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Feature:Why ideas should not be property
Here's an interesting essay by Benjamin Tucker, that's very relevant to the free / open-source software movement. It predates Richard Stallman and the FSF by a good 85 years, and gives better arguments against the whole notion of ideas as property than I have ever seen expressed elsewhere. I've excerpted the relevant parts below.
- For the fourth of these monopolies, however, - the patent and copyright monopoly, - a more plausible case can be presented, for the question of property in ideas is a very subtle one. The defenders of such property set up an analogy between the production of material things and the production of abstractions, and on the strength of it declare that the manufacturer of mental products, no less than the manufacturer of material products, is a laborer worthy of his hire. So far, so good. But, to make out their case, they are obliged to go further, and to claim, in violation of their own analogy, that the laborer who creates mental products, unlike the laborer who creates material products, is entitled to exemption from competition.
I take it that, if it were possible, and if it had always been possible, for an unlimited number of individuals to use to an unlimited extent and in an unlimited number of places the same concrete things at the same time, there never would have been any such thing as the institution of property. Under those circumstances the idea of property would never have entered the human mind, or, at any rate, if - it had, would have been summarily dismissed as too gross an absurdity to be seriously entertained for a moment. Had it been possible for the concrete creation or adaptation resulting from the efforts of a single individual to be used contemporaneously by all individuals, including the creator or adapter, the realization, or impending realization, of this possibility, far from being seized upon as an excuse for a law to prevent the use of this concrete thing without the consent of its creator or adapter, and far from being guarded against as an injury to one, would have been welcomed as a blessing to all, - in short, would have been viewed as a most fortunate element in the nature of things. The raison d'etre of property is found in the very fact that there is no such possibility, - in the fact that it is impossible in the nature of things for concrete objects to be used in different places at the same time. This fact existing, no person can remove from another's possession and take to his own use another's concrete creation without thereby depriving that other of all opportunity to use that which he created, and for this reason it became socially necessary, since successful society rests on individual initiative, to protect the individual creator in the use of his concrete creations by forbidding others to use them without his consent. In other words, it became necessary to institute property in concrete things.
But all this happened so long ago that we of today have entirely forgotten why it happened. [...] And so it has come about that [...] most of us are not only doing what we can to strengthen and perpetuate his [property's] reign within the proper and original limits of his sovereignty, but also are mistakenly endeavoring to extend his dominion over things and under circumstances which, in their pivotal characteristic, are precisely the opposite of those out of which his power developed.
All of which is to say in briefer compass, that from the justice and social necessity of property in concrete things we have erroneously assumed the justice and social necessity of property in abstract things, - that is, of property in ideas, - with the result of nullifying to a large and lamentable extent that fortunate element in the nature of things, in this case not hypothetical, but real, - namely, the immeasurably fruitful possibility of the use of abstract things by any number of individuals in any number of places at precisely the same time, without in the slightest degree impairing the use thereof by any single individual. Thus we have hastily and stupidly jumped to the conclusion that property in concrete things logically implies property in abstract things, whereas, if we had had the care and the keenness to accurately analyze, we should have found that the very reason which dictates the advisability of property in concrete things denies the advisability of property in abstract things. We see here a curious instance of that frequent mental phenomenon, - the precise inversion of the truth by a superficial view.
Furthermore, were the conditions the same in both cases, and concrete things capable of use by different persons in different places at the same time, even then, I say, the institution of property in concrete things, though under those conditions manifestly absurd, would be.' infinitely less destructive of individual opportunities, and therefore infinitely less dangerous and detrimental to human welfare, than is the institution of property in abstract things. For it is easy to see that, even should we accept the rather startling hypothesis that a single ear of corn is continually and permanently consumable, or rather inconsumable, by an indefinite number of persons scattered over the surface of the earth, still the legal institution of property in concrete things that would secure to the sower of a grain of corn the exclusive use of the resultant ear would not, in so doing, deprive other persons of the right to sow other grains of corn and become exclusive users of their respective harvests; whereas the legal institution of property in abstract things not only secures to the inventor, say, of the steam engine the exclusive use of the engines which he actually makes, but at the same time deprives all other persons of the right to make for themselves other engines involving any of the same ideas. Perpetual property in ideas, then, which is the logical outcome of any theory of property in abstract things, would, had it been in force in the lifetime of James Watt, have made his direct heirs the owners of at least nine-tenths of the now existing wealth of the world; and, had it been in force in the lifetime of the inventor of the Roman alphabet, nearly all the highly civilized peoples of the earth would be today the virtual slaves of that inventor's heirs, which is but another way of saying that, instead of becoming highly civilized, they would have remained in the state of semi-barbarism. It seems to me that these two statements, which in my view are incontrovertible, are in themselves sufficient to condemn property in ideas forever.
