Comment Re:The very term "intellectual property" is misgui (Score 1) 150
'chrismcb', you wrote, "Note that it also refers to Authors and Inventors, it doesn't refer to people or corporations or groups, or anything. Just 'Author' and 'Inventor.' "
But the Constitution starts out with "We the People..."
I think that if we continue down the road of imputing personhood to every kind of grouping of persons, then we are in big trouble; and I think that if we continue down the road of conferring the rights that people have to every kind of grouping of persons, then we are in even bigger trouble.
A group of persons is not a person, just as a pack of wolves is not a wolf, a computer is not a transistor, and a brain is not a nerve cell. A group of persons has emergent properties that make is substantially different from an individual person. A person has a conscience, but large a group of thousands of persons does not. A person can put their own self interest aside and think of the greater good, but it is very unusual for a group to do that. If one were to anthropomorphize a group of persons, the group could usually be characterized as selfish and unfeeling - the characteristics of a sociopath.
Do we want the protections of the Constitution to automatically extend to such things, without some careful consideration?