Re: gpl licensing

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   >Patents, copyrights, and to a lesser extent trademarks are all
   >transferrable "rights against the world" and thus have enough of
   >the characteristics of property to be treated as a form of
   >property by the law.

   The law his given certain property-like attributes to things which
   would not otherwise have them.  Lumping these together as
   "intellectual property" suggests that it is natural for them to
   have those and other attributes of physical property.  Naturally,
   various interests would like this to be the case, and using the
   term "intellectual property" plays into their hands.  The same goes
   for using terms like "theft" and "stealing" when referring to
   copyright infringement.

And terms like `pirating' which suggests that sharing software is as
the same as murdering someone and/or hijacking a ship.