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"Intellectual property" is just an umbrella term that rightly recognizes the similarities between copyright/patent/trademark. There may be no legal definition f

"Intellectual property" is just an umbrella term that rightly recognizes the similarities between copyright/patent/trademark. There may be no legal definition for the term, but nobody's confused about what it means.

craigsmansion 8y ago
> rightly recognizes the similarities between copyright/patent/trademark. Can you elaborate on those similarities? Stallman, in his essay[1], states some important differences. He makes a coherent argument. So what similarities here are "rightly" recognised? I'm not saying you're wrong, but "nobody's confused" is not really a complete counter-argument. [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html , viz, "These laws originated separately, evolved differently, cover different activities, have different rules, and raise different public policy issues. For instance, copyright law was designed to promote authorship and art, and covers the details of expression of a work. Patent law was intended to promote the publication of useful ideas, at the price of giving the one who publishes an idea a temporary monopoly over it—a price that may be worth paying in some fields and not in others."
- delecti 8y ago
  I think the term "IP" is meant to highlight the one big similarity they share. We recognize that this thing, which is more of an idea than an object, belongs to an entity (person/company/government/whatever), and that entity has control over some of the finer details of how that thing is used. That's even pretty readily apparent in the term itself: "intellectual property", property that is more of a thought than a thing. Maybe it's a bit euphemistic, and to someone with Stallman's beliefs, the propagation of the term probably seems more than a bit dystopian, but it's still a useful umbrella.
ajross 8y ago
> is just an umbrella term Indeed. > nobody's confused about what it means. Are you high? No seriously, no one understands "IP law", even its practitioners. Every week there's some new and interested case before some court somewhere ferreting out yet another poorly regulated side effect. Contrast that to, y'know', actual property law. How many cases has SCOTUS taken over the last decade dealing with hard problems about deciding who owns a physical object?
- delecti 8y ago
  You don't need an encyclopedic knowledge of the full breadth of IP law to know what someone means when they say "IP law". Nobody is confused about what is being referred to when someone says "IP", except people like Stallman (and maybe you) who are trying to score gotchas by pretending you can't talk about complex things in simplified terms.
  - ajross 8y ago
    Sigh. You whooshed here. The point that "IP law[1] is really complicated and not well-served by blanket statements and umbrella categories" is exactly the point being made upthread, albeit via a metaphor. You seem to be making a purely linguistic point, which surely everyone can concede. But it's not responsive to the discussion. At all. [1] See? I even used the term right there and no one flipped out.
- eesmith 8y ago
  > How many cases has SCOTUS taken over the last decade dealing with hard problems about deciding who owns a physical object? I don't see the validity of this argument. Look at the number of freedom of religion lawsuits which have come to the US Supreme Court. That doesn't mean that people don't have a reasonable and practical understanding of the topic for most cases. Going to your question, one sprang quickly to mind, and I'm not even a lawyer. Kelo v. City of New London, concerning the use of eminent domain. The holding was "The governmental taking of property from one private owner to give to another in furtherance of economic development constitutes a permissible "public use" under the Fifth Amendment." Here are some of the physical property cases from the last 10 years (based on the list at Wikipedia; many of which are not described, so there are likely more). There's Arkansas Game & Fish Commission v. United States, "holding that it was possible for government-induced, temporary flooding to constitute a "taking" of property". There's Marvin Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States which "held that a railroad right-of-way granted under the General Railroad Right-of-Way Act of 1875 is an easement. Therefore, when a railroad abandons such a right-of-way, the easement disappears, and the land owner regains unburdened use of the land." In Horne v. United States Department of Agriculture, No. 14-275, "The Fifth Amendment requires that the Government pay just compensation when it takes personal property, just as when it takes real property." In Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection the Supreme Court addressed a question concerning "littoral property owners' rights to future accretions and to contact the water". Does that mean that no one understands the laws regarding ownership and control of physical objects?

craigsmansion 8y ago

> rightly recognizes the similarities between copyright/patent/trademark. Can you elaborate on those similarities? Stallman, in his essay[1], states some important differences. He makes a coherent argument. So what similarities here are "rightly" recognised? I'm not saying you're wrong, but "nobody's confused" is not really a complete counter-argument. [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html , viz, "These laws originated separately, evolved differently, cover different activities, have different rules, and raise different public policy issues. For instance, copyright law was designed to promote authorship and art, and covers the details of expression of a work. Patent law was intended to promote the publication of useful ideas, at the price of giving the one who publishes an idea a temporary monopoly over it—a price that may be worth paying in some fields and not in others."

delecti 8y ago
I think the term "IP" is meant to highlight the one big similarity they share. We recognize that this thing, which is more of an idea than an object, belongs to an entity (person/company/government/whatever), and that entity has control over some of the finer details of how that thing is used. That's even pretty readily apparent in the term itself: "intellectual property", property that is more of a thought than a thing. Maybe it's a bit euphemistic, and to someone with Stallman's beliefs, the propagation of the term probably seems more than a bit dystopian, but it's still a useful umbrella.

ajross 8y ago

> is just an umbrella term Indeed. > nobody's confused about what it means. Are you high? No seriously, no one understands "IP law", even its practitioners. Every week there's some new and interested case before some court somewhere ferreting out yet another poorly regulated side effect. Contrast that to, y'know', actual property law. How many cases has SCOTUS taken over the last decade dealing with hard problems about deciding who owns a physical object?

delecti 8y ago
You don't need an encyclopedic knowledge of the full breadth of IP law to know what someone means when they say "IP law". Nobody is confused about what is being referred to when someone says "IP", except people like Stallman (and maybe you) who are trying to score gotchas by pretending you can't talk about complex things in simplified terms.
- ajross 8y ago
  Sigh. You whooshed here. The point that "IP law[1] is really complicated and not well-served by blanket statements and umbrella categories" is exactly the point being made upthread, albeit via a metaphor. You seem to be making a purely linguistic point, which surely everyone can concede. But it's not responsive to the discussion. At all. [1] See? I even used the term right there and no one flipped out.
eesmith 8y ago
> How many cases has SCOTUS taken over the last decade dealing with hard problems about deciding who owns a physical object? I don't see the validity of this argument. Look at the number of freedom of religion lawsuits which have come to the US Supreme Court. That doesn't mean that people don't have a reasonable and practical understanding of the topic for most cases. Going to your question, one sprang quickly to mind, and I'm not even a lawyer. Kelo v. City of New London, concerning the use of eminent domain. The holding was "The governmental taking of property from one private owner to give to another in furtherance of economic development constitutes a permissible "public use" under the Fifth Amendment." Here are some of the physical property cases from the last 10 years (based on the list at Wikipedia; many of which are not described, so there are likely more). There's Arkansas Game & Fish Commission v. United States, "holding that it was possible for government-induced, temporary flooding to constitute a "taking" of property". There's Marvin Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States which "held that a railroad right-of-way granted under the General Railroad Right-of-Way Act of 1875 is an easement. Therefore, when a railroad abandons such a right-of-way, the easement disappears, and the land owner regains unburdened use of the land." In Horne v. United States Department of Agriculture, No. 14-275, "The Fifth Amendment requires that the Government pay just compensation when it takes personal property, just as when it takes real property." In Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection the Supreme Court addressed a question concerning "littoral property owners' rights to future accretions and to contact the water". Does that mean that no one understands the laws regarding ownership and control of physical objects?