Just before lunch, we enjoyed a panel about "The politics of new
technologies". Or rather, most of it. Kenneth Cukier, a journalist with
The Economist gave a
presentation about... nothing in particular.
By no means do I mean to offend Kenneth, who, I am sure, is a fine
journalist. But that profession's innate generalism did not at all serve
his talk well. This way, he gave a fine example of how using the term
"intellectual property" fudges things up.
After having started with a test of faith, asking his audience about
their beliefs with regard to "intellectual property", he launched into
happily mixing up copyright, patents and all other sorts of
monopoly powers, which rendered his otherwise interesting examples rather
useless.
His manner of speaking was excellent and entertaining. Yet, the talk
left many people I talked to feeling somewhat short-changed. It was like
listening to a song by Britney Spears: Pretty in the first moment,
mind-numbing from then on.
Much the same goes for many other presentations, especially most of
those from the conservative camp. The patterns are familiar and
recurring: You are either "pro-IP" or "anti-IP"; you either want to keep
or abolish the system of intellectual monopoly powers, which is usually
an introduction to lengthy panoramas of the anarchy which would then
supposedly ensue.
I know that I don't always abstain from focusing the nitty-gritty of the
debate into a decisive point. But this sort of over-generalisation
certainly does not contribute much to the discussion.