🚀 go-pugleaf

In <EzzsCF.3uF@roan.co.uk> mike@roan.co.uk (Mike Jagdis) writes:

>Axel Boldt  said

>>Ok, let's start with the premise that whatever is in your head is
>>yours. You will grant me that whatever is in my head is mine. So as
>>soon as you tell me about one of your ideas, it enters my head and it
>>becomes mine. (It's still in your head as well, so it's also yours.)

>This is not true in intellectual property law. You probably
>wouldn't want it to be true of "common sense" if you examined
>it a little more closely. Simply knowing something is not
>sufficient to make it yours. You could "fixate" it thus becoming

Actually, society has decided all along that ideas themselves are "free"
except in certain prescribed and limited circumstances. Copyright
protects the precise expression of an idea, but does not protect the
idea-- you can read the holders description and then go out and describe
it in a different way (or even the same way if that means of expression
is the only one possible to express that idea). 
Or you can patent a process, but again you cannot patent the idea (eg,
the other person can write books explaining your process without
infringing.) In both cases the intent was in fact to make sure that the
idea was not hidden, but rather saw wide dissemination.
Of course now adays, many people are trying hard to persuade the state
to grant them monopoly rights (just as did the train robber barons of
the 19th century). It is always nice if you can get the state to grant
you licenses to print money. Why society (ie gov't) is going along with
this attempt to institute all of the worst central planning excesses of
the Soviet style where the gov't protects the rights of select
corporations to control markets I do not know.
The intellectual property laws were supposed to have been designed to
give away certain of peoples rights in order to encourage the production
of ideas. As such those rights which are given away should be at the
minimum level needed tp provide that encouragement. There is absolutely
no evidence that the software industry needs such encouragement. If
fact, reducing copyright to say 5 years on software (with let us say a 5
year extention if the full source code is published), would I think be
all the encouragement needed.
Intellectual property is not a right. It is a bargain set between
society and the producer. The right to copy freely is a right, which
should be given away only  if it actually benefits society, not as a
corrupt getrich license to certain companies or individuals.