If you want to encourage the copyright law to be changed to allow free copying, there are two barriers to this:
1) there must be a technology infrastructure to enable creators of works to receive due compensation upon deriving use out of their works: i.e. copying a song or a book. This is a requirement imposed by our modern economy - without it, there is no economic incentive for authors/artists to continue what they are doing.
2) there must be a change in the widespread believe that protecting "information" is as important as protecting "knowledge. Information is noisy and has a short shelf-life. Knowledge, on the other hand, is ever-changing and growing, and IS ONLY IN THE HEADS of PEOPLE.
It is knowledge, and the ability to learn that is the real competitive advantage. If people en masse start to belive that, then we'll see change.
I heard about this on NPR the other day. I didn't like it either. It's perfectly legal right now though.. maybe that's what I didn't like. Genes should not be considered IP. They were not invented. Procedures for manipulating genes are another matter. However, Monsanto didn't patent the procedure, they patented the result of the procedure. I don't agree with that. I do believe that companies who invent such things as new strains of corn, or whatever other crop, should receive some kind of return on their investment. If they had to sink millions into the research, they should be compensated and be able to profit from the research. If they can't receive some benefit from doing research to create new products, then what incentive would they have had to create the product in the first place? Would I want to put myself in debt for life just to invent a new type of corn to give to the world? I doubt it. Of course, research costs could be dramatically lowered if they were free to use other people's research instead of reinventing the wheel all the time. But that opens the door to all kinds of unscrupulous people who will take advantage of such a system. Perhaps when something such as this comes along it should be bought outright by the government and given to the country. That probably has capitalists everywhere shouting and spitting at their monitors, but so far, I can't come up with a fair way of doing things that won't be exploited.
What was it that Gordon Gecko said in Wall Street? "Greed is good. Greed works." I believe that was it. Greed seems to be the entire incentive for doing anything worthwhile in this (or most any other) country. (Not necessarily the greed of the scientists that are doing the work, but the greed of the stockholders who are expecting to make money by funding the research.) Maybe that's the real problem. Since there is no way to live a comfortable life without money, we have to make as much as we can to allow ourselves to live at the standard we desire as well as to have something to ensure our future comfort and pass on to our children. I don't see this changing anytime soon.. or indeed anytime at all. Money is a necessity for life in this country. (Unless you want to live in a cabin on a mountain.) People need it to survive, so it's human nature to want to have as much of it as possible so that you can not only survive, but prosper. Much like squirrels hoarding nuts for the winter.
Since our entire economy depends on the ownership of ideas, I don't know how (especially with the world economy in its present condition) we could move away from the current system. Anyone else have any thoughts on this?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
There are a couple of points to cover here.
The first is that ideas do not spring into the world from nowhere. At the very least there is a lost opportunity cost to the thinker as the time spent generating the idea could have been spent elsewhere. Therefore, ideas are not "free" as in "free beer". The fact that ideas can be reproduced at no cost must not overshadow the fact that they cannot be produced at no cost.
Second, ideas are often of very little use without a considerable amount of effort being put into the expression of that idea. For example, Hero demonstrated the idea of a steam engine but it took a lot more effort to make something useful from it.
I find myself in the peculiar and uncomfortable position of defending those who support the concepts of patents and copyrights. Perhaps those institutions are not completely bankrupt but can be salvaged through modification.
I suspect that the first place to seek to modify these systems is in the length of time that the protection is in place. My understanding is that the purpose of these systems is to provide reasonable compensation to those who produce the work. The issues then become "What is 'reasonable compensation'?", "How can 'reasonable compensation' be determined?", and "How can 'reasonable compensation' be delivered to the creator?".
The second place to consider modifying these systems is to be more rigorous in the care taken in defining what is being protected. The protection is to enable the creator to collect compensation on his production, not on the production of others.
On the other hand, while I think the statements above are true, it may be that the greatest compensation to the thinkers and developers of ideas is perhaps in the more abstract concept of making the world a better place for all. I.e., the "stone soup" model.
