Abolition of intellectual property
From Sustain
Throughout history, step changes in human advancement have been associated with methods of sharing information more efficiently. The increasing returns delivered from shared understanding are evident across the entire development of human society.
We live at a time of unique opportunity: we have in reach the ultimate information tool to speed human development.
We live in a time of unique peril: we have a desperate need for any tool that will speed human development.
Our intellectual property laws stand in the way of shared efforts to collect and order all our knowledge, data and intangible resource for the benefit of all. Given the recorded impact of lesser developments in information transfer, the potential benefits of such a move can only be imagined.
We have the technology and resource to equip humanity with the accumulated knowledge and guidance of all generations, and to ever improve this source until it represents the complete handbook for the utopian society. The same technology can also collect and make available the complete cultural and spiritual achievements of mankind, providing quality for the masses for negligible incremental resource use.
The corporate shackles of intellectual property ensure that this holy grail of development eludes us. The sole justification remains the pecuniary incentive to create, which is protected by enforcing millions of statutory monopolies. It is alleged intellectual creativity can only be motivated with the promise of riches. We are now at the stage that any substantive progress from this protection racket is dwarfed by the advance in quality that will be unleashed with the consolidation of all knowledge and art for universal use.
Once we awake from our consumerist spell, we will realise that the only real advances we require are in the fields of medicine and sustainability. The feckless machinations of the pharmaceutical and energy industries aptly demonstrate how knowledge in these fields would be far better publicly funded and commonly owned.
For the greater good, intellectual property should be entirely abolished, to be replaced by new laws and structures only such that they are evidenced to be in the public interest. The means of cultivating a vibrant, creative culture in the absence of intellectual property are alluded to by institutions such as universities (pre-commercial perversion) and the BBC.
The notion of intellectual property is so totally absorbed within the accepted norms of society that to suggest its abolition is perceived as an extreme line of thought. The collective mindset shift that abolition would require is profound and would prove as beneficial as the practical improvements enabled.
The detail of this section expands, at length, on the history of these legally sustained constraints, and of the potential alternatives.
Closely linked to intellectual property is the potential power of open source, which is the next chapter here.
