shiv sastry wrote [ at 09:37 PM 7/29/07 ]:
I am just wondering if this entire "intellectual property" hoohah is more
American, and in fact _recent_American_ rather than "Western"
Knowledge, as in "gyan" - especially in science, and particularly in Medicine
was freely shared in Europe and indeed by the US that took over Europe's
mantle in many ways.
It is the US of the last 40 years or so, with its patent lawyers, that has
skewed things in this direction.
My opinion is that it is unsustainable to apply the same notion of
"property" to physical objects and ideas ("atoms and bits").
One only has to look at the long and expensive ongoing suicide of the
recording industry for an example of this.
Udhay
--
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
