Re: [Patents] Intellectual Property is a Tool to Gain Central Control

[Jozef Halbersztadt <halber@idea.net.pl>]

 Hartmut Pilch wrote:

> > Interview - June 2003
> > ?Intellectual Property is a Tool to Gain Central Control?
> > Pit Schultz in Conversation with Sabine Breitsameter
> >
> > http://www.swr.de/swr2/audiohyperspace/engl_version/interview/schultz.html
> >    
>
> We see here another attempt to delegitimate copyright by pointing to the 
> failures of patents.  See also Boldrine and Levine.  Such argumentation
> obscures the problems.
>
> Boldrine & Levine too argue the case for abolishing software copyright by
> pointing to Bessen & Maskin's evidence on patents.

I think that Pit Schultz is speaking from another perspective. For him 
the problem is what with copyright, especialy digital copyright, like 
DCMA ism done by big companies.

> The general question is, what copyright means nowadays, what it is 
> used for, politically - not only in the field of art, but also in the 
> field of biotechnology, technology patents and so on. Intellectual 
> property has become a tool, to gain central control. The fact that 
> copyrights and patents are accumulated by big companies, and that they 
> want to prevent by this other companies, to develop more complex 
> products is something quite common in the realm of computer 
> technology. It leads to making innovation and competition more 
> difficult. This building of monopolies also is taking place in the 
> field of content.

Pointing in misuse of copyrihgt, defending public domain does not 
contradict efforts to keep patentabillity where it belongs.

See: http://freesoftware.mit.edu/papers/aigrain.pdf

> This paper proposes a reversal in how to consider the rights 
> associated with information, media contents, software and other 
> intellectual entities. Intellectual property, forgetting its original 
> purpose, now mostly focuses on granting the ability to restrict usage 
> of intellectual entities. It then defines a number of exceptions to 
> cope with the adverse effects of such a restriction. On the contrary, 
> the proposed approach sets as its basis a number of positive 
> intellectual rights, defined as to enable wide societal production and 
> exchange of intellectual entities. It then defines how granting of 
> specific attributes of property is necessary as to ensure that the 
> positive rights are not abused to the detriment of some basic values, 
> and are implemented in reality. Such a reversal allows to exploit the 
> benefits of information and communication technology, for instance the 
> much greater plurality of creators and information sources, the much 
> greater and quicker visibility and accessibility of intellectual 
> entities, or new tools and processes for the assessment, the critic 
> and the analysis of intellectual productions. More generally, it 
> debates right issues for the technology of the intangible, whether 
> biotechnology or other technologies
> based on the manipulation of information entities in complex 
> processes. To derive practical features of intellectual rights, one 
> has to differentiate in detail between varieties of intellectual 
> entities (according to how they can be produced, used and exchanged) 
> and between facets of intellectual rights. By doing so, one is able to 
> propose a framework that truly serves creators without restricting 
> unduly information exchanges. 


The law should guard a balance between support of free competition, 
public domain and protection of exclusion rights as copyright and patents.