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jducoeurVery good article in Ars Technica today, on the subject of the new government report on Intellectual Property. It makes fine reading if you're interested in the subject.
The short of it is that the government produced a report that the Big Content groups like the MPAA are trumpeting as proof that the economy hinges on strong intellectual-property protections. But the Ars article deconstructs the details, and demonstrates that it says nothing of the sort -- indeed, that it shows that the Big Content industries aren't anywhere near as economically critical as they'd like to believe.
Some of the exaggerations turn out to be almost comical. For example, in its attempts to define as much of the economy as possible as "IP-intensive", it winds up including the industries that depend on *trademark*, but don't give a damn about patents or copyright. So the grocery industry winds up getting defined as "IP-intensive".
Anyway, the article winds up questioning the value of the report, once it has torn to shreds a lot of the trumpted assertions. It makes a fine antidote to the MPAA's paranoia machine...
The short of it is that the government produced a report that the Big Content groups like the MPAA are trumpeting as proof that the economy hinges on strong intellectual-property protections. But the Ars article deconstructs the details, and demonstrates that it says nothing of the sort -- indeed, that it shows that the Big Content industries aren't anywhere near as economically critical as they'd like to believe.
Some of the exaggerations turn out to be almost comical. For example, in its attempts to define as much of the economy as possible as "IP-intensive", it winds up including the industries that depend on *trademark*, but don't give a damn about patents or copyright. So the grocery industry winds up getting defined as "IP-intensive".
Anyway, the article winds up questioning the value of the report, once it has torn to shreds a lot of the trumpted assertions. It makes a fine antidote to the MPAA's paranoia machine...