Comments (2)

• David C

• I think both patnets and copyrights indicate a fundamental misunderstanding of property rights and the consequences of false ones. The consequences of slavery as a property right led to an explosion of violence when the industrial revolution commoditized the labor force. The consequences of copyrights as a property right are leading to a litigation explosion as society enters the information age. Their vision of using copyright's to leverage content exposure to the ends of the earth for unlimited royalities is no different logically than the plantations plans to leverage industrial technology to expand their plantations for unlimited growth and profit.

  However, the real problem isn't copyrights - but patents. The nature of copyrights won't likely lead to massive physical violence to control. The nature of patents (at least the physical ones) will. Heres a quote from another comment I wrote....

  In a few decades from now, society will likely start to enter the replication age and 3d-printer/nano/bio technologies will eventually shift manufacturing away from the factory and back into the home. When this happens, some people will see this as a way to create tremendous wealth by offering creation related services. Unfortunately, others will see this as an opportunity to extract nearly infinite licensing royalities. In sum, manufacturing will become commoditized and there will be this huge pressure for the powers that be to coerce themsleves into every aspect of peoples private lives.

  History teaches that when the labor force became commoditized in the mid 1800's - it blew up the plans of the plantation systems to leverage industrial technology to expand their plantations for unlimited growth and profit. The consequence was the most bloody war in US history - the US civil war. It was considered the most bloody because they were just beginning to figure out how to use these new technologies to kill people, but hadn't developed any adequete defences yet.

  The point is that a similar problem will happen when patents become commoditized, and when those who wish to impose patent controlls resort to coercion to impose them. People don't seem to understand that patents by their very nature are violent and genocidial and could easially lead to the ruthless murder of billions as manufacturing becomes commoditized. In fact, their track record today isn't too impressive: eg, how safety devices in autos were held back 20 years because of patents, and how millions Africans died needlseely of AIDS because people tried to forbid them from making generics by suing in the world court. These are just some in a long list of examples that have caused millions to die or suffer needlessly, right now most of the ruin is not obvious to us - but it certainly will eventually become so.

• Published: July 11, 2006 6:47 PM

• TGGP

• Regarding slavery, a lot of countries had it, but only the United States* got rid of it through fighting a war.

  *England had to fight a lot of its colonies to get rid of slavery there, but they ended it within England by financially compensating slave-holders.

• Published: July 12, 2006 9:35 AM