Against Intellectual Monopoly
levine.sscnet.ucla.edu
levine.sscnet.ucla.edu
The problem is really that so called Intellectual Property is just a new form of monopolizing new areas of human living. The result is, that intellectual work will be also dominated by those that have monopolized already the other things in the world: the rich.
After money was cached in the hand of view, after land has been sold, after everything has its price-tag -- the last thing, how some people can change their faith and also can get some piece of the pie, their ideas, shall also be monopolized.
That's all it is about.
Without patents, some can have a good idea, invent something and become rich. But with full patent enforcement in place, the durability of IP (copyright and patents) enhanced to the max, you can not have any ideas any longer, since every idea you will have, will infringe on some patent. You can not even sing "Happy Birthday" without paying to somebody.
The big companies already want, that patents, copyrights and the sort are coming to new areas, like film-making. So every idea can be owned, by the big companies and thus by those that own the most shares of them.
Equally, they could have a good idea, invent something and then have an existing, larger company just copy it outright (with no legal recourse for the inventor).
The only people who can afford to deal with patent/IP law properly are existing, larger companies.
I claim the opposite of you: that current law exclusively helps the existing, larger companies.
But for now, they seem to be doing fine. I just hope they don't run into some patent from the big players.
I'm trying to point out that it's driven by whoever is bigger and has deeper pockets. Either for patent fees or for the lawyers who litigate or for the resources to duplicate.
In other words, the 'little guy' is going to get screwed either way so I'm arguing against the specific statement I quoted in my earlier comment (i.e that without patents, someone can invent something and get rich).
I'm not claiming that the current system is ok (far from it), but I do see the benefits of a properly functioning patent system -- (but excluding software patents, they make no sense to me).
1. If you invent something, a larger company has the opportunity to copy you. This is inevitable: as an independent inventor, IP law (as it exists) does not help you because you typically would not have the resources to use it effectively against a lawyer-readied corporation.
2. If you execute your invention in a way which the larger company cannot easily copy, you can become independently successful.
3. In cases where (2) takes profits away from the larger company, they will use IP law to prevent you from doing so. This is the primary use case of IP law.
So we're agreed that the little guy gets screwed either way, but I think IP law gives the big guy an extra round of ammunition.
I'm not disagreeing with your argument. I'm specifically disagreeing with the fourth paragraph of the top post. It presumes that everything is already 'invented', which I disagree with. What he/she is really saying is that 'whoever has the most lawyers will win'. It's not even about IP law at that point.
Edit: Yes, the way things work now IP can simply work as ammunition for BigCo. However, even if we did away with it, BigCo's boots/fists/whatever are still bigger than yours (so the "Without patents" part does not hold up).
A word basically represents an idea and when we say that word we all understand what it represents however it is an abstract concept that is why certain words have different meanings for different people.
It would be hilarious if I could sue publishers for using certain words in their books.