Jock's Place - Shareware - the future of Intellectual Property? - Comments

I noticed that. It seems

Tristan Mills — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 10:26:29 +0000

I noticed that.
It seems they're being prosecuted for file sharing/downloading, but an RIAA representative has claimed that ripping a CD for your own use is illegal - something which the RIAA probably would like to be true, but it is exceedingly unlikely it is. They've rather shot themselves in the foot since this now means a judge is likely to rule on the issue, and I doubt it would be in the RIAA's favour.

Did you notice the

Jock — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 11:35:27 +0000

Did you notice the ridiculous case of the RIAA prosecuting someone for loading his own copies of CDs onto his computer? Got to be something wrong there!

I will have a look at the MIses stuff - they've been doing quite a lot on IP lately and I've been meaning to read up on it.

The IP issue is very

Tristan Mills — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 11:12:57 +0000

The IP issue is very interesting.
Just found this summary of works on IP from Mises.org affiliates.

I think Kinsella originated some of the criticisms to copyright (in Austrian circles anyway).

I do think the DRM debate will hot up even more this year, I've just come across an interesting situation with regards to DRM, it looks like it is a big tool for maintaining power rather than anything else.

Shareware - the future of Intellectual Property?

Jock — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 13:43:05 +0000

Way back last year sometime James Graham wrote an insightful piece about Intellectual Property - the big 21st century faultline?. As readers will know, as a mutualist, like other libertarian and anarchist descendants (part of the debate amongst whom James highlights), I regard patents and copyrights as one of the four great monopolies that have to be crushed before we get a truly free world and a genuine advance in the conditions of labour. It's not one that I major on because I don't understand it enough yet to make decent arguments - particularly it has to be said against those who tell me that pharmaceutical life saving advances would be jeopardized by any change to this protectionist mechanism.

But as well as obviously following the debate about digital rights/restrictions the subject recently came up at a university board meeting where we were discussing the outrageous economic rent stolen by publishing houses from academics in return for organizing a peer review system that things like Technorati rather prove unnecessary to my mind.

Anyway, I just thought James, if he hasn't seen it already, might like to see this analysis at the Ludvig von Mises Institute blog of the Radiohead album giveaway "stunt" and how it might change the playing field as the CD version of the album goes on sale in the US today: