That means Intellectual Property Rights, by which you, yes, you reading this, are to be known as a criminal and possibly taken to court for downloading music or movies, knowing how to decrypt DVDs or using tools made by those who do, or even for quoting some Right wing nutter here on dKos too extensively. Or at all, in some cases. (Any Ad Which Quotes What I Said On Sunday Is A Falsehood--Newt Gingrich)
Also known ambiguously as IP, which can refer to Internet Protocol or Israel-Palestine issues (Easy, fellows, no anti-Semites here. We all love Jews and Muslims both.), among other things. Also known as Intellectual Property Wrongs, which is our subject for today.
A friend wrote today on the Conspire [sic] mailing list of the CABAL (Coalition of All Bay Area Linux) mailing list. (There is no CABAL[TM]. Or if there is, it's just geek humor.):
Wonder how this statement out of the G8 conference may affect software patent efforts:
My reply began, "Badly. Why do you ask? ^_^"
I can't tell you how much we in the Free Software and Open Source movements detest the notion of software patents. I could tell you something about the negative economic consequences of software patents on compression algorithms and thus on file formats, encryption systems, user interface designs, or Web designs if you had a few weeks, but they are not the worst form of IPR. Some IPR kills people, in great numbers.
The essence of the Free Software and Open Source movements, and of the Creative Commons, Open Courseware, Open Educational Resources, and Open Access movements is opposition to IPR monopolies, and attempts to turn IPR law around for the common good and create a culture and politics of sharing. We already have the law on our side in this, and do not have to wait for Congressional action that will never come until after we have won.
The Conspire list is devoted to issues significant to the Free Software community, which is all about turning IPR around to serve the public good. They knew what I was talking about. I have extended my remarks here for the general audience, and added a number of links to explanatory material.
G8 statement and further comments, including links to heroes of the 99% Sen. Bernie Sanders, Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, and Lawrence Lessig, below the whatsit.
The G8, in their own words:
Given the importance of intellectual property rights (IPR) to stimulating job and economic growth,
The simplest of Orwellian
Voodoo economics, in which deficits due to tax cuts are future surpluses, austerity is stimulus, recessions are economic growth, monopoly is competition, unemployment is due to invisible job gains in the magical flying unicorn care market, and
it's OK as long as the poor get hurt worse. In fact,
so-called IPR is the primary engine of
monopoly power in the global economy, except where subverted by
Copyleft, that is, by Free Software, Open Source, and Creative Commons licenses that enforce sharing rather than kleptocratic, 1%er, Leisure Class, absentee owner greed.
In particular, IPR in pharmaceuticals is currently responsible for more deaths by government action than anything else, including war and North Korean famine (but not all earlier instances. We are not at the levels of Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, the Belgian Congo, the Opium Wars, the Bengal famine brought on by the British East India Company...). US Trade Representative Ron Kirk is currently bullying countries that have announced their intention to authorize generic drugs for major epidemics in their countries. In that respect, the Obama Administration is worse than the Bush Administration, which negotiated exceptions for just such life-saving generics. (Testimony at hearing called by Sen. Bernie Sanders, with Joe Stiglitz and Larry Lessig as star witnesses.)
A false statement implies anything.
Oh, yeah? Let's see it. Start from the Voodoo economics in this statement, and prove you're the Pope.
No problem. Given Voodoo economics, as above, -1 = 1. Add 2, and we can deduce that 2 = 3, and hence 1 = 2. The Pope and I are two, therefore we are one. I am the Pope. I hereby excommunicate Rick Santorum and Antonin Scalia. (Based on an example due to Bertrand Russell.)
we affirm the significance of high standards for IPR protection and enforcement,
to the 1%
including through international legal instruments and mutual assistance agreements, as well as through government procurement processes, private-sector voluntary codes of best practices, and enhanced customs cooperation,
except those best practices where governments decide to buy Free Software, or put their
textbooks on line for free distribution under Creative Commons licenses, or authorize manufacture of
generic versions of patented drugs for AIDS that cost more than $10,000 per person per year.
> while promoting the free flow of information."
A blatant self-contradiction that does not even rise to the level of implausible deniability.
Let us rather talk about what progress we are making against the monopolist/kleptocratic/1%/absentee owner/vulture capital concept of IPR, in Free Software, Creative Commons, Open Courseware, Open Educational Resources, Open Access, and even in progress toward giving a billion children at a time as much Free Software and Creative Commons content as they can use (One Laptop Per Child). Eventually they will even be able to communicate with each other and the rest of us, once they can get out from under the pervasive, suffocating censorship that all governments agree must be imposed on children for their own good.
Perhaps we could discuss how we can help to make this a reality, and consider what will happen when Free Software is the dominant paradigm, when education is free of charge and free of restrictions, and software patents are no more. What would the next challenge be?
Well, we will still have greed, hate, and delusion, the Three Fires of Buddhism, in the forms of kleptocracy, racism, and bigotry. We would still have Creationism and Global Warming Denialism, and voter suppression, and the War on Women, and Stand Your Ground.
Still, DADT is dead, and DOMA is going to fall, even if we cannot put a date on it. And we have health care in the US, mostly, at least until the Supreme Court rules on it. (You can see how important it will be to have a Democratic President when Scalia, the oldest Justice, dies or retires. He is currently 76. So if a Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton administration were to last until 2024, when Scalia will be 88...) Rush Limbaugh is in trouble, and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, has broken ranks with Grover Norquist on whether closing tax loopholes is equivalent to raising taxes. Funny old world.