On Thu, 14 May 2009 14:43:08 -0600, somebody wrote:

> "Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote in message
> news:4a0c391a$1@news.povray.org...
>> On Wed, 13 May 2009 14:52:38 -0600, somebody wrote:
> 
>> >> IOW, it's not property, it's a right.
> 
>> > Why the term "intellectual property"?
> 
>> Marketing + Lawyering = occasionally stupid terminology
> 
> I don't think it's stupid at all, 

You're entitled to that view.  I wasn't calling the concept stupid, I was 
calling the name stupid.  Big difference.

> unless you consider "ownership" as a
> whole stupid. You do own the copyright (or patent or trademark... etc ),
> whichever way you look at it, so it's natural to speak of those things
> as "property".

I don't think so.  It's a right (ie, the right to control), not an object 
or thing.

> "Property" vs "right" is a false dichotomy - they are not in the same
> class: 

Precisely.  But in the above quoted section (up two), you conflate the 
two concepts.

> material or immaterial, that you cannot own). When you violate that
> right of an owner, it's theft. 

No.  Violation of rights is not theft, violation of rights is a violation 
of rights.  Theft is very explicitly "the act of stealing; the wrongful 
taking and carrying away of the *personal goods or property* of another; 
larceny."

From a legal definitions standpoint, larceny is "the crime of taking the 
goods of another person without permission (usually secretly), with the 
intent of keeping them."

In other words, if I steal a book from a bookstore, I have no intention 
of returning it.  The bookstore's inventory is -1 book.

The concept behind "intellectual property" is that an idea has value.  
But ideas cannot be "stolen" because they are not physical.  The plans 
that come from an idea can be stolen, duplicated, whatever.  But the idea 
itself cannot be.

This is why copyright/patent law has so many problems - the idea that you 
can prevent someone from having the same idea you did even though that 
conceptualization is completely independent is wrong IMHO.

> The rest is splitting hairs, and
> existance of other narrower terminology (i.e. software piracy) doesn't
> mean it's not theft. Otherwise, someone else can argue that carjacking
> is not theft either.

No, you can't argue that, because a car is a physical object.  If I own a 
car and someone takes it from me without my permission (by force or not), 
then it's theft - because I don't still have the car.  End of story.

Jim

Post a reply to this message