Intellectual Property and those against it.

[Jagos]

Found this (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100519/0404029486.shtml#comments) article regarding how IP should be taken away from government control. Basically this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGUV79yuZ5A&feature=player_embedded) is David Koepsell, who's main focus is in gene patents.

If you read the article this is what you'll find:

. If you possess a physical good, there need not be any law saying that you are excluding others from using it. You have it. But if it's an idea or an expression, you need an institution or a law to try to exclude it from others. Effectively, he's distinguishing between what we refer to as scarce goods and infinite goods. Scarce goods, by their nature, are rivalrous and excludable. Infinite goods are not.

I like Techdirt a lot for what it does. It takes a unique look at the different aspects of technology law and pulls apart the weak arguments and usually supports a view that makes economic sense. I'll recommend that anyone that reads this should be warned that Koepsell does drag on a few times. By the end though, he's stated why IP needs to go the way of the dodo.

[Amake]

Why stop at immaterial property? Ownership is a fiction*, man.

But doubly so when it comes to owning an idea or a story or any of that. The only way you can actually keep an IP to yourself is by never sharing it with anyone, never expressing it physically. Once you put it out, make it a part of the world, people are going to take it and do their own thing to it, even if only in their own head. It does not belong to its author any more than people are owned by their parents.

Yeah yeah, it's a bitch that people need to be able to make a living and the way for artists to do that is to sell their work. But I think that's a problem with the basic organization of society rather than copyright laws.

I guess that's a pretty general statement unrelated to the article in question. Whoops.

[Jagos]

Found this movie (http://films.nfb.ca/rip-a-remix-manifesto/)

Makes Metallica look ironic along with the entire hypocrisy of copyright.

IQ, no worries, I've been debating the same things on Techdirt as you're saying. S'all good.

[Solid Snake]

Invisible Queen's right:

Ownership of everything we own is a fiction.
Our rights to the exclusive usage of private property stem not from any fundamental or even natural conceptualization of "ownership," but rather from our government's arbitrary creations of fictitious boundary lines. We don't "own" anything until the law says we do. That, of course, constitutes the principal difference between mere possession and actual ownership (you can physically possess an object but not legally own it, just as an owner may not physically possess an item he or she legally owns.)

Yet subsequently, this means that the government has absolute control over our property. If the government were to ever arbitrarily declare a law depriving you of all the property you own, you're screwed...unless a Constitution or a similar device exists and places foundational limits on the power the government can wield.

From my perspective, property law (and institutions protecting those laws) makes far more intuitive sense in regards to physical objects than their "imaginary" counterparts. (This is precisely due to the distinction between possession and ownership. Because physical objects are by definition finite, real, and to some extent exclusive, if my physical object ends up -- even by lawful means -- in the hands of another, I need a physical entity to protect the source of my proof that, in fact, the object does belong to me.)

By contrast, it's difficult to argue that another's usage of a concept or a fictitious idea of yours is hurting the "owner" or the "creator" of the "property." Okay, take Mickey Mouse. I could write a story about Mickey and sell it for a profit, but this likely will not impact Disney's ability to make a canonical movie starring Mickey and make a far greater profit. For one, consumers always distinguish (however minutely) between the original creator and mere copycat works; Disney has a reputation for quality and a big budget that I simply can't match. For another, if anything, me drawing attention to Mickey is increasing Mickey's marketability and thus, Disney's profit (even if, studies have shown, my perception of Mickey or Disney itself is negative and that's reflected in the product I concoct. Bad publicity is still publicity.)

Finally, my ability to actually damage Mickey's brand value is minimal: Mickey still has to resemble enough of the characteristics that make him Mickey in order for me to profit via association in the first place, or otherwise he really isn't Mickey at all. And if I did choose to Mickey a chain-smoking bastard who's cheating on Minnie with Daisy Duck behind Donald's back for the hell of it, my target audience would automatically shift beyond the realm of the fans Disney's trying to attract, so there's not much of a market overlap.

(A lot of this stems from my own perception that our country obsessively protects big corporations' Intellectual Property rights a bit too much. We should clearly protect the works of artists and authors from outright plagiarism or theft, but other spinoff concepts like protecting the "integrity" of fictional "characters" in independent works and/or parodies stretches it for me. Right now we protect the copyrights of certain fictional works far moreso than patents, which boggles my mind a bit.)

Just my two cents.