Monday, June 25, 2012

I didn't really want to talk about patents...

There is some confusion, in general, between patents and copyright, and it's understandable as both systems are being sorely abused.  This blog is all about expanding fair use to all non-commercial use, which is very much a copyright issue, not patents, but there are some things in common.

Both are legal fictions created, originally, to benefit society, and both are being used as cudgels in the form of things like ACTA.

This report has gotten some press, purporting to show, essentially, that innovation increases with the level of a country's intellectual properly laws--as measured by patents, of course.  That this is somewhat circular logic is irrelevant--I bring this up to show an example of the kind of self serving propaganda that large companies are making rather a habit of generating through their shills.

In this case, if you actually research the group making the claims, you can see who is paying their bills, and there should not be much mystery as to their motivation.

A lot of companies have invested a lot of money in crappy imaginary property, and they don't want to see their investments go down the drain.  Unfortunately, that has to happen for the good of all of us--including every individual person who works for each of these companies.

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