Comment Intellectual Property considered harmful? (Score 1) 79
I find I must take exception the the author's thesis that intellectual property is "a system of law in which access to inventions and creative output is limited in order to reward their creator".
In the first place, intellectual property rights are not "inherent" or "natural" rights they were invented with a purpose. That purpose was to promote sharing by allowing the inventor to benefit from his/her invention in some other way than keeping that invention secret. Patents can protect the small and weak from the large and powerful.
For example, I can invent a better carrot-slicer. What prevents Megtronics Corp. from simply stealing my invention and selling millions of them with no compensation to me? Patent law. By allowing me to retain ownership of my invention, innovation is encouraged.
Rewarding the creator is only a means to an end, not the end itself.
Second, without intellectual property of a different kind (copyrights) we would never have had a GPL. My life personally would be much poorer, since I've been an Emacs user for nearly 20 years. This use of copyright law to perpetuate the sharing of his work is something I deeply respect RMS for, it's a really clever hack.
My approach with my children vis-a-vis sharing is that they aren't forced to share their own personal stuff -- forced sharing is no sharing at all. But when they are using my stuff they have to share and take turns. This has proved very effective -- they value sharing as I do and quite often share without prompting.
I believe that forcing people to share at best builds resentment and often leads to very cloudy boundaries, which in turn, leads to domination, codependence and abuse. I find I have little patience for voices which cry "All software must be free!" or "All music must be free!".
Star Wars was definitely worth paying to see. It wouldn't exist if there were no intellectual property laws.
In the first place, intellectual property rights are not "inherent" or "natural" rights they were invented with a purpose. That purpose was to promote sharing by allowing the inventor to benefit from his/her invention in some other way than keeping that invention secret. Patents can protect the small and weak from the large and powerful.
For example, I can invent a better carrot-slicer. What prevents Megtronics Corp. from simply stealing my invention and selling millions of them with no compensation to me? Patent law. By allowing me to retain ownership of my invention, innovation is encouraged.
Rewarding the creator is only a means to an end, not the end itself.
Second, without intellectual property of a different kind (copyrights) we would never have had a GPL. My life personally would be much poorer, since I've been an Emacs user for nearly 20 years. This use of copyright law to perpetuate the sharing of his work is something I deeply respect RMS for, it's a really clever hack.
My approach with my children vis-a-vis sharing is that they aren't forced to share their own personal stuff -- forced sharing is no sharing at all. But when they are using my stuff they have to share and take turns. This has proved very effective -- they value sharing as I do and quite often share without prompting.
I believe that forcing people to share at best builds resentment and often leads to very cloudy boundaries, which in turn, leads to domination, codependence and abuse. I find I have little patience for voices which cry "All software must be free!" or "All music must be free!".
Star Wars was definitely worth paying to see. It wouldn't exist if there were no intellectual property laws.
