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What I consider to be intellectual property is between my ears - it is my intellect and my property. I have an arrangement with my employer to rent my intellec

by gvb 15y ago

What I consider to be intellectual property is between my ears - it is my intellect and my property. I have an arrangement with my employer to rent my intellect for nominally 8 hours per day. What that arrangement produces are artifacts (ink on paper, magnetic domains on disk drives, charge on floating gates) of my intellect. My employer owns those artifacts, but not the intellect that created them. Companies can talk all they want about their "intellectual property", but their property is artifacts, and artifacts are not intelligent. Artifacts cannot generate new, novel, artifacts. When a company uses the term "intellectual property," that is offensive to me because the company is denigrating my intellect by equating it to inanimate artifacts. The uncomfortable truth (for companies) that they have forgotten or chosen to ignore is that the intelligence part of their company is not their property. The intelligence walks out the door every evening.

adimitrov 15y ago
That's a very interesting, and strong way to view it — however, I feel like this is still not going to solve the main issue: Yes, my intellect is my property, and it's going to stay that way. But my intellect needs to feed on — artifacts. If I see something I find interesting, I want to see how it's done. Not for the purpose of copying it, and appropriating it, but for the purpose of learning from it; feeding my intellect is the way I can keep it alive. I cannot generate new, novel artifacts, without old ones to feed my curiosity, and my ability. Here's the thing: the companies want to own those artifacts, and I want to freely peruse them. It would be one thing to just be able to rent them from companies, but in the case of closed source, that is not possible. Intellectual artifacts become inaccessible.
T_S_ 15y ago
IP is a catch-all term for a variety of legal situations (patents, copyright, trade secrets, even non-compete). Your comment is a very nice legal theory, but I don't know if the courts decide things this way in every case.
Dylan16807 15y ago
I think you're being overly picky about wording. Intellect creates intellectual artifacts, just as a mason puts down masonry. If such an intellectual artifact happens to be property then it is intellectual property.

by gvb 15y ago

adimitrov 15y ago

That's a very interesting, and strong way to view it — however, I feel like this is still not going to solve the main issue: Yes, my intellect is my property, and it's going to stay that way. But my intellect needs to feed on — artifacts. If I see something I find interesting, I want to see how it's done. Not for the purpose of copying it, and appropriating it, but for the purpose of learning from it; feeding my intellect is the way I can keep it alive. I cannot generate new, novel artifacts, without old ones to feed my curiosity, and my ability. Here's the thing: the companies want to own those artifacts, and I want to freely peruse them. It would be one thing to just be able to rent them from companies, but in the case of closed source, that is not possible. Intellectual artifacts become inaccessible.

T_S_ 15y ago

IP is a catch-all term for a variety of legal situations (patents, copyright, trade secrets, even non-compete). Your comment is a very nice legal theory, but I don't know if the courts decide things this way in every case.

Dylan16807 15y ago

I think you're being overly picky about wording. Intellect creates intellectual artifacts, just as a mason puts down masonry. If such an intellectual artifact happens to be property then it is intellectual property.