"Alex F. Bokov" wrote:
>
> Intellectual property is a type of 'regular property' that happens to be
> nonrival and nonexcludable, and that type of property is nothing new to
> society. What's new is for property to suddenly transition from the rival
> and excludable category into the nonrival and nonexcludable category. That's
> where all the confusion and disruption is coming from.
>
Incorrect. The digital age has produced value carrying media
that are nearly infinitely reproducible without much trouble.
This greatly changes the old assumption of physical embodiments
being copyrightable. At the same time we have new forms of
intellectual acheivements that stand somewhere in between books
and mathematical algorithms and processes. Software also
benefits greatly if kept more open and is essential to our
gaining of greater informational abilities. It is not at all
clear whether software makes sense as property in any remotely
traditional sense.
- samantha
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:16 MDT