IP: Re: Software Engineering, Dijkstra, and Hippocrates: ]

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Sun, 27 May 2001 09:48:43 -0400
> To: farber () cis upenn edu, ip-sub-1 () majordomo pobox com
> From: Brad Cox <bcox () virtualschool edu>
> Subject: Re: IP: Re: Software Engineering, Dijkstra, and Hippocrates: ]


> > > Copyright and other forms of intellectual property were not created in
> order to benefit publishing companies.
>
> The points you raised apply to the current practice of protecting
> intellectual property via copyright laws, courts and lawyers as
> distinct from via technology, which is what
> http://virtualschool.edu/mybank is about.
>
> Protection via lawyers means that each and every transaction is
> risky, problematic, and costly, but most of all that the protection
> is only available to those with large legal staffs.
>
> Protecting via technology extends the protection to both large
> players and ordinary folk.  Joe Sixkpack can publish digital property
> by combining his own content with other objects  purchased from
> others, with the ensemble protected via technology instead of
> copyright law, courts and lawyers.
>
> This could support the kind of market forces that underlie mature
> manufacturing domains. Leaving it up to altruism and reputation
> economies will keep us reinventing the wheel. What is the alternative
> to reinventing the wheel if nobody can sell wheels?



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