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To: Tonytitan
What do you propose as a replacement protection for intellectual property rights?

I don't have an answer to your question. I'm merely predicting (and I certainly could be wrong) how I see the concept of copyright being mooted by technology.

And IIRC, copyright is a relatively recent development in the history of human communications.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright

The first copyright statute was the British Statute of Anne of 1709, the full title of which was: "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned". Initially copyright only applied to published books, but over time copyright was extended to other uses, such as translations and derivative works.

73 posted on 11/25/2010 7:15:57 AM PST by abb ("What ISN'T in the news is often more important than what IS." Ed Biersmith, 1942 -)
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To: abb

Don’t look for the concept (intellectual property) to fade away very soon. Facebook is now trying (and is predicted to succeed) to get a patent on the word “face” (at least as far as websites are concerned).

A couple of years ago the Supreme Court declined to consider the case of Metabolite, which has the “right” to patent YOUR genes. For more on this see http://www.michaelcrichton.net/essay-nytimes-thisessaybreaksthelaw.html

The intellectual property maze is going to become a lot more confusing (read “ridiculous and unfair”) as time goes by.

Where there is money to be gain, fair play goes out the window.


89 posted on 11/25/2010 8:43:43 AM PST by Clique
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