"The Intellectual Property Meme"

David Reed



Every time you utter the words "intellectual property" you

buy into the idea that all information bit patterns are or

should be inherently "owned" by somebody.The term "intellectual property" appeared first in the late

twentieth century, first as a collective description for an

unrelated set of legal traditions that arose when kings had

the power to grant favors to their favorites, and which

carried forward in the common law.



But during the twentieth century, the collective label has

been reified. We actually are in danger of accepting the

absurd idea that information should be property, ownable

and exchangeable.



It won't be long before it is accepted that everything you

learn from experience on the job is the "property" of your

employer, just as they claim ownership of your notebooks,

and every creative thought you have, the contents of every

phone call you make (from your office), and every keystroke

you type on your computer. When they can download your

brain, and wipe it clean, you'll be required to when you

change jobs.



You can help stop this. Don't ever use the words

"intellectual property". You can say patents, copyrights,

trademarks - those are more well-defined terms, and if

Congress doesn't pull another Boner (er, Bono), they are

limited and narrowly targeted at a balanced social purpose.

The authors of the Constitution were wary of royal

monopolies like patents and copyrights, but they

compromised because there was a reasonable social good

served by *limited* monopolies on things that would pass

into the public domain.



But if you buy into the concept of "intellectual property"

it turns this all around. Limited becomes the exception,

not the norm. The burden of proof falls on the government

to explain why property ownership is "limited". The

government imposing a limitation becomes a "taking" for

which the government is required to pay a price which is

calculated by measuring the value that the "owner" would be

able to extract if they were to "own" the "intellectual

property" forever.



Society's being conned by a smart collection of devious and

dangerous radicals. These guys pose as "conservatives", but

in fact they are activists, redefining the whole notion of

information. Changing it from a non-rivalrous good into a

fully rivalrous good, by getting the government to

synthesize new "intellectual property" concepts into laws,

and then enforcing them.



This goes beyond "fair use". The attack of fair use in

copyright is only a small part of this large radical

movement.



It's time for those of us who aren't lawyers to fight back.

Whenever you hear the term "intellectual property" you

should feel like another landmine has been planted in this

radical cultural jihad against your mind.



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DRM is Theft! We are the Stakeholders!



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