The Big IP Lies

Most of this is just legal posturing, but the following paragraph is noteworthy:

Intellectual property is worth $650 billion a year to the U.S. economy. Not only does intellectual property drive our exports, it's a key part of what distinguishes developed economies from developing ones. Protecting intellectual property spurs investment and thereby the creation of new technologies and creative entertainment. This creates jobs and benefits consumers. Google and YouTube wouldn't be here if not for investment in software and technologies spurred by patent and copyright laws.

This equation of intellectual monopolies with civilisation is insulting in the extreme. As this blog has noted, IP maximalists - mostly in the US, but from Europe, too - are trying to stuff their monopolies down the throats of many developing nations, with disastrous effects on national and local economies, on people's lives and on entire cultures. Civilisation, my foot, this is pure neo-colonialism.

But of course the real scream is the last statement: "Google and YouTube wouldn't be here if not for investment in software and technologies spurred by patent and copyright laws". What, like the free software both use, which employs copyright to subvert traditional intellectual monopolies, or like the millions of user-created videos that are added to the content commons for the sheer joy of creating and sharing?

Sad.