On the very real fiction that is Intellectual Property

[shadowspar]

This, this, this. A thousand times this.

A huge chunk of the reason why I am so opposed to the fiction of "intellectual property", as it's currently formulated, is because it's a formal methodology of taking knowledge -- knowledge which is collectively developed, built on the shoulders of giants, and can spread freely from one person to another -- and stuffing it by pieces into compartmentalized, commodified boxes, then assigning some entity an outrageous and obscene ability to monopolize it, a privilege backed backed by the weight of the legal system and the full force of the state. This privilege extends not only to being the only one able to make money off of an idea or work, but effectively to the ability to dictate if anybody else can use that piece of knowledge at all.

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. :Thomas Jefferson