Cart
[Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries]
--- Rick Marshall <rjm@z...> wrote: ... > The first problem is that you can't have wealth > creation without > ownership (wealth by definition being a measure of > things owned - > physical or otherwise). Even assuming the statement was true, one would have to specify ownership over which thigs is required, as well as what if anything ownership means for intangible things like ideas, as opposed to physical things (physical objects; real estate etc). I can not see why exclusive "ownership" (which is a rather novel concept: the most innovative aspect about "intellectual property" is the way people thought of fabricating such a concept, analogous to physical property -- truly strange notion that seems to be catching on) would be required for building wealth. My using same algorithm as you do does not prevent you from creating a magnificent new software system, any more than vice versa. In fact, I could argue that this monopoly on ideas does in fact prevent me (and anybody monopoly holder does not grant the privileges) from having any ownership on tools necessary for my working on building wealth. Thus, patents can be seen detrimental even in light of statements like "wealth creating without ownership is is impossible". ... > In a capitalistic society, one of the basic > mechanisms for wealth > creation is to pass laws defining property that can > be owned and > therefore created and traded. It started with food, > clothes, weapons, > crafts, etc and moved on to land, labour, etc and > recently (last couple > of hundred years) to recordable expressions of our > beings - music, > literature, art, and ideas. And this last move was HIGHLY controversial at the time, especially so in the US. Too bad that the US, back then, caved in (if my understanding is correct, UK heavily lobbied for copyrights, due to, back then, having more to gain via english authors). I do not see this last phase as being natural continuum -- physical objects are so markedly different from abstract notions, that it seems ridiculous to try to group the two together. I mean, what does an algorithm really have in common with, say, an apple? It's perhaps circular logic -- to first establish this concept of ownership of abstract thins, and then claim that that's common with the two, that one can "own" both. With a physical object, ownership is quite easy to understand, but with ideas (et al), one has to fabricate a system of ownership, which has to include exclusivity, ie. monopol. > I don't have a problem. More things patented means > more opportunity for > wealth. And how would this be? Because one can start acting as a bridge troll collecting toll from anyone who uses the ideas (algorithms, story plots, slogans)? It generates no added value whatsover as far as I can see: at most it moves wealth from one entity to another. At worst it reduces usage and sharing of ideas and actually reduces overall wealth. Of course, above is assuming a "common good" view, on which patent and copyright laws are supposedly based. From individual perspective it is of course possible to become wealthier by means of monopolies on non-physical objects. But that was not one of the goals of patent/copyright laws, even if that seems to have become the most important aspect nowadays. -+ Tatu +- __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
|
