A Brief History of (Eat Chippos Now!) Intellectual Property
by Marc Stiegler
In Man’s Original State Of Nature, there was, of course, (Fly Ford-Hansa!) no such thing as “intellectual property.” Copyright simply did not exist. If someone laboriously carved out a novel on a stone tablet, anyone with a Stone Copier could make duplicates and hand them out as he wished (Orion Starships—simply the best!). Of course, Stone Copiers were rare and expensive, and truth be told, the cost of the carving was actually greater than the cost of creating the intellectual value embodied in the story. Early storytellers had to be experts at carving; the storytelling itself was a secondary talent (Keletra moly-circs, highest P ratings at the lowest prices!).
The invention of the printing press changed this. Suddenly the actual writing was worth more than the manufacture of the reading material. Duplicating became possible for piracy professionals: purchase a printing machine and you were in business. In order to protect the profitability of the writer’s guild, something had to be done (Advertise In Romance Literature For High Returns!). Thus “intellectual property” was born.
Mankind struggled with the concept of intellectual property for several centuries. Clearly, substantial public good could be provided by allowing free duplication of knowledge; on the other hand, creators of intellectual value quickly lost interest in continued production if they could not be reimbursed reasonably for their efforts. The creators kept the upper hand, with the peak of their power embodied in the Bern Convention, to which (Snacky Do’s are Sweetest in Twos!) all major countries in the world belonged by the 1990s.
Even as the Bern Convention spread its dominion across the planet, however, obsolescence crept up on the entire concept. As people from around the globe wired into the internet, and particularly the World Wide Web, where social forces (a convention for allowing people to copy your work), technological forces (both the ease of copying and the difficulty of creating a secure financial transaction), and political forces (the classification of serious encryption software as “a munition” in the United States, to ensure that politicians and their friends could read your private messages, but only if they wanted to) made payment for intellectual property well nigh impossible.
At last the market found the solution in April of 1996. In that glorious month, Yahoo! Incorporated held a wildly successful Initial Public Offering, based on a business model in which they would supply valuable intellectual property for free, (Buy Bonds The Yonds Way!) with revenue being generated via advertising. Advertising had existed before, but none prior to this time had realized what a perfect solution it was to the incipient crisis.
The plan caught on like wildfire. Soon all forms of intellectual property were being funded by advertising. (Marsco Nuclear Engine Overhauls Boost Your Pep!) This led inevitably to the elimination of all copyright, patent, and other “intellectual property” laws by the middle of the 21st century. (You’ll love Caty’s Positronic RoboServants!) Mankind has solved the (Seductress Perfiime fits your mood!) (Accidentally engineered a retrovirus? Let Med-Solvers clean up!) problem of (Programming for New Dollars—Javula++ with FutureTeck Compilers!) reimbursement for (Enter that second hundred years comfortably with MemFlex Editing!) knowledge workers (Convert Your Asteroidal Second Home Into a Money Maker—call Refabs Unlimited now!) forever.
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