Anyone Else Hate Intellectual Property?

[GreedIsGod]

My guess is probably 'No' for the same reason most union-members don't hate unions: Economic interest.  Just the same I despise it.  A common argument for IP in writer circles is that "if there is no IP how will we make money?"  And what makes you think you deserve money?  If your job can only be supported by violence (IE government regulation) then you have no valid economic worth.  No one has a 'right' to any job or a job at all, whether you live or die is entirely up to your ability and willingness to serve the interests of other people for money.
Here is a copy of the End-Use License I put on anything I write:

All Material is copyright RJ Moore II, and may be used according to the following contract:
I) You may use, modify, sell or duplicate any material written by myself except:
a) You may not copyright any material herein or derivative of such yourself, or use this material or derivatives of this material with any work which is copyright in any commercial product.
b) Certain material herein which was not legally recognized as my own work and any use of it may be a prosecuteable violation of law.  Use is at your own risk and responsibility.
II) Failure to comply with this contract will result in legal action against you.

The consequence of this contract is that I deny any 'ownership' of ideas but any use of my work with the claim of idea ownership of it or any other work will result in legal action against that party.  In this way I use copyrights to defeat copyrights.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

The Forge isn't a place for opinion polling. I think you've raised some good points for discussion in your post, but overall it reads more like a personal mission statement, or some kind of cry of defiance, rather than an inquiry or point of connection among posters.

As far as this thread goes, and how people participate in it, let's avoid "well I think" posting in reply.

To that purpose, GiG, can you identify a point that we can discuss? For example, are you interested in comparisons of how other publishers deal with this issue? If so, say so - otherwise someone might post his or her approach without realizing that you (hypothetically) would reply as if you'd been challenged.

On the other hand, maybe you're interested in ways in which your approach might not stand up to legal or professional forms of scrutiny, in order to refine it. In which case, replies about other publishers' approaches would be irrelevant.

Do you see that, given your post, I'm forced to guess what you'd like to discuss? I understand your position, but I don't know what this thread is about. Help out, please.

Best,
Ron

[Reimer Behrends]

RJ,

may I suggest that you consult a lawyer specializing in copyright issues before using this particular license? No offense, but it appears to be somewhat poorly drafted. Alternatively, you may want to use an established open content license, such as the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License, which seems to cover the main legal issues that you seek to address.

[GreedIsGod]

RJ,

may I suggest that you consult a lawyer specializing in copyright issues before using this particular license? No offense, but it appears to be somewhat poorly drafted. Alternatively, you may want to use an established open content license, such as the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License, which seems to cover the main legal issues that you seek to address.

It's similar in some notions, except I don't demand credit and I encourage people to sell anything they want whether or not I originally wrote it.  My issue is just that they not claim property to it.

[Malak]

A common argument for IP in writer circles is that "if there is no IP how will we make money?"  And what makes you think you deserve money?  If your job can only be supported by violence (IE government regulation) then you have no valid economic worth.

Poor argument.

There is no profession (bar soldier) that isn't supported in such a manner... Grow food & I can take it by force. Do farmers have no valid economic worth?

The US Constitution adopts a Field of Dreams approach to the creation of works of authorship - the idea that "if you protect it, they will come." By establishing this marketable right to the use of one's expression, copyright supplies the economic incentive to create and disseminate ideas. As the Supreme Court has recognized: "The immediate effect of our copyright law is to secure a fair return for an 'author's' creative labor. But the ultimate aim is, by this incentive, to stimulate artistic creativity for the general public good."

IP is 'ideas' rather than 'things'. If you accept that the generation of ideas is good for society, then you need to encorage their creation.

[efindel]

RJ,
may I suggest that you consult a lawyer specializing in copyright issues before using this particular license? No offense, but it appears to be somewhat poorly drafted.

I'll second that.  In particular,

Certain material herein which was not legally recognized as my own work and any use of it may be a prosecuteable violation of law.

isn't even a complete sentence -- you have a subject, but no predicate.

Alternatively, you may want to use an established open content license, such as the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License, which seems to cover the main legal issues that you seek to address.

It's similar in some notions, except I don't demand credit and I encourage people to sell anything they want whether or not I originally wrote it.  My issue is just that they not claim property to it.

Well... that might be your intent, but that's not what your license does.  Section Ia prevents anyone from legally selling what you've written, since you state it cannot be used in "any commercial product".

Your license also shows misunderstandings of law.  First off, if this were a "contract", it would need to be signed and returned to you -- and under some jurisdictions, a contract may not be considered enforceable unless there has been some exchange of value (i.e., a cash sale or barter arrangement).

Second, Ia states "You may not copyright any material herein or derivative of such yourself".  Under current law in most places, copyright exists on a fixed expression the moment you create it, whether you want to or not.  You don't go and "copyright" something -- rather, if you don't want to claim copyright on something, you have to do something.  What you probably need to say is that "you may not claim copyright on any material herein or derivative of such".  And the "yourself" should be left out, since it implies that someone else can do it on behalf of the person -- i.e., I could write a derivative of your material, then ask my friend Bob to claim copyright on it, since I would not be doing it myself then.

Section Ib is, frankly, a stupid thing to put in there.  You're admitting violating someone else's copyright in your license.  Regardless of your feelings about copyrights, that's just not smart.  Doing that could also render your license null and void, since no one can tell what parts aren't yours, and you have no right to set conditions on the use of work you don't have copyright on.

Lastly, Section II is redundant.  The whole point of any contract or license is to establish terms, the violation of which can result in legal action.

Personally, I don't hate copyright or other IP laws.  They have good uses and they have bad uses.  I dislike the bad uses of them, and those who engage in them, but the concept of IP itself is not responsible for those.  And note that while the law may be slow to move to block bad uses, usually it eventually does -- especially if people stand up against them.

I'd strongly suggest getting a copy of Lawrence Lessig's book Free Culture and reading it.  You can buy it from any good bookstore, or it's also freely available under a Creative Commons license.  Hit

http://free-culture.org

to find it.

[contracycle]

It might be worth checking out CopyLeft, which seems to accord with your goals, Greed.

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/copyleft.html

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

This is a moderator post.

This forum does not exist for the purpose of debating what one "should" do regarding intellectual property or any other aspect of publishing.

It exists for helping people figure out their best options for creator-owned publishing. Those options will differ a lot for different people, depending on their goals.

Contribute to this thread only in the spirit of helping RJ achieve his goals. If you think he needs to change-up his approach or would benefit from some more research, that's great - but if you disagree with those goals, then find some other way to express that (e.g. private email) or abstain from posting (even better).

So far, everyone's been pretty good about this. Martin, I know you're still getting used to the Forge, so treat this post as a little help in getting oriented.

Best,
Ron