In a discussion thread on this blog, I
challenged a critic to try to live an IP-free life for some brief period
of time. My point is the obvious
hypocrisy of those who claim that all sorts of wonderful and abundant goods
will continue to flow to us without IP, while all those goods currently
in circulation inevitably bear some form of IP protection.
Anyway, that reminded me of something funny I saw back at the WIPO meetings in April, the IIM/1, as it's come to be called. All the IP sceptic folks showed up on the last day of the meeting wearing their adorable black "A2K Now" tee shirts.
Well, as I was sitting in close proximity to the commies with the Free Software Foundation, I got a close look at the tee shirts in question. You can imagine my glee as I pointed out to them that the tee shirts they were wearing actually carried not one but TWO different forms of IP protection. On the tag there were both brand and style registered trademarks.
"Where are your open source tee shirts?" I asked. "Show me your Creative Commons commemorative gear!" I taunted. This resulted in a rather heated discussion, as you might imagine, but I got a huge kick out of it.
In addition to the economic bankruptcy of their ideas and the moral bankruptcy of their methods, these people have no sense of humor, either.
Anyway, that reminded me of something funny I saw back at the WIPO meetings in April, the IIM/1, as it's come to be called. All the IP sceptic folks showed up on the last day of the meeting wearing their adorable black "A2K Now" tee shirts.
Well, as I was sitting in close proximity to the commies with the Free Software Foundation, I got a close look at the tee shirts in question. You can imagine my glee as I pointed out to them that the tee shirts they were wearing actually carried not one but TWO different forms of IP protection. On the tag there were both brand and style registered trademarks.
"Where are your open source tee shirts?" I asked. "Show me your Creative Commons commemorative gear!" I taunted. This resulted in a rather heated discussion, as you might imagine, but I got a huge kick out of it.
In addition to the economic bankruptcy of their ideas and the moral bankruptcy of their methods, these people have no sense of humor, either.