[thelist] intellectual property again (was RE: Findingthe company...?)

[Joe Flintham]

Hi

Sorry to go all tangential, but I just wanted to query the equivalence 
of Intellectual Property (a modern invention which has been co-opted 
into the service of corporate greed in late capitalist society) with 
human nature, an infinitely more complex thing than mere greed would imply.

It is very interesting to note (to return to a subject of more direct 
relevance) that much as Jefferson characterised the 'necessary evil' of 
intellectual property law [1], the power and reach of the internet has 
so quickly become a central part of global civility precisely because 
its contributors have waived any intellectual property rights to their 
contributions (Tim Berners-Lee's invention would scarcely have acquired 
the traction it did had he insisted on a revenue-generating licensing 
system for use of HTML), and indeed those who insist on sharing their 
contributions for the good of the many do so precisely (and ironically) 
by using copyright law to insist that licenses such as the GPL and the 
Creative Commons licenses are adhered to.

Thanks

Joe

[1] http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html

Ken Schaefer wrote:
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> Huh?
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> Greed is greed. No matter what you call it, or how we deal with it, there will by shysters that find some way to screw other people over. 100,000 years of human history should have taught us that by now.
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