Once again, somebody has decided to spread the rumor that patents and copyrights imply property
;^)
when in fact exactly the opposite is true (at least in the US).
In the US, if you apply for a patent on something, you explicitly are donating it to the public
domain. Yes you read that correctly, the public domain. The catch is that the US govt (the keeper
of the public domain) pays you for your largesse by granting you exclusive use of your invention
for 17 years. After that time, your idea is truly in the public domain. Nobody can reclaim that
idea into private property.
Students of history will recall that the patent and copyright protection was not originally in
the US constitution, they were added because of a perceived flaw in the legal system (which was
pretty much borrowed from england) where people could pretty much own ideas forever.
In fact the US can be proud in being one of the first modern states to engage in government
sponsored industrial espionage when they stole the plans for a assembly line from a company in
England around the US revolutionary times (1700s).
It was in this spirit that the original patent and copyrights idea was born. The philosophy is that
everything belongs in the public domain (eventually) and short time exclusivity is the way
they thought of to get people who come up with ideas compensated. Otherwise it was thought that
people would keep their ideas hidden where they do nothing to advance society.
WAKE UP!!! all you people who say "only if we had a way to leave everything in the public domain
while compensating people for their ideas"... WE ALREADY HAVE SUCH A SYSTEM!!!
You may argue with 17 years or 20 years (or whatever) is too long a time, but you guys are 250
years too late. Can't you admit that somebody already came up with a pretty good system? or does
your youthful ignorance get in the way???
Even the hallowed GPL code will eventually fall into the public domain (copyrights expire 75 years
after the authors death). After that nobody will be able to enforce the GPL/NPL/APL/XPL/etc/etc
provisions... My decendents will be able to copy all the code into a private bundle and never
have to distribute any source code
Should Monsanto (and other Agri business and genetic engineering firms) be allowed to own genes as intellectual property? Monsanto calls saving seed from Roundup Ready(tm) crops and replanting in the next season "Seed Piracy." (*) Do you want a corporate monoploy controlling our food supply?
This is not just about software, the intellectual property laws are so broken that we're about to hand over something as critical to our survival as food production to huge international agri-businesses like ADM and Monsanto without even thinking of the long term consequences to our survival. This could get BAD....
* See April '99 issue of Harpers for an important article on this issue.
You have a very shaky understanding of American history. Slavery benefited a tiny minority of the population (at least in the South), while the 80% or so who didn't own any slaves ended up doing the bulk of the fighting (and dying) in the Civil War to defend the institution.
This adds even more credibility to your argument, though--if copyright slavery only benefits a very few (and, indeed, it does--for example, there are but 5 major record companies today, and they each insist on owning the copyrights of their artists' work), then it should be abolished in the name of equality.
"Even genius needs a competent technique."--Robert Fripp
The problem with nearly every debate on intellectual property rights is the same -- people are working from different basic assumptions. And, when boiled own to the essence, there is a grid of two sets of two basic assumptions -- the axis of property is theft vs. property is a natural right, and the axis of principle trumps practice and practice trumps principle.
RMS/FSF/GNU is a shining example of a group that, at the bottom (albeit maybe not conciously) holds both that property is theft and that practice thiumphs principle. If the only reason for the existence of physical property is only that multiple people cannot simultaneously have the same object, then you are denying that anyone has a *right* to property. Property is simply a social construct that assigns control to an individual enen though everyone has an equal _right_ to posession of the item.
Now, that means that RMS and ESR have the same basic view, as does a socialist who has decied that socialism is impractical and *supports* intellectual property on practical grounds. They all agree a *right* doesn't exist, and property is only a social construct for purely practical ends. Their fights are the same as fights between Anglicans, Lutherans, Catholics, and the Greek Orthodox -- of no real interest to outsiders, except as they may affect the outside world. This is essentially the mixed economy position of the American left.
A second position is that of the Lockeans (and their derivatives), who hold that property is the natural right of the person who applies labor to the unowned. This view naturally leads to the acceptance of intellectual property, since it is purely the product of [mental] labor. This position calls property a right and puts principle above practice -- property might lead to all sorts of undesireable consequences, but it's less important than protecting the principle. This is the unmixed capitalism of the American far right/libertarians.
The third position accepts the principle that property is theft, and puts principle above practicality. They are communists and socialists.
The fourth accepts the principle that property is a right, but puts practice over principle. These are the mixed economy advocates on the American Right.
