Jon Knight shared:
> Anyone else get the sense that geeks discussing IP law are as lost as
> lawyers discussing eigenvector decomposition? ;->
At first this seemed to express some of the exasperation I have felt
with the copyright thread so far.
I've slept on it now, and I'm not so sure. Here's a very tentative
observation:
Lawyers must deal with the legal expressions of cultural
arrangements when periods of social upheaval have changed
landscapes, and a new body of custom, practice and statute are there
to be interpreted. Moving into new territory, or reconstructing old
territory is a different matter. It's very helpful to have them
around, but it would be a poorer world if earlier pioneers had
always checked with their lawyers before taking some of those first
steps. The lawyers, after all, are bound to respond in terms of old
structures, and reflect the interest of the old dominant forms. In
any event, they can't give permission, or decide new rules for us in
places where the rules are uncertain or non-existent. They are
valued assistants, not sources of authority per se.
So, geeks or not, we need to spend at least part of our time arguing
for, and enacting, the kinds of new custom and practice that we
believe will best serve our long term shared purposes. The discussion
about whether the CLA can insist on us not peeking at their HTML tags
is a useful mask for the gradual exploration of some of the much more
important things that are bubbling away beneath the surface.
Especially if these unstated needs seem, in the short run, to run
counter to existing sectional interests. Cultural change does not
come friction free.
Sam Saunders
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