The point is not to proclaim that you own intellect either
Precisely. You cannot own intellect. Thus there can be no "Intellectual Property".
its meant to highlight owning of products derived from intellect and that have commercial value.
No it's not. Plenty of copyrighted things never have a physical product associated with it that can be owned. But patents usually do. This is why it's meaningless (and indeed harmful) to speak about Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks (and to a lesser extent Trade Secrets, though there's not a whole lot for controversy with them) using an umbrella term.
Of course its physically impossible to own intellectual property then, the entire nature of it is by definition intangible (i.e. things that do not exist physically or in a tangible form). Still you can own the rights to them.
Exactly, you "own certain (highly restricted) rights to the piece of intellect" which is
FAR different than "owning the piece of intellect". This is not a semantic or trivial difference. This is a piece of propaganda specifically concocted by the RIAA and MPAA to confuse just those two things.
But let's stop talking in such nebulous terms. Let's get right down to what does and does not work about Copyright. Copyright is the most important of the rights discussed here. Patents and Trademarks are of lesser concern.
They are completely necessary for effective business operations in the US (from historical need), without it, ironically, it allows the entire opposite point of what you say will happen, it would ALLOW corporations to monopolize the industry, by allowing wanton theft of ideas, logos, etc... by larger corporations which bc of their standing will be able to outperform the inventor/author in his own product in price, number, and quality. The laws are necessary then to promote invention, and originality from being a financial RISK to the inventor.
Agreed, from a historical perspective. In the 20th century (and 19th to a lesser extent) Copyrights made perfect sense. An author would write a book. That writer would then require legal protection to prevent publishing companies from publishing the book without passing any profits along to the author. Likewise, it prevents other publishers from competing with the one the author selected.
Perfect sense. I am not a "copyright abolitionist" (and if there are any allusions in the OP to that effect, I should edit it.) Wholesale commercial reproduction to the detriment of the author is a bad thing, and should be prevented by law.
But the 21st century is different in two very important ways. Technology has progressed more in the last 20-30 years than in any part of history. The law, however, is lagging behind.
1) Ordinary citizens are now able to produce copies. Copyright in the 20th century did not concern ordinary citizens, but rather only large publishing corporations. The scope of copyright has ballooned in the last 20 years to encompass WAY more than it ever has before, and far more than it was ever meant to concern.
I want copyrights to turn into a "publishing right", which is exactly what the original intent has always been. I think there is a clear distinction between "copying" and "publishing". Copying is something that happens so frequently and transparently that we don't ever notice it. Publishing (at least as I'm choosing to use the term) refers to mass reproduction and
sale of the material.
I want the holder of a copyright to have an exclusive right to profit from their idea, for a given (and much shorter than present) duration. The copyright owner, however, should not have the ability to tell every man, woman, and child in the world what they can and cannot do with the material.
There is also a lesson to be learned from history. Let's take the history of radio stations, for example...
When radio stations first came into being, the holders of copyrights were outraged! The radio stations were playing music for everyone to hear, and not paying a dime to the music industry. They were called "pirates"! They were "stealing" music from copyright holders, and profiting off of them without compensation.
They claimed that radio stations would be the death of music. Why would anyone buy a record, if you could hear the music for free anywhere you wanted?!
Well, congress got to hear these problems, and they came up with a good solution. They decided the following.
1) Radio stations are good for everyone. They benefit society. We want radio stations to exist.
2) Copyright holders should have the right to profit from the use of their works.
The main problem was this: There was no way radio stations could license each and every individual song. And not only that, the copyright holders could extort the radio stations into paying any sum of money, effectively shutting down the radio stations.
So they came up with this:
Solution: Make the radio stations pay a flat fee. A single "radio station license", who's fees would go to the music industry.
This way musicians would get paid a reasonable sum (mandated by congress, and updated periodically to reflect inflation) AND radio stations can play music freely.
And today we see the same thing. "Pirate" web sites are offering music without paying royalties to the copyright holders. The music industry cries bloody murder, jsut as they have (the music and movie industry has claimed that EVERY new invention will be the death of them. They said this about the player piano, the VCR, radio stations, and now they say it about web sites.)
I propose that we set up a flat and reasonable "Music File Sharing" license. The website then can operate and benefit society, the music industry gets paid, and the world keeps on turning.
(The other thing that's changed about the 21st century)
2) Technology giveth, and technology taketh away. In the 20th century, technology made it possible to "Broadcast" information. Broadcasting is when one person or entity sends information out to everyone who can hear. The law was adjusted in the 20th century to accommodate this, which is exactly what they should have done.
Culture was transformed into a (as Laurence Lessig says) "Read Only" culture. There were very distinct lines between "Artists" and "consumers". The ordinary citizen was not a producer of culture, they could only consume it in the form of records, movie tickets, etc...
But new technology has changed this dynamic. The line between a "producer" and "consumer" of culture is increasingly blurring to the point where the distinction no longer makes sense. We are transforming back into a "Read-Write" culture. This culture was, after all, the primary means of culture for the greater majority of all of human history.
This Broadcasting, "Read Only" culture was a new invention that occurred in the 20th century. But we again are changing away from this.
Today, even 13 year old children with access to a computer an the internet are able to create culture and distribute it to the entire world. Just think of how many Smash videos are on YouTube created by this very community. But a great number of them are illegal according to today's Copyright law!
Try syncing the intro to your Bowser Combo video to the latest Kanye West song, and watch it get taken down according to the DMCA. This is absurd. Nobody is saying "Boy, I heard the first 10 seconds of that song on YouTube, now I no longer need to purchase Kanye's new album". All this accomplishes is to stifle the creativity of an entire generation of artists, criminalize them, and give them a reason to start ripping you off for real.
You can treat someone like a criminal only so many times before they start to act like one.
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