On Mon, Nov 25, 2002, Oron Peled wrote about "Re: OT: right or wrong to copy proprietary software": > > It boils down to a very simple thing. IP is NOT estate. > > Bingo. That's why you should avoid using the missleading name: > Intelectual *Property* >... > Of course we should find a better name... any suggestions? > What do you say about: > "Intelectual Restriction Rights" == IRR
I think your distinction is false. There are many kinds of "property" recognized by the law. You have real-estate (land, buildings, etc.), you have chattel (also called "possessions"), and you have intellectual property. I believe (but I am not a lawyer either ;)) that IP is offically called that in the appropriate laws, so you cannot just reinvent a different name for it. Anyway, why am I saying your distinction is false? It's easy to see the distinction between *chattel* and IP. You have total control over your chattel, you can hide it in a safe, guard it, nobody will know you have it, and so on. But real-estate property isn't that far from IP: Owning Real-estate lets you restrict what other people do with you piece of property (land, building, etc.). But it does not get you absolute control about this property. Planes can go above it, and gophers can burrow below it. State officials can enter your property with the proper warrant, or in case of emergency. The city can confiscate your land or parts of it for certain uses. The laws of the country still apply on your property, and you are not allowed to kill people on it at a whim, or to start a tax-free zone on it. Tenants on your property can (under some circumstances) stay on your property without you having the right to evict them, and sometimes without you even being able to control the amount of rent they pay. So any property rights, not just IP rights, are "negative rights", meaning they are rights that *prevent* other people from doing certain things to you. None of the property rights are absolute, in the sense that other rights (the right to life is most obvious, but certainly not the only one) can come before it. In that sense, IP is indeed treated as a kind of property. Note that I'm not saying that IP *should* be a kind of property - or that IP should exist at all - I'm just saying how it is treated in the law systems I'm familiar with (namely Israel and the U.S.). -- Nadav Har'El | Monday, Nov 25 2002, 20 Kislev 5763 [EMAIL PROTECTED] |----------------------------------------- Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |The software said it requires Windows 95 http://nadav.harel.org.il |or better, so I installed Linux. ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
