
Did You Say “Intellectual Property”? It's a Seductive Mirage - pearjuice
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html
======
assaflavie
This sounds very Wittgensteinian. In terms of his philosophy of language, what
we have here is a "metaphor gone wild". You take "intellectual" and
"property", you put them together as a metaphorical phrase that on the face of
it seems meaningful and semantically sound, and people start believe that
there's actually such a thing; that it's not made up word-lego.

It takes careful awareness to language to be able to point this out, as
Stallman does. Just because there's a word for it, doesn't make it meaningful.

~~~
cynicalkane
Sorry, in Wittgenstein words are meaningful if they correspond to predictable
results in communication. If we can reasonably predict how the world will
react to the words "intellectual property", then the phrase is "real".
Meaning, for Wittgenstein, is usage.

The world, if you were wondering, will look dimly upon second-hand
interpretations of a dead, legally irrelevant philosopher if you're caught in
the courtroom violating someone else's intellectual property.

If you want to fight intellectual property you first have to acknowledge that,
yes, it is a real thing. Our legal system has made it so. Just like physical
property is a thing, corporate free speech is a thing, equal protection of the
law is a thing, &c.

~~~
assaflavie
I'm sorry but "predictable results in communication" is not the criterion for
being meaningful. If you fart in a courtroom, you get very predictable
results, too. The phrase isn't 'real' just because some people use it. People
use "God" quite a lot, and that doesn't make it a meaningful concept.

(why do I feel I just unleashed an unholy flame war from hell with that last
analogy?)

~~~
drdeca
I suppose that strictly speaking, the use of a phrase by many people does not
imply that it has a "meaning" (for certain definitions of meaning) (if many
people inserted "whum" as an adjective into some of their sentences, but had
no real idea behind it, I suppose it might not be meaningful)

However, if many people say "invisible cherry" when they are talking about a
door or opening, or means of accessing something, then it would be reasonable
to say both that "invisible cherries exist", and to say "the phrase 'invisible
cherry' is meaningful."

Also, while there is no set of all sets, I would argue that (again, for some
definition of meaningful), the phrase "the universal set(the set of all sets)"
is both meaningful and useful.

Also, if you wanted to avoid a flame war with that last bit, it may have been
useful to instead claim that "magic" is meaningless due to being inherently
self contradictory (by definition). I would disagree with that claim, but I
think it would make a similar argument without being as likely to cause a
flame war (though I doubt it would happen in either case)

However, I acknowledge that you did not say magic, and I am not attempting to
use a straw man as if you had.

------
mpyne
I've always been fascinated by the FSF's interplay with IP law. Mostly because
of the 'copyleft' hack, which is the core underpinning of the GPL and, by
extension, GNU.

If you didn't have IP law at all, what you'd have is effectively public
domain, without even the 'moral right' of attribution of authorship.

The kinds of systems you'd be able to build with that would resemble BSD
codes, _not_ GPL codes. This would suffice for open-source software, to be
sure, but not for Free software with all the political trappings that it
brings [1].

In much the same way as DRM aims to restrict what you can do with the bits and
bytes of media and code in favor of the 'IP holders', copyleft aims to
restrict what you can do with the bits and bytes of source and even binary
codes in favor of the 'IP users'.

While the class of set of people benefiting from IP is different, it all still
relies on IP.

[1] [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-
copyleft.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-copyleft.html)

~~~
nfoz
I believe that copyright law should be abolished. (Eventually, slowly,
responsibly.) While I release some works as CC0 [1], I still use the GPLv3+ on
much source code because it's the best way to protect freedom _given_ the
existing system. This isn't a dichotomy nor hypocritical.

I would prefer for the GPL and other copyright licenses to be unenforcable;
unfortunately that isn't the case. So I prefer not to BSD-license my works
because then copyright could be used against me to take my rights from me.

[1]
[http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/](http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)

~~~
habitue
> I prefer not to BSD-license my works because then copyright could be used
> against me to take my rights from me

I agree with you about GPL now vs. ideally no copyright, but one thing that
would definitely be lost is the ability to coerce releasing source code.
Companies in a hypothetical no-copyright future could still keep source code
secret, and still release compiled/obfuscated software. They could still take
code others had released, make modifications, and then only release obfuscated
binaries. They wouldn't be able to sue if someone leaked the source code, but
is that enough of a protection?

Personally, I'm willing to live with it, because I think in the long run
people would rather share. But from, say, RMS's point of view, people are
losing some measurable level of protection.

~~~
nfoz
I really do value individual freedom. If I have access to some data, I want
the freedom to share it. If I have some data, I want the freedom to _not_
share it as well. "You must share the software" is not the world I want.

