Re: Lessig on Property

> Free software fundamentalism refutes the term "intellectual property"
> from double grounds:
> 
> - first, knowledge should be free to exchange and use, and as such,
>  it should never be thought as an exclusive property of someone
> 
> - second, the legal schemes commonly referred to as "intellectual
> property", have much differences, and have nothing to do with
> intelligence or the good connotations commonly attached to property.

Right, the motive here seems to be a tactical one: you see that people
attach good connotations to "property" and you try to take those away.
 
> I understand and respect the framework you and Mr. Lessig think about
> copyright, but I cannot agree with the premise that barring someone from
> knowledge can ever be acceptable.

That is not a premise of the term "intellectual property".
 
> It is an ideological question, which means we have no way to decide with
> logical reasoning. Hence it is fruitless to try to convince each other
> while we are in the same side of the barricade.

I myself find very little use for the term "intellectual property".
Mostly I use it with an ironic undertone when quoting some IP warrior.
But that doesn't make the term "wrong", as RMS suggests.
 
> I would like to coin "knowledge monopoly" instead of "intellectual
> property".

RMS would argue that the general concept for which "IP" stands is empty
and no term for it is needed at all.  He fails to see what Lessig writes,
that there are various sets of rules that serve the same purpose, namely
to turn intellectual achievements into assets based on exclusion.  In fact
it is important to see that.  If you don't see it, you fall into the trap
of thinking that there is some natural way of owning immaterial assets.
There is not, there are only various attempts at creating virtual property
on the basis of immaterial assets.

Your alternative proposal seems to acknowledge the necessity of finding
a common term for different systems such as patent and copyright, but
the common term you propose does not evoke the salient features of the
concept for which the word "IP" already stands as a well established
and in fact quite descriptive term.

The problem with "IP" is not in the term itself.  Unlike the term
"computer-implemented invention", it is not misleading or Orwellian.
Rather, the problem is that many people, due to their lack of understanding
of how IP works, draw the wrong conclusions, and that many of the IP warriors
work on inducing these wrong conclusions. They fail to mention that this
property is virtual and that there is an arbitrary set of rules between
the intellectual achievement and the virtual property object.