Intellectual Property is Theft

Actually I think any property is theft. Neither do I believe everyone owns everything.
NOBODY owns NOTHING!

 

it is theft from society, and culture also.

 

I confess to not knowing much about the concept of intellectual property, but in my view everything I write/create/ think of is free to a good home, provided my name isn't used to champion some hideous ideology- ie Nietzsche and the nazi's version of ubermensch.
I've got an interesting example of my own 'intellectual property' being misused by people that i worked for. I was a youth worker in, according to govt think tanks, one of the 27 most socially disdadvantaged areas in england and wales and as part of my job I had to come up with initiatives and programmes that involved people at their chosen level of participation.
To cut a long story short, i came up with a load of ideas that would involve young people in 'positive activities', give the necessary returns to funding bodies and assured the kids' anonymity at the same time- so that no prying eyes could know who me and my colleagues had been in contact with.
Months later I found that the main body of my ideas had been used to the opposite affect- they had turned my ideas into an infrastructure that was coercive and underhand. It got the young people involved on their level, as I had planned it, but then they were tracked and tagged by social services, the police and education welfare without their prior knowledge or consent and youth workers were/ar being pressured to share info with state institutions under the pretext of 'crime concern', (a very loose structure that encapsulates anything even vaguely illegal). As a result of my position I had no right to protest, so i did the honourable thing. I resigned and told the families of the kids and a few people I could trust in positions of influence, what they were up to. My final actions as a 'professional' may have helped on a local level, but the thought that any of my input could still be being used to these devious ends. Could anyone advise me on how this fits into the spectrum of intellectual property? It is the only time I've ever objected to my thoughts or ideas being used without my 'say so'. If I could I'd break into the place and burn everything i ever did while working there.

 

You don't need to feel guilty, you trusted to the other people and they misused your ideas and you. maybe you can burn PC where are stored information, or simply someone can steal PC and destroy it who knows where. if information are already gone, it is too late.
from the standpoint of intellectual property, you acted as part/representative of organization/institution and other people, who are part of it, can use your ideas. if I understood good, you was part of social work/service, and as worker there, you gave ideas which they turned like they wanted. in any case, I think you can protect your ideas/plans only as individual creator of idea against someone who stole your ideas. I think it is so by the law.
in anarchist community, there would be no such misusing, because there would be no police and no prisons. if someone want to mark himself as creator of idea, it would be enough that he speaks with community: to recognize him as creator of something (idea or whatever). some people like that community and future generation knows that they created something, so there is no problem that any materialized idea get somehow name of creator.

 

I've thought about this topic a lot recently. In an ideal situation, there would be no need for intellectual creations to be proprietary, but I struggle to find examples where without some degree of control over one's intellectual creations, they don't get exploited in the end. Look at what big pharm. companies have done to Indigenous traditional medicines. If those ancient cultures laid claim to their medicines as intellectual property, then they could have resisted the exploitation and destruction that capitalist medicine wrought. Now, those plants and preparations are the intellectual property of monsanto, novarits, and their ilk. Not that I want traditional societies to have to operate within contemporary models, but we are forcing them to regardless. In this case, intellectual property could have prevented theft from culture (as well as nature).

Yeah sure, property is theft... but really, why should I relinquish my control over my intellectual creations on principle, when I know that capitalism will readily exploit them at the first opportunity. Intellectual property can be a defense strategy as much as it oppressive.

I happily would make my band's music available for download as a place similar to this one, but in doing so, I do not relinquish my right to claim it as mine. If I freely set it adrift into the world, I would have no recourse to stop its exploitation by capitalists. As it is now, someone can't just re-press my album and sell it, nor can they use a song in a commercial to sell some garbage. At the time being, I think there surely is a place for intellectual property, and we should continue to work towards a society where it will not be necessary, while using it as a tool to prevent exploitation, not encourage it.

 

in my country this topic hasnt been quite reviewed by the politicians and the government, but from another institutions, yes. there is an institution formed by some musicians (SCD Sociedad Chilena del Derecho de Autor - Chilean Society of Copyright) that always are about copyright and stuff. these musicians are also "supported" by music industry companies.
politicians were about to agree to put a law that "fights" piracy. you couldnt download books, films, music. but not also that, you couldnt make compilations of music (even if you bought and owned an original copy), copy literature, meaning that students and teachers couldnt copy it for education purposes, etc.
some people that were against this, made some very creative and funny videos with very practical examples about how this would affect our lives.
hopefully the law wasnt approved.
recently there was another law about to be approved that would censor internet downloads. the government would give the power to the internet provider companies to block all of the websites containing illegal uploads of music, movies, books, etc.
also this law wasnt approved at some points.
but all of this has been pushed by this institution formed by musicians.
i hate how they are told by the companies that their art has to become a market, to the point that they organize themselves
only because they are just not satisfied with all the money they get from their busines... cuz its just business what they do, not art.

mm.. what do you think about people that say "downloading music is killing the 'scene' "?

ive heard and read, at least in my country, about people saying that. but i cant really see where is the harm of downloading music, but i can definitely see that this helps music to be spread widely, and people get to listen to the bands, and eventually will assist to gigs and maybe buy music and merch directly from the bands, which is i think better than buying from labels, since you hand the contributions to the band itself.
anyways i really dont know how labels work here, but i just can't agree with people that say that. isnt it quite like it was years ago tape trading? there are differences obviously, but its also faster and wider. if you get what i mean.

pd: i hope i expressed myself clearly, my english isnt very good.

