[ox] Against intellectual property by Brian Martin
- From: "Karl Dietz" <karl.dietz online.de>
- Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 00:21:00 +0200
..
Against intellectual property
By Brian Martin
Information Liberation Movement
You can read the full text of this article online
at:
http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/98il/il03.html
Or you can also read it as a book chapter at:
Martin, Brian. (1998). Information Liberation:
Challenging the Corruptions of Information Power.
London: Freedom Press, ISBN 0 900384 93 X, p.
29-56. http://www.freedompress.org.uk/
Excerpts:
There is a strong case for opposing intellectual
property. Among other things, it often retards
innovation and exploits Third World peoples. Most
of the usual arguments for intellectual property
do not hold up under scrutiny. In particular, the
metaphor of the marketplace of ideas provides no
justification for ownership of ideas. The
alternative to intellectual property is that
intellectual products not be owned, as in the
case of everyday language. Strategies against
intellectual property include civil disobedience,
promotion of non-owned information, and fostering
of a more cooperative society.
The original rationale for copyrights and patents
was to foster artistic and practical creative
work by giving a short-term monopoly over certain
uses of the work. This monopoly was granted to an
individual or corporation by government. The
government's power to grant a monopoly is
corrupting. The biggest owners of intellectual
property have sought to expand it well beyond any
sensible rationale.
There are several types of intellectual property
or, in other words, ownership of information,
including copyright, patents, trademarks, trade
secrets, design rights and plant breeders'
rights. Copyright covers the expression of ideas
such as in writing, music and pictures. Patents
cover inventions, such as new substances or
articles and industrial processes. Trademarks are
symbols associated with a good, service or
company. Trade secrets cover confidential
business information. Design rights cover
different ways of presenting the outward
appearance of things. Plant breeders' rights
grant ownership of novel, distinct and stable
plant varieties that are "invented."
The type of property that is familiar to most
people is physical objects. People own clothes,
cars, houses and land. But there has always been
a big problem with owning ideas. Exclusive use or
control of ideas or the way they are expressed
doesn't make nearly as much sense as the
ownership of physical objects.
Many physical objects can only be used by one
person at a time. If one person wears a pair of
shoes, no one else can wear them at the same
time. (The person who wears them often owns them,
but not always.) This is not true of intellectual
property. Ideas can be copied over and over, but
the person who had the original copy still has
full use of it. Suppose you write a poem. Even if
a million other people have copies and read the
poem, you can still read the poem yourself. In
other words, more than one person can use an
idea--a poem, a mathematical formula, a tune, a
letter--without reducing other people's use of
the idea. Shoes and poems are fundamentally
different in this respect.
Technological developments have made it cheaper
and easier to make copies of information.
Printing was a great advance: it eliminated the
need for hand copying of documents. Photocopying
and computers have made it even easier to make
copies of written documents. Photography and
sound recordings have done the same for visual
and audio material. The ability to protect
intellectual property is being undermined by
technology. Yet there is a strong push to expand
the scope of ownership of information.
This chapter outlines the case against
intellectual property. I begin by mentioning some
of the problems arising from ownership of
information. Then I turn to weaknesses in its
standard justifications. Next is an overview of
problems with the so-called "marketplace of
ideas," which has important links with
intellectual property. Finally, I outline some
alternatives to intellectual property and some
possible strategies for moving towards them.
This article also include these sections:
Problems with intellectual property
Critique of standard justifications
The marketplace of ideas
The alternative
Plagiarism
Royalties
Stimulating creativity
Strategies for change
Change thinking
Expose the costs
Reproduce protected works
Openly refuse to cooperate with intellectual
property
Promote non-owned information
Develop principles to deal with credit for
intellectual work
Footnotes
Against intellectual property
By Brian Martin
Information Liberation Movement
You can read the full text of this article online
at:
http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/98il/il03.html
Or you can also read in this book:
Martin, Brian. (1998). Information Liberation:
Challenging the Corruptions of Information Power.
London: Freedom Press, ISBN 0 900384 93 X, p.
29-56. http://www.freedompress.org.uk/
aus: biblio-progesistas at y!
war eben auch in:
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