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If you read the essay in full, you’d see that he distinguishes between copyright laws meant to encourage authorship and what is currently meant under the “IP um

If you read the essay in full, you’d see that he distinguishes between copyright laws meant to encourage authorship and what is currently meant under the “IP umbrella,” which is more about protecting monopoly power.

onethought 6y ago
Yes, he does conflate a bunch of behaviour into IP. But that’s just his conflation. Monopolistic practices exist with or without IP laws, terms of service, etc. Take a look at some other industries: energy companies have protected fossil fuel exploitation and stifled research and adoption of nuclear and green alternatives. Finance industry have maintained monopoly and avoided regulation despite there being obvious harm to their practice. These behaviours are related to capitalism... not intellectual property.
- stonecraftwolf 6y ago
  It really seems you haven’t read the essay. He does not conflate them; he distinguishes between them, at length. I encourage you to read it.
  - onethought 6y ago
    Frustrating that you'd seek to just undermine my knowledge on it rather than honestly assess my point. But I'll play: - He intros by talking about copyright, DRM, terms of use, etc - Then jumps to the fact that Opioid companies try to hook you with addiction, just like Facebook. (So what's that got to do with Copyright, DRM, Terms of use?) - Then hints at network effects of "How can you leave Facebook if all your friends are there?" (What's that got to do with anything?) - Then he talks about service lock-in which again has nothing to do with Intellectual Property. You are locked in to all sorts of things in your life as a consumer, that is a capitalistic practice the fact that software companies use IP as the way to pull the lock-in lever is kind of secondary to the point isn't it? Isn't the main point: Why do we accept lock-in at all? (Again he's conflated these, not separates them) - He talks about Copyright like it's just the US... so what about GDPRs "Right to data portability?", that's the beginning of inter-op. Or Countries copyright exceptions for interop purposes? No mention of those. So not only has he conflated Monopolistic tendencies with IP, he then conflates "Global IP laws" with "US IP law"... which misrepresents the vast majority of the world. As I've mentioned in other comments, in the country I live in: there is no such thing as "Fair Use", you are allowed to copy things for certain protected reasons, and people can't even bring a case against you for those reasons (A subtle but important difference). - Lets take the kindle example where he says (paraphrase) "Amazon have locked you in, and you are breaking the law if you attempt to undo it"... Well what if I live in a country that allows me the right to reverse engineer for the purposes of inter-op? I can (legally) hack that kindle to pieces... Now they might make that really hard, or even impossible... In a similar way that Oil companies have depressed the EV market and made it WAY harder to own an EV to an ICE... But IP isn't getting in the way here.

onethought 6y ago

Yes, he does conflate a bunch of behaviour into IP. But that’s just his conflation. Monopolistic practices exist with or without IP laws, terms of service, etc. Take a look at some other industries: energy companies have protected fossil fuel exploitation and stifled research and adoption of nuclear and green alternatives. Finance industry have maintained monopoly and avoided regulation despite there being obvious harm to their practice. These behaviours are related to capitalism... not intellectual property.

stonecraftwolf 6y ago
It really seems you haven’t read the essay. He does not conflate them; he distinguishes between them, at length. I encourage you to read it.
- onethought 6y ago
  Frustrating that you'd seek to just undermine my knowledge on it rather than honestly assess my point. But I'll play: - He intros by talking about copyright, DRM, terms of use, etc - Then jumps to the fact that Opioid companies try to hook you with addiction, just like Facebook. (So what's that got to do with Copyright, DRM, Terms of use?) - Then hints at network effects of "How can you leave Facebook if all your friends are there?" (What's that got to do with anything?) - Then he talks about service lock-in which again has nothing to do with Intellectual Property. You are locked in to all sorts of things in your life as a consumer, that is a capitalistic practice the fact that software companies use IP as the way to pull the lock-in lever is kind of secondary to the point isn't it? Isn't the main point: Why do we accept lock-in at all? (Again he's conflated these, not separates them) - He talks about Copyright like it's just the US... so what about GDPRs "Right to data portability?", that's the beginning of inter-op. Or Countries copyright exceptions for interop purposes? No mention of those. So not only has he conflated Monopolistic tendencies with IP, he then conflates "Global IP laws" with "US IP law"... which misrepresents the vast majority of the world. As I've mentioned in other comments, in the country I live in: there is no such thing as "Fair Use", you are allowed to copy things for certain protected reasons, and people can't even bring a case against you for those reasons (A subtle but important difference). - Lets take the kindle example where he says (paraphrase) "Amazon have locked you in, and you are breaking the law if you attempt to undo it"... Well what if I live in a country that allows me the right to reverse engineer for the purposes of inter-op? I can (legally) hack that kindle to pieces... Now they might make that really hard, or even impossible... In a similar way that Oil companies have depressed the EV market and made it WAY harder to own an EV to an ICE... But IP isn't getting in the way here.