Sex and the IP

Or, one particular perspective into the idea that intellectual property is bad, conceived on the morning of 2008-02-18 in a Slashdot post.

Compare and contrast the following phenomena:

• Scientists and teachers want to share knowledge.
• Artists want their art to be experienced and enjoyed.
• Engineers want their designs to be known and used.
• Living species want to reproduce; the male sex drive is little more than the will to spread the individual's genetic information.
• Powerful nations exert their culture, ideals and ways of life upon other nations. For a recent example, the US enforcing their idea of democracy in the Middle East.

When I think of the turning points in the history of mankind, I see great advances in information dispersal. For example the printing press, which made books available to a much larger audience than before. Through the requisite literacy, this was a crucial step in the general intellectual development.

The Internet is pretty much the end to mankind's quest for the universal library. So what do we do with it? Censor and control the hell out of it.

Of course, the desires of a single person and the ruling classes are rarely aligned. What religions have done to the sex lives of people, the media giants are now doing to their drive to spread information.

But to what ends? Surely the spread of information and knowledge is for the good of people, as is the rule "go forth and multiply" for the survival of a species.

Of course, censorship of free information from people is good for the governments. But even with the entertainment industry, things could be more about censorship than money: Make it hard and expensive to spread information, so only the wealthy ones can keep doing it. Maintain the cultural hegemony of Mickey Mouse.

This is somewhat similar to how many religions deal with sex: keep it restricted, but go forth and multiply like drunken rabbits on Viagra within those limits. Every sperm is sacred.