[pp.int.general] "Intellectual property"

[Richard Stallman]

    They don't advocate
    copyright because the term "intellectual property" contains the word
    "property", they advocate it because they think that copyrighted material IS
    someone's property. 

This shows precisely why the bias in the term "intellectual property"
helps our enemies substantially.  People who start thinking of
copyright as a kind of property will tend to follow that path, ending
up at the conclusion that copyright has to be upheld like physical
object property rights.

Logically speaking, that path is not valid.  Even supposing that
holding a copyright and owning a house are both instances of property,
it does not follow logically that they must be treated the same, or
even similarly.

However, we are concerned with winning people's support, not with
abstract logic.  Thinking of copyright as an artificial incentive
for writing suggests certain conclusions; thinking of it as property
suggests other conclusions.

Generalizing about many different laws also affects what conclusions
seem natural to people.  Patents and copyrights are totally different
in practice; what they have in common is purely at an abstract level.
To use a term that generalizes about them focuses attention at the
abstract level and away from the practical effects of each law.

For those who want society to disregard a major practical effect of
copyright law, the War on Sharing, focusing attention at the abstract
level is very useful because it distracts attention from the practical
effects of copyright law.