Let me be blunt. I prefer the Communists to either variety of the mixed economy advocates, and the libertarians to the Communists. Give me an honest socialist who defends principle. At least they won't cheer a tyrant because he "gets things done."
Although I agree with this article, I have to say that there is a case for intellectual property which I find it hard to deny.
Given that most things are scarce and our world relies on an economic system that assumes scarcity, how do we encourage people to have ideas if they cannot profit from them by making them artificially scarce ?
Copyright protects an expression of ideas. It doesn't protect the ideas themselves. Why do you think it's perfectly legitimate for you to quote from a book without paying the author? Why do you think it's perfectly all right for you to appropriate the ideas expressed in a book as your own? Because copyright doesn't protect ideas. It protects expression: written words.
On the other hand, it is illegitimate for you to appropriate someone else's words as your own. That's plagiarism. It's cheating, and if you try to sell them, it's a crime.
Copyright is what makes the GPL work: the author of code has a right to dictate the terms under which his code is used by others (if he releases it at all). If RMS is actually opposed to the legitimacy of copyright (and I don't know, but I surely hope he isn't) then he is one of the greatest hypocrites alive today. He would then be guilty of using something he abhors (and something he wants to eradicate) as a tool for advancing his cause. It would be like an anti-gun zealot using an Uzi to get rid of all those 2nd Amendment "fanatics".
Copyright is what makes the GPL different from public domain. Things in the public domain are free for anyone to use in any way they choose, including taking code proprietary.
Copyright is legitimate. Patents are different because they restrict the use of ideas -- and I fully agree that this is silly. But copyright is a different story. Someone somewhere invested their energy in producing a tangible thing: their book/code/whatever. It is theirs, and they have a right to do with their property what they wish.
Finally, let me say that the premise of the article is incorrect. Private property is legitimate because God owns everything, and he extends to us the right to own things as stewards -- as his representatives. There is nothing whatever immoral about the idea of private property; people may do bad things with their stuff, but that's a separate question.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
The time spent developing intellectual property does not have zero value. It can be spent in other ways; the fact that time may be spent in an activity that earns one money more than adequately demonstrates that there are costs involved in developing any idea, or in developing software, or in writing a book. The cost of writing the code is the value of the opportunities that you forgo in order to write the code. If I write free software in my spare time rather than taking a second job (or working even more on my main job), then the cost to me of the code I write is the money I lost by not working at a job.
There are costs associated with producing this stuff, folks. For anyone to say that, after bearing these costs to produce my code, I am now obligated to my code away, is denying me the right to be compensated for my time and effort.
It is a lie that there are no costs associated with producing Intellectual Property. And as a result, it is irresponsible and illegitimate for anyone to deny the producers of IP the right to be compensated for those costs in ways that they choose. The natural (and inevitable) consequence of doing so will be that ideas will dry up as people keep their stuff to themselves.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
The so-called "new economy", which supposedly rewards the creation of good content while minimizing the cost of delivering the content (towards zero eventually), the only way people are going to be able to make a buck is to have some sort of IP protection.
Unless you can propose some radical economic system that drives the cost of production and distribution towards zero, rewards content creators, and yet somehow offers no protection for IP, then please enlighten us. Oh, and please don't offer any ideas where I am required to live on some "standardized income" that does not differentiate between varying demands in society.
The purpose of law is to prevent someone from harming me (for arbitrary values of "me"). If I spend a year of effort to produce a product, and somebody who has spent no effort either leeches the source or cracks the binary and distributes it, then they have most certainly harmed me by cutting off my rightful compensation for my efforts. It is most certainly within the purpose of the law to prevent this.
Independent invention? Well, for an algorithm complex enough to be non-obvious, or for code that implements an algorithm or application, the Perl rule applies - There's More Than One Way To Do It. Somebody wanting to accomplish the same goal can _do_ so by other, equally good, methods. They don't have to copy my work and leave me starving on the street and owing large amouns of money to investors. Might they accidentally use the same approach that I did? For something sufficiently complex, that's not likely, but as long as they do their _research_ first, it's a non-issue. They can see what approach I used in the patents, and make sure that they use another.
Now, patenting the obvious. I agree that this is a problem and that this is wrong. However, this is a problem with the patent office, not with patents. Consider carefully who to chew out and for what.
It's interesting that these ideas have been debated for this long. Everything old is new.
As our technological prowess increases, the cost of manufacturing drops.
