[Reader-list] Thought Thieves Steal Ideas FROM YOUR HEAD!

[karim at sarai.net]

Rana Dasgupta wrote:

> The gesture does not lack creativity.

I would be very surprised if it did. Most copyright holders have both
money and the legal obligation to their shareholders to both vigorously
safeguard and increase the value that accrues to the holders.

The desire to protect and strengthen their revenue stream, combined with
substantial funds and a deep fear of the power of digital media and
emergent media usage patterns to threaten the stream makes it imperative
to hire only the best marketers, advertisers, lobbyists and public
relations representatives.

Professionalism in these fields is defined as the ability to represent the
client's  product, image or paradigm in a favourable light to a particular
audience. It follows then, that the best in the field are very good at
what they do. Whether it's a slick image that embodies "freedom", despite
being tied to an obsessively controlled, hardware-cum-software platform
(e.g. Apple's Mac + OS X) or a fashionably gritty and compelling publicity
message that conflates the violation of copyright with cancer, or the
sponsoring of short films on "the theft of your ideas" by a
megacorporation, we will continue to see efforts to convince people that
"intellectual property" is just like real property, just like a book or a
table or a machine.

In the case of copyright, for example, the effort is on, for instance, to
propagate the view that just as you don't own your house for a term set by
the government, copyright should vest in perpetuity.

For an interesting essay against the term and the thinking behind
"intellectual property", take a look at the links [1] [2] I've appended.

I think that what we need, then, is for people, especially those who can,
for instance, express "simple ideas with elegance and charm"[3]  ;-) to
counter this well funded, creative speech with speech of their own,
breaking down, for instance, the oversimplication and dangerous
implications of the words "intellectual property" and "theft". Videos such
as "Copyright v. Community with Cory Doctorow" available for zero cost on
the Internet Archive are excellent examples of efforts in this direction.

Keep the tinfoil on, and stay away from the SinistroWaves.

Cheers,
Aniruddha "Karim" Shankar

[1] http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/not-ipr.xhtml
[2] http://tinyurl.com/bc9zm
[3] http://tinyurl.com/99m9n
[4] http://tinyurl.com/873pt