Re: "Against Intellectual Property"

On Fri, 28 Jul 2000, Pat Sloane <patsloane[_at_]aol.com> wrote, referring to Brian Martin's "Against Intellectual Property":
>
> I presume Brian is going to put this book on the internet for free,
> and doesn't need any income from it. [...] I don't believe, however,
> that it's necessarily good in the long run to have books written only
> by those with independent incomes who don't need to be paid for their
> work and prefer not to be paid for their work. [...] I don't think
> it's ever been shown that rich people who don't need to be paid for
> their writing necessarily write the best books. To date, it rather
> appears that they don't.

I agree. I've also read Martin's screed. He has some unusual views.

Danny Yee, the apparent site owner, notes in an introduction that Martin confuses "freeware," "free software," and "public domain." Martin also consistently confuses "ideas," "information," and "expression"; appears at one point to confuse copyright and trademark; and appears to believe that ghostwriting is a form of plagiarism. These confusions seem to be formidable stumbling blocks for the author of a dissertation on the subject of intellectual property.

He also makes the startling assertion that there are "probably only a few hundred" self-employed writers in the whole of the United States. That statement would come as rather a surprise to quite a few thousand people, including the undersigned, who has been so employed for over three decades.

Finally, Martin suggests some interesting strategies that might be employed by those seeking to do away with intellectual property, among them the use of disinformation propaganda (don't call it intellectual property; call it "monopoly") and open defiance of (i.e., totally ignoring) copyright ownership. He calls the latter "protest"; I would have a different word for it.

--Dodi Schultz
  <schultz[_at_]compuserve.com> Received on Sat Jul 29 2000 - 23:35:10 GMT