Canada's Auditor General falls into "intellectual property" trap

by Richard M. Stallman
President

The annual report of Canada's Auditor General makes an important and unfortunate mistake: chapter 2 condones use of the marketing phrase "intellectual property."

http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/collection_2009/bvg-oag/FA1-2009-2-2E.pdf

This quotation shows how this term has led to inaccurate generalization:

Why it's important: Intellectual property is a valuable asset that can be bought, sold, licensed, lost, or stolen.

That is false: there is literally no way to steal a copyright or a patent. Suppose I have a copyright: how could you possibly steal it? You might conceivably claim it fraudulently, but fraud is not theft.

There is also no way to lose a copyright. One can forfeit some of the rights by not enforcing them, but that's different.

The term "intellectual property" invites people to make an analogy between a dozen or so diverse laws, including copyright law and patent law, and physical object property rights. Unfortunately -- or perhaps we should say fortunately -- these laws are not actually similar. So the term systematically leads people into false generalizations.

The specifics of the chapter, being based on this misguided concept, are full of the confusion it inspires. Here's an example:

Intellectual property includes rights resulting from intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary, or artistic fields. This includes all intellectual creation legally protected through patents, copyright, industrial design, integrated circuit topography, and plant breeders' rights, or subject to protection under the law as trade secrets and confidential information.

That definition of "intellectual property" is different from the usual one. For instance, it does not include trademarks, which the usual definition of "intellectual property" does include.

I am pretty sure there are other "intellectual property" laws which are not in this list. Also, experts disagree on whether trade secrets should be considered "intellectual property".

Most likely trademarks are not discussed because they don't pertain here. It may be that the Canadian government has no trademarks, or is not very concerned with them. So the omission was for good reason, but the report causes confusion with its idiosyncratic definition of "intellectual property".

This kind of discrepancy is the rule, not the exception. The many "intellectual property" laws have nothing in common except a very general abstraction which has no relation to practical activities. When a legal discussion arises from a practical activity, the set of laws considered is almost always different from that one. If the discussion uses the term "intellectual property" for the set of laws being considered, that is always a confusion.

Now look at the attitude implicit in that quote. It assumes that the government exists to make money from the citizens rather than to serve them. That attitude is precisely what the term "intellectual property" encourages, which is another reason not to use it.

Further issues with the marketing term "intellectual property" are discussed at: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html.