[pp.int.general] "Intellectual property"

[Mårten Fjällström]

Richard Stallman wrote:
>     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.
>   
It think it might sometimes be useful to note that the copyright  is a 
limitation to property rights. If you own a house you can do what you 
like with it, but if you own CD you are very limited in what you can do.
> 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.
>   
Since patents, copyright, design patents and trademarks can overlap 
having common terms can be useful, but intellectual property is a bad one.

In swedish, the commonly used term translates into "immaterial rights". 
Is there any other terms that maybe should be pushed as a replacement 
for "intellectual property"?

Regards,
Mårten Fjällström
Party secretary
PPSE