Legal requirements to share, would actually make it a burden to provide
_anything_ : If I give my friend this disk, am I legally required to give them
something else along with the disk? If my computer is accessible on a network,
do I have a legal obligation to make any source code that is accessible also
available? What are the rules about that?

I think it's too messy. And honestly, if a kid writes a game, maybe they're
embarassed about the source code... the law shouldn't require them to share
that with their friends/teachers/etc.

Although there might be merit to regulations on industry / corporate actions,
especially in so far as their works affect the public (voting machines, safety
equipment: software that we might want to require keeps its source-code
alongside binary distributions).

I'm _much_ more comfortable with people keeping data to themselves in a world
where they have less legal ability to prevent others from sharing it.

~~~
dTal
These are non-issues. The idea is not "share all data". If we copy the GPL
model, all you need to share is the source code to any program you distribute
in an uneditable form, and then only when someone asks for it (at which point
you may charge a reasonable processing fee for the trouble). It's really not
that onerous. No one is making you share your private software.

For "software" replace "food" and for "source code" replace "ingredients". You
can cook whatever you want at home, but when you start selling food to people
certain responsibilities kick in. If a kid is selling lemonade but is too
embarrassed to tell you what's in it, would you drink it?

------
josephlord
Language affects perception, perception affects reality.

~~~
macspoofing
Are you sure it's not perception -> language, or perception <-> language.

~~~
josephlord
My statement doesn't preclude the reverse relationship. Each relationship is
almost certainly bi-directional.

Altering the language is a powerful technique to shift views and change the
debate. Totalitarian regimes have used it extensively (and Orwell
parodied/warned about in 1984) but it is used in democracies too, see the
battle over the language for abortion (life/choice), the US redefinition of
liberal and I'm sure many other things too.

------
api
I want to believe, but there's an elephant in the way.

GNU, Linux, the free BSDs, etc. have done a lot, but in the end they have only
copied the work that came before them. You can see it from the surface down--
the GUIs are copies of Windows or Mac, and the OS kernel is a copy of AT&T
Bell Labs Unix with ideas from other newer OSes.

I've come around to the view that the basement/garage hacker who changes the
world is largely a myth. It's a very popular one and a very American
individualist one, but I see few if any real world examples.

Most people around here have probably seen this:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-
zdhzMY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY)

This wasn't the product of basement hackers. It was the product of enormous
amounts of DARPA money used to pay a good number of very smart people to focus
on the problems of human-computer interaction _full time_ for many years.

I want to believe. Please show me the basement/indy hacker equivalent of that
demo.

Sure, basement hackers can make innovations... a little here, a little there.
They can also do an excellent job making copies of commercial/military stuff,
and in some cases the copies are a bit better than the original. I'm not
saying this work has no value. But it doesn't innovate much and it certainly
doesn't _invent_. Invention is a hundred times harder than innovation.

IP sucks. It's a bad system. But consider what it is _attempting_ to
accomplish. It's trying to create a mechanism whereby really innovative work
can really pay. It's attempting to reward investments in really pushing the
line forward. In its present form it does a poor job of that, but that's the
intent.

Edit: I think the same logic also applies to startups, but to a somewhat
lesser extent. Startups do sometimes have money, and can therefore focus on
problems and employ people. But they must get revenue fast, which hugely
limits their ability to play and experiment. As a result startups can innovate
-- improve existing things -- but they generally cannot _invent_. Most
startups that attempt to invent run out of runway and crash in the weeds.
Invention seems to require a financier who is willing to throw money away,
such as DARPA, NSF, etc... traditionally either nation-states or really
freaking huge companies with money to burn. Invention is also hard for
startups because there is little to no way to monetize it. That's the problem
that IP attempts but largely fails to solve.

~~~
PythonicAlpha

       It's attempting to reward investments in really pushing the line forward ...
    

No, I don't think so. IP was never meant to help innovative people. IP -- at
least as it was created in the last decades (before, nobody talked about IP,
but patents and trademarks and ideas -- no IP) -- is a fighting term that was
coined to create a new form of property -- thus, after having things and than
land, now also have ideas "own-able". Ideas are no property. How can they?
That is just a bad, bad word.

And when you say, that the intent would be to help people with ideas, I can
not consent! It is something to make investors and owners happy! To make rich
people happy and steal from those with the ideas.

~~~
api
It's an attempt to make ideas, inventions, etc. into something like physical
goods that can be put on balance sheets like physical goods. Accountants like
that, investors like that. But it doesn't seem to work very well.

