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Microsoft Pushes For Single Global Patent System
Xerolooper writes "What would the world be like if everyone could enjoy the same patent system we use in the USA? From the article: 'A senior lawyer at Microsoft is calling for the creation of a global patent system to make it easier and faster for corporations to enforce their intellectual property rights around the world.' They have already attracted opposition from the open-source community and the Pirate Party. According to the article, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) will be meeting in Geneva on the 17th and 18th of September."
Copyrights? You mean like the GPL copyright license that, according to the FSF website, "assures the copyright of the software?" Are we for or against copyrights today?
Intellectual property is not bullshit. If I make an album, or write a novel, it's my intellectual property. I should expect to have some reasonable right to be the only one selling this new creative work for a certain period of time. Otherwise I'm hosed. Ditto for software, if my company produces a cool new software application, and we want to charge $49.95 for a license to use each copy, nifty. We should have that right. It's not the entire concept of copyright intellectual property or patents that have been the problem. The PROBLEM is that certain companies think they can write anything they want into a "license" and that other mega-companies have tried to wedge this concept of a "license" to use something into actual products we buy, then they went and patented business practices vague descriptions of software routines endless copyright and trademark status for questionable products. The "endowment" if you will of certain people's creative works into ageless eldritch monstrosities like Disney.[1] These are the reasons to object to Intellectual Property, in practice, it's not the concept itself that is to blame. (Short version, shoot all lawyers) 1: If I create a character, write a novel, a story make a movie etc. It's MINE and I should be able to retain some rights to profit from its distribution and reproduction, etc. However the idea that this right should be transferable to a faceless corporation and that it should be infinitely extensible is not defensible. Something like life of the Author plus 20 or 50 or something should surely be sufficient, there's not incentive for ME to create new original works in knowing that the descendants of the people that I sell the rights to distribute to can count on their descendants stockholders profiting from my original work.