[pp.int.general] WIPO DG mentions Pirate Party in speech to Blue Sky conference

[W Tovey]

[Apologies if this discussion has already occurred elsewhere on this list.]

While I understand the desire to move away from the term "intellectual
property" due to the unhelpful emphasis on property, and the suggestion
that works covered by it are all of some "intellectual value" (and I
cringe every time it is used), having a catch-all phrase is very useful.
It strikes me that in order to stop people using it, it isn't sufficient
to simply criticise it, but we must replace it with something more
appropriate. While "the copyright monopoly" is one suggestion, that only
covers copyright, whereas we need something that covers all of this
stuff (copyrights, moral rights, database rights, performers' rights,
design rights, patents, trade marks, resale rights and so on).

My initial thought on this was something along the lines of "Information
Rights" - as what all this stuff has in common is that it grants rights
to use, or prevent the use of information in some way. However, it
appears this term is already being used for Data Protection issues and
similar (and the cynic inside me suggests someone has already tried to
trademark it somewhere). Of course, data protection laws are in many
ways similar to copyrights etc. in that they control how information can
be used, copied and so on (in fact I vaguely recall cases where
copyright has been used to protect the distribution of databases, rather
than some sort of data protection law).

Anyway, I would be interested in hearing people's thoughts on what term
we *should* be using instead of IP.

-Will Tovey
legalpiracy.wordpress.com

[There's an interesting, if technical and UK-centric discussion of the
history of the term IP here, covering the age of industrial property
(that made a little more sense) - worth a read for anyone interested:
https://sites.google.com/site/petergroves81/Home ]

On 04/03/2011 00:16, Richard Stallman wrote:
> Every discussion we hold shapes our habits of speaking and habits of
> thinking.  The term "intellectual property" tends to mislead the people
> who use it as well as support a particular side of the debate.
>
> However, the reason I mentioned it here was to point out something
> that we ought to criticize if we talk about or respond to that speech.
> I was not responding to another posting here.
>