[MUD-Dev] patents and muds

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On 01:34 PM 10/15/1999 -0700, I personally witnessed Scott Boding jumping
up to say:
>
>I noticed that there are 5 other patents that this one references and another
>73 that reference this one. Looking over some of them, I almost don't see how
>you could help but step on more than one of these patents when making an
>online game of almost any sort. I find this kind of frightening.

The fallacy of intellectual property is the most hideous crime ever
perpetrated on the artistic and scientific community in the history of this
universe. The very assertion that anyone, anywhere, can under any
circumstances "own" an idea or concept is utterly absurd. The entire system
of intellectual property as it currently stands is designed to prevent
competition, allowing one company to build a bad implementation of a good
idea and effectively bar anyone else from offering a better one. It was
*created* in order to promote the progress of science and the arts, but it
is *used* to promote profit and impede incremental innovation. 

Intellectual property, whether copyright or patent, is more properly termed
intellectual *poverty* -- it exists purely and simply to deny others the
use of any idea that might be "substantially similar" to an idea someone
else had once. Most of us outgrow the "but I said it first" phase by the
time we turn twelve. Intellectual property is the crutch that allows
crippled and broken concepts to maintain their death-grip on consumer
pocketbooks, and the fence that prevents stronger and better concepts from
even walking into the public eye. It is a tool for the lazy, the weak, and
the outdated with which to overcome hard work, quality, and innovation. It
is wrong. It is unfair. It is outright *evil*. 

And that is all I will say on this matter for now. 

-----
| Caliban Tiresias Darklock            caliban at darklock.com 
| Darklock Communications          http://www.darklock.com/ 
| U L T I M A T E   U N I V E R S E   I S   N O T   D E A D 
| 774577496C6C6E457645727355626D4974H       -=CABAL::3146=- 


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