 

Eh.. to me its just human nature for one person to come up with an idea and someone else takes the idea (mainly because they can make a profit of it)

My girlfriend was the original thinker of this website- www.postsecret.com

The idea is to send in a postcard with a secret about someone to the guy at this website and then he posts it online. I guess its doing pretty good for the man. My girl comes in this because about 10 years ago, she put on an art show and the common idea was to do this exact same idea. Someone who was running the exhibit with her notice a lot of people running around with notebooks jotting the idea down, or overheard people saying they would use the same idea. Since this website started, she has sent numerous letters and postcards to the guy maintaining the website and they refuse to put it up. At first i didnt believe here but then i talked to her friends who ran the show and they backed up her claim.

She isnt quite mad at the fact that someone started a website, just the fact that they are profiting from the idea.

 

I think that the comic that was attached to the initial post makes some good points.

I’d like to throw a few thoughts into the arena from the perspective of the ‘artist’ (sic).

On a personal note (no pun intended) I prefer copy left for my musical activities but copyright for my writing.
All of the bands I have played in have been an enormous drain on my finances: far from making any money from my intellectual property it has cost me money to share it with people!!!
Aside from the obvious expenses of equipment and rehearsal cost there are also a whole range of other things which people in bands fork out for without even thinking about.

My biggest ever music related cost happened when on tour in Poland with one band: we crashed and managed to write off my van: despite various offers of financial help, and being given some much needed practical help at the time, no one really thought much more about at the time. Except me: struggling to pay off the outstanding finance as the insurance didn’t cover a replacement.
I’d lent the van free of charge to a lot of other touring bands but the offers of benefit gigs etc never materialised.
I wasn’t bothered enough to push it with anyone but it certainly helped draw into sharp focus that while the scene is very good at sharing things it is not so good at giving things back to people!
So perhaps if anyone was to start making money out of one of my ex bands I’d have a reasonable case for asking them for a bit of cash to make up for my losses?

They always say that having one of your records bootlegged is the greatest form of flattery but I didn’t think that when it happened to me.
The incident in question happened shortly after the singer of the band was put in prison for his second sex offence. The first we knew was when we received 4 copies of the ‘discography’ in the post.
As two of us are still active and visible in the scene it came as a little bit of a shock that they hadn’t even bothered to ask us.
While accepting that no form of copyrighting intellectual property isn’t going to stop this happening it might make people think twice about it.
At the time the last thing we wanted was a discography LP to celebrate our former singer’s incarceration so it really wasn’t welcome.
Also if you do the maths you’ll be able to work out that someone in one of the countries that formerly made up Yugoslavia was probably making a bit of cash out of this as well as looking really cool in front of his mates.

Okay a big load of waffle there: but I recon that if I write something then I should control of the means of production and distribution regardless of whether I choose to make money from it or not.

I have absolutely no problem with people sharing any of the music I have ever written; however I do have a problem with someone else making money from it when I have chosen not to.
I also have a problem with people making money and gaining kudos from a band that the members have chosen to distance themselves from the actions of the singer which went against everything that we as a band stood for.

 

I don't agree that property is theft, but I do agree that intellectual property is theft. While even land can't be given a price, it's my right to have a place to live and raise a family. Thoughts can never be claimed because they take no fighting to obtain, just revalation.

 

yea thats respect, theres trueism in there but simple as simple does, if you moderate it then its not theft haha, wait didn't the nazis do that.

individuals have the rights to their thoughts, corporations do not, oh wait they made corporations individuals, now that is fascism.

 

if people dont want their ideas nicked they should keep their traps shut,and their ideas in their heads.

 

and... share ideas, come up with ya own.

 

If people did that, only those with big mouths would be heard.

 

in an anarcho society, would it be wrong not to share good ideas because someone wants to make money off them, better themselves over other, or even just so they can get personal accolades as the one who thought it?

 

true
but what a meant is if people want to put ideas out just to sell them and make copyright theft claims they might as well shut up
it won't take long before someone else comes out with the same idea again...
(and perhaps wont try to sell it to everyone)

 

Steal my songs... I'll just write more. Steal my thoughts... I'll just think of more. But what you can never steal is the brain that creates these thoughts or the heart that writes these songs.

 

I don't own any intellectual property I just share it with everyone... it is up to the individual how they use it, if they don't use it the way I intended well that sucks but a part of freedom is also interpretation. I give all my thoughts, ideas, and love freel

 

well then property is theft isn't it cause people aren't property, they are made up of a 'property' of molecules, maaan, when someone steal ideas and capitlises on it for one then they are stealing essentially but as statements above have said you will survive but is it right, yep the world purports not to care but wats all the liables for, wasting time and time is money, isn't it