www/philosophy not-ipr.html

[Richard M. Stallman]

CVSROOT:        /webcvs/www
Module name:    www
Changes by:     Richard M. Stallman <rms>       09/09/27 03:02:45

Modified files:
        philosophy     : not-ipr.html 

Log message:
        Clarifications, some from jrasata.

CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/philosophy/not-ipr.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.21&r2=1.22

Patches:
Index: not-ipr.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /webcvs/www/www/philosophy/not-ipr.html,v
retrieving revision 1.21
retrieving revision 1.22
diff -u -b -r1.21 -r1.22
--- not-ipr.html        31 Oct 2008 12:34:18 -0000      1.21
+++ not-ipr.html        27 Sep 2009 03:02:42 -0000      1.22
@@ -6,9 +6,9 @@
 <p>by <a href="http://www.stallman.org/";>Richard M. Stallman</a></p>
 
 <p>
-It has become fashionable to toss copyright, patents, and trademarks
-&mdash; three separate and different entities involving three separate
-and different sets of laws &mdash; into one pot and call it
+It has become fashionable to toss copyright, patents, and
+trademarks&mdash;three separate and different entities involving three
+separate and different sets of laws&mdash;into one pot and call it
 &ldquo;intellectual property&rdquo;. The distorting and confusing term
 did not arise by accident. Companies that gain from the confusion
 promoted it. The clearest way out of the confusion is to reject the
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
 According to Professor Mark Lemley, now of the Stanford Law School,
 the widespread use of the term &ldquo;intellectual property&rdquo; is
 a fashion that followed the 1967 founding of the World &ldquo;Intellectual
-Property&rdquo; Organization, and only became really common in recent
+Property&rdquo; Organization (WIPO), and only became really common in recent
 years. (WIPO is formally a UN organization, but in fact represents the
 interests of the holders of copyrights, patents, and trademarks.)
 </p>
@@ -33,13 +33,13 @@
 physical property law, but use of this term leads legislators to
 change them to be more so. Since that is the change desired by the
 companies that exercise copyright, patent and trademark powers, the
-bias of &ldquo;intellectual property&rdquo; suits them.
+bias introduced by the term &ldquo;intellectual property&rdquo; suits them.
 </p>
 
 <p>
-The bias is enough reason to reject the term, and people have often
-asked me to propose some other name for the overall category &mdash;
-or have proposed their own alternatives (often humorous). Suggestions
+The bias is reason enough to reject the term, and people have often
+asked me to propose some other name for the overall category&mdash;or
+have proposed their own alternatives (often humorous). Suggestions
 include IMPs, for Imposed Monopoly Privileges, and GOLEMs, for
 Government-Originated Legally Enforced Monopolies. Some speak of
 &ldquo;exclusive rights regimes&rdquo;, but referring to restrictions
@@ -53,14 +53,14 @@
 overgeneralization. There is no such unified thing as
 &ldquo;intellectual property&rdquo;&mdash;it is a mirage. The only
 reason people think it makes sense as a coherent category is that
-widespread use of the term gives that impression.
+widespread use of the term has misled them.
 </p>
 
 <p>
 The term &ldquo;intellectual property&rdquo; is at best a catch-all to
-lump together disparate laws. Non-lawyers who hear one term applied to
+lump together disparate laws. Nonlawyers who hear one term applied to
 these various laws tend to assume they are based on a common
-principle, and function similarly.
+principle and function similarly.
 </p>
 
 <p>
@@ -80,7 +80,7 @@
 <p>
 Trademark law, by contrast, was not intended to promote any particular
 way of acting, but simply to enable buyers to know what they are
-buying. Legislators under the influence of &ldquo;intellectual
+buying. Legislators under the influence of the term &ldquo;intellectual
 property&rdquo;, however, have turned it into a scheme that provides
 incentives for advertising.
 </p>
@@ -106,7 +106,7 @@
 
 <p>
 Laymen are not alone in being confused by this term. Even law
-professors who teach these laws are lured by, and distracted by, the
+professors who teach these laws are lured and distracted by the
 seductiveness of the term &ldquo;intellectual property&rdquo;, and
 make general statements that conflict with facts they know. For
 example, one professor wrote in 2006:
@@ -121,10 +121,10 @@
 </p></blockquote>
 
 <p>
-That statement refers to the article 1 section 8, clause 8 in the US
+That statement refers to Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the US
 Constitution, which authorizes copyright law and patent law. That
 clause, though, has nothing to do with trademark law. The term
-&ldquo;intellectual property&rdquo; led that professor into a false
+&ldquo;intellectual property&rdquo; led that professor to make false
 generalization.
 </p>
 
@@ -142,22 +142,22 @@
 <p>
 Economics operates here, as it often does, as a vehicle for unexamined
 assumptions.  These include assumptions about values, such as that
-amount of production matters, while freedom and way of life do not,
+amount of production matters while freedom and way of life do not,
 and factual assumptions which are mostly false, such as that
 copyrights on music supports musicians, or that patents on drugs
 support life-saving research.
 </p>
 
 <p>
-Another problem is that, at the broad scale of &ldquo;intellectual
+Another problem is that, at the broad scale implicit in the term 
&ldquo;intellectual
 property&rdquo;, the specific issues raised by the various laws become
 nearly invisible.  These issues arise from the specifics of each
 law&mdash;precisely what the term &ldquo;intellectual property&rdquo;
 encourages people to ignore. For instance, one issue relating to
-copyright law is whether music sharing should be allowed. Patent law
+copyright law is whether music sharing should be allowed; patent law
 has nothing to do with this.  Patent law raises issues such as whether
 poor countries should be allowed to produce life-saving drugs and sell
-them cheaply to save lives. Copyright law has nothing to do with such
+them cheaply to save lives; copyright law has nothing to do with such
 matters.
 </p>
 
@@ -224,7 +224,7 @@
 <p>
 Updated:
 <!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2008/10/31 12:34:18 $
+$Date: 2009/09/27 03:02:42 $
 <!-- timestamp end -->
 </p>
 </div>