Neither Intellectual Nor Property

Techdirt's Mike Masnick is writing a series of short articles on topics around intellectual property. His latest focuses on the term itself, exploring the nomenclature people have proposed to describe matter that is neither intellectual nor property. The whole series (starting here) is well worth a read.

Re:Hmmm

[AJWM]

So if you happen to simultaneously invent something with someone who beats you to the patent office by 20 minutes, you're happy paying him for his intellectual property that you clearly stole (telepathically)?

Legal fiction?

[Stanislav_J]

IANAL (I don't even play one on TV), but it seems to me that IP might be considered a legal fiction [wikipedia.org], much like the equally disputed concept of corporate personhood [wikipedia.org]. Maybe our resident NYCL could set me straight on this.

Tax Intellectual Property

[Dan667]

Even if it is a nickel, it would solve so many problems. If it is worth so much to protect then there should be no problem in paying tax to cover for the mess it makes.

Re:Intellectual property

[RCL]

But binary executable, mp3 file, a movie file and all the other things that are copyrighted are ultimately just a sequence of numbers. You can theoretically copy them by remembering all those numbers if you have a phenomenal memory and ability to type quickly.

Re:What happens when all physical production

[Anonymous Coward]

What about medicine? What about food? What about all the things that we'll never be able to shape with just a printer? You can't just "print out" a bunch of solid steel girders and snap them together into a workable shelter or office building. Why do people think this is a feasible future for us?

Star Trek influence?

[Anonymous Coward]

While I've heard of these 3D printers here, Star Trek replicator tech is the anti-copyright technology you're to be more afraid of. It makes sense that there's no money on the initial object replication-based Star Treks because all you'd need is power generators. And the explanation for the lack of money needed to run those power plants is probably that replication is self sustaining, or something, like replicating its own energy... PERPETUAL-motion-LY.

Which reminds me, 3D printers don't just need "3D ink," they'd need power too. Our world would still produce money commodities so that you'd still need to pay te power bills, even if you could replicate or "print3d" your own food... yuck on printing!

We would also need a garbage disposal industry. Even if we could dematerialize excess "printouts," the food produced out of it won't exactly stay outside of our mouths all week long. Then, your garbage dematerialization printers will need to be separated from the human-waste zapping units, for health reasons. And don't forget drinking water and bathtubs. Water doesn't like electronics. How do you keep "printing it out" without frying your printer?

Wow.
PS: Suppose we all do stay at home anyways in spite of all the counterexamples... with all the boredom of not working, we'd also need an entertainment industry, which brings us back to the "need" for freedom of piracy. Also, I really don't think Doctors and hospitals can go away from the economy. And there will always be a need for techies, even if spyware and viruses affecting your 3dprinters and PC's were to simply cease to exist. After all, just because you own a typewriter doesn't mean you won't need a secretary when typing all day in that utopian world.

Re:What happens when all physical production

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it is. Suffice to say, I'm an engineer and you're obviously not. Everyday physical stuff is made of atoms. Manipulable atoms. You "just" need to put a bunch of atoms in the right configuration. It's not currently easy, but it's getting easier every day, and requires no magic new physics, it is just an engineering problem.

(This is why replicators are basically believable in star trek but transporter "beams", at least ones not requiring both source and destination to have equipment, i.e. as used in the plots, are not).