Intellectual Paucity

Oh, the Oracle vs. Google thing and all the would-be Napoleans salivating over the prospect of expanding Intellectual Paucity laws.

(If you can't control the world in an economy of plenty, force an artificial scarcity of something important, right?)

Well, if you think IP is a good thing, here are a few things you need to remember:

(1) You can't own what is in someone else's head.

(I mean, sure, there are people who believe they can, but you and I know that, as soon as their back is turned, we think what we want, whether we were acquiescing to their reality distortion field before or not.)

(2) If you can't control it, you can't own it, and the law can only go so far in controlling something for you.

(Again, you and I both know that you can't afford to hire someone to sit in my shop forever, bringing out a shotgun every time I power up my lathe or start etching a new PC board.)

These are natural laws, as sure as air is hard to confine. Which brings up a third point, a natural law as inexorable as gravity, which you should consider carefully before you decide to excrete in your own gruel by "enforcing" "your" "intellectual property" "rights":

(3) Attempts to defy the two principles above have, in the past, resulted in violence, bloodshed, separation of colonies from their "mother country" (Tea party, anyone?), and the downfall of regimes.

This is the final reason we should tread a little lightly when we want to "monetize" "our" "value" in our "IP" a little more fully, even if we refuse to understand the courtesies creative people offer each other.

Why is it so hard for non-practicing parties (including the several "Artists Associations" and certain "standards organizations" to recognize principles like sharing and standing on the shoulders of giants?

Why is it so hard to understand that you can't squeeze the society around you and escape the squeeze yourself?

Why is it so hard to recognize that, if you want to be free to make money, you have to let others be free to make value -- free, as in, without your interference?

Why is it that everybody seems to want to rule the world?