Boundaries of Ownership

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Boundaries of Ownership

It is important that I make this very clear and that I do so at the earliest possible moment. I must do this because the essay that you are reading is about intellectual property, and that means that this essay must be self-referential. When one writes or speaks or communicates in any way about intellectual property, one is dealing with some of the most basic rules of the very medium in which one is operating. There is no neutral ground here, no possibility of genuine detachment or objectivity. Either I am going to claim the protection of the current laws that apply in the United States and under the World Intellectual Property Organization, or I am not.

So here it is: I am not.

There is a name just under the title of this essay, but that name has no connection with any concept of ownership. What you read here is not controlled by any copyrights, trademarks, service marks, patents, trade secrets, or any other kind of intellectual property. The words on this page are not an "authoritative" version of this essay; no such version exists, and--as far as I am concerned--no such version ever will exist. The only limits on what you can do with this essay and the words in it are the limits imposed by the laws of physics and the extent of your imagination. As the available technologies advance, the limits will move outward, and you will be able to do more and more things with these words. No matter what you do with this material, I will not send lawyers chasing after you demanding royalties or anything else. If you do get into some sort of trouble for using something from this paper, that trouble won't be started by me.

Why am I doing this? Why am I abandoning copyright protection for my own creation, fo...

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...t may be. We must look at this alternate world with all the objectivity, clarity, and thoroughness we can possibly muster, for it is only by doing so that we can assemble in our own minds the solid core of intellectual property that is genuinely worth protecting, if such a solid core even exists.

Ultimately, I return to the points I raised on the first few pages of this essay. Anyone can move around any information that they want to, and nobody really seems to be changing that fact in spite of many efforts to do so. I personally have chosen not to fight the fact until the fact changes. Take what you want from these words. Do what you want with them. Change them, send them, mail them, post them, write them, draw them, paint them, speak them, sing them, chant them, record them, film them. This essay is yours, and everybody's, and nobody's.

Nobody owns this essay.

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