Jock Coats, who did the audio narration for my Against Intellectual Property, has posted a good reply to Cathy Smith’s pro-IP comments and confusions in his article Copyright – buying your time? (responding in part to her Time—Going, Going, Gone).
Jock is right to guess relation between Cathy and L. Neil Smith: she is his wife; she was involved in the debate about the Shire Society Declaration on the FreeKeene board. Some suspected L. Neil was speaking through her. She denied it, and said she was speaking for herself. All I know is they have both presented similary sketchy, incomplete and flawed arguments for IP. Their argument basicaly amounts to calling copying theft–i.e., assuming their conclusion; question-begging.
Man that thread at freekeene is epic.
Bad news: not only does the “owner” or the “IP” still “own” the “ideas” that “result” from her “labor”, but she still owns the physical copy that you bought.
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2010/09/10/09-35969.pdf
Long story short:
Guy cannot resell boxed (unused) software because he doesn’t own it. The EULA reserves ownership to the publisher (almost all EULAs do this)
He never agreed to the EULA, of course, because he never installed/used the software. But because the EULA reserves title his only way of lawfully getting rid of the software is to return it to the vendor for a refund.
So the transfer of the physical box in exchange for money doesn’t constitute a sale because … well I guess because a not-agreed-to contract inside the box says it doesn’t.
It pleases me to no end to know that I’m at least as “sketchy”, “incomplete” and “flawed” as Murray Rothbard.
and
from Centre for Civil Society Liberty, Art & Culture Seminar, Patents and Copyrights * Murray N Rothbard