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0 pointseverforward1y ago0 comments

Trademarks and patents are very different from copyright. Trademarks especially so because they aren't designed to "own" knowledge, just to prevent confusion about who made a product or what it is.

"Intellectual property" is an abomination of a term because it conflates 3 separate mechanisms with differing goals, pretending that they're related in any meaningful sense.

Patents protect a process. Trademarks protect identity. Copyright protects knowledge. Disparate mechanisms for disparate goals.

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palata1y ago

> Copyright protects knowledge.

Not at all. I am amazed by how badly copyright is understood.

You can buy a physics book, learn about physics from it, and use that knowledge somewhere else. That's totally legal, an copyright doesn't prevent you from doing that at all.

anticensor1y ago

My country believes in this "intellectual property" thing so much that our copyright, patent and trademark act's name translates to "An Act on Intellectual and Artistic Works".

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