[Fsf-friends] stallman.org needs volunteers

[Ramanraj K]

On 4/24/07, Debarshi 'Rishi' Ray <debarshi.ray at gmail.com> wrote:

> " I am looking for volunteers to give me information for two reseach
> projects. One project is to verify when various US law schools started
> using the propaganda term  "intellectual property" in names of
> classes. If you are at a university which has a law school, you could
> probably easily find out when it did so. The other project is to find
> out when the US Congress started to have committees named
> "intellectual property".

According to http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/general/, in 1893,  an
international organization called the United International Bureaux for
the Protection of Intellectual Property (best known by its French
acronym BIRPI)  existed.  Prior to that, the word intellectual
property appears to have been used in Davoll et al. v. Brown.  Here is
a quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property:

<quote>
The earliest use of the term "intellectual property" appears to be an
October 1845 Massachusetts Circuit Court ruling in the patent case
Davoll et al. v. Brown. in which Justice Charles L. Woodbury wrote
that "only in this way can we protect intellectual property, the
labors of the mind, productions and interests as much a man's own...as
the wheat he cultivates, or the flocks he rears." (1 Woodb. & M. 53, 3
West.L.J. 151, 7 F.Cas. 197, No. 3662, 2 Robb.Pat.Cas. 303,
Merw.Pat.Inv. 414).
</quote>

The Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property
Organization was signed at Stockholm on July 14, 1967
http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/convention/trtdocs_wo029.html and it
has  defined that "intellectual property" shall include the rights
relating to:

            – literary, artistic and scientific works,

            – performances of performing artists, phonograms, and broadcasts,

            – inventions in all fields of human endeavor,

            – scientific discoveries,

            – industrial designs,

            – trademarks, service marks, and commercial names and designations,

            – protection against unfair competition,

            and all other rights resulting from intellectual activity
in the industrial, scientific, literary or artistic fields.

My best guess is that after 1967, "intellectual property" became
fashionable everywhere.

In India, selling knowledge is looked down upon.  That is the first
lesson in the Panchatantra - the story book for our children.  The
story goes that King Immortal-Power desired his three sons Rich-Power,
Fierce-Power and Endless-Power, who were supreme blockheads, to be
educated in the art of life.  He was advised to entrust the princes to
Vishnusharman who had a reputation in numerous sciences.  The King
summoned Vishnusharman and said: "Holy Sir, as a favour to me you must
make these princes incomparable masters of the art of practical life.
In return, I will bestow upon you a hundred land-grants."
Vishnusharman made answer to the King: "O King, listen.  Here is the
plain truth.  I am not the man to sell good learning for a hundred
land-grants... " and said he will show a sporting spirit in reference
to artistic matters and  in six months' time make the boys acquainted
with the art of intelligent living else "His Majesty is at liberty to
show me His Majestic bare bottom" !  The lessons of Vishnusharma in
five books, the Panchatantra, have been translated from Sanskrit by
Arthur W. Ryder, Berkeley, California, in 1925.  The rest of the
stories explain a lot about free trade and laissez faire but selling
learning is seen as as cunning.  Those interested in writing nested
conditionals would be amazed by the nesting of stories within the
stories in the five tantras.  The translator in his introduction
laments that Panchatantra is a niti shastra (roughly, about the wise
conduct of life) and "western civilization must endure a certain shame
in realizing that no precise equivalent of the term is found in
English, Frenchy, Latin or Greek.

Intellectual property is a great assault on the culture of India -
would we ask it to be dismantled?

Also, Cartoonstack has a number of ideas on gifting "intellectual
property" at: http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/i/intellectual_property_gifts.asp
:)

Ramanraj K