The next step after humanity

[supergee]

John Deere just told the copyright office that only corporations can own property, humans can only license it.

Comments

[legionseagle]

What they did say was pretty bad but it wasn't what Doctorow says they said. It really was another of those "Get off my side..." moments for me.

[johnpalmer]

Other than how a non-corporation could hypothetically own John Deere, I'm not sure I see a truly substantive difference.

I mean, it's true: no one can copyright the software to use a wrench or screwdriver, but "we stopped supporting the software for that tractor and YOU can't crack it to support it yourself!" is functionally pretty close to "you can only license (certain types of) property." And there's a lot of property where people are trying to use copyright to lock out others - printer supplies, Keurig supplies, old tractors/cars/trucks, etc..

I'm not sure I would word it that way, but if you want to get people thinking and talking, it's far better to go strong and ugly, than clever and nuanced and boring.