notion that you can convey a similar idea to mine, but you can't use my exact copyrighted words). Anyone can play back, say, FDR's famous speech blurb on fear, but everyone who's familiar with it knows it was FDR who said that, no explicit attribution is necessary most of the time, the speech and FDR's voice have a tangible quality to them.
Fungibility means that something is interchangeable with another thing. This property of an item is an indication that it possesses some form of value that can be specifically assessed, and that there isn't an abstract, extrinsic value placed on it due to scarcity. This is important when considering that, while fungible items may be monopolized, they can't be monopolized by an extrinsic value assigned to an item by a special right (such as patent or copyright granting exclusive use) or uniqueness (such as a Picasso original, since those are irreplaceable).
Liquidity means that something can be readily traded. It can be bought or sold without changing appreciably, even if it's somewhat unique. It's something that has a largely intrinsic value that can, as with a fungible item, be readily assessed. Licenses (to use something) could be considered liquid assets, but the products licenses typically govern, not so much.
I think that Intellectual Property as far as copyright goes, while it's not necessarily intellectual, is tangible enough to be considered property. "Creative Property" might be a better term for it. This would include the source code computer programmers have written too, insofar as complexity and creativity are involved. I think licenses make some degree of sense and don't oppose the notion of licensing such works in the least-- even though I am a strong believer in legally requiring those licenses to be made known prior to purchase and to be transferable insofar as they purport to govern tangible property and should be treated as such (under all the laws that govern tangible property). That said, it's up to the individual to determine if the license is acceptable, just as the individual would negotiate price or any other part of the transfer of property in a transaction.
Intellectual Property as far as patents goes, is intellectual, but I can't see it as being property at all. IP not tangible-- it's an abstract idea by its very nature, and uniquely identifiable expression is not a trait; anyone can implement it, with only abstract legal concepts (patents) standing in the way. IP is not fungible-- a patented item is unique, it's monopolized, and it's (supposed to be) non-obvious. There's nothing like it. There's not legally supposed to be anything like it. IP is not liquid-- patents themselves have no intrinsic value whatsoever. They're an idea, and have no value on their own unless they can be implemented. That means that anyone can possess the idea, but it (theoretically) only holds value for those who hold the patent or have licensed others to use it. This is antithetical to the very notion of property, which is that it holds value or liability for anyone who possesses it.
There's something wrong with a sy
No. They're not contributors. They took the polished and finished work provided by the author and formatted it for the press. Illustrators only add a tiny amount of content, compared to the hard work of writing a book. As I said elsewhere in this thread, I know; I've written three novels. I can also ask any of the published authors I know and see what they think. The writer does almost all the work, and mostly alone.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Thought of this a bit after I clicked submit on my previous comment.
That patents become public knowledge when they're gained creates an interesting dichotomy as well, since some R&D ISN'T patented. This is especially in the pharmaceutical or other extremely proprietary and experimental industries, where companies will not even attempt to patent something and protect themselves SOLELY by relying on everybody else being ignorant of what they're doing to create the product. They (quite astutely) realize that by patenting their knowledge, it becomes common knowledge, and nothing will prevent a competitor from learning their methods and applying them in a similar but "different enough" manner to circumvent the legal restrictions. By taking this tack, they seem to acknowledge that their ideas are ONLY property so long as they're not patented or otherwise known by anyone else, and the moment they are, knowledge of the process for creating the product would become part of the public domain.
I think this aspect of the debate may be summarized by simply saying, "Ideas are only exclusive property under two conditions: the first, that they are unknown to anyone else and kept close; the second, when they're protected by a patent." Doesn't this basically make a patent roughly equivalent to inflicting legally-enforced ignorance on everyone but the patent holder? How is that in society's best interests?
Its not bogeyman-communism, you idiot, its a simple statement of *fact*
Or what? Do you think that the ideas you have somehow spring into being out of the vacuum inside your head??
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Ok mr anonymous flamebaiter, I'm not biting your bait but I'll reply to your ill-spoken troll.
George writes a song, and has copyright on it for the rest of his life. Paul wants to sing George's song but doesn't want to pay him for it, so as he's rich but frugal he just has Geeorge killed, say gives him a brain tumor or "accident" or something.
Paul can now sing George's songs publically, record them for profit, whatever, and there is no longer a copyright.
US Copyright on international works was introduced because US publishers wouldn't publish American authors. American publishers would simply publish works from British authors and didn't have to pay anyone. If the author, who holds copyright under the GP's scenario dies, the publisher can continue selling books without paying the author.
Industrialists kill people every day, with impunity. My grandfather fell four stories because the Purina Corporation was too cheap to put doors on the elevators (1959). He was a complete cripple, unable to do anything at all, even speak, for the next ten years, when he mercifully contracted pneumonia and died.
When I worked at Cerro Copper for two months a couple decades ago, two people died on the job in that factory, one falling into a vat of molten copper. You might think being a policeman or soldier would be the most dangerous job, but you'd be wrong. The most dangerous job is construction.
The only way a rich powerful man goes to prison is if a richer, more powerful man wants him there. Your naivete is touching, your corporate masters need more people like you.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I'm very curious about this sentence. Which kind of bullshit thinking harkens back to Aristotle? There's a lot of bullshit thinking here on Slashdot, so I need you to be a little more specific. Can I get a citation maybe?
How we know is more important than what we know.
You don't have to go that extreme. Consider contract law: it's the basis of 90+% of all business (most of the ones that aren't are likely doing something illegal), and the only force behind it is the enforcement of law. Intellectual property law is just as valid as contract law, but you don't see people arguing that entities should be able to change and break contracts on a whim. In fact, we get a bit cranky around here when people like Comcast try circumvent contract law by having things like unstated bandwidth limits while advertising "unlimited" use. If you're against intellectual property law, you should be against contract law on the same intellectual grounds. Not to say that neither one could use some reform, but the solution isn't to throw the whole thing out just because there's a few ugly bits.
The problem is that people also tend to forget the role of marketing in IP. Radiohead or Nine Inch Nails can "give away" their music because they've already reached a level of popularity through the effort of large record companies. Those companies have poured millions of dollars into marketing those bands, something that Joe Garage can't afford. Yeah, you can do some things to market yourself, but it's incredibly difficult as a small business; I know this from personal experience. In a world without copyright, a large company with existing resources could take the work of another person and profit from it. The same laws that prohibits you from downloading NIN's back catalog also prohibits a large company from downloading the new songs, producing and distributing CDs, and paying NIN absolutely nothing for the privilege of "gaining a wider audience".
Another point of view.
Brian "Psychochild" Green
MMO developer's blog
Are you saying you own no property at all? Or are you admitting that you're a thief?