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Intellectual Nonsense: Fallacious Arguments for IP: Part 2

I posted the other day my 45-minute talk at Libertopia, “Intellectual Nonsense: Fallacious Arguments for IP.” As I noted there, I only covered about a third of the material I had prepared. Today I recorded a two-hour podcast covering the remaining material. It’s all here.

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  • aaeru October 21, 2012, 12:57 am

    One more argument against IP I didn’t hear in the podcast but I see very commonly, wondering if you can address it,

    It’s the expression v ideas dichotomy.
    You don’t own the ideas but you own the expression.

    If I paint a picture, I don’t own the artstyle or the way I paint it (the idea), but I own the final picture (the expression) because that is mine. That final picture is something unique to me, it is my unique expression that no one else could have thought up and that I spent many hundreds of hours painting, and I should have a right over it.

    If I compose a song, I don’t own the various ways to achieve consonance and dissonance and harmonies (the idea) but I own the final arrangement of THIS particular arrangements of consonances and dissonances and harmonies (this particular arrangement is mine. I wrote it. Go write your own.)

    If I write a piece of writing I don’t own the literary style (the idea), but I own the exact wording of the final piece (the expression) even if it uses the same literary style as what other people have used.
    i’ll give a specific example.

    Eben Moglen’s famous rhetorical question:
    “How many of the Einstein’s who ever existed were allowed to learn Physics?”

    Eben doesn’t own the use of the rhetorical question to convey this meaning (the idea), but he owns this EXACT wording, this particular example of its usage. Other people can use rhetorical questions to mean the same thing. But this particular sentence and its wording is his.

    • Louigi Verona October 23, 2012, 8:52 am

      It’s there, part 2, minute 127.

      Stephan does not elaborate that much on it, but it is clear, isn’t it. It comes down to what they mean by “expression”. If by that they mean the actual physical painting – fine. If by that they mean your transformation of the original idea – well, then it is in itself an idea, isn’t it?
      So it is not clear what they are trying to say, really. This is just trying to confuse things.