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Galambosian IP Recursion

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]

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{ 8 comments… add one }
  • Larry Ruane June 3, 2015, 3:32 pm

    As a computer programmer, I must say this is brilliant. However, isn’t 15% of a nickel just 0.75 cents? Where did you get 2.25 cents? That would be 15% of 15 cents.

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