IP is crap

As a purveyor of itellectual property I must now confess a newfound TOTAL
LACK OF RESPECT for intellectual property.

My arguments are still somewhat immature, and can't easily be explained
right here right now, but the lightbulb is starting to glow brighter.

For example, if I buy a CD why should I not be able to share its contents
with anyone I want. Who created the value being ascribed to this
intellectual property? If the music industry is boosting the sticker prices
of CDs claiming overheads for promotion and distribution etc., how has that
added to the value of the artistic product, or the intellectual property,
contained on the CD. After all, I am only buying the music, not the
marketing efforts of record company.

If I am not buying the intellectual property outright, but the right to
listen to it, then why can I not transfer that right to others using file
sharing technology, so that they too can listen to it, but not own it? No
value is being diminished by this, surely? The only loser is the record
company. Right?

I am sure there is an Intellectual Porperty 101 manual that I haven't read.
But I am choosing to work this out using logic instead. I trust that
everything contained in Intellectual Porperty 101 is logical too, right?

In the end, I remain deeply suspicious of things that keeps Africa outside
the space of flows. But, just sometimes, I find myself grateful that Africa
will be spared the IP apocalypse that will occur when we find out just
what all that intangible stuff is really, truly worth, in a truly free market
economy.

Like some weird Indian chief is alleged to have said: "You can't eat
money."

Likewise, the RIAA and others shouldn't be trying to unshare personal music
collections.