More wise words from David Reed.
The Intellectual Property Meme [SATN]
…
It won’t be long before it is accepted that everything you learn from
experience on the job is the “property” of your employer, just as they
claim ownership of your notebooks, and every creative thought you have, the
contents of every phone call you make (from your office), and every
keystroke you type on your computer. When they can download your brain,
and wipe it clean, you’ll be required to when you change jobs.You can help stop this. Don’t ever use the words “intellectual
property”. You can say patents, copyrights, trademarks – those are more
well-defined terms, and if Congress doesn’t pull another Boner (er, Bono),
they are limited and narrowly targeted at a balanced social purpose. The
authors of the Constitution were wary of royal monopolies like patents and
copyrights, but they compromised because there was a reasonable social good
served by *limited* monopolies on things that would pass into the public
domain….