Link: Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Owning ideas.
My favorite part:
"This is madness. Ideas aren't things. They're much more valuable than that. Intellectual property - treating some ideas as if they were in some circumstances things that can be owned and traded - is itself no more than an idea that can be copied, modified and improved. ..."
Very honest and incisive article.
Song writers want other artists to improve their original intent/content. And this music form has made for some interesting twists in remakes of old tunes.
Software writers are taking the fun out of code writing by trying to get a patent on every new bell and whistle.
In copyright law you cannot patent a sequence of chords---only the melody and words. This should be a lesson for the future.
Posted by: Ray Gray | December 01, 2005 at 02:45 AM