From: Michael Lorrey (retroman@tpk.net)
Date: Wed Mar 19 1997 - 17:26:37 MST
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>
> > All civilized societies also recognize common concepts of intellectual
> > property, notably concepts like the patent, copyright, and trademarks.
>
> This is manifestly false, unless your definition of "civilization"
> includes it, in which case it is tautological. China, Pakistan, and
> several other countries have no such concepts, and no need of them.
Nor are their records on respect for any sort of human rights at all
what an individualist would call "civilized".
> The United States had no such laws before the USPTO was created.
Wrong. Read your US Constitution.
> The very concept itself is a denial of the individual rights you
> seek to protect: an individual who has acquired some knowledge by
> legal non-coercive means has the right to use whatever knowledge he
> has to further his life's goals without coercive interference from
> the state on behalf of some other claimant to a monopoly on that
> knowledge. Patents and Copyrights are coercive monopolies, not
> properties (trademarks, in contrast, /are/ properties because their
> use by non-owners constitutes making a fraudulent substantive claim).
SOunds like an intellectual property version of the old rule that stated
that blacks were 2/3 human. Sorry it doesn't wash. Patents and
copyrights are merely government recognition of original work and an
agreement to enforce protection of the inventors creation from license
violations, much as trademarks are protected from fraudulent claims. you
argument is irrational and typical of the hacker ethic that whats mine
is mine and whatever I can crack, pry up, steal, or defraud from people
is mine.
>
> The policies you advocate here are no more justified than any other
> government interference, and what's worse, they give a justification
> that sounds libertarian in principle while stabbing true liberty in
> the back. Those who wish to protect their intellectual discoveries
> must do so themselves with contracts, technologies, and other non-
> coercive means, not beg the state to do it for them at gunpoint.
When the state derives its authority from that granted by its citizens,
as ours is by the constitution, then it is not begging, it is a mutual
aid compact.
--
TANSTAAFL!!!
Michael Lorrey
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#!/usr/local/bin/perl-0777---export-a-crypto-system-sig-RC4-3-lines-PERL
@k=unpack('C*',pack('H*',shift));for(@t=@s=0..255){$y=($k[$_%@k]+$s[$x=$_
]+$y)%256;&S}$x=$y=0;for(unpack('C*',<>)){$x++;$y=($s[$x%=256]+$y)%256;
&S;print pack(C,$_^=$s[($s[$x]+$s[$y])%256])}sub S{@s[$x,$y]=@s[$y,$x]}
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