The internet is not a publicly held entity anymore as it was before 1995 when the National Science Foundation lost control of it and it was given to corporate entities. Has anybody noticed how before 1995 the media referred to the internet as the "Information Superhighway" but now all we ever hear is "E-Commerce". This is not an accident. I suspect that ICANN is doing this free membership thing to create the illusion of public inclusion in the process. What you pointed out of course makes this clear.
Some analyst this guy is! Everyone knows that patents only apply to processes, not physical quantities. Patenting the process of breathing, perhaps, but patenting the air itself? Why, that's absurd!
As a matter of fact, one of the goals of the WTO is to make it possible to patent a product instead of just a process. So before, somebody could just come along and create a better process and patent it, but if the WTO gets its way, a corporation will have the ability to patent a product (drug companies are especially excited by this one) and in the process effectively killing innovation and advancement and allowing the corporation a monopoly on their product. This is especially detrimental in the case of third world nations that are in dire need of medicine but the prices are inhibiting the process and millions of people are dying as a result.
In my opinion, all patent laws should be abolished and copyright and trademark laws too for that matter. They were supposedly created to protect people from the big bad corporations, but they obviously are not working as intended since any corporation with a big bad bank account can just do whatever they want to anyway. If not totally abolish the laws, at least they could restrict patents and copyrights to individual owners instead of corporations. - Minister of Propaganda,
Slashdot Mirror
It's interesting that you point that out.
The internet is not a publicly held entity anymore as it was before 1995 when the National Science Foundation lost control of it and it was given to corporate entities. Has anybody noticed how before 1995 the media referred to the internet as the "Information Superhighway" but now all we ever hear is "E-Commerce". This is not an accident. I suspect that ICANN is doing this free membership thing to create the illusion of public inclusion in the process. What you pointed out of course makes this clear.
- Minister of Propaganda,
Some analyst this guy is! Everyone knows that patents only apply to processes, not physical quantities. Patenting the process of breathing, perhaps, but patenting the air itself? Why, that's absurd!
As a matter of fact, one of the goals of the WTO is to make it possible to patent a product instead of just a process. So before, somebody could just come along and create a better process and patent it, but if the WTO gets its way, a corporation will have the ability to patent a product (drug companies are especially excited by this one) and in the process effectively killing innovation and advancement and allowing the corporation a monopoly on their product. This is especially detrimental in the case of third world nations that are in dire need of medicine but the prices are inhibiting the process and millions of people are dying as a result.
- Minister of Propaganda,
In my opinion, all patent laws should be abolished and copyright and trademark laws too for that matter. They were supposedly created to protect people from the big bad corporations, but they obviously are not working as intended since any corporation with a big bad bank account can just do whatever they want to anyway. If not totally abolish the laws, at least they could restrict patents and copyrights to individual owners instead of corporations.
- Minister of Propaganda,