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Re: GPL and other licences


From: Alfred M. Szmidt
Subject: Re: GPL and other licences
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 13:36:29 +0100

| "Intellectual property"
|
| Publishers and lawyers like to describe copyright as "intellectual
| property"---a term that also includes patents, trademarks, and other
| more obscure areas of law. These laws have so little in common, and
| differ so much, that it is ill-advised to generalize about them. It
| is best to talk specifically about "copyright," or about "patents,"
| or about "trademarks."
|
| The term "intellectual property" carries a hidden assumption---that
| the way to think about all these disparate issues is based on an
| analogy with physical objects, and our ideas of physical property.
|
| When it comes to copying, this analogy disregards the crucial
| difference between material objects and information: information can
| be copied and shared almost effortlessly, while material objects
| can't be.
|
| To avoid the bias and confusion of this term, it is best to make a
| firm decision not to speak or even think in terms of "intellectual
| property".
|
| The hypocrisy of calling these powers "rights" is starting to make
| WIPO embarassed.

   If "give" means "making you the owner of the copy", then yes, you
   now have a lawful copy of the software and hence copyright law
   applies.

Once again, you do not have to be the _owner_ of the CD to be able to
access the content.

   Unless you acknowledge that you have grasped this fundamental
   difference, I will no longer answer your posts, and consider you a
   troll.

Since you have such a fundamentally wrong idea of physical objects
vs. non-physical objects, such a reaction is understandable since you
simply do not acknowledge what property actually is, be it in legal
terms, or even in non-legal terms.

People who resort to name calling are the ones who do not grasp this
`fundamental difference'.




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