Title Alert: This article isn't about ending the rules "intellectual property" refers to. It's about ending use of the term "intellectual property" to refer t

Title Alert: This article isn't about ending the rules "intellectual property" refers to. It's about ending use of the term "intellectual property" to refer to those rules. The arguments are in the same class as those we've seen from RMS, who's invoked and quoted early on. Most generalize to Slippery Slope. I agree that we are sliding, but not because IP maximalism is naturally downhill from where we are, or because the hill is all that slippery. Legal changes take push. They're being pushed. Strong incentives abound. Broad concepts like "tort" aren't the cause of, say, intentional infliction of emotional distress doctrines. First sale doctrines aren't developing under rhetorical sway of "intellectual property" like breach notification laws are developing under "privacy". The best recent account of how IP rights form, expand, and strengthen that I've read recently is Rothman's The Right of Publicity. She cites and decries the "property syllogism", too. But also details the kinds of conflicts, competing interests, and finer doctrinal confusions that lead to such rules. There is a strong point to be made on rhetoric. But I don't think playing into WIPO's branding importance makes it, or any substitute for it.