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Intellectual Property Rights: The Quiet Killer of Rio+20
ericjones12398 writes "Richard Phillips, president of the Intellectual Property Owners Association, sent a powerful message to Washington the day before the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development regarding the U.S. intellectual property community's stance on sharing IPR with developing nations. Philips argued any language included in the Rio+20 final declaration compromising the existing IP regime would discourage investment and destroy trade secrets. 'Any references to technology transfer should be clearly qualified and conditioned to include only voluntary transfer of IPR on mutually agreed terms.' The IPO has no interest in helping developing countries transition to a more sustainable economy if it means sacrificing valuable IPR. And the IPO's chilly message set the tone for what many pundits and participants considered a disappointing Rio+20 conference yielding few substantive results."
The problem TFA specifically addresses is the problem of pollution and "green" technology. The developed world, understandably, has done most of the research in that field. What the IPO is basically saying is they don't give a shit if the developing world gets clean technology or not. That severely hampers the ability of developing nations to control pollution and CO2 emissions, even if they want to, which can have a global impact down the line on the entire planet. And that is frankly the problem, because it would mean the short-term selfishness of the corporations (in and of itself actually understandable and acceptable, in many ways: they're in it for the profit, after all) will, in the long term, do tremendous damage to the planet (which is not acceptable).
Not to mention it is in the best interest of the world for undeveloped countries to develop stably, not just for pollution concerns. An unsustainable but otherwise relatively developed country is a recipe for World War III, in the long run. Possibly even nuclear war, if they are developed enough and desperate enough.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
The content Mafia has invented a model, that allows them, to take the works of others (the actual creatives) via a adhesion contract, and make money on every worthless copy, without moving a single finger. It's fraud. Plain and simple.
And for those who don't fall for the bullshit, they have set up a racketeering scheme, where they scaremonger people into not going to court and paying money, because they know exactly that in court, they wouldn't stand a chance, because they have as much proof as that one "lawyer" in Idiocracy.
Not to forget, that this industry is ridiculously tiny, and only can keep up its ego through massive overinflated self-importance. (Comparison: The whole global music industry has the same revenue, as a single bankrupt German construction company [Holzwinkel]. The whole German music industry has one quarter of the revenue of the municipal transportation services of a 1 million people city. That's *nothing*!)
Yet they want to destroy our entire society to keep up their insane delusions. Even though their fantasies aren't even physically possible, unless you think putting DRM (you know: that thing that by definition can’t work) in every single brain and device is somehow realistically doable and would work too.
Come on guys! We have to push against a bunch of madmen with extreme (often drug-inflated) egos! We can't just push normally. We have to push *harder*!
it is a valid argument, to note, that the reason Germany got the Nazis was not the few crazies. It was the whole nation not doing much against it, and falling for the propaganda!
(Hell, I've seen loads of people even here already use their bullshit propaganda terms like "intellectual property", or even *defend* those criminals! That's *completely* and *utterly* unacceptable!)