[LINK] Jailbreaking (was: Inaccessible web sites)

[Craig Sanders]

On Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 09:51:10PM +1100, Ivan Trundle wrote:
> Ideas can be stolen as much as chattels.

maybe in a very colloquial moral or ethical sense, but certainly not in
any legal sense.

not even patents give ownership of *ideas* (much to the chagrin of
the Everything-Belongs-To-Us lobby). patents give certain short term
monopoly rights to specific *inventions*.

two points are important there:

1. patents are for inventions, not ideas.
2. they don't grant ownership, just a limited monopoly.

these points are important to bring up because there is an enormous
amount of corporate propaganda convincing people that copyrights and
patents have much greater scope than they actually do, as well a
"natural" similarity to property.


> It's simply disagreeable for someone who creates something unique
> (at their own cost) in order to make a living to have that something
> reproduced by others with no profit (in whatever guise that might be)
> to the creator.

it's even more disagreeable for corporations to continually push for
extensions and additions to copyright and patents.

a short-term limited monopoly for creators is one thing. the perpetual
ownership AND the "IP" land-grab they're pursuing is outrageous.

if copyright infringement can be likened to stealing as you say, then
it's merely petty theft - while so-called "intellectual property" itself
is grand larceny.


> There are far more important things in life to worry about.

in the short term, maybe.  in the long term, nope.

one of the things these corporate scumbags want is ownership of genes so
that they can own the food supply. own as in complete monopoly, not just
normal producer/consumer trade, so that nobody can grow food without
licensing their gene patents.

that's pretty bloody important.

it's not just about copyrights of novels. or programs. the whole
"intellectual property" scam is rotten to the core. it's a tool being
used to lock up the entirety of human culture AND the natural world as
the exclusive property of corporations.

if they succeed, the world will be a very unpleasant place for ordinary
people. even more than it already is for the bulk of the planet's 6-ish
billion population....and there will be no way out of the trap because
any action, any idea will already be owned.

craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>