Food for thought: The term “Intellectual Property” is misleading
Again and again, the term “Intellectual Property” is showing itself to be misleading. In my view, it works for the rights-holding industry. Every time we say “Software Patents are not a good idea”, these people go: “So you want to tear down the intellectual property system and abolish patents, copyrights, trademarks? Are you crazy? You’re communists, that’s what you are.”
In an interesting private conversation Geoff Tansey, member of the Food Ethics Council and consultant to the Quaker UN Office, suggested to me an alternative term:
“We should be talking about monopoly privileges, not IP rights, because that’s what they are, as Peter Drahos said in his book “A philosophy of Intellectual Property”. This is an idea that for example the Food Ethics Council has argued for. They called for a change in the language we use to more accurately reflect the reality of what these things are – monopoly privileges. They’re privileges granted to me as an author, for example, to exclude others from my work.”
For further elaborations, he pointed to the 2003 report “TRIPS with everything” – Intellectual property and the farming world, which he helped prepare.
He also offered a way of clarifying the diffuse term “Civil Society”, by replacing it with “BINGOs” and “PINGOs”: Business Interest Organisations and Public Interest Organisations. Though it was a rather informal suggestion, he definitely has a point. I may want to adopt that terminology.