[Leaplist] Patent reform vs terminating Intellectual Property laws [was Re: FYI, evidence of realities of IP]

[Dan Cherry]

Bill Anderson wrote:
> On Wednesday 24 January 2007 07:27, William A. Mahaffey III wrote:
>> Bill Anderson wrote:
>>>> When you look at the gestation period for new drugs, I think the current
>>>> 17-year patent period might be too short. There is always room to gripe
>>>> about abuse of any law (patent or otherwise), but anarchy is *always* a
>>>> bad solution ....
>>> Yet it works so well for this list. This list is an anarchistic creation. 
>>> Or is there some list governing structure keeping us all in line that
>>> nobody's been told about ? Besides, anarchy works splendidly for ants. ;)
>> Who says this is working well :-) ? *Many* have already griped to take
>> it off-list ....
> 
> Well I guess since "Many" (I've seen one) have no ability to filter out a 
> small diversion that they are not interested in, and several of you have no 
> interest in actual facts and instead wish only to make personal attacks and 
> ignore what people are saying, then this list is clearly not tha august body 
> it once was. Feel free to continue the misappropriation of words and labeling 
> anything you don't like as theft despite the lack of meeting the basic 
> criterion.
> 
> I guess I should go now before you start accusing me of stealing their time, 
> bandwidth, and attention since clearly they must lack the ability to focus it 
> on their own.
> 
> it is truly a sad day when a Linux oriented list disdains from researched and 
> founded arguments, instead relying an unfounded assertion and generalization, 
> not to mention personal attacks.
> 
Another possibility is the diversion you presented was more interesting 
than the topic of the thread, but still not interesting enough to jump 
into - since there wasn't going to be anything gained by doing so. 
Several of us probably chose to sit back and grin over the discussion.

Personally, I believe any discussion about IP is typically akin to 
arguing politics and religion - no right or wrong, just different 
opinions/viewpoints and an occasional 'Hooray for our side' thrown in.

This thread seemed to be more about semantics than whether ip can or 
should be stolen, which is cool.  Thanks, Bill, for making a (possibly 
appropriate) strict interpretation of a few words that can be 
legitimately used in a general sense.  If anyone wanted to challenge 
what he said, they had only to look at the m-w definitions Bill cited 
earlier.

  - Within the definition of 'steal', there are several meanings.  I 
believe Bill was using the 'taking of property', vs. stealing a base, or 
coming/going secretly, etc.  Logically, we would have to agree on the 
definition of 'property' before we can nitpick the validity of the 
semantics.  m-w leads one to believe 'property' can be tangible or 
intangible.  One of their examples refers to stealing one's liberty.

  - The first definition of 'property' is the quality/trait/attribute of 
someone or something.  I could also make a silly case for "taking one's 
property" as meaning "removing their 'attributes'".  More likely, we'd 
have to agree that 'property' is something owned or possessed.

  - There are also several synonyms for 'steal', and m-w notes that 
'steal' is used for intangibles as well as tangibles.  Examples include 
stealing a kiss or stealing a look.  The 'stealee' loses nothing, so ip 
may or may not be in that category.

Now it's up to you to decide which terms/definitions you want, and it's 
also up to you to clarify, if someone disagrees.  The semantics are 
right or wrong only after we agree how the terms will be interpreted.

my 2 cents...
Dan

> Cheers,
> Bill
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-- 
Dan Cherry
dscherry (@) bellsouth.net

Finding a solution to a problem doesn't solve the problem...
Implementing the solution solves the problem.