~~~
PythonicAlpha
Exactly. Ideas don't fit into their system of wealth and money -- so they try
to put it into the system. But it does not fit and only brings much trouble,
since ideas can not be measured. The patent system is awfully broken because
of this and it will go downhills more and more if nobody stops it (it does not
seem so, because the neo-capitalism is still going strong and has more might
than all governments together).

------
lotsofmangos
I prefer the term "Imaginary Property".

~~~
archgrove
All "property" is imaginary. Having physical things without the backing of the
law is just possession. We create a legal notion of property for the benefit
of society. Property law adds the force to the state to my possessions, to
stop someone beating me on the head and taking them. Intellectual property law
adds the force of the state to concepts/ideas/media/etc that originated by the
sweat of my brow, to encourage the creation of more, and to enable me to make
a living from it.

We can argue to what extent this force is necessary, but to claim that
intellectual endeavours are just "imaginary" is to do a huge disservice to
millions of people who pour their lives into the creation of new and exciting
things.

~~~
jdreaver
EDIT: I'm sorry three of us replied at the same time. I didn't mean to gang up
on you.

> All "property" is imaginary.

When it comes to the current legal notion of property, then yes, assigning
something as someone's "property" is imaginary.

The problem is "real" property cannot be duplicated without expending
resources, whereas IP can be duplicated for free. For example:

If I make a car, you can't just "copy" it. Taking the car is stealing, and I
think that is immoral because you have deprived the original owner of their
work.

If I make a short story, then "copying" the story means using your own pen and
paper (or your own hard drive to place a sequence of bits) to copy. I don't
think this should be illegal. That is, I don't think that having a particular
sequence of bits on your hard drive should legally allow men with guns to
enter your home, label you a criminal, fine you, and/or send you to jail.

In that sense, not all property is "imaginary." We can make a distinction
between tangible property, that exists as mass, and intellectual property,
which is a set of ideas/words/code/etc. Tangible property is rivalrous; we
can't both use it at the same time. Intellectual property can be used by many
individuals at once, so calling it someone's "property" and enforcing that
claim with force creates artificial scarcity.

I do feel bad that people who expect and rely on IP laws could feel cheated if
IP laws were to disappear tomorrow. But to pretend IP law is some sort of
natural thing is a bit naive. People have been creating ideas since we evolved
a brain. People will continue to create without IP law. To make money off of
your creations just requires a different business model.

~~~
archgrove
There are no natural laws. Just because you (or your forefathers) were first
on a piece of land, what natural right grants you it? Surely it's far more
natural that, if I can overpower you and take it, it's mine? That's actually
how nature typically works. The notion that it's "immoral" is a purely human
construction. Why is that immoral, but my spending 5 years writing a book,
only to see nothing in return because everyone hands it around for free is
moral?

I'm not saying people will stop having ideas, or creating music, etc. What I
am saying is that people without private means or patrons will _have_ to stop
performing creative acts that require a significant time investment. If I've
got a wonderful idea for a book/film/game/whatever, but know it will take 5
years to make, how do I make it when I need to work 8-6 to pay for
food/shelter etc?

Eliminating IP is to construct a return to patronage; the very wealthy
deciding what creative output it worthwhile. IP is actually a hugely
egalitarian concept; the world can decide what has value, and reward the
creator post-hoc, because the creator is _ensured_ a return.

~~~
PythonicAlpha
>because the creator is ensured a return.

No it is not. There can be ideas and "copyright" without having IP. But IP
does also mean that the "property" can be owned by people that did not create
it. This notion is fundamentally wrong and de-valuates any creative work. In
patents you can already see it (most inventors are getting just a little fixed
money -- the most of the value goes to the companies) -- but also in
copyrighted work. The most of the value goes not to the performers of the art
(eg music) but to the distributors.

~~~
archgrove
Why is it "fundamentally wrong"? I created the work, I'm free to do with it as
I please. I can give it away for free. I can charge $10 a copy. I can come to
an arrangement that someone else has the right to set the price, in return for
something else I want. That many musicians choose to sell their creations to
distributors is entirely their choice. It obviously didn't "devalue" it to
them at the point of sale, else they wouldn't have sold it. That many patents
are owned by companies is because they were created by employees whose
creative output was owned by the company in exchange for a salary.

If creative output has a value, then people should be free to exchange their
creations for anything they like. To create restrictions that prevent people
from writing a book then making an arrangement with a publisher, is just to
prevent people from actually being able to _do_ anything with their creations.

~~~
PythonicAlpha
>I created the work, I'm free to do with it as I please.

Under the current law: NO!

That is just a dream from the people that are pro-IP -- they know, that is a
dream, but they want you to dream it.

If you are working for a company and have an idea, the company gets the patent
and you get (if you are lucky) a fixed amount (~$500 is a typical amount in my
country) and the patent belongs to the company -- you don't even have the
right to use the stuff for yourself.

IP means, in its conclusion, that the creators are disowned and the "owners"
own your ideas. You created it, you are busted!

~~~
archgrove
I'm guessing you're being deliberately obtuse here. You were completely free
to do with your work as you please, and you "pleased" to sell your work to a
company in exchange for some consideration. If you don't want IP transfer, or
first-refusal fixed price patent transfer, then don't sign that employment
contract. I had them negotiated out of my last agreement, and I'm free to
spend my personal time creating whatever I want, knowing the rights to it will
be owned entirely by me.

~~~
PythonicAlpha
No I am not "obtuse".

I guess, you are.

When you still find an employer, that makes a contract like that, call
yourself lucky. In my country, it is a law -- and you can't cancel out laws in
my country in contracts.

Not everybody is so lucky, that he has enough money or finds fitting
freelancer work.

Ask the music people. They (oftentimes) can't sell their music without having
contracts with big companies -- and they have to sell out all their rights.

But it seems that you just view the world from your standpoint -- fading out
any negatives -- and everybody that has different experiences as you do, is
just stupid or "obtuse" in your view. With such an attitude on your side, a
discussion makes little to no sense.

------
logicallee
> The clearest way out of the confusion is to reject the term entirely.

Not really - just like the clearest way to separate criminal and civil
liability isn't to just stop using the word "illegal".

The easiest way is to just learn the distinction. It doesn't take long.

It takes about 30 seconds to explain intellectual property (copyright = exact
original content, patent = protects a general mechanism, nobody can solve the
same problem the same way, trademark = about consumer confusion, only one
company can use a word or other thing to sell a specific type of product).

Actually that was more like 15 seconds, wasn't it?

I have absolutely no problem with calling all of the above intellectual
property, because all of it keeps me from doing certain things, just like I'm
not allowed to walk on some tiles just because they happen to be in the middle
of my neighbor's house, and his property is protected by law. I'm not just
referring to taking them - I can't even walk on them without his permission.
Property rights are a fine expression. If it causes confusion, this can be
cleared up directly.

I just don't see the problem here.

------
PythonicAlpha
Intellectual property is a wording that shows, what the intention is:

Making ideas and thinking property, thus de-valuating it

What is the property of "property": Property is owned by somebody
independently from the creator of the property. Thus, the person that has the
ideas becomes less important -- important is only the owner and the money,
that was paid for the property.

Without "IP", rich people can live from their money, and their money pays them
a living, just from the interest they "earn". But with IP they can also own
your ideas and we all become slaves to the rich.

------
kabdib
Hmmm... no mention of "trade secret".

------
habitue
It's interesting to re-read this article:
[http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2014-05-17/free-as-in-we-
ow...](http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2014-05-17/free-as-in-we-own-your-
ip.html) with an eye towards the overgeneralization of the term.

------
macspoofing
I think most people have an intuitive notion of "intellectual property". That
intuition is probably not inline with actual laws on books, but I'm reasonably
sure if you ask most people, they'd agree that a film studio, a writer, a
painter, a musician, a software developer should be able to have exclusive
rights of distribution of their work under some constraints. Obviously the
devil is in the details, but at a high-level, I think that's a pretty
mainstream, reasonable view.

~~~
cm127
You missed the entire point. Software uses patents, so people literally can't
imitate others' works like some artists do. And that's the problem with over-
generalization: it's a useless abstraction that doesn't generalize well.

~~~
macspoofing
>You missed the entire point. Software uses patents,

I haven't, I just didn't focus on software patents because software patents
are just one niche within the larger "Intellectual Property" framework. Even
if you get rid of software patents, and I can be convinced either way, you're
still left with patents in general, and copyright.

>And that's the problem with over-generalization

IP? I think it's a useful abstraction. Patents, software or otherwise,
trademarks and copyright all are rooted in the same ideology. Giving a content
creator a conditional exclusive right of distribution of a creative work.

~~~
cm127
You did miss the point. Read the article. It's about how all IP is not the
same because they originated from different places and they do different
things. For example, software uses patents. That's not just a niche, that's an
entire category of IP. Copyright is also an entire category that artists use
to "protect" their work. But what kind of protection? It's different between
patent and copyright, so just saying I have IP rights, is as vague as you can
possible be because you don't have them all - just some.

~~~
dragonwriter
> so just saying I have IP rights, is as vague as you can possible be

No, its not, because you could say "I have intangible personal property
rights" or "I have personal property rights", or "I have property rights",
each of which is vaguer than "I have IP rights", as IP is a strict subset of
intangible personal property, which is itself a strict subset of personal
property, etc.

