changeset 53691:3ef78eaf5dca

Add footnote about "intellectual property rights".
author Richard M. Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
date Sat, 24 Jan 2004 21:53:41 +0000
parents f428900fb582
children 58aa022ecd15
files etc/GNU
diffstat 1 files changed, 9 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-) [+]
line wrap: on
line diff
--- a/etc/GNU	Sat Jan 24 21:52:12 2004 +0000
+++ b/etc/GNU	Sat Jan 24 21:53:41 2004 +0000
@@ -341,7 +341,7 @@
 other people's lives; and it is usually used to make their lives more
 difficult.
 
-   People who have studied the issue of intellectual property rights
+   People who have studied the issue of intellectual property rights(6)
 carefully (such as lawyers) say that there is no intrinsic right to
 intellectual property.  The kinds of supposed intellectual property
 rights that the government recognizes were created by specific acts of
@@ -530,3 +530,11 @@
    (5)  A group of computer companies recently pooled funds to support
 maintenance of the GNU C Compiler.
 
+   (6) In the 80s I had not yet realized how confusing it was to speak
+of "the issue" of "intellectual property".  That term is obviously
+biased; more subtle is the fact that it lumps together various
+disparate laws which raise very different issues.  Nowadays I urge
+people to reject the term "intellectual property" entirely, lest it
+lead others to suppose this is one coherent issue.  The way to be
+clear is to to discuss patents, copyrights, and trademarks separately.
+See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html.
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