Re: <nettime> Copyright Economic Engine

["cisler" <cisler@pobox.com>]

Good comments by John Young. 

I attended a meeting of young entrepreneurs in the Washington area
<netrpreneur.org> which hosts a coffee and donuts event avery couple of
months.  This time the speakers were talkinga about intell. property: 
patents, domain names, etc.  The lawyers advised young companies to spend
money on these issues at the start and not wait. The payoffs would be
disproportionate.  However, they also gave the etoys mess as a good
example of fighting the wrong kind of battle over IP.  These patant and
trademark lawyes were sympathetic to the Swiss artists, and that surprised
me. 

On another note, at the WTO in Seattle at a meetin on IP (medicines,
TRIPS, databases)  it was clear that the US is pushing for enforcement of
business patents becaue, as Young pointed out, they are part of the big
info engine driving the economy here.  It was also clear that other
industrialized countries are not that supportive and may not support
enforcement of US patent laws on some of the ecommerce processes.  The
developing countries look upon it as the same old game and will only worry
about them (and copyright, piracy, etc) if the US leans on them and ties
enforcement to things like loans, aid, military support, etc. 


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