The various movements based on digital openness – free software, open content, open data, open science, open government etc. – have made huge strides in recent years, and transformed many aspects of the modern world dramatically. But that is just the beginning. The key drivers of openness – the shift from analogue to digital, and global connectivity – imply much more: digital abundance. And that, in its turn, requires us to re-examine ancient intellectual monopolies born of analogue scarcity.
30. in 16 th and 17 th century England, the Stationers' Company had exclusive and perpetual state monopoly over producing printed copies of every registered book (their ”copy right”)
31. aim was to *control* what was printed by establishing responsibility - instrument of censorship
86. however, society *does* have that right - just as it had the right to strengthen copyright, repeatedly, by extending its range and its term, diminishing public domain
109. if analogue patents still exist, clever lawyers will employ the ”computer-implemented invention”/”purified gene” trick, yoking digital and analogue together
110.
111. there is only one non-arbitrary term for an intellectual monopoly: zero years
112.
113. in an age of digital abundance, no longer rational or necessary
114. should no longer put up with the high price that intellectual monopolies exact - hindering progress, holding back billions of lives and the loss of fundamental freedoms
115.
116. ”We show through theory and example that intellectual monopoly is not necessary for innovation and as a practical matter is damaging to growth, prosperity and liberty.”