I’ve noted before this nutty purported idea of hyper-IPer Andrew Galambos (see Galambos and Other Nuts; Against Intellectual Property, p. 27): Galambos
took his own ideas to ridiculous lengths dropping a nickel in a fund box every time he used the word “liberty” as a royalty to the descendants of Thomas Paine, the alleged “inventor” of the word “liberty”; and changing his original name from Joseph Andrew Galambos (Jr., presumably) to Andrew Joseph Galambos, to avoid infringing his identically-named father’s rights to the name.
Now, this seems quite sensible. Galambos is right: every time you use “liberty,” you should drop a nickel in the Thomas Paine Descendant Royalty box.
But I realized this the other day that since this nickel-depositing was Galambos’s idea, then when you drop your nickel, you now must compensate Galambos himself. 15% seems like a reasonable commission; so in addition to the nickel for Paine, you better drop 2.25 cents in a box for Galambos’s heirs.
But there’s one more snag. The idea of recognizing that Galambos should be rewarded for his idea of rewarding word-coiners is my idea. So in addition to the 17.25 cents above, you need to send me an extra 0.3375 cents each time you pay Galambos’s heirs their 2.25 cents.
[AgainstMonopoly cross-post]
Related posts:
- IP Debate?
- Eben Moglen and Leftist Opposition to Intellectual Property
- Nokia’s infringement suit against Apple illustrates need to scrap US patent system
- Common Misconceptions about Plagiarism and Patents: A Call for an Independent Inventor Defense
- John Perry Barlow’s “The Economy of Ideas: A framework for patents and copyrights in the Digital Age”
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