Comments on: Lessig preaches openness to Flash faithful
Copyright reformer Lawrence Lessig urges the creation of free content on the proprietary Flash platform.
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Related quotes
Lessig chairs the Creative Commons
organization, which offers a variety
of intellectual property licenses
less restrictive than the standard
"all rights reserved."
... and, then farther down:
Lessig argued that proprietary
platforms like Flash had a rightful
place on the Internet, but that
developers of such technologies
ought to loosen restrictions on
their creative property.
There is no such thing as intellectual "property" or creative "property."
Please stop using your media outlet to spread corporate propaganda.
I have a copy of the happy birthday song in my brain. It's copyrighted. Am I in criminal possession of someone's "property?" Can the holder of the copyright (AOL Time-Warner, I believe) demand that I return their "property" under force of the law? Can they "repossess" their "property" if I am unable to comply? I would certainly put up a fight if they tried, not because I love the song but because it's MY brain and because that song is NOT "property."
Don't believe me? Ask Thomas Jefferson:
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody.
That said, I'm intrigued by arguments raised against the term. For further reading, see Stallman's page on this subject:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml
- Stop Spinning
- by nealda April 7, 2005 6:38 AM PDT
- Paul Festa writes:
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
-
- Stop misquoting Thomas Jefferson
- by aabcdefghij987654321 April 7, 2005 1:00 PM PDT
- You are comparing ideas to creativity which is not a valid comparison. Jefferson understood the value and need for Copyright laws, he was in Congress when the first ones were written!
- Like this View reply
Processing -
- intellectual property?
- by April 7, 2005 5:22 PM PDT
- In all honesty, I'd never given the term "intellectual property" much scrutiny, simply because it's in such widespread use ("World Intellectual Property Organization," "intellectual property" departments at law schools all over the world, about 68 million Google search results and 2195 on News.com).
- Like this
-
(10 Comments)Lessig chairs the Creative Commons
organization, which offers a variety
of intellectual property licenses
less restrictive than the standard
"all rights reserved."
... and, then farther down:
Lessig argued that proprietary
platforms like Flash had a rightful
place on the Internet, but that
developers of such technologies
ought to loosen restrictions on
their creative property.
There is no such thing as intellectual "property" or creative "property."
Please stop using your media outlet to spread corporate propaganda.
I have a copy of the happy birthday song in my brain. It's copyrighted. Am I in criminal possession of someone's "property?" Can the holder of the copyright (AOL Time-Warner, I believe) demand that I return their "property" under force of the law? Can they "repossess" their "property" if I am unable to comply? I would certainly put up a fight if they tried, not because I love the song but because it's MY brain and because that song is NOT "property."
Don't believe me? Ask Thomas Jefferson:
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody.
That said, I'm intrigued by arguments raised against the term. For further reading, see Stallman's page on this subject:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml