

"Intellectual property" is a silly euphemism - chaostheory
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/feb/21/intellectual.property

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RobF
Doctorow's article is all well and good. He doesn't like the term. I get that;
he's said it before.

But I never quite manage to understand _exactly_ what he proposes to
substantially replace the existing legal and semantic structure. If I make
something that doesn't have a particular physical manifestation, what rights
and obligations do I have to that creation?

I _think_ that, when pressed, many people who sympathize with Doctorow in this
debate would assert that a thing that has no physical manifestation conveys no
rights to its creator. But I wish they would come out and say that directly,
instead of dancing around the issue while making essentially content-free
semantic arguments.

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Xichekolas
I had the same problem. He seems to define the problem quite elegantly (it's
use isn't exclusive, so it's not property, and the word 'property' leads to
fallacious reasoning), but he never offers any idea what we should do/say
instead.

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LogicHoleFlaw
I looked at the series this article was written for, and the previous article
does make a suggestion, and names a group which is working for it at the WIPO.

Here's the key summary:

 _We need to stop shoe-horning cultural use into the little carve-outs in
copyright, such as fair dealing and fair use. Instead we need to establish a
new copyright regime that reflects the age-old normative consensus about
what's fair and what isn't at the small-scale, hand-to-hand end of copying,
display, performance and adaptation._

Hopefully my small extraction here does not fall astray of the copyright laws.

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/29/copyright.l...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/29/copyright.law)

~~~
RobF
I read the second article. It didn't help my understanding of Doctorow's
position all that much.

The problem, as always, is in the details. I want to understand what Doctorow
thinks are the essentials of this putative "age-old normative consensus" which
he finds so compelling.

Just stating that such a thing exists doesn't get me any farther along to
understanding the intellectual framework which he wants to use in order to
make the trade off between the creator's interests and those of society at
large.

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mynameishere
You need a license to sell whiskey. You need a license to listen [1] to
copyrighted music. Both rules hamper behavior for no reason that can be
explained by a physics textbook. Rather, they exist because the restrictions
are perceived to add value to society. Maybe they don't. But it's not a
philosophical dispute.

[1] Or, really, to use the music in a set of contractually defined ways.

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Prrometheus
If the IP laws on the books were followed by everyone, it would be a disaster.
Any sufficiently large piece of software violates patents, so our “knowledge
economy” would grind to a halt.

To me, the definition of a bad law is one where society prospers only because
it is violated en masse.

~~~
derefr
But what if society would be worse off both with a law enforced less and
enforced more? Do we have some sort of legal structure for a sort of "optimum
statistical enforcement?" Something where someone can be "10% guilty" and pay
a 10% fine, or where a certain "penalty" can only be assessed in favor of a
given party N times per year, etc. etc.?

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bayareaguy
"Digital property" would be a better term for the stuff Doctorow talks about
in this article.

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LogicHoleFlaw
"Property" is exactly the word which should not be used for the things
Doctorow discusses. The differences between the intrinsic value of knowledge
and the intrinsic value of physical possessions are great enough that any
attempt to control them in the same way is fallacious.

The treatment of knowledge as property leads to unwise analogies, decisions,
and laws. "Intellectual Property" is a loaded term used to mislead people into
making decisions against their own self-interest.

~~~
bayareaguy
Yes, IP when used as a catchall moniker for these things just confuses the
issues:

\- Ideas vs Expressions

\- Exhaustable vs Inexhaustable resources

\- Property vs Control

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edw519
Intellectual property is neither.

