Merry Intellectual Property Day!
Today, April 26, is World Intellectual Property Day according to the Business Software Alliance (BSA). This day, according to the BSA's press release, is "an initiative to educate young people about how intellectual property rights foster innovation, creativity and economic opportunity." The BSA is a leading member of the fight against "intellectual property" "theft."
Intellectual Property is a fiction
This young person says: Ownership of intellectual property does not exist except as a legal status, a legal fiction, if you will. This is a completely different status from ownership of tangible property, which has existed as a moral right since Adam. I'm not apologizing for those who break the law, but theft is by definition taking of another's property. Illegally copying software may be illegal (and thus immoral), but because intellectual property is not property, it is not theft.
Think of it this way: In Exodus, a law was received (from God) that forbade theft. The Mosaic law never mentions intellectual property, whether it be a building design, a tool design, a piece of writing, or a song. Suppose an ancient farmer, Fred made a new hoe, designed to be easier on his back. Stealing this hoe is theft, and is morally wrong. However, another farmer, his neighbor John, can easily make a hoe just like the first without any payment to the first farmer. Is this theft? Not at all. That evening, John makes up a song and sings it to his family. Fred hears the song. He has every right to sing that song all day, every day, for the rest of his life. If someone asked Fred, "that's a nice song, who first sang it?" and he said "I did," he would be lying, but there was no such thing as theft of intellectual property. He isn't depriving John of the use of his song, merely making use of it for himself.
Under modern patent law, Fred can keep John from making a similar hoe with the design he made. John can keep Fred from singing his song by the wonders of copyright law.
The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA)
This legal fiction does have its uses, and I hope discuss those one day. However, the current system is screwed up. And interested groups like the BSA are trying to strengthen "intellectual property rights", and so far they have been suprisingly successful. Until laws like the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (PDF) one of the worst-ever copyright laws, you were allowed to use copyrighted works you owned in whatever way you liked.
The DMCA "criminalizes production and dissemination of technology that can circumvent measures taken to protect copyright, not merely infringement of copyright itself, and heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet." (Wikipedia) Under this law, it is illegal to hold down the shift key while you put certain copy-restricted music CDs because that is circumventing copy protection. It is illegal to put a chip in your Xbox to run it like a computer because that is circumventing copy protection. Perfectly legitimate activities - it is legal to rip your CD for personal use, and to use your Xbox as a computer - made illegal by a bad law. Many more bad IP laws abound.
Copyleft and Creative Commons
You don't have to patent your inventions, but what you write is automatically copyrighted in the United States. You can, however, put what you write under copyleft. Copyleft is licensing anyone to use a work in any way, with the caveat that if they make any derivative work from it, they must license that work under the same license. This can be viewed as the opposite of copyright: copyright is used to restrict your right to use something; copyleft is used to prevent your right1 to use a work from being restricted.
In honor of my opposition to intellectual property and the excesses of government protection, I have licensed this blog (for what it's worth) under the Creative Commons Share-alike license, probably the most popular copyleft license. You are free, according to the license,
My copyright on the contents of this blog, like all copyrights, will expire 120 years after my death, unless I release it into the public domain. You have the right to quote parts of this and any blog, and copy it for strictly educational purposes, and do certain other things under the "fair use" doctrine.
Notes
(1) I use the term "right" to mean legal permission; I do not use it in the sense of an inalienable right.
Intellectual Property is a fiction
This young person says: Ownership of intellectual property does not exist except as a legal status, a legal fiction, if you will. This is a completely different status from ownership of tangible property, which has existed as a moral right since Adam. I'm not apologizing for those who break the law, but theft is by definition taking of another's property. Illegally copying software may be illegal (and thus immoral), but because intellectual property is not property, it is not theft.
Think of it this way: In Exodus, a law was received (from God) that forbade theft. The Mosaic law never mentions intellectual property, whether it be a building design, a tool design, a piece of writing, or a song. Suppose an ancient farmer, Fred made a new hoe, designed to be easier on his back. Stealing this hoe is theft, and is morally wrong. However, another farmer, his neighbor John, can easily make a hoe just like the first without any payment to the first farmer. Is this theft? Not at all. That evening, John makes up a song and sings it to his family. Fred hears the song. He has every right to sing that song all day, every day, for the rest of his life. If someone asked Fred, "that's a nice song, who first sang it?" and he said "I did," he would be lying, but there was no such thing as theft of intellectual property. He isn't depriving John of the use of his song, merely making use of it for himself.
Under modern patent law, Fred can keep John from making a similar hoe with the design he made. John can keep Fred from singing his song by the wonders of copyright law.
The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA)
This legal fiction does have its uses, and I hope discuss those one day. However, the current system is screwed up. And interested groups like the BSA are trying to strengthen "intellectual property rights", and so far they have been suprisingly successful. Until laws like the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (PDF) one of the worst-ever copyright laws, you were allowed to use copyrighted works you owned in whatever way you liked.
The DMCA "criminalizes production and dissemination of technology that can circumvent measures taken to protect copyright, not merely infringement of copyright itself, and heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet." (Wikipedia) Under this law, it is illegal to hold down the shift key while you put certain copy-restricted music CDs because that is circumventing copy protection. It is illegal to put a chip in your Xbox to run it like a computer because that is circumventing copy protection. Perfectly legitimate activities - it is legal to rip your CD for personal use, and to use your Xbox as a computer - made illegal by a bad law. Many more bad IP laws abound.
Copyleft and Creative Commons
You don't have to patent your inventions, but what you write is automatically copyrighted in the United States. You can, however, put what you write under copyleft. Copyleft is licensing anyone to use a work in any way, with the caveat that if they make any derivative work from it, they must license that work under the same license. This can be viewed as the opposite of copyright: copyright is used to restrict your right to use something; copyleft is used to prevent your right1 to use a work from being restricted.
In honor of my opposition to intellectual property and the excesses of government protection, I have licensed this blog (for what it's worth) under the Creative Commons Share-alike license, probably the most popular copyleft license. You are free, according to the license,
- to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
- to make derivative works
- to make commercial use of the work
My copyright on the contents of this blog, like all copyrights, will expire 120 years after my death, unless I release it into the public domain. You have the right to quote parts of this and any blog, and copy it for strictly educational purposes, and do certain other things under the "fair use" doctrine.
Notes
(1) I use the term "right" to mean legal permission; I do not use it in the sense of an inalienable right.
posted by Derby at 23:19
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