Intellectual Property A Reference Handbook

The human desire to claim property rights in an idea is innate, as any child who has ever told another �Stop copying me!� knows. Legal recognition of property in ideas, however� intellectual property�is a comparatively recent phenomenon, appearing centuries of millennia after the recognition of property rights in objects and land. Revolutions in technology bring about revolutions in law. The human race has experienced four great revolutions in information technology. The first, lost in prehistory and probably predating our emergence as a species, was language. The ability to attach specific sound-symbols to specific thoughts is what makes human civilization�including legal systems�possible. The second revolution, the invention of writing, made more complex legal systems possible. When written documents could only be copied by hand, however, the incentive for making unauthorized copies of entire works was limited�although disputes did arise, including the possibly mythical dispute between St. Columba and St. Finnian (discussed in Chapter 2) that may have led to three thousand deaths.

udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:80
udp://open.demonii.com:1337
udp://tracker.coppersurfer.tk:6969
udp://exodus.desync.com:6969