at the temporal coordinates: 9/7/01 3:23 PM, the entity known as
Templarsog1_at_aol.com at Templarsog1_at_aol.com conveyed the following:
>
>
> In a message dated 9/7/01 3:15:13 PM, fyzycyst_at_home.com writes:
>
> << And in so doing they will seal our fate as a civilization, as all progress
> inevitably grinds to a halt. But intellectual property is NOT tangible. It
> consists of IDEAS. How can I ever write a novel if I have to worry that the
> plot falls too close to something that someone wrote 200 years prior? How
> can I compete against a company that obtained a patent a century ago? By
> this logic, we couldn't have multiple car companies (and thus competition).
> The entire concept of "owning" an idea exclusively and in perpetuity is an
> aberration that has primarily arisen in the 20th Century. >>
>
> This is exactly the type of drivel that will lead us down the road to
> destruction. These '20th century aberrations' as you term them are only one
> of the things that have led us to the United States being the only and
> greatest nation and superpower the world has ever seen or will see by any
> measure. Everything else is just noise and will amount to nothing. No one
> else does it better than the United States and in doing so we show the rest
> of the world the way. Do you think people struggle to come to the US for
> nothing. the proof is in the pudding. Get ready for the future.
> -William
>
Actually, the rape of intellectual property law has little to do with
American greatness and just might have everything to do with the slowing of
progress in recent years. The logical conclusion of your suggestions is
that all new ideas are potentially forever locked up in patent and copyright
searches before they can ever see the light of day. At that point, only
huge corporations will have the resources to produce something new and the
individual will have been frozen out. What is drivel is to somehow, in the
face of all logic and common sense, think that a perpetual monopoly is good
for anyone (except, perhaps, for the holder of that monopoly).
- Eric.
-- This is the Newtontalk mailinglist - http://www.newtontalk.net To unsubscribe or manage: visit the above link or mailto:newtontalk-request_at_newtontalk.net?Subject=unsubscribe
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Wed Oct 03 2001 - 12:01:35 EDT