> intellectual property rights do some good (like
> protecting interests of authors like [Doug]) ...
Actually, I doubt that Doug receives much benefit from IP protection, as the "harm" caused by piracy would tend to be small. *Despite* the protections he has, I'm sure people pass around LBO issues but I doubt someone has bothered to photocopy an entire book of his -- and we already know that pirating his book wouldn't cost him much in the way of revenue ...
Perhaps the biggest "benefit" he's received is the reversion of ownership to him after Verso declined to do an additional printing. But it seems a little odd to count that in the "win" column ...
This is maybe the fatal piece of logic: that IP protections benefit *everyone* and are thus a Universal Good. As far as I can tell, it benefits the largest marketing corporations the most: Disney, Nike, etc. Even many musicians woke up to the fact that music "sharing" wasn't costing them much, because they were getting so thoroughly ripped off by record companies.
> One area where the system of intellectual property rights seems to go
> absolutely crazy is the protection of ideas instead of specific
> products e.g. genetically modified seeds. For example, if the plant
> that a farmer grew out of genetically modified seed produced a seed,
> the idea of genetic modification reproduced in that second seed is
> patent protected, but it should not be (I know, Monstanto and Jordan
> would disagree :) ...
For the record I'm thoroughly against the patenting of life forms. And business processes.
/jordan