Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
I think we've had this discussion before  . Property has a specific meaning (a thing or things in owned) in legal and commercial circumstances. Non-tangible "rights" of many sorts have been treated as property (traded, subleased, used as collateral) for centuries before IP. Defining IP as having rights makes it property, no conspiracy required, just centuries of experience. |
That's fairly misleading. The non-tangible "rights", were the rights to develop tangible objects, i.e. mining right, watering rights and the like. It's pretty hard to come up with something non tangible that was actually used as collateral prior to modern times.
Government granted monopolies have been around for a long, long time as well. They have never been treated as property because, what the crown can grant, the crown can take away. The most famous monopoly was the British East India Company which was chartered by Queen Elizabeth in 1600 and lasted until 1874. It's monopoly was removed in 1858 following the Indian rebellion of 1857. So, it lasted about as long as a modern copyright!
(I joke, I joke, it lasted twice as long as a modern copyright).