[pp.int.general] ACTA declaration

[Boris Turovskiy]

On 09.07.2010 00:03, Fedor Khod'kov wrote:
> Very strange idea.  Why do you want to "introduce" "intellectual
> property" if the first thing what you are going to say about it is that
> the concept of "intellectual property" have nothing to do with concept
> of property as it is known for centuries (with all debates over it and
> all its historical evolution)?
>    
Now this statement is going too far. "Intellectual property" surely has 
distinct qualities which make it different from other forms of property, 
but so do those forms in relation to each other. For example, property 
on material goods and "intellectual property" on a work have in common 
that individual effort has been necessary for the respective objects to 
be created, while property on land or property on animals do not have 
this quality. On the other hands, copies of a work have the quality of 
being non-exclusive (non-scarce), which does not apply to material goods 
or land but does again apply to such things as authorship, precedence 
("who was the first to invent something?") or domain names.

> Do you really think it's easier to explain what "copyright and patents
> are forms of intellectual property, but intellectual property is a
> special form property -- so forget all what you know about property when
> you think about them" than to simply reject to use the term
> "intellectual property"?
>    
Every form of property is special. The simple example of property of 
land and its differences compared to property to material goods usually 
gets people thinking;) Actually, if you are aquainted with the matter 
well enough, the use of property analogues can make the opponents look 
pretty stupid (An example of this was when one particularly anti-pirate 
guy told at the opening of a meeting, "OK guys, the Pirate Party has 
decreed that stealing cars is legal, so don't wonder where your car is 
when you leave this assembly" and the response was "OK guys, the CSU has 
decreed that car-sharing is illegal, so don't wonder if you get arrested 
when taking your friend in your car").

> Have you missed somehow what the concept of "intellectual property" is
> already "introduced" by demagogues whose aims are opposite to ours --
> and that main motive of its "introduction" is to make people think about
> copyright (and patents, and trademarks) as a form of property?
>    
Not as a form of property, but - as I explained in my original reply - 
as a one-to-one correspondence with a specific simple form of material 
goods property. So why should we dance to that tune?

> If you think that following enemy propaganda is more "constructive" than
> rejecting it -- you are completely wrong; the only thing you can
> "construct" that way is your own defeat.
>    
I'm trying to tell you which point of the opponents' propaganda (by the 
way, could you guys stop talking in such a militaristic manner?) is the 
most vulnerable. You won't explain away the fact that there are in fact 
similarities between certain forms of material property and certain 
aspects of copyright, trademarks, patents etc. laws (yes, these 
similarities will be different for the different applications). You can, 
however, successfully argue that as each form of property, including 
"intellectual property", is governed by different sets of rules, there 
is no logical consequence that "intellectual property" should prohibit 
sharing copies or creating derivative works.

Best regards,
Boris