We have witnessed a revolution in the publishing industry in the past 10-20 years. Now, you can copy practically any printed work to practically any level of quality relatively cheaply. The same thing has happened for music, and we're beginning to see it happen for more complex manufacturing. We already have a 3D 'fax' that uses a polymer liquid and curing lasers to build up 3D objects from pure information.
Soon, the biggest cost in creating anything will be researching the idea. Property laws will begin to become obsolete because if your neighbor has something, you can cheaply make your own copy of it.
What is the role of IP law in such an environment? How can innovation be encouraged? The real goal of IP law has never been to assure some inalienable right, but to foster innovation. IP law can be measured not by how well it protects a person's intellectual 'property', but by how well it encourages the creation of new and useful ideas.
Do patents and copyrights do this effectively? It seems, from the existence of the GPL and the Open Source movement that our current IP laws don't seem to be helping that much.
Someone rightly pointed out that the GPL is an excersize of the current IP laws. That belies the fact that it twists those laws to purposes that I'm sure their creators never envisioned. Instead of using the monopoly they grant, the liscense refuses that monopoly, and denies it to all others. The success of this liscense, and the obvious innovation apparent in the community of people who abide by it are an indication that perhaps our current IP laws aren't serving the purpose for which they were intended.
There are a lot of questions to be answered here, and they need answering soon. Soon IP will be the only kind of property that has any real value.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
1. Patents are property, admittedly for a limited time but still property. Why? Because they can be sold and that makes them, in my book, property. If you disagree with this it would be nice if you'd define "property".
2. For the software business completely and utterly silly things are patented, its laughable... The basic idea is not completely without merit but for the software industry is does much harm. I consider the object of any "industry" to be "making life better for people" (By creating good, cheap products).
IP laws should not be abolished, they should be remedied.
Erik
Has it ever occurred to you that God might be a committee?
Has it ever occurred to you that God might be a committee?
--- Jubal Harshaw
As for your arguments for capitalism vs socialism - are you BLIND!? You claim that socialism is bad because overall it tries to do what's best for society and screw the individual--as if capitalism doesn't cause at *least* as much harm to individuals...
The only reason socialism is wrong is because it condones one organisation (the state) bereaving everyone else (the people) of their property and then redistributing it as certain people in the state feel is `fair'. That is wrong--there is a fundamental right to property (as in physical proprety, like lands, houses, cards, food, your own person, &c.)
Capitalism by itself is worthless. Capitalism paired with a society that believes in conducting business fairly and honestly, performing good deeds for the less advantage, and not violating other's right to life and property works very well. But capitalism without ethics (or morality, if you want to call it that) is good for nothing--it's anarchy (and let's please not start talking about that).
Just remember: did your mother attend to your every need for the first year or so of your life because of a hope of making profit or because of pure love for a helpless infant?
--jon. Postel is dead. May we all mourn his, and our, loss.
While that's certainly a noble reason, it doesn't apply today. While many argue that reforming intellectual ``proprety'' law would result in too much upheaval in society, did not eliminating slavery result in the same upheaval? After all, many struggling farmers and widows and orphans depended upon slavery for their daily bread.
Cheers,
Joshua.
--jon. Postel is dead. May we all mourn his, and our, loss.
(unless there is in an infrastructure IN PLACE to ensure the compensation of creators WHILE allowing freedom to copy)
Consider mathematics. Mathematics has been pressing forward consistently without restricting the copying of mathematical ideas. The creators, most often professors or grad students, are compensated, but not through the restriction of their ideas. There is some financial motivation (a good dissertation will get you a good position, for example) but the primary motivation is usually curiosity, with reputation as a secondary incentive.
If the world of mathematics were infiltrated with the philosophy of restricting the use of one's ideas, mathematics would stagnate. Mathematical progress is accelerated by the lack of restriction within the community, while the lack of strong restriction-oriented incentives does not seem to be a drawback.
So why does anyone pay mathematicians to sit around, think, and essentially give away their work? A strictly capitalist philosophy can't explain it well, but the benefits to the world are unquestionable. How much of your favorite technology would have been possible without the contributions that the mathematical community has made? We should keep that in mind before crediting the patent system of incentives for all of our technology.
Seems to me that software represents perfectly the hypothetical unlimited use concrete item
I can make unlimited copies of it and have taken absolutely nothing from the source. A theoretically unlimited number of people can use it concurrently in a (theoretically) unlimited number of places
The conclusion (if we accept the article's assumptions) is that it is absurd to consider software in any way, shape or form intellectual property, because the restrictions on "use" are completely artificial.
If you'll buy that for a quarter, consider this: The argument that IP helps promote progress in science and technology is a rather weak end-justifies-the-means sort of a thing. Allowing pharmaceutical companies to kidnap the homeless or welfare recipients to use in drug trials and experiments would no doubt advance medical technology, but we're not going to do that, are we?
Instead of extending copyright one year per year (on average), congress should continually reduce its duration and strength until a serious reduction in content creation and innovation is seen (the creativity and innovation made possibly by the reduction (when works go out of copyright/patents expire other authors/inventors can springboard off the older works) should be taken into account as well).
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Give me a freaking break!!! If I spend my free time developing a product, or idea, that others want, I should damn well be able to charge them a compensatory fee. Similarly, if I am the philanthropic type who wants to give away my product/idea, that should also be my right. But, the first time someone tries to TAKE something I have developed myself, WITHOUT my permission, that person will find themselves with a boot up their ass!
You can probably tell that I have mixed feelings about the open source fanatics. Why should I be forced to give away not only the binaries for an application I develop, but also the source code? I thought one of the strongest motivations for all the Linux hackers out there is, if you can't find it, write it. Well, if you don't like having to pay a nominal fee for something someone else wrote, fine. Go write a similar app yourself. Don't hassle the guy who wants to make a buck off his work.
Should artists be forced to give away their paintings? No. Should authors have to give you a copy of their books? No. Should a farmer have to give you his produce? No. These are all socialistic concepts. What's good for society as a whole is the rule, and if it hurts one person, so what.
No thanks. Capitalism is just fine by me. Free market enterprise and competetion will keep prices reasonable (which is the argument against monopolization of an industry), so you'll always be able to pick up, say, a C++ book and learn how to beat the "evil, money-making corporations".
(Just so you know, I'm NOT a fan of Bill Gates/Microsloth)
This post, like many of the other posts on this topic seem (to me) to miss an important point. Specifically, they all start by assuming that there is an inherent right to intellectual property. They then argue that the framers of the Constitution were correct to preserve this human right for us. This is like assuming the existence of God to prove that God is a benevolent god.
The point (and I suppose that I may misunderstand it) of the original poster is that there is no such thing as intellectual property. This is because "ideas" or expressions of those ideas can be copied without real damage to the originator of the idea. (despite the fiction perpetrated by the record companies and IP lawyers). As RMS points out, the patent monopoly is granted to inventors in order to encourage invention for the good of society, not for the good of the inventor.
When tomjanofsky (and many others) say that "people are more likely to create inventions if afforded protections for their intellectual property rights" (paraphrasing, my apologies) they are assuming that the inventors have intellectual property rights to be protected. This assumption is not justified. They are granted, by society, a privilege. The rights that they do have include the right to chose whether or not to share their invention.
An additional argument against the notion of IP "rights" is the fact that patents expire. If one has the "right" to control how people use one's idea, how can the government take that right away. Rights are an inherent part of being human. They are not for the government to grant or take away. The Bill Of Rights (for example) does not grant rights to citizens. What it does is specify a (non-exclusive) list of rights that people already possess and prohibits the government from infringing on those rights.
By way of disclaimer, I have yet to copyleft anything worthy of the GPL.
I don't even know where to start.
/. community thinks like. I always thought people shared thier ideas because they WANTED to not because they HAD to. There is a difference between VOLUNTARILY sharing ideas and being FORCED to share ideas. What a person thinks is his own, and no one elses.
I really hope this is not what the entire
I am all for Linux and the GPL, but I am also all for someone charging for their work. If you created it then name your price, if I want it then I'll pay.
And yes if you detect a little of Rand in my reply then you are correct.
If this is intended to be a critique of intellectual property, it is severely misaimed. While this is an interesting piece, it is really only making the case for how things already are.
/. seem to have a misaimed hatred for intellectual property. There is a big difference between the notion of intellectual property - and how particular IP laws are currently implemented. The GPL requires and supports the notion of intellectual property as much as any traditional copyright does - it's key difference lies only in how it views the distribution of the creators rights that come along with that intellectual property. Free software requires the notion of intellectual property.
The article is appropriately titled though, "Why ideas should not be property" - while "ideas" themselves are not considered property under current intellectual property laws.
IP laws such as copyright and patent do not attempt to reserve the "idea" to the creator, rather they reserve the right for the creator to have certain controls over physical manifestations of that idea (in the case of copyright, read duplication, distribution, derivative works) for some time period. IP applies only to the expression of an idea, not to the idea itself, or any facts underlying that idea.
We have intellectual property for reasons that are both related to the notion that someone has a certain ownership of something they create (philosophically this has a number of bases - including, but not exclusively Locke) as well as for utilitarian purposes (the US Constitution gives the Congress the right to make IP laws to "further the progress of the arts and sciences"). That is, the people who agreed upon those laws felt that for any number of reasons, including but not limited to profit - people would be more inclined to create intellectual property if there were protections provided for their rights.
IP laws do not attempt to control the flow of ideas - any law that tried to do such a thing would be foolish - but they do reserve rights concerning the manifestations of those ideas to the creators.
People here on
Is it just me, or does anyone else think that it is a little bit deceitful the way this article was presented?
:).
:(
:)
The *ENTIRE ARTICLE* was written by Tucker, not the slashdotter. I read the disclaimer at the top, which stated "I excerpted the relevant portions."
Immediately following is a paragraph in block-quote format, in italics, as if it were indicating that that were the quote from Tucker's essay.
In reality, however, the entire essay as presented was from Tucker's essay.
I also find it deceptive that at the very top, Rob says, The following was written by slashdotter Kevin S. Van Horn, or whatever his name is (sorry, rushing off to dinner and don't have time to go back and check
Perhaps these two situations (the "the following was written by" and only one paragraph being in block-quote italics) were oversights on Rob's part... but I doubt it
And, after reading so many of the comments (all of them, actually), it is apparent that very few readers recognized that the slashdot contributor wrote zero essay.
But then again perhaps it is simply a wonderful example of what he thinks of putting your name on someone elses "Intellectual Property".
Comments and Flames both welcome, but please be polite
Respectfully,
James S. Blachly
When man first decided to stick a seed in the ground and nurture it to maturity and then eat the grain that resulted, property rights, both physical (in the ground that he worked and in the produce that his diligent effort produced) and intellectual (the knowledge that he gained from doing so) took a vast turn of departure from his hunter-gatherer past. It was then left up to that man (for the PC crowd, OR WOMAN) to distribute his new found knowledge amongst his peers or to keep it to himself. Fortunately for all of us in the First World who are content to not wallow around in our own filth, but to progress towards an even higher standard of living (and an Audi S4 Quattro), he decided to share his discovery. Millions of ideas and improvements later, we have our modern, Industrial agriculture that is capable of feeding everyone in the world, 5 times over, if they have the cash to carry. :)
However, it MUST be noted that, regardless of the benefit to himself or to the survival of his family, that man was under absolutely obligation to share his findings. He could attempt to hide them from others, he could have simply walked away and never returned to his new found method (although others would surely discover the principle, as many cultures did indeed "simultaneously" discover and implement agriculture independently of one another).
What disturbs me is that, besides the marxist crowd, most people would not deny the fact that the man has a right to eat what he has sown. The premise of the Free Software (not necessarily the FSF or any other organization) people is that he did not have the right to withhold his discovery, his knowledge, from others. Now, in the times that agriculture emerged from the receding glaciers of the Pleistocene, he was sure to have been seen by others, and then imitated if he were to prove successful (actually, agriculture was a gradual adaptation process, but that's really beyond the scope of this post). This premise is flawed.
You have the right to what you produce. Period. If you produce software, using the tools that you've acquired, the knowledge that you've learned and discovered for yourself (learning is not an osmotic process, try sleeping with a K&R under your pillow at night and see for youself), the skills that you've honed through years of diligent practice, it's yours. Period. If you want to give it away, then fine. Do it. If you want to sell it, fine, do it. If you want to erase it from your harddrive forever, no one can stop you. The article wants to pretend that you don't have the right to what's inside your head. Rubbish.
The Open Source movement is a wonderful example of what can happen when you do like that wonderful man 12000 years ago did: he shared his knowledge and allowed people to take a crack at improving his methods. Some people were merely content to use what was there, others made the effort to improve. This is very much like the Open Source community today.
Yet, you have to remember, a product of the mind is the same as the product of your hands, as if you could differentiate the two. And if you choose to give away your products, free of monetary attachments, it's your choice. But don't let ANYONE tell you it's not your right.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai