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“IP is any law that I can invoke that allows me to control the conduct of my competitors, critics, and customers.” Doctorow never uses this word, but the dynamic he describes — where tech companies, rather than try to keep customers by offering good products, prefer to keep customers by making it impossible for them to leave — is fundamentally abusive. The entire essay is a detailed explanation of the ways that tech…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh, I wasn’t familiar with that (again another US nuance to Copyright). This isn’t globally accepted.
It is globally accepted. There are many community libraries throughout the world that consist on a small shelf on a sidewalk where people leave books for others and take the ones they are interested in. https://littlefreelibrary.org/
They are different.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is globally accepted. There are many community libraries throughout the world that consist on a small shelf on a sidewalk where people leave books for others and take the ones they are interested in. https://littlefreelibrary.org/
No it isn’t. As law. It might be accepted as practice. They are different.
it is not about internet protocol it is intellectual property ! wuh
“IP is any law that I can invoke that allows me to control the conduct of my competitors, critics, and customers.” Doctorow never uses this word, but the dynamic he describes — where tech companies, rather than try to keep customers by offering good products, prefer to keep customers by making it impossible for them to leave — is fundamentally abusive. The entire essay is a detailed explanation of the ways that tech…
Intellectual property is the right to say how others are allowed to use an abstract thing that belongs to you. Ordinary property is the right to say how others are allowed to use a physical thing that belongs to you. It's effectively the same concept, just extended.
Of course, it doesn't immediately follow from either physical property or intellectual property that it will be abused in the way Doctorow describes (by "keeping customers by making it impossible for them to leave"), but it certainly could be. For example, suppose a relatively small number of individuals or companies owned most of the land, and most of the industrial machinery, and all the investment capital - then everyone else would have to go work for them, and produce whatever the property owners wanted to produce, instead of what they wanted to make for themselves. Someone might describe such a dynamic as fundamentally abusive in exactly the same way that intellectual property is.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you read the essay in full, you’d see that he distinguishes between copyright laws meant to encourage authorship and what is currently meant under the “IP umbrella,” which is more about protecting monopoly power.
Yes, he does conflate a bunch of behaviour into IP. But that’s just his conflation. Monopolistic practices exist with or without IP laws, terms of service, etc. Take a look at some other industries: energy companies have protected fossil fuel exploitation and stifled research and adoption of nuclear and green alternatives. Finance industry have maintained monopoly and avoided regulation despite there being obvious ha…
YOLO!
“IP is any law that I can invoke that allows me to control the conduct of my competitors, critics, and customers.” Doctorow never uses this word, but the dynamic he describes — where tech companies, rather than try to keep customers by offering good products, prefer to keep customers by making it impossible for them to leave — is fundamentally abusive. The entire essay is a detailed explanation of the ways that tech…
If you're willing to connect the dots in this way, where anything that gives you legal authority to control the conduct of others (competitors, critics, customers) in specific ways is "abusive", then you should realize that this sort of argument is very easily extended, because that's exactly what all property does. Intellectual property is the right to say how others are allowed to use an abstract thing that belongs…
Cory nails it. Or at least part of it. I've long had a nagging feeling that there was a deep connection between the current state of our "post truth" society and the continuously widening scope of "IP" (digital monopoly) protections. Cory disentangles some of those connections and shows some of the ways IP has become a tool for restricting freedoms. But there's more: I think that those same mechanics are narrowing th…
Truth lasts for years, centuries even.
You need to bury truth, so you can keep selling people a stream of "novel" information. Truth doesn't get you monopoly profits, only novelty. Rearrange the truth every couple decades into crappier versions and profit.
Incentives matter.
#ImaginaryProperty is the worst. #IntellectualFreedom YOLO!!!
It’s also worth pointing out that different countries have nuanced interpretations and applications of Copyright Law. The US is only one. For instance “Fair Use” is a US inspired thing that other countries don’t have. Rather than having a “defence” (when prosecuted) some countries actually give permission to copy things (as a